524 Jottings on Odours. [.September, 
nasturtiums, tulips, most of the lilies, the geraniums, the 
French marigold, the sunflower, Coreopsis Drummondi , the 
spotted meadow-orchis, the elder-blossom, and many others. 
What is the especial function of these evil odours, and what 
enemies or unwelcome visitants do they repel ? It must be 
noted, in the first place, that in perfume plants the stem and 
leaves are as a rule scentless, whilst the fragrance resides in 
the flower alone. Amongst the stench-worts, “ if they will 
allow me so to call them,” the whole plant is impregnated 
with the evil odour, which is sometimes less powerful and 
striking in the flower than in the leaves and stem. We are 
apt to conclude that because bees, butterflies, &c., are evi- 
dently attracted to some flowers which are pleasant to us, 
therefore they must necessarily dislike and avoid what to us 
is loathsome and repulsive. This is a most unsafe conclu- 
sion. The beautiful green rose-beetle is no less fond of the 
sickly-smelling elder-blossom than of the queen-flower whose 
name it bears. The most beautiful butterflies — “ aesthetic 
aristocrats,” as Mr. Grant Allen calls them — will turn from 
banquetting on the nectar of flowers to sip the drainage of a 
dunghill, or the juices of a putrid weasel or polecat, which 
to them may represent sauerkraut and venison. We do not, 
in fact, see that the ill-smelling flowers are in any signal 
way avoided by insedts, whether enemies, such as the earwig, 
or those species which may aid in fecundation. 
It may, perhaps, be safely said that the majority of un- 
pleasantly-scented plants have flowers of a deep yellow, 
orange, brownish red, or brown colour, and that blue, pink, 
rose, lilac, and violet colours are very rare among them, 
save in case of artificially-produced varieties. A dispropor- 
tionate number of such plants, further, belong to the family 
Compositse, which, extensive as it is, scarcely includes a 
truly fragrant species. It can scarcely be denied that both 
pleasant and repulsive odours are respectively connected 
with certain families of the vegetable kingdom, and that 
the latter are preferentially correlated to certain colours and 
flavours. 
