" A DOG'S SENSES
[To. the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Surely,. in Sir William Beach Thomas's interesting as_ Country Life " paragraphs of April 21st; it is with undue diffidence he inclines to the opinion that a dog's nose is not
insensible to vegetable odours. I must own, however, that I have noticed opinions to the contrary in dog books that I have looked at.
Three facts at once occur to me in support of his opinion.
(1) Hounds will run a drag of linseed as eagerly as one of red herrings.
(2) Truffle dogs will very quickly detect truffles beneath the surface.
(8) Cats persist in rolling in a clump of catsmint in a garden, when they don't go near any other plant. •
Such facts seem to me to argue that animals perceive, probably, any and every kind of scent, but only show that they do so• when the scent arouses associations that interest them, just as, walking up partridges, we, with our eyes, perceive the small birds that get up as well as the partridges, but evince interest only irithe birds we are after.
Other animals, not so companionable to man as dogs, probably have at least as exquisitely sensitive an olefactory organ as the best of dogs, I suppose.
A pig, for instance, has a marvellously good nose. Yet I have never heard of any good reason for thinking that any particular kind of odour is imperceptible to those animals that depend as much for existence on the sense of smell as birds on eyesight.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Previous page
