ATTRACTION BY SMELL 201 



mologist Fabre placed one of these female moths in a box 

 covered with net-gauze, and left it in a room with open 

 window, facing the countryside. In less than an hour the 

 room was full of male emperor moths more than a 

 hundred arrived, although none had been previously visible 

 in the neighbourhood. They crowded over the box, and 

 even afterwards, when the female moth had been removed, 

 the perfume remained in the box, and the male moths 

 eagerly sought it. The perfume must have carried far 

 from the room where the female was, out into the woods 

 where it was perceived, and followed up to its source by 

 the male moths. 



Such perfumes are very generally produced by little 

 pockets or glands in the skin, the secretion having, in the 

 case of insects, birds and mammals, an oily nature. In 

 mammals they are largely produced by both males and 

 females, and serve to attract the sexes to one another. 

 Hairs are situated close to the minute odoriferous glands and 

 serve an important part in accumulating and diffusing the 

 characteristic perfume. Musk and civet are of this nature, 

 and it is a significant fact that these substances are used 

 as perfumes by human beings. It would seem as though 

 mankind had lost either the power of satisfactorily perceiving 

 the perfumes naturally produced by the human skin, or that 

 the production of such perfumes had for some reason 

 diminished. Either condition would account for the use 

 by mankind of the perfumes of other animals and of 

 flowers. There are a variety of odorous substances produced 

 by different parts of the human body, of which some are 

 agreeable and others disagreeable. One of the most 

 curious facts in regard to odorous bodies is the close 

 resemblance between agreeable and repulsive odours, and 

 the readiness with which the judgment of human beings 

 may pronounce the same odour agreeable at one period or 

 place, and disagreeable at another. There also seems to be 



