The experiment with the lavender-oil, naphthaline and the rest would therefore seem to prove that odour proceeds from two sources. For emission substitute undulation; and the problem of the Great Peacock is explained. Without losing any of its substance, a luminous point shakes the ether with its vibrations and fills a circle of indefinite width with light. This must almost express the working of the mother Bombyx’ tell-tale discharge. It does not emit molecules: it vibrates; it sets in motion waves capable of spreading to distances incompatible with a real diffusion of matter.
In its entirety, smell would thus seem to have two domains: that of the particles dissolved in the air and that of the ethereal waves. The first alone is known to us. It belongs also to the insect. It is this which informs the Saprinus of the dragon arum’s [[330]]fetidity and the Silpha and Necrophorus of the stench of the Mole.
The second, which is far superior in its range through space, escapes us altogether, because we lack the necessary sensory equipment. The Great Peacock and the Banded Monk know it at the time of the nuptial rejoicings. And many others must share it in various degrees, according to the exigencies of their mode of life.
Like light, odour has its X-rays. Should science one day, instructed by the insect, endow us with a radiograph of smells, this artificial nose will open out to us a world of marvels. [[331]]
[1] The Abbé Lazaro Spallanzani (1729–99), an early experimenter in natural history and author of a number of important works on the circulation of the blood, on digestion, on generation and on microscopic animals. Cf. The Hunting Wasps: chap. xix.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[2] Cf. The Mason-Bees, passim.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[3] Rabasso is the Provençal for truffle. Hence the word rabassier to denote a truffle-hunter.—Author’s Note. [↑]
[4] For some account of Fabre’s drawings of the fungi of his district, cf. The Life of the Fly, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xvii.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[5] One of the Dung-beetles. Cf. The Life and Love of the Insect: chap. v.—Translator’s Note. [↑]