An Universal Scent 371 



and in, and may be recognised, no matter how long 

 a period has elapsed since those hollow shells were 

 added to the collector's cabinet. 



Here I feel that it may be pardonable to digress 

 for a few lines into considering the extraordinary 

 fact of the universality of the scent of musk. On 

 shore we are, of course, very familiar with it in its 

 most delicate and delightful form, namely, that 

 emanating from the pretty little plant, Mimulus 

 moschatus, which will, with such slight encouragement, 

 perpetuate itself year after year, and make the whole 

 garden fragrant on summer evenings, especially after 

 a light rain-shower. But for the needs of the per- 

 fumer the Himalayas are scoured in order to secure 

 the musk pods of a certain kind of deer, which are 

 so intensely odoriferous as to induce bleeding at the 

 nose in many people who take an incautious sniff. 

 The musk rat's tail, not even his scent sac, but his 

 tail, will suffice to perfume a drawer for a musk lover 

 for many years ; in fact, once that scent is diffused 

 it is improbable that the receptacle containing it 

 ever loses it again. The cruel and hideous saurian 

 that slimily awaits its prey at Indian village fords, 

 in South American creeks, and Australian back- 

 country brooks is redolent of musk, pungent, nau- 

 seating, and never-to-be-forgotten odour that it is. 

 The marvellous ambergris of the sperm whale, although 

 only faintly smelling of musk itself, has certainly 

 one quality amidst all the fabulous ones credited 

 to it, of enhancing tenfold the power of any perfume 

 to which it is added during the process of distilla- 

 tion. And any one who has ever had occasion to 

 use a tube of sepia or stick of China ink, has probably 

 tested its genuineness by smelling it, the faint yet 

 penetrating odour being immediately apparent* 



