The Rev. Sam Jones says of a trained bird dog that he once saw in the
tall grass jumping up to get signals from his master's hand, moving to
the right or left, or lying down without a word spoken: "When I saw the
faithfulness of that animal in carrying out the wishes of its human
master I was ashamed of myself in the presence of the dog."
A hunting dog is busy with eye and ear. Every nerve seems strained to
catch the slightest indication of game. But those who know the dog best
know he is mainly occupied with his nose. That delicate organ dilates
and adjusts itself constantly to every breath of air.
The bird dog knows of the presence of a game bird before he can see it.
He scents its location at long range. He is trained to "stand" when he
recognizes the scent. With one paw lifted, his nose and tail stretched
out to their greatest reach, he points his master to the spot where the
game is to be found. At the word of command he moves cautiously forward
towards the bird, and when his master is ready another word causes the
dog to "flush" the bird, or make it take wing.
The hound upon the track of fox or deer has remarkable power, not only
of following the exact track made by the pursued animal, even when some
hours have elapsed since the game passed that way, but his scent is so
keen that in many instances he is able to tell, when he comes upon such
a track, which way the deer or fox was running. Sometimes the hound
"takes the back track," but the best dogs are usually so positive in
this sense that they make no mistakes as to which way the animal has
traveled.
It is common knowledge, but none the less marvelous, that an ordinary
dog is usually able to follow his master by scent alone through the
crowded streets of the city or across fields where a thousand fragrant
flowers and grasses seem to arise on purpose to baffle him.
This marvelous power is not confined to dogs. Many other animals
possess it in a remarkable degree. The keenness of this sense in deer,
antelopes, and other wild ruminants is so well known that hunters
despair of ever approaching them except from the side which gives
them the wind in their faces so that their own peculiar scent may be
carried away from the extremely sensitive nostrils of their game. The
hippopotamus has this sense highly developed and can discover his human
enemy without getting sight of him or hearing his approach.
The polar bear climbs upon an iceberg and sniffs afar the dead whale
floating his way, although still miles toward the horizon. The camel in
the desert is often saved from death by the keenness and accuracy of
his olfactory organs, which tell him the direction he must take to fill
his depleted reservoir with water.
The North American Indian smells as keenly as he sees, for he can not
only detect the presence of human beings by his nose alone, but also
surely tell whether they are of his own or the suspected white race.
In the Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind was a mute girl named Julia
Brace, who knew her friends and acquaintances by the peculiar odors
of their hands. Not being able to see them or converse with them,
she was compelled to distinguish them by the sense of smell alone.
So remarkable were her powers that she was regularly employed in
assorting the clothes of the pupils as they came from the wash, that
operation not being far-reaching enough to remove the signs which were
known to her alone. The case of James Mitchell, who was deaf and blind
from his birth, is remarkable, for he could detect the approach of a
stranger in this way.
Those who have made a thorough study of the subject claim that there
is a peculiar odor belonging to every class of living beings, and each
is subdivided so that each order, family, species, race, and variety
is distinct. Furthermore every individual is distinct from the rest of
his kind in the odor given off so profusely and unconsciously in most
instances.
Horses seem to be somewhat less keen than dogs in noting odors, for
a horse which is accustomed to but one groom and will not consent to
attendance from another may sometimes be deceived by having the new
groom dress himself in the clothes of his predecessor.
Insects possess this sense to such a degree that flies have been the
means of locating a dead rat under a floor by their settling over the
body in large numbers, although there was no chance for them to reach
it. Just where the organs of smell are in insects has been disputed
among scientists. Sir John Lubbock is inclined to the opinion that they
are located in the antennæ and palpi, though some contend that insects
smell as the air is taken in at the spiracles or breathing-holes which
are scattered over their bodies.
That fish have this sense to some extent is attested by fishermen who
use essential oils upon their bait and secure readier attention from
the inhabitants of the water. But fish seem to be less capable of
smell than even the reptiles upon land who are not considered at all
remarkable in this respect. To make up in some sort for this deficiency
there are some kinds of fish which have four nostrils while all other
animals that smell at all seem content with but two as a rule.
