WILD LIFE OF ORCHARD AND FIELD 



ing them away in their memory to be followed back 

 in inverse order when they have a chance to re- 

 turn. 



Granting to these animals the discriminating 

 sense of smell which experience shows to be pos- 

 sessed by them, I do not see any reason why they 

 should not be able to remember a journey by its 

 succession of odors just as well as they would by 

 its successive landmarks to the eye. Even we, 

 with our comparatively useless noses, can smell 

 the sea from afar; can scent the sweetness of the 

 green fields as well as the smokiness of black towns ; 

 and can distinguish these general and continuous 

 odors from special or concentrated odors, which lat- 

 ter would change direction as the smeller changed 

 position. How far this sense really has been de- 

 veloped in the human subject, perhaps few know; 

 but in the history of Julia Grace, the deaf and blind 

 mute of Boston, for whom the late Dr. Howe 

 accomplished so much, occurs a striking example. 

 In her blindness and stillness, Julia's main occu- 

 pation was the exercise of her remaining senses of 

 touch, taste, and smell. It was upon the last, we 

 are told, that she seemed most to rely to obtain a 

 knowledge of what was going on around her, and 

 she came finally to perceive odors utterly insensi- 



240 



