•Chap. XYIII. 
ODOUKS EMITTED. 
279 
Odour . — With some animals, as with the notorious 
skunk of America, the overwhelming odour which they 
emit appears to serve exclusively as a means of defence. 
With shrew-mice (Sorex) both sexes possess abdominal 
scent-glands, and there can be little doubt, from the 
manner in which their bodies are rejected by birds and 
beasts of prey, that their odour is protective ; never- 
theless the glands become enlarged in the males during 
the breeding-season. In many quadrupeds the glands 
are of the same size in both sexes but their use is 
not known. In other^species the glands are confined 
to the males, or are more developed in them than in 
the females ; and they almost always become more 
active during the rutting-season. At this period the 
glands on the sides of the face of the male elephant 
enlarge and emit a secretion having a strong musky 
odour. 
The rank effluvium of the male goat is well known, 
and that of certain male deer is wonderfully strong 
and persistent. On the banks of the Plata I have per- 
ceived the whole air tainted with the odour of the male 
Cervus eampestris, at the distance of half a mile to 
leeward of a herd ; and a silk handkerchief, in which I 
carried home a skin, though repeatedly used and washed, 
retained, when first unfolded, traces of the odour for 
one year and seven months. This animal does not emit 
its strong odour until more than a year old, and if cas- 
auimal. The fullest account is given by Mr. Brown, who doubts about 
the rudimentary condition of the bladder in the female, in ‘Proc. 
Zoolog. Soc.’ 1868, p. 435. 
9 As with the castoreum of the beaver, see Mr. L. H. Morgan’s 
most interesting work, ‘The American Beaver,’ 1868, p. 300. Pallas 
P Spic. Zoolog.’ fasc. viii. 1779, p. 23) has well discussed the. odoriferous 
glands of mammals. Owen (‘ Anat. of Vertebrates,’ vol. iii. p. 634) 
also gives an account of these glands, including those of the elephant, 
and (p. 763) those of shrew-mice. 
