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Birds and All Nature, Vol. V, No 2 February 1899

<h2>NOSES.</h2> W. E. WATT. <div> <ANTIMG class="drop-cap" src="images/initial_t.jpg" width-obs="58" height-obs="70" alt="" /></div> 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 [Pg 66] 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 [Pg 67] 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 [Pg 68] 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. <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 70] <table class="sp2 mc w50" title="WHITE IBIS." summary="WHITE IBIS."> <tbody> <tr> <td colspan="3"> <ANTIMG style="width:100%" src="images/i_040.jpg" width="444" height="600" alt="" /> </td> </tr> <tr> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">FROM COL. CHI. ACAD. SCIENCES.</td> <td class="x-smaller ac w40">WHITE IBIS. 3/10 Life-size.</td> <td class="xx-smaller ac w30">COPYRIGHT 1899, NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="xx-smaller ac w20"> </td> <td class="x-smaller ac">CHICAGO COLORTYPE CO.,</td> <td class="xx-smaller ac w20"> </td> </tr> </tbody> </table> [Pg 71] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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