Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1907-05-23

THE MYSTERIES OF SCENT

dred yards, threw up their heads In
disappointment and disgust. A hold
ing scent during thaw after severe
frost has usually been regarded as
the rule, but the exceptions have been
| more marked this season than was
needed to prove it.
A year ago there was considerable
discussion among hunting men as to
the why and the wherefore Of good
and bad scenting days, and among
the many suggestions that were put
forward was that which has become
to be known as the condensation
| theory. The argument is this: When
evaporation is going on in the air
scent should be- good, while when
the opposite process-condensation-
is in progress, scent must be bad or
wanting. The basis of this theory
fallible than many another.
Scent certainly at times hangs well
in high wind, just as certainly as on
very still day it will unaccountably
disappear all of sudden. But there
are days when the wind is high and
the ground wet, at which times there
must be plenty of evaporation going
on, but never a vestige of scent is
to be discovered, although half a
dozen foxes may leave covert before
your very eyes.
Country folk will frequently tell
you that scent is never good during
the fall of the leaf in autumn or, in
deed, until the fallen leaves have
become rotten. The reason given in
support Of this argument is that the
fox while running turns over the
leaves as he goes along-accidentally
of course-and so conceals his tracks.
as it were, behind him.
1t must be a careful fox that could
accomplish this sleight of foot with
any degree of accuracy, and poor
nosed pack of hounds that could not
own his scent through the shallow
density of withered leaf. But the
yokel is quite right up to certain
point in his argument. Scent very
pllCI 10 ol 40 Noi oS u"i ms eiS AVA
fall, but that is because the smell
of the decayng leaves themselves is
so pungent that it battles the noses
of the pack unless the fox carry a
very pronounced odor of his own.
Perhaps it is because, like the coun-
tryman, we sometimes forget side is
sues of this description that we are
often puzzled by the mysteries Of
sce2t.
@ne point in particular in regard
to scent seems impossible of solution.
4 fox slips away on one side Of
covert while hounds are drawing on
the other. Somebody sees him and
shouts view halo! Along comes
the huntsman at his best speed and
lays on his hounds at the spot where
the aforesaid person swears that the
fox left the wood, but not a hound in
the pack will own the line; never
whimper breaks in upon the expect
ant silence of the eager field. Cast
after cast is made, but to no purpose,
and eventually the huntsman moves
OIL 10 ItSulllc UlS III d"b W
himself that he don't believe there
weren't no fox at all.
For all that, twenty minutes later,
when hounds happen again to be
passing that way toward the next
covert, suddenly there is a whimper
here and another there, and away
they go like pack possessed right
across the field and through the very
gap in yonder hedge that had been
pointed out to the unbelieving hunts
man. "Well, | never" remarks that
worthy, "and so old Mr.. Stiggins was
right after all"
Later in the day, when horses are
jogging homeward, the incident is re.
ferred to, but nobody has any ex-
planation to offer. And yet sometimes
when a fox passes you his scent is so
strong that even the imperfect olfac-
tory organs of mere man-so vastly
inferior to the brute beast in this
respect-are positively offended by
the tainted atmosphere. Verify to
the mysteries of scent there is no
end.