How animals talk

by William J. Long

With a steady but not strong wind blowing in their direction, I have seen deer become alarmed while I was yet a quarter-mile away; this on a lake, where there was nothing to interfere with the breeze or the scent. On the burnt lands or the open barrens I have seen bear and caribou throw up their heads and break away while I was even farther removed. In a light breeze the distance is much shorter, varying from fifty to two hundred yards, according to the amount of moisture in the air. On days that are still or very dry, or when the air is filled with smoke from a forest fire (the latter soon inflames all sensitive nostrils), the animals are at sea again, and depend less on their noses than on their eyes or ears.

Another surprising thing is, that the animal’s ability to detect you through his sense of smell is largely governed by your own activity or bodily condition. Thus, when a man is perspiring freely or moving quickly, his scent is stronger and [[222]]travels much wider than when he is sauntering about. But if a man sits absolutely quiet, a clean man especially, no animal can detect him beyond a few feet, I think, for the reason that a resting man is like a resting bird or beast in that he gives off very little body scent, which remains on the ground close about him instead of floating off on the air currents. Even when the trees are tossing in a gale there is little stir on the ground, not in the woods at least, and the closer you hold to Mother Earth the less likelihood is there of any beast smelling you.

All ground-nesting birds depend for their lives on this curious provision of nature. Were it not for the fact that practically no scent escapes while they are brooding their eggs, very few of them would live to bring forth a family in a wood nightly traversed by such keen-nosed enemies as the fox and the weasel. My old setter would wind a running grouse or quail at an incredible distance, and would follow him by picking his scent from the air; but I have taken that same dog on a leash near the same birds when they were brooding their eggs, and he could not or would not detect them unless he were brought within a few feet, or (a rare occurrence) unless a creeping ground-breeze blew directly from the nest into his face. [[223]]

The same provision guards animals, such as deer and caribou, which build no dens but leave their helpless young on the ground. Two or three times, after finding a fawn in the woods, I have tested his concealment by means of my young dog’s nose; and I may add that Rab will point a deer as stanchly as he points a grouse or woodcock, for he is still in the happy, irresponsible stage when everything that lives in the woods is game to him. So long as the fawn remains motionless where his mother hid him, the dog must be almost on top of him before pointing or showing any sign of game. But if the little fellow runs or even rises to his feet at our approach (fawns are apt to do this as they grow older), the dog seems to catch the scent after the first motion; he begins to cat-foot, his nose up as in following an air trail, and steadies to a point while he is still many yards away from where the fawn was hiding.

The nose of a wolf is keener than that of any dog I ever knew; yet I once trailed a pack of wolves that passed within sixteen measured feet of where two deer were sleeping in a hole in the snow. The wolves were hunting, too, for they killed and partially ate a buck a little farther on; but the trail said that they had passed close to these sleeping deer without detecting them. [[224]]

As for the man-scent, you may judge of that by the violent start or the headlong rush when an animal catches the first alarming whiff of it. If he passes quietly on his way, therefore, you may be reasonably sure he has not smelled you. To the latter conclusion I have been forced many times when I have been watching in the woods, sitting quiet for hours at a stretch, and a deer or bear or fox, or some other beast with nose as keen as a brier, has passed at a dozen yards’ distance without a sign to indicate that he was aware of me. Some of these animals came much nearer; so near, in fact, that I was scary of a closer approach until I had called their attention to what lay ahead of them.

So long as you are seen or suspected, you need have little fear of any wild beast (only the tame or half-tame are dangerous), but a brute that stumbles upon you in an unexpected place or moment is always a problem. Nine times out of ten he will fall all over himself in his haste to get away; but the tenth time he may fall upon you and give you a mauling. Moose, for example, are apt to strike a terrible blow with their fore feet, or to upset a canoe when the jack-light approaches them; not to attack, I think, at least not consciously, but in blind panic or to ward off a fancied enemy. So when I have watched from the shore of a lake [[225]]and a moose came swinging along without noticing me, I have risen to my feet or thrown my hat at the big brute when he was as near as I cared to have him. And more than once, after a tremendous start of surprise, he has come nearer with his hackles up as soon as he got over the first effect of my demonstration. Yet when I am roaming the woods that same brute will catch my scent at from two to five hundred yards, and rush away before I can get even a glimpse of him.

That the same surprising sense-limitation is upon deer and other game animals may be inferred from the following experience, which is typical of many others. I was perched among some cedar roots on the shore of a pond, one September day, watching a buck with the largest antlers I have ever seen on one of his kind. I had been some time quiet when he glided out to feed in a little bay, on my right; and my heart was with him in the wish that he might keep his noble crown through the hunting season, for his own pleasure and the adornment of the woods and the confusion of all head-hunters. There was no breeze; but a moistened finger told of a faint drift of air from the lake to the woods.

As I watched the buck, there came to my ears a crunching of gravel from the opposite direction, and two deer appeared on the point at my left, [[226]]heading briskly down into the bay. They passed between my outstretched feet and the water’s edge, where the strip of shore was perhaps three yards wide; then they turned in my direction, seeing or smelling nothing, went slowly up the bank and halted at the edge of the woods to the right and a little behind me, so close that I dared not move even my eyes to follow them. I measured the distance afterward, and found that from their hoof-marks to the cedar root against which I rested was less than eight feet. Imperceptibly I turned for another look, and saw both deer at attention, their heads luckily pointed away from me. They were regarding the big buck intently, as if to question him. They showed no alarm as yet; but they were plainly uneasy, searching the forest on all sides and at times turning to look over my head upon the breathless lake. Every nervous action said that they found something wrong in the air, some hint or taint or warning which they could not define. So they moved alertly into the woods, halting, listening, testing the air, using all their senses to locate a danger which they had passed and left behind them.

From such experiences one might reasonably conclude that, like the brooding grouse or the hidden fawn, a motionless man gives off so little scent that the keenest nose is at fault until it [[227]]comes almost within touching distance. If any further proof is needed, you may find it when you sleep in the open, and shy creatures draw near without any fear of you. By daylight deer, bear and moose are extremely timid; they rarely come within eyeshot of your camp, and they vanish at the first sniff which tells them that you have invaded their feeding-grounds. But when you are well asleep the same animals will pass boldly through your camp-yard; or they will awaken you, as they have many times awakened me, when you are tenting or sleeping under the stars by some outlying pond. If you lie quiet, content to listen, the invading animal will move freely here or there without concern; but no sooner do you begin to stir, however quietly, than he catches the warning scent, and a thudding of earth or a smashing of brush tells the rest of the story.