[1]

[Darwin's draft letter not transcribed]

[1v]

(41

Mammalia Odour

the odour is wonderfully strong & persistent. On the banks of the Plata I have al perceived the whole whole air tainted with that effluvium of the male cervus campestris, at the distance of half a mile to leeward of the herd; and I skinned a stag & carried home the skins of a stag in a silk handkerchief, in which I carried home the a skin, though repeatedly washed & used containing retained traces of the odour, when first unfolded, for one year & seven months. (a) (text) Besides that general odour, with which the whole body during the breeding season is seems permeated, many a deer, antelopes sheep & goats have on their faces, more or less larger, glandular pits, furnished furnished [few words taped over] suborbital [illeg] the so-called [text excised]

[2]

[Darwin's draft letter not transcribed]

[2v]

with [text excised]

tear-sacks or suborbital [text excised] These secrete a fetid matter, which is sometimes so copious, as to stain the whole faces, as I have seen much of the whole the face of in an antelope. The orifice if frequently closed & opened. They are "usually larger in the male than in the female, & their development is checked by castration."* (34) According to Desmarest they are altogether absent in the female of Antilope sub gutturosa.*(34) Hence there can be no doubt that these glands & the odour emitted stand in some close relation with the reproductive functions system. (a B) Again In the musk-deer (moschus moschiferus) a space round the tail is naked & bedewed with