Night Nose!
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By K. Graham Thomson
"Nosey" is the nickname we give to blokes who are inquisitive and are always wanting to find out things, often things that are not their business at all. But if a detective, or an explorer, always minded his own business, he would not do much good, would he ? There are times when it is wrong to be nosey, but there are other times when it is right and it is just up to you to decide which is which, when something odd catches your notice. A Scout's nose needs to be trained to make it a useful, if not an ornamental, organ. Civilized people have lost a good deal of the keen sense of smell that our primitive ancestors had, and animals still have; so our noses need training, and if we go about it the right way we can soon greatly improve the keenness of our sense of smell. Quoting once more what the Chief says about night work in Scouting for Boys, remember:
We have already talked about the use of eyes and ears in Night Scouting, so here goes for the nose. The first thing to remember is always to breathe through it. The Chief said:
He also said:
A simple game for starting nose-training is called "Scout's Nose." One of you prepares a number of bags, each of which contains something that has a scent, or a stink : tea, coffee, cheese (old), thyme, sage, lemon, orange, carnation, onion, etc. Then each player takes a good sniff at each in turn, and tries to write down, or remember in order, the names of the things. Each bag must be numbered, of course. (Go easy with the pepper !) For outdoors at night, the Chief has given us another good game, called "The Escaped Smoker " .
Country Smells When you are hiking at night, you and your Patrol or your pal, or you by yourself, if you are not frightened of the dark any more, will find all sorts of curious smells making your nose twitch. All scents seem stronger after sunset ; or perhaps it is only the fact that our eyes are of less use in the dark that makes us more attentive to what our other senses tell us. We have noted the same thing in regard to our sense of hearing ; we can hear more keenly with our eyes shut. Some scents really are stronger at night ; some wild flowers, and some garden flowers, too, like night-scented stock, give off their scent only at night, to attract moths. Other country smells that may be useful for finding your position or your way are the pig-sty, cow-shed, or haystack, smells that reveal a farm to the nose; wood smoke or peat-reek, indicating a dwelling or a camp ; and the scents of different flowering plants, if you have observed their location during the daytime in relation to your objective. A bean field in flower gives off a strong scent, which may be a useful clue to your whereabouts. Yellow gorse has its scent. May blossom in the early summer is delightful, and carries a long way. Learn, as you hike along at night, to distinguish these and other scents from each other so that you can identify each wherever you are. South American trackers can find their way by night by smelling the grass. Many skippers of fishing boats can tell just where they are by smelling the mud and sand brought up by their nets from the sea bed. By daylight observation and frequent evening practice you should have an equally intimate knowledge of your own country neighborhood. Perhaps town Scouts can find their way about if blindfolded at night by the scents of the different fried-fish shops ! Anyway, if they can get out into the country, they can soon learn the various country smells ; and even in a town they can make good use of an onion, in the following game
Smelling the Dew At night the dew has its scent, and once you have learned to recognize it you have a valuable means of smelling out an enemy. If you keep to leeward, or down wind, of where you think an enemy may be, and keep sniffing the air, you will come to a place where the scent of the dew is interrupted, a point where you can no longer smell the dew scent. The interruption is caused by a man, and you could come upon him by going straight up-wind along that scentless line. Other guides to your nose of the presence of people are the scent of tobacco, whether burning in pipe or cigarette, or just being carried in a man's pocket ; the smell of a tramp who has not had a bath or clean clothing lately; and the smell of cooking.
Town Smells When mentioning fried-fish shops as tracking clues for town Scouts, I was not merely being funny. As a matter of fact, I have known thick fogs when the smell from a fish shop was like a lighthouse to a sailor in a storm. If you are walking along a street in a really thick fog-we had one last winter that lasted for a whole week-and you want to find a turning, or a house of a friend, it is useful to be able to tell where you are by the different smells you encounter : fish, greengrocer [produce shop], chemist's, grocery, butcher's shops, and public-houses and underground railway stations, too, all have distinctive odors. Chapter VIII: Lights and Rockets |
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Last modified: October 15, 2016.