These anomalous senses, for such they may be called, are as wonderful as they are inexplicable, and appear to arise from a peculiar sensibility of the organs of smell, which renders them capable of being stimulated in a peculiar manner, that no language can express or define. It is scent, no doubt, that gives the migratory power to various animals; “which enables them,” to use the words of Dr. Mason Good, “to steer from climate to climate, and from coast to coast; and which, if possessed by man, might perhaps render superfluous the use of the magnet, and considerably infringe upon the science of logarithms? Whence comes it that the fieldfare and red-wing, that pass the summer in Norway, or the wild-duck and merganser, that in like manner summer in the woods and lakes of Lapland, are able to track the pathless void of the atmosphere with the utmost nicety, and arrive on our own coasts uniformly in the beginning of October.”[11]
This sense is not limited to migratory animals, as instanced by carrier-pigeons, who have been known not only to carry bags in a straight line from city to city, but traverse the city with an undeviating flight. Surely this faculty must be attributed to the sense of smell; it can scarcely be referred to sight or hearing; although the wonders of the creation are such, that we can no more account for these peculiar attributes refused to the lords of the creation, than for the power of the lobster, who not only can reproduce his claws when deprived of them by accident, but cast them off to extricate himself, from the captor’s grasp. The Tipula pectiniformis, or the daddy long-legs of our infant amusement and amazement, possesses the same renovating faculties. The gluttonous gad-fly may be cut to pieces without any apparent interruption in his meal, when fastened to one’s hand: the polype does not seem to be at all discomposed when we turn him inside out; and, when divided into various sections, each portion is endowed with an instinctive and reformative power of multiplying his species in countless numbers! The diversity of our olfactory fancies is unaccountable and only illustrates the words of Petronius,
Non omnibus unum est quod placet; hic spinas, colligit ille rosas.
LOVE PHILTERS AND POTIONS.
It will scarcely be credited, but to this very day the superstitious belief in the power that certain medicinal substances possess of causing a sympathetic fondness, still obtains, even amongst classes of the community whose education one would imagine ought to have rendered such an absurdity revolting. In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, the influence of love powders and aphrodisiac drugs is universally confided in.
The ancients thought that there existed, not only various charms to kindle amorous feelings, but also to check all fond desires. The latter influence they considered as malefices, vulgarly called in more modern times, “point tying.” Plato, in his Republic, warns husbands to be on their guard lest their domestic peace might be disturbed by these diabolical practices. Lovers, separated from each other’s embrace by these nefarious enchantments, were said to be tied down. Thus Virgil,
Dic, Veneris vincula necto:
Terna tibi hæc primum triplici diversa colore
Licia circumdo.
No power could release one from these bonds:
Quis neget et magicas nervos torpere per artes?