sexual significances, as Zwaardemaker remarks, ranks besides the capryl group of odors.  It is a perfume of ancient origin; its name is Persian[59] (indicating doubtless the channel whence it reached Europe) and ultimately derived from the Sanskrit word for testicle in allusion to the fact that it was contained in a pouch removed from the sexual parts of the male musk-deer.  Musk odors, however, often of considerable strength, are very widely distributed in Nature, alike among animals and plants.  This is indicated by the frequency with which the word “musk” forms part of the names of animals and plants which are by no means always nearly related.  We have the musk-ox, the musky mole, several species called musk-rat, the musk-duct, the musk-beetle; while among plants which have received their names from a real or supposed musky odor are, besides several that are called musk-plant, the musk-rose, the musk-hyacinth, the musk-mallow, the musk-orchid, the musk-melon, the musk-cherry, the musk-pear, the musk-plum, muskat and muscatels, musk-seed, musk-tree, musk-wood, etc.[60] But a musky odor is not merely widespread in Nature among plants and the lower animals, it is peculiarly associated with man.  Incidentally we have already seen how it is regarded as characteristic of some races of man, especially the Chinese.  Moreover, the smell of the negress is said to be musky in character, and among Europeans a musky odor is said to be characteristic of blondes.  Laycock, in his Nervous Diseases of Women, stated his opinion that “the musk odor is certainly the sexual odor of man”; and Fere states that the musk odor is that among natural perfumes most nearly approaching the odor of the sexual secretions.  We have seen that the Chinese poet vaunts the musky odor of his mistress’s armpits, while another Oriental saying concerning the attractive woman is that “her navel is filled with musk.”  Persian literature contains many references to musk as an attractive body odor, and Firdusi speaks of a woman’s hair as “a crown of musk,” while the Arabian poet Motannabi says of his mistress that “her hyacinthine hair smells sweeter than Scythian musk.”  Galopin stated that he knew women whose natural odor of musk (and less frequently of ambergris) was sufficiently strong to impart to a bath in less than an hour a perfume due entirely to the exhalations of the musky body; it must be added that Galopin was an enthusiast in this matter.

The special significance of musk from our present point of view lies not only in the fact that we here have a perfume, widely scattered throughout nature and often in an agreeable form, which is at the same time a very frequent personal odor in man.  Musk is the odor which not only in the animals to which it has given a name, but in many others, is a specifically sexual odor, chiefly emitted during the sexual season.  The sexual odors, indeed, of most animals seem to be modifications of musk.  The Sphinx moth has a musky odor which is confined to the male and is