Only those animals having a backbone are equipped with noses that are
unquestionably adapted to smelling, but insects, crabs, and mollusks
perceive odors to a limited extent. Some of them are readily deceived
by odors similar to those they seek. Lubbock calls attention to the
fact that the carrion fly will deposit its eggs on any plant that has a
smell similar to that of tainted flesh.
We are unable to say just what the nature of a smelling substance is
which makes it so perceptible to our olfactory organs. Many things,
both organic and inorganic, have the power to affect us in a way which
cannot be perceived by the organs of taste nor touch. The upper third
of the interior of the human nose has the sole function of recognizing
them. We have almost no names for the various smells, but they are
as distinct as day and night and arouse within us the most intense
feelings.
We are not only without names for smells, but we are far from being
agreed as to the qualities of them. To one person the odor of sweet
peas is delightful, while to another it is quite the reverse. Sometimes
we consider a smell pleasant merely because of the associations it
brings. The odor of pine lumber is grateful to one who has spent a
season in the lumber districts where sawmills abound; and so the smell
of an ordinary lumber pile gives pleasure to one where to another it is
somewhat disagreeable.
The sense of smell is one that tires most readily. After smelling
certain odors for awhile one loses temporarily the power to notice
them at all. The sense does not tire as a whole, but it merely becomes
inoperative with respect to the odor continually present. Almost any
perfume held to the nose soon loses its charm, and is only effective
again after a temporary absence. But while one perfume is not sensed a
new one presented to the nostrils is eagerly appreciated, showing the
sense to be fatigued only with regard to what has been there for some
time. The owner of a large rendering establishment in a city was called
upon by a committee of citizens who objected to the smells arising from
his plant. He went out with the committee to inspect the premises and
declared with evident honesty that he could detect nothing disagreeable
in the air nor any sort of a scent that did not properly belong to a
rendering establishment. Those who work where there are strong and
disagreeable odors soon become so accustomed to peculiar smells that
they do not notice them at all, although they are keen to detect any
unusual odor, as when the liquor in a tanner's vat has not in it the
proper admixture of materials.
All the lower animals seem to be positive as to the direction of the
source of any scent, but man is powerless in the matter. He merely
knows an odor is present, but is unable to tell without moving about
whether it comes from one side of him or another. A blindfolded boy
cannot tell which side of his nose is nearest to a suspended orange.
To affect this sense a substance must be dissolved or scattered through
the atmosphere to be breathed. Whether such substances are divided and
used up in giving out odors is still a question. Some of them, as the
essential oils, waste away when exposed to the air, but a grain of
musk remains a grain of musk with undiminished power after years of
exposure. The experiment is such a delicate one in connection with the
musk that it has never been settled to the satisfaction of science.
Substances which scatter themselves readily through the air are usually
odorous, while those which do not are generally without smell. But many
of these when transformed into vapors, as by the application of heat,
become strongly odorous. Bodies existing naturally in the gaseous state
are usually the most penetrating and effective as odors. Sulphuretted
and carburetted hydrogen are examples of these.
College boys sometimes procure from the chemical laboratories of their
institutions materials which are used with telling effect on the social
functions of higher or lower classes; in one instance a banquet was
cleared of guests by the conscienceless introduction of chemicals
just before the festivities were to have begun. Efforts to introduce
powerful gases as weapons in war have failed because the effect is not
confined to the enemy.
Gases which are offensive are not always positively harmful, but as a
rule those which offend the nose are to be avoided. Some deadly gases
do not affect the sense of smell at all, as in the case of earth damp
which stupefies and kills men in mines and wells without warning. But
the nose is a great detector of bad air, especially that of a noxious
character, and sewer gas as well as other poisonous airs which bring on
the worst types of fever are offensive to one who is not living all the
time within their range.
But a small part of the mucous membrane of the nose is the seat of
this important sense. The olfactory cells are not as easily examined
and traced in their connections as are the end organs of the sense of
taste. Yet the anatomist finds in the structure of the noses of the
flesh-eating animals sufficient indications of their superiority over
man in the exercise of the sense of smell. The peculiar development of
the membrane and the complicated structure of the nasal cavities in the
region occupied by the cells which are supposed to connect with the
extreme divisions of the olfactory nerve are all that one would expect
from the differences in endowment.
