166 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



tribes have been known " to express dislike at the white man's 

 smell."* 



Even among ourselves it is possible to soon ignore or even 

 welcome an unpleasant odour. This is well illustrated by the 

 way European residents in the East soon overcome their repug- 

 nance to the evil smell of that delicious fruit, the Durian {JDurio 

 zibethinus). Here we have a fruit which, were it distasteful, 

 would be banished for its malodorous qualities from any 

 decent habitation, but for its delicious properties is welcomed 

 on the most aesthetic tables. A similar remark applies to the 

 Jack-fruit (Artocarpus integrifolia). Mr. Nicholas Pike, de- 

 scribing his experience of this fruit, which is highly esteemed 

 by the Brazilians at St. Domingo, near Rio Janeiro, states that, 

 "when cut, we could not be tempted to eat, though assured it 

 was very nice. Being blessed with an acute scent, we could not 

 get over its disgusting smell of putrid meat ; and, strange to say, 

 the meat-fly hovers round it, just as if it were a piece of carrion. "f 

 Nor ean such a strange appreciation of disagreeable odours be 

 confined to men of ordinary intellect. Goethe once nearly 

 fainted when writing at Schiller's table from the effects of a 

 dreadful odour that issued from a drawer. Schiller's wife stated 

 that the drawer was always filled with rotten apples, because the 

 scent was beneficial to her husband, and he could not live or work 

 without it.J According to Augustus J. C. Hare, throughout life 

 " the senses of smell and taste were utterly unknown " to the late 

 Dean Stanley. § 



May we not conclude that other animals may conquer their 

 repugnance to an evil smell possessed by creatures of otherwise 

 highly edible recommendations, and that odoriferous protection 

 may prove of a highly partial and uncertain character ? The 

 Tiger, contrary to what has been generally believed, is not at all 

 averse to putrid meat.|| Lions have a similar habit, as recorded 

 by Gordon Cumming and Selous. 



* Tylor, ' Anthropology,' p. 70. 

 f 'Sub- Tropical Rambles,' p. 18. 



I ' Conversations of Goethe,' Eng. transl. new edit. p. 289. 

 § 'Biographical Sketches,' p. 25. 



|| Cf. Gen. D. Hamilton, ' Rec. of Sports in S. India,' p. 175, et seq. ; and 

 Col. Pollok, ' Zoologist,' 1898, p. 157. 



