IX Robert Boyle's Account
In Jesse, there is an account of a Bloodhound trial, taken
from Robert Boyle (1627-1691). This should be regarded as an
absolute classic, in view of its early date, and the eminence of
its author, the great scientist, founder member of the Royal
Society, author of The Skeptical Chymist, originator
of Boyle's Law. Although the account is anecdotal, it is in
the context of someone showing a scientist's interest in the
nature of scent, and at least a respectable scepticism about
the reliability of witnesses. It is the earliest description
I know of a bloodhound trial, and one on a human scent, and
confirms the use of Bloodhounds for both man and animal tracking
at that time. The standard of performance reflected is quite
fascinating, in view of the many more modern instances.
The reference to deer parks ties up with Caius from an earlier
date, when he talks of the remains of a deer being ‘conveyed
clean out of the park’, and with later instances, confirming
that Bloodhounds were kept from the 16th to the end of the
18th Century by the owners of deer parks.
A person of quality, to whom I am near allied, related to me that
to make a trial whether a young bloodhound was well instructed
(or, as the huntsmen call it, made), he caused one of his servants,
who had not killed or so much as touched any of his deer, to walk
to a country town four miles off, and thence to a market-town three
miles distant from thence; which done, this nobleman did a competent
while after put the bloodhound on the scent of the man and caused
him to be followed by a servant or two, the master himself thinking
it also fit to go after them to see the event; which was that the
dog, without ever seeing the man he was to pursue, followed him by
the scent to the above mentioned places, notwithstanding the
multitude of market people that went along in the same way, and
of travellers that had occasion to cross it. And when the
bloodhound came to the chief market-town, he passed through the
streets without taking any notice of any of the people there,
and left not till he had gone to the house where the man he
sought rested himself, and found him in an upper room, to the
wonder of those that followed him. The particulars of this
narrative the nobleman's wife, a person of great veracity,
that happened to be with him when the trial was made, confirmed
to me.
Inquiring of a studious person that was keeper of a red-deer
park, and versed in making bloodhounds, in how long time after
a man or deer had passed by a grassy place one of these dogs
would be able to follow him by the scent? he told me it would
be six or seven hours: whereupon an ingenious gentleman that
chanced to be present, and lived near that park, assured us
both that he had old dogs of so good a scent, that, if a buck
had the day before passed in a wood, they will, when they come
where the scent lies, though at such a distance of time after,
presently find the scent and run directly to that part of the
wood where the buck is. He also told me that, though an old
bloodhound will not so easily fix on the scent of a single deer
that presently hides himself in a whole herd, yet, if the deer
be chased a little till he be heated, the dog will go nigh to
single him out, though the whole herd also be chased. The
above named gentleman also affirmed that he could easily
distinguish whether his hound were in chase of a hare or a
fox by their way of holding up their noses higher than ordinary
when they pursue a fox, whose scent is more strong.
Of the Determinate Nature of Effluviums from Boyle's Life
and Works, by T Birch 1772. Vol. iii. p.695