Aside from peculiar powers of smell there are other endowments of
noses which are remarkable. The common hog has a snout that is easily
moved and has great strength. He can take down a rail fence with it
quite as skillfully as a boy would do it. He can turn a furrow in the
soil in search of eatable roots, and when the ground is frozen to a
considerable degree of hardness he pursues his occupation with unabated
zeal and no evident embarrassment.
The fresh-water sturgeon has a large gristle in his nose which boys
sometimes convert into a substitute for a rubber ball. His nose is a
useful instrument in securing food from the mud in the river bottom.
The rhinoceros has a fierce horny protuberance rising from his nose
which is valuable to him in war. Indeed some are equipped with two
horns, one behind the other. The female rhinoceros with one horn
guides her calf with it, causing him to move ahead of her, but the
female of the kind with two horns does not use them upon her offspring
at all except in anger, and her calf is content to follow her in
feeding.
On the coast of California is a large seal called the sea elephant
which is notable because the adult male has a proboscis fifteen inches
in length when in ordinary temper, but under excitement it is noticed
to extend itself considerably beyond its ordinary length. The shrew,
the tapir, and the horse also possess something of a proboscis which is
useful in feeding.
But the elephant is the greatest animal as to the development of this
organ. Insect-eating animals have snouts of gristle, but the organ of
prehension of the elephant is composed almost entirely of muscles of
the most varied and curious structure. Cuvier counted twenty thousand
muscles in an elephant's trunk, and then gave up his unfinished task.
This great mass of muscular endowment McCloskie says has improved
his intelligence which is not so great as is popularly supposed.
"Observation shows the elephant after all to be rather a stupid beast;
it is the monkey, the fox, and the crow which are credited by the
Hindoos with brute-cuteness, whilst the highest measure of rationality
evinced by the elephant is when he plucks off the branch of a tree,
using it as a whisk to drive off flies that torment him. It seems that
he is very much afraid of flies, will take fright at a mouse, and is
always timid and suspicious, none of these being traits of a large
mind."
The nose has been connected always with the highest emotions of man.
As cats are transported into the seventh heaven by the presence of
their favorite weed and rats are similarly affected by rhodium, so man
carries a perfume in his pocket-handkerchief for his own delectation
or that of his friends, and in many instances weaves into his worship
certain rites in which the burning of incense and the offering of a
sweet savor has a prominent part. The Eskimo shows his appreciation of
his organ of smell by putting it forward to touch that of his friend
whom he meets on terms of special endearment.
Antony Van Corlear's large and rubicund nose is gravely recorded by
Irving to have been the means of bringing a great boon to the early
inhabitants of New Amsterdam because when he fell asleep in a boat one
day, the effulgence of the sun at high meridian fell upon his shining
feature, was reflected into the deep with such an undiminished power
that the beam came into violent contact with a sturgeon, and, by
causing the death of the fish at a time when the Dutch were willing
to experiment a little in the matter of gustation, thus introduced
the habit of eating this excellent fish to the founders of a great
commonwealth.
That the near neighbors of the American Dutch also held the nose in
high esteem is attested by the fact that when among the American
English any of their divines in one of their interminable sermons came
upon a series of unusually great thoughts and carried the congregation
into the heights of sacred felicity they acknowledged the divinity of
the occasion by "humming him through the nose." Much of their singing
also was given an unction otherwise impossible to it by their peculiar
nasal attitude while worshiping by use of the psalms.
While the nose is a most prominent feature of the countenance and the
beauty of the face depends largely upon that member's appearance,
there is no one who can say just what shape the nose should have to
be most beautiful. Socrates proved his nose to be handsomer than that
of Alcibiades because it was better adapted to use. As the nose is
used for smelling and the eye for seeing, Socrates maintained that the
handsome eyes and nose of the polished young Greek were less useful and
less adapted to the purposes for which such organs exist, and therefore
the bulging eyes and violently turned-up nose of the philosopher were
held to be more beautiful than those of Alcibiades.
[Illustration: FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.
WHITE IBIS.
3/10 Life-size
COPYRIGHT 1899, NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.
CHICAGO COLORTYPE CO., ]