CHAPTER XIII 



SMELLS AND PERFUMES 



THE old saying, " De gustibus non disputandum," is 

 based upon the fact that both the liking and the 

 repulsion evinced by human beings for different odours 

 (including those odours which we call flavours) are not 

 matters of general agreement. Thus the smells of garlic 

 and of onions, and even of assafoetida, are to many men 

 among the most attractive and appetising in existence- — 

 to very many they are, on the other hand, repulsive. High 

 game, a certain kind of putrid fish (" Bombay ducks "), and 

 again rotten cheese are attractive to many men and offensive 

 to as many more. Many animals revel in the smell and 

 flavour of carrion, and even of manure, which they devour. 

 There are well-known flowers which attract insects, not by 

 the possession of the sweet perfumes appreciated and 

 extracted by mankind, but by a smell like that of putrid 

 meat, which so far misleads blue-bottle flies as to cause 

 them to lay their eggs on the reeking blossom. So diverse 

 are the tastes of men and animals in these matters that it 

 is remarkable when we find agreement among them, as, 

 for instance, in the attraction for butterflies of those 

 delicate scents which also are agreeable to ourselves in 

 such flowers as the rose, the jasmine, the heliotrope and 

 the honeysuckle. 



There seems to be no rule or principle at work by 

 which smells can be definiteli? classed as either pleasant or 



