How enviable, in how many cases, is the superiority of the beasts!  It makes us realise the insufficiency of our impressions, and the very indifferent efficacy of our sense-organs; it proclaims realities which amaze us, so far are they beyond our own attributes.

A miserable caterpillar, the Processional caterpillar, found on the pine-tree, has its back covered with meteorological spiracles which sense the coming weather and foretell the storm; the bird of prey, that incomparable watchman, sees the fallen mule from the heights of the clouds; the blind bats guided their flight without collision through the inextricable labyrinth of threads devised by Spallanzani; the carrier pigeon, at a hundred leagues from home, infallibly regains its loft across immensities which it has never known; and within the limits of its more modest powers a bee, the Chalicodoma, also adventures into the unknown, accomplishing its long journey and returning to its group of cells.

Those who have never seen a dog seeking truffles have missed one of the finest achievements of the olfactory sense.  Absorbed in his duties, the animal goes forward, scenting the wind, at a moderate pace.  He stops, questions the soil with his nostrils, and, without excitement, scratches the earth a few times with one paw.  “There it is, master!” his eyes seem to say:  “there it is!  On the faith of a dog, there are truffles here!”

He says truly.  The master digs at the point indicated.  If the spade goes astray the dog corrects the digger, sniffing at the bottom of the hole.  Have no fear that stones and roots will confuse him; in spite of depth and obstacles, the truffle will be found.  A dog’s nose cannot lie.

I have referred to the dog’s speciality as a subtle sense of smell.  That is certainly what I mean, if you will understand by that that the nasal passages of the animal are the seat of the perceptive organ; but is the thing perceived always a simple smell in the vulgar acceptation of the term—­an effluvium such as our own senses perceive?  I have certain reasons for doubting this, which I will proceed to relate.

On various occasions I have had the good fortune to accompany a truffle-dog of first-class capacities on his rounds.  Certainly there was not much outside show about him, this artist that I so desired to see at work; a dog of doubtful breed, placid and meditative; uncouth, ungroomed, and quite inadmissible to the intimacies of the hearthrug.  Talent and poverty are often mated.

His master, a celebrated rabassier[5] of the village, being convinced that my object was not to steal his professional secrets, and so sooner or later to set up in business as a competitor, admitted me of his company, a favour of which he was not prodigal.  From the moment of his regarding me not as an apprentice, but merely as a curious spectator, who drew and wrote about subterranean vegetable affairs, but had no wish to carry to market my bagful of these glories of the Christmas goose, the excellent man lent himself generously to my designs.