Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/95

Rh me. We then discovered the source of the smell to be a worm of the species Julus, of a milky-pink colour, nearly four inches in length and having its habitat in decaying leaves. When the Julus senses danger, it emits a few drops of fluid having this extremely powerful and disagreeable odour, and serving to frighten off the enemies of the worm, such as birds, moles and snakes. I remember how Dr. N. S. Abaza, with whom I made this journey in the Caucasus, told me that birds will forsake the places defended by these Julus through their ingeniously manufactured poisonous gas. My friend and teacher, Professor Zaleski, also found some of these worms and, after studying the fluid secreted by them, pronounced it to be musk. This fluid, musk, which is a result of physiological activities of certain rodents and of some species of bucks, has, when fresh, a disagreeable odour and only after a long exposure to the air takes on valuable aromatic qualities which have won for it a place in the perfume industry. Professor Zaleski, essentially unique and original in many of his reactions, went so far as to fabricate perfumes from the Julus fluid; and, although no one claimed for them rivalry with the products of Houbigant, Coty and Piver, it is not recorded that they frightened anyone away from the individuals who used them.

Once we were within the protective zone of this Manchurian Julus, we began searching for the worm and finally found him attached to the bark of a young elm. He resembled closely his far-away Caucasian relative but carried on his pinkish-white back several brown spots. Having with us no suitable equipage in which so talented a member of the lowly order of larvæ should travel and fearing that too intimate contact with the frightened worm would make us objects of aversion to everybody,