secretion of the Skunk is only emitted from the glands[1] when the animal is attacked or irritated, an odour so powerful as above described cannot fail to have become to a great extent distributed about its own pelage.[2]
The odour of musk is frequently a purely sexual character in animal life. Girard has always observed that the musky odour which is emitted by two species of Sphinx moths is peculiar to the males.[3] During the season of love a musky odour is emitted by the submaxillary glands of the Crocodile, and pervades their haunts.[4] Dr. Junker found that the deck of the steamer on which he travelled up the Blue Nile was for some days pervaded by a musky odour after a wounded Crocodile had been despatched thereon.[5] According to Mr. Ramsay, writing on the Australian Musk-Duck (Biziura lobata), the smell which the male emits during the summer months is confined to that sex, and in some individuals is retained throughout the year; he had never, even in the breeding season, shot a female which had any smell of musk.[6] In the Australian Echidna, "during the rut, both sexes produce a most conspicuous odour, which is probably destined
- ↑ The glands lie on either side of the rectum, and are imbedded in a dense gizzard-like mass of muscle, which serves to compress them so forcibly that the contained fluid may be ejected to the distance of four or five metres (approximately 13 to 16½ feet). Each sac is furnished with a single duct that leads into a prominent nipple-like papilla that is capable of being protruded from the anus, and by means of which the direction of the jet is governed (Merriam, 'Mam. Adirondack Reg. T.L.S. N.Y.' i. p. 76, 1882).
- ↑ According to Mr. Hudson, the Common Deer of the Pampas (Cervus campestris) gives out—in the male—an effluvium quite as far-reaching, although not so abominable in character as that of the Mephitis?... Yet it is not a protection—on the contrary, the reverse,... and wherever Pumas are found, Deer are never very abundant. The Guachos, however, say it is protective against snakes ('The Nat. in La Plata,' pp. 159-60).
- ↑ 'Zool. Rec' 1869, p. 347.
- ↑ Owen, 'Anatomy of Vertebrates,' vol. i. p. 615 (1866).
- ↑ 'Travels in Africa,' 1875–8, Eng. edit. p. 203.
- ↑ 'Ibis,' n.s. vol. iii. p. 414 (1867).
Nat.' p. 200).—On this point, Darwin, who seems to have anticipated most suggestions and objections bearing on his theory, must be quoted: "Natural Selection cannot possibly produce any modification in a species exclusively for the good of another species, though throughout nature one species incessantly takes advantage of, and profits by, the structures of others" ('Origin of Species,' 6th edit. p. 162).
