NATURAL HISTORY STUDIES 



the by-products and waste-products of the plants' 

 living fires, for all living is a slow burning away. 



What a medley of odours, whiffs of brier rose and 

 lady's bedstraw, honeyed clover and soporific 

 myrrh, but they are all different. All flesh is not 

 the same flesh, and each flower's fragrance is its 

 own and no other's. Some five hundred different 

 fragrances have been distinguished, one kind in 

 hawthorn, another in mignonette and violets, 

 another in geranium and rose, another in orange 

 and lavender, and so on. Besides the differences 

 in chemical composition and in scent there are other 

 individual peculiarities, for some plants have 

 fragrant leaves, while in others the incense is made 

 only by the petals ; some, like the grass of Parnassus, 

 are sweet-scented only in the sunshine, while others, 

 like the evening campion, wait for the night. The 

 sickening smell of corn-spurrey is especially strong 

 after a summer shower. 



The making of strongly smelling stuffs is char- 

 acteristic of flowering plants, but by no means 

 confined to them ; it is well known, for instance, 

 in the males of many butterflies and moths. Pecu- 

 liarly shaped scales on the wings, or tufts of hairs 

 on other parts of the body, produce an aroma 

 which pleases the female insects. Some of the 

 scents produced by male butterflies and moths are 

 pleasant to us, resembling musk, mint, vanilla, 

 honey, and the like ; others suggest mice and bats. 

 It is interesting to notice that in some cases, though 

 the aromatic scales are abundant, we cannot smell 

 anything, which probably means that these particu- 



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