Word: scenting
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...alluring smell is the musk deer's undoing. For centuries, through the rhododendrons in the cool Himalayan foothills where he lives, the male musk deer has been relentlessly chased by hunters. Unfortunately for him, the musk deer has a scent gland that contains a sex lure. In its pure form, musk is worth $40,000 a pound to perfume manufacturers...
Ancient Lure. The musk deer's scent gland, according to Charles Darwin, is the product of an evolutionary runaround. Millions of years ago, the male, deer that smelled the nicest attracted the most females-and thus left the most descendants. A weakly scented male got nowhere as a progenitor...
Biologists believe that scent, in the long, long ago, was the principal attraction between the sexes. Other bonds developed later, and scent dropped into the background.* But deep in the human structure is a residual sensitivity to the same animal perfume that interests the female musk deer. Both men & women once used musk scent straight, but modern perfumers are more subtle: it is now diluted and smothered with flowery fragrances. But its Sunday punch is still there. Musk, or some musklike scent, is the base for most pulse-twitching perfumes, which (as the advertisements hint) "drive men wild...
...musky-smelling lure glands. Beaver glands yield castor, which is widely used. So is loud-smelling civet. Perfume chemists once eyed skunks, encouraged by the fact that many people do not mind a distant skunk smell on a frosty morning. But the perfumers finally gave up on skunks: their scent is basically a defensive weapon rather than a sex lure. Muskrat glands, a cheap by-product of the fur trade, did work. The muskrat substance is not a very pleasant smell, but a lucky chemist discovered that he could split its molecules in two, turning it into a blockbusting fragrance...
India, moreover, slightly inebriated by the scent of independence in the air, wants payment to the last rupee. They ask that a large chunk of the debt be paid off at once, another chunk by 1950, and the rest...