Smell, too, presents its own peculiar marvels; in the apple it is pungent,[2035] and it is weak in the peach, while in the sweet[2036] fruits we perceive none at all: so, too, the sweet wines are inodorous, while the thinner ones have more aroma, and are much sooner fit for use than those of a thicker nature.[2037] The odoriferous fruits are not pleasing to the palate in the same degree, seeing that the flavour[2038] of them does not come up to their smell: hence it is that in the citron we find the smell so extremely penetrating,[2039] and the taste sour in the highest degree. Sometimes the smell is of a more delicate[2040] nature, as in the quince, for instance; while the fig has no odour whatever. CHAP. 34.—THE VARIOUS NATURES OF FRUIT. Thus much, then, for the various classes and kinds of fruit: it will be as well now to classify their various natures within a more limited scope. Some fruits grow in a pod which is sweet itself, and contains a bitter seed: whereas in most kinds of fruit the seed is agreeable to the palate, those which grow in a pod are condemned. Other fruits are berries, with the stone within and the flesh without, as in the olive and the cherry: others, again, have the berry within and the stone without, the case, as we have already stated, with the berries that grow in Egypt.[2041] Those fruits, known as “pomes” have the same characteristics as the berry fruits; in some of them we find the body of the fruit within and the shell without, as in the nut, for example; others, again, have the meat of the fruit without and the shell within, the peach and the plum, for instance: the refuse part being thus surrounded with the flesh, while in other fruits the flesh is surrounded by the refuse part.[2042] Nuts are enclosed in a shell, chesnuts in a skin; in chesnuts the skin is taken off, but in medlars it is eaten with the rest. Acorns are covered with a crust, grapes with a husk, and pomegranates with a skin and an inner membrane. The mulberry is composed of flesh and juice, while the cherry consists of juice and skin. In some fruits the flesh separates easily from the woody part, the walnut and the date, for instance; in others it adheres, as in the case of the olive and the laurel berry: some kinds, again, partake of both natures, the peach, for example; for in the duracinus[2043] kind the flesh adheres to the stone, and cannot be torn away from it, while in the other sorts they are easily separated. In some fruits there is no stone or shell[2044] either within or without, one variety of the date,[2045] for instance. In some kinds, again, the shell is eaten, just the same as the fruit; this we have already mentioned as being the case with a variety of the almond found in Egypt.[2046] Some fruits have on the outside a twofold refuse covering, the chesnut, the almond, and the walnut, for example. Some, again, are composed of three separate parts—the body of the