ffect of fear perhaps
contracting the pores, and hindering the escape of the effluvia--I know
not, but I am far from being convinced even now that it is not so. A
very good sportsman, and true friend of mine, insists upon it that birds
give out no scent except from the feet, and that, consequently, if they
squat without running they cannot be found. I do not, however, believe
the theory, and hold it to be disproved by the fact that dead birds do
give out scent. I have generally observed that there is no difficulty in
retrieving dead quail, but that, wounded, they are constantly lost. But,
be that as it may, the birds pitch down, each into the best bit of
covert he can find, and squat there like so many stones, leaving no
trail or taint upon the grass or bushes, and being of course
proportionally hard to find; in half an hour they will begin, if not
disturbed, to call and travel, and you can hunt them up, without the
slightest trouble. If you have a very large tract of country to beat,
and birds are very scarce, of course it would not answer to pass on; nor
ever, even if they are plentiful, in wild or windy weather, or in large
open woods; but where you have a fair ground, lots of birds, and fine
weather, I would always beat on in a circuit, for the reason I have
given you. In the first place, every bevy you flush flies from its
feeding to its basking ground, so that you get over all the first early,
and know where to look afterward; instead of killing off one bevy, and
then going blundering on, at blind guess work, and finding nothing. In
the second place, you have a chance of driving two or three bevies into
one brake, and of getting sport proportionate; and in the third place,
as I have told you, you are much surer of finding marked birds after an
hour's lapse, than on the moment."

"I will do you the justice to say," Forester replied, "that you always
make a tolerably good fight in support of your opinions; and so you have
done now, but I want to hear something more about this matter of holding
scent--facts! facts! and let me judge for myself."

"Well, Frank, give me a bit more of that pie in the mean time, and I
will tell you the strongest case in point I ever witnessed. I was
shooting near Stamford, in Connecticut, three years ago, with C--- K---,
and another friend; we had three as good dogs out, as ever had a trigger
drawn over them. My little imported yellow and white setter, Chase,
after which this old rascal