8 BOOK OF THE SCENTED GARDEN 
have noticed the milky eyes of a new-born baby staring 
at nothing; but if it grasps you with its tiny hand you 
will have some notion of its great strength of grasp out 
of all seeming proportion to its age and size. 
(2) Taste runs touch very closely, and is perhaps really 
compounded of touch and smell, because if you close 
your eyes and nostrils firmly, so as not to see, or get 
any flavour or aroma of what you are eating or drinking, 
you cannot really tell what your food or drink may happen 
to be. I remember learning this fact very early in life. 
My grandmother always thought my mother quite incap- 
able of managing her own baby, and having an extensive 
knowledge of rural medicine she used to practise upon 
me to her dear old heart’s content. Most herbal remedies 
I could drink off without faltering, but I drew the line 
at castor oil. Hence the old dame used to hold my nose 
tightly whilst she poured it down my throat. 
Taste is a sensation located in the tongue, the sensatory 
area concerned being the glosso-pharyngeal, and certain 
branches of the fifth nerve. Although taste depends 
largely on smell, there are at least four primary tastes, 
viz.: Sweets or sugary, bitters, like olives or gentian, 
acids as in many fruits, vinegar, etc., and salines such as 
sea-water or salt. ‘These four sensations or tastes are 
quite distinct from olfactory sensations. 
(3) SmellI place third on the list because it often seems 
to come before sight in animal evolution. Puppy dogs 
find their mother by touch or scent long before they can 
see, as is well known. Of all the senses it is, as far as 
animals are concerned, one of the very first importance. 
In the tropics, monkeys and bats alike hunt by scent 
rather than by sight. This is especially true of the 
fruit-eating animals and birds. Vultures, condors, and 
other carrion-eating birds, and some fishes, sharks, etc., 
by scent detect their food at distances that would seem 
incredible did not travellers agree in their testimony. 
