The author has no opinion how it is that some dogs detect the difference between foot and body scent instantly, and others cannot do it. It cannot be that one is more the breath of the hunted animal than the other, because probably the otter evolves no scent except breath when under water, and his line is as huntable to the swimming pack as that of the land quarry to the running hounds. Possibly the actual heat of the volatile exudation may have something to say to the question. Whatever the difference consists of, it is only some dogs that instantly recognise it. These may or may not be animals able to detect a scent a long way off. No great wonder should be occasioned by the inability to be certain: how often do human beings recognise a picture, or a taste, without being able to give either a name?
No attempt will be made to prove what canine-detected scent is, except to this extent. It must be something that our own olfactory nerves work above, or below. Just as there are noises we cannot hear and colours we cannot see, so there are doubtless scents of great power that we nevertheless cannot detect even slightly. A dog will sometimes find and appear to locate correctly a partridge, or rather a pair of them, at 200 yards. We may take those birds in hand and put them to our noses, and even then we cannot detect the faintest scent of any kind. Scent is supposed to spread as the square of the distance, so that 600 feet squared would represent the difference in degree of the scent of the bird in hand and that of the bird 600 feet away. That is to say, one would be 360,000 times as strong as the other, and we cannot detect the strong, whereas the dog finds the weaker one. Surely this is enough to show that it is no question of degree at all, but of something else. Possibly the strong scent of deer and fox that we often do detect is misleading us into the belief that we can sometimes smell what hounds run by. On the other hand, the author has noticed that when he can smell a fox strongest hounds cannot smell him at all, and consequently there is more confirmation that what the canine race hunts by the human nose cannot always detect in any degree whatever.
It has often been affirmed that game birds lose their scent during incubation, and there is no doubt they lose a good deal of it. Hares and vixens heavy with young are said to have a similar protection from their enemies. But in all cases there is scent, only it is different, and not easily recognised by the dogs kept for hunting it. On the other hand, the nests that the pointer and setter cannot find, the terrier, with a worse nose, often does discover, much to the gamekeeper’s grief; and the foxes find great numbers of these nests also, and they do not do it by sight.
A study of the matter is greatly complicated by the fact that game birds give out no scent when crouching, fearful, under a falcon, and this hawk most certainly does not rely upon his nose to help him discover his prey. To understand why the power of retaining the scent should have been evolved, by the survival of the fittest, it is necessary to go back to the wilderness stage of our islands. Probably the first gamekeeper’s duties were performed by the slayers of wolves, at any rate in historic times, and we have no occasion to try and take a peep at the cave bear in his British den. The country was much more wooded than it is now, and it is clear that those falcons that only kill in the air would go hungry in woodlands had it not been for the earth-crawling vermin that flushed game for them.
The falconers are now proud of teaching a hawk to “wait on” in the air while a pointer is at work, but if falcons ever hunted in a brushwood country in a state of nature, that is exactly what they would have had to do for their friends the wolves, since they could not flush for themselves, and could not kill until a flush had occurred. It is consequently quite likely that waiting on is a latent instinct in the long-winged falcons, and equally, therefore, retaining the scent was a protection against beast and bird alike.
It is a confirmation of this theory, that the birds that in incubation secure safety by watchfulness, such as the lapwings, retain their scent neither in incubation nor at any other time, but exude it while they are hatching.
The Purchase of Pointers and Setters
Most people have to buy their dogs for the moors, or to hire them. During June and July large numbers are annually sent up to Aldridge’s, in St. Martin’s Lane. There are a very few general rules which may save a buyer from disappointment.
In nearly all cases the vendors offer to show dogs on game before the sales. It is obviously the best way to go, or send, and have them viewed upon game. The first question always to be asked about young dogs is whether they are gun-shy, and in a trial when no game is being shot it is wise to use the gun, but not fair to use it over much. A dog that has been used to having a shot or two fired over it during an hour’s breaking is not necessarily ready to undergo the bewildering experience of a dozen discharges in close proximity and in quick succession when no intention is obvious. Even on the moors, on the 12th of August, the use of the gun should be tempered with discretion, whether the puppies are inclined to be nervous or not. Besides, this is obvious wisdom from another point of view. Your puppy will do as much work as an equally well-made old dog if you “nurse” him; but if, on the contrary, you allow him to run himself out at the first start, he will soon do it, and will not “come” again that day.
Probably the best way is to make a rule, for the few early days, always to take every puppy up after the first find and killing of grouse. Allow him to point dead and make a fuss over the birds killed, but then have him led away 300 yards behind the firing line, where every shot heard will add to his anxiety to make more acquaintance with the gun, provided your dog-boy knows how not to be severe. In an hour, probably, the young dog will be made for life by this treatment; but, as one can never tell, it is safest to proceed thus for a few days, and meantime the puppy may have fresh short runs at intervals of an hour or two. This refers to highly broken puppies, and not to the wild, sport-spoiling sort. The former are never so good as when they have the keen edge on; the latter are never worse than with it on. Such dogs are too wild to be of use all the morning, and too tired all the afternoon, so that the points one has to make sure of in purchasing pointers and setters are—