In most of the antelopes the principal scent gland is seated in a pit in front of the eye, as in the deer. In some, as in the Gnu, it forms instead a swollen, tumid area, oblong in shape, instead of lying in a pit. In the Reedbuck it is placed around the bases of the horns; and in the Rocky-Mountain Goat it forms a great bare cushion behind the horns. All have more or less well-developed glands seated in the skin between the toes. But, wherever placed, the secretions thereof are more or less completely suspended save during the breeding season, when they are poured forth abundantly. The precise rôle they play is by no means certainly known. It seems reasonable to suppose that, in the first place, the odour they disperse enables the males to announce their whereabouts to the females seeking mates, should they fail to hear their bellowing. But the antelopes, for the most part, unlike deer, do not, the year round, lose touch with one another; so that it must be concluded that these odours serve as excitants to the act of pairing, and we know that the sense of smell plays a very important part at this time, which, so far as these animals are concerned, is the only period which comes more or less exactly within the meaning of the term “courtship.” That scent among the antelopes holds a really important place is shown by the fact that the bull of the common Eland intensifies his natural odours by micturating upon the mass of long hair which grows upon the forehead. To do this the head is bent down and turned tailwards, in order that the tuft should receive its due urinary spray! And goats in captivity exhibit the same curious habit. In them, indeed, it is often pushed to such an excess that blindness results, so that the animal has to be slaughtered. While in many cases these odours are imperceptible to human nostrils, in others this is far from being the case. Among the ruminants the goat is particularly odorous. So also are the giraffe and the water-buck, both of which may be detected by their smell at considerable distances. And these emanations are most noticeable in the males and at the breeding season. The bull elephant, both in the Indian and African species, during the breeding season produces a copious flow of aromatic matter from a gland which opens above the eye in the form of a tubular aperture large enough to admit a pencil. This aperture in the African elephant is remarkable for the fact that it is invariably found to be “plugged” with numerous spines of the acacia, which have from time to time found their way in as the animal was forcing its way through the dense undergrowth. This extraordinary fact was first noticed by Mr. F. C. Selous, and has since been confirmed by Dr. Einar Lonnberg.