Country Life and Sport
Doc HOMERS.
On the subject of the homing instinct in dogs, of which a personal experience was given in this place, a notable episode is sent me by a correspondent from Ireland. " I myself:, he writes, " lent a fox terrier to a friend, who put him into a hamper, tied down the lid ' to keep him safe ' and drove him 20 miles. He had never travelled the road to my certain knowledge, and my friend reached home with him before he took him out of the hamper. The dog was back with me the same evening." The mere distance in this case is remarkable, and the details utterly preclude any explanation dependent on the senses as we know them. So far as we know, dogs only excel man in the' sense of smell. They do not as a rule see better or hear better or feel better. Indeed, they are often inferior in all these respects, though some species, notably the Airedale terriers, have very acute cars. It is perhaps just possible that this superiority in nose can enable them to smell a route. A good dog does not run a backward scent. He possesses, in short, more than a sense of smell, a directional sense of smell. If this explanation will not do we must invent a new sense altogether. What is it 't
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