I 12 
^ ESTHETICS AT THE ZOO 
fact that so many species share this amiable fondness 
for the scent, but also because their liking for perfumes 
is by no means limited to that of lavender. A flask 
of rose-water will make as many friends among the 
leopards and their kin as will the former scent, and 
they also enjoy the sweet odour of pinks and lilac- 
blossom. The heavy scent of lilies and narcissi fails 
to please, perhaps on account of their strong narcotic 
qualities. It is not unlikely that the scent of these 
plants, with which the Furies were said to stupefy their 
victims, an odour which is often insupportable to men 
themselves, should be distasteful to their far more 
sensitive nostrils. 
It could hardly be expected that, in the matter of 
sweet sound, animals, any more than men, should 
think alike. The scent of the rose gives pleasure from 
the Himalayas to the Hebrides ; but the music that 
soothes the Highlander is to the Japanese as the 
howling of cats. Still, as to some men certain sounds 
are always musical, so to some animals these same 
sounds give pleasure. The taste finds perhaps its 
highest expression in those birds which actually learn 
to whistle the airs which they have heard from men, 
and its lowest in the snakes and reptiles, which seem 
to be fascinated by the Indian pipe. The writer has 
heard more than one parrot whistle part of a tune, and 
then strike the octave of the last note ; and the piping 
crow at the Zoological Gardens, and a Persian bulbul, 
which was once an inmate of the same aviary, can 
whistle a tune perfectly. It is to be expected that 
