50 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 
The odor of the fox is readily detected by a keen nostril, es- 
pecially at night. The noisomeness of the warren is distinctly 
perceptible where unperceived by day, and the taint is carried 
abroad in the ambling fur, the contaminated wake held in equi- 
librium, as it were, in the heavy mist. Even the tiny emerald 
lace-wing fly or the caddis-moth will sometimes thus leave 
its malodorous trail threading the maze of redolence in the 
mist; and the bronzy scented beetle will challenge your nostril 
as you loiter in the dark woods, perhaps within the course of 
its recent droning flight or in the neighborhood of its haunt 
upon oozy tree-trunk near by. Often have I trailed him like 
a hound, and captured him in his concealment in the fissured 
bark. 
The bibulous convivialist welcomes a certain ambrosial nectar 
which mortals call a fousse café, but which is said to be of the 
gods, wherein the several tempting ingredients are so deftly de- 
canted as to lie unblended in their fragrant equipoise for a full 
minute; how much longer, it has possibly never been permitted 
to reveal. Something of the same phenomenon is naturally dem- 
onstrated in the scented distillations of the dew. In the shel- 
tered lowlands, when the night is still, the motley ingredients of 
this odorous tangle seem to find their equilibrium, and lie in 
strata, as it were. How the redolence of the witch-hazel revels. 
in the mist, weaving itself into the pale fabric as it floats above 
the marsh! It is the most volatile incense which we shall meet 
in the moonlight glens, and seems to float like oil upon the 
denser air, laden with the heavy emanations of the swamp. You 
may walk with your nostrils tingling in its tide, and leave it high 
and dry as you sit to rest. I have noted the same fact with 
regard to the evening primrose, but fancy the perfume is less 
volatile than the Hamameelis, and occupies a lower plane. Here 
are veritable zones of varying humidity and temperature, each 
with its haunting fragrance, often capricious, and yet again quite 
constant in its recurrence. In a certain well-known glen, for 
instance, you will always pass through a fugitive stratum of mead- 
ow-rue or lindén, or other faithful perfume for each season; in 
