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Olfactory   Listen
adjective
Olfactory  adj.  (Physiol.) Of, pertaining to, or connected with, the sense of smell; as, the olfactory nerves; the olfactory cells.
Olfactory organ (Anat.), an organ for smelling. In vertebrates the olfactory organs are more or less complicated sacs, situated in the front part of the head and lined with epithelium innervated by the olfactory (or first cranial) nerves, and sensitive to odoriferous particles conveyed to it in the air or in water.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Olfactory" Quotes from Famous Books



... cases the organ of smell shows a similar improvement. Many lower Crustaceans (Daphnidae) have better developed organs of smell in the male sex. The difference is often slight and amounts only to one or two olfactory filaments, but certain species show a difference of nearly a hundred of these filaments (Leptodora). The ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... formed between his orbits by the bones of the nose, as in the Caucasian species. The nostrils, however, are much wider, about as wide from wing to wing, as the white man's mouth from corner to corner, and the internal bones, called the turbinated, on which the olfactory nerves are spread, are larger and project nearer to the opening of the nostrils than in the white man. Hence the negro approximates the lower animals in his sense of smell, and can detect snakes by that sense alone. All the senses are more acute, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... most delicious viands are spread for us in apartments strewed with flowers. The table is adorned with them, and the most exquisite wines are handed to us in crystal goblets. When we have glorified God, by the agreeable use of the palate, and the olfactory nerve, we enjoy a delightful sleep of two hours, in bowers of orange trees, roses, and myrtles. Having acquired a fresh store of strength and spirits, we return to our occupations, that we may thus mingle labour with pleasure, ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe

... cognizance of vibrations that mean nothing to us. Insects hear notes far above our dull ears. Ants are susceptible to lights and colors unseen to our limited eyes. The emperor-moth calls its mate—so says Fabre—by means of olfactory vibrations totally uncomprehended by us. The universe is full of hues, tones, radiant phenomena that escape us, because our senses are ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... my child. How keen your scent is! It is always so with us. Your grandfather was noted for his olfactory powers. Ah, a great loss, dear Mrs. Ridd, a terrible loss to this neighbourhood! As one of our great writers says—I think it must be Milton—'We ne'er shall ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... bought Marie a dozen great, heavy-headed chrysanthemums, whose color he could not name to save his life, so called them pink and let it go at that. They were not pink, and they were not sweet—Joe held the bunch well away from his protesting olfactory nerves which were not educated to tantalizing odors—but they were more expensive than roses, and he knew that women raved over them. He expected Marie to rave over them, whether she liked ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... facts bearing upon the presence or absence of white colors in the higher animals have lately been adduced by Dr. Ogle. It has been found that a colored or dark pigment in the olfactory region of the nostrils is essential to perfect smell, and this pigment is rarely deficient except when the whole animal is pure white. In these cases the creature is almost without smell or taste. This, Dr. Ogle believes, explains the ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various

... upon which he threw certain drugs and dried herbs which he had brought in his basket. A thick smoke rose, diffusing a potent odor savoring marvelously of brimstone and asafetida, which, however grateful it might be to the olfactory nerves of spirits, nearly strangled poor Wolfert, and produced a fit of coughing and wheezing that made the whole grove resound. Dr. Knipperhausen then unclasped the volume which he had brought under his arm, which was printed in red and black characters in German text. While Wolfert held the ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... diagrammatically the brain of a Fish, a Reptile, a Bird, a Mammal, and a Man. In each case the letter A marks a side view, and the letter B a top view. The small italics throughout signify the following homologous parts: m, medulla; cb, cerebellum; op, optic lobes; cr, cerebrum and thalamus; ol, olfactory lobes. The series shows a progressive consolidation and enlargement of the brain in general, and of the cerebrum and cerebellum in particular, which likewise exhibit continually advancing structure in respect of convolution. In the case of Man, these two parts of the brain have grown to ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... the broken cover of the soap dish, and brought forth a cake which he tendered gingerly to Dennis for his olfactory inspection. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... "association" for the determination of pleasure or pain, attraction or repulsion, as the result of its being called into operation. It is a very general experience that odours are more efficient in arousing memory than are mere colour effects or sounds. Not only in animals with acutely developed olfactory powers, but also in man, an odour—a peculiar perfume—will start a whole chain of reminiscence when sight and sound have failed to do so. It is due to this close association with memory (conscious or unconscious) that an odour ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... Adams did not reply. He was down on his hands and knees, close to where the head of the murdered woman had rested. He placed his nose to the carpet and drew in a long breath. His olfactory nerves were sensitive, and detected a certain pungent, stinging odor, of a sort not ...
— The Mansion of Mystery - Being a Certain Case of Importance, Taken from the Note-book of Adam Adams, Investigator and Detective • Chester K. Steele

... and in the course of a few minutes admitted Woodward to his herbarium. When the latter entered, he looked about him with a curiosity not unnatural under the circumstances. His first sensation, however, was one that affected his olfactory nerves very strongly. A combination of smells, struggling with each other, as it were, for predominance, almost overpowered him. The good and the bad, the pleasant and the oppressive, were here mingled up in one sickening exhalation—for the disagreeable prevailed. The ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... is very small, compared with the spinal cord into which it is continued, and with the nerves which come off from it: of the segments of which it is composed—the olfactory lobes, the cerebral hemisphere, and the succeeding divisions—no one predominates so much over the rest as to obscure or cover them; and the so-called optic lobes are, frequently, the largest masses of all. In Reptiles, the mass of the brain, relatively to the spinal cord, increases and the cerebral ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... correct, it is of course clearly apparent that they must be guided solely by the eye in the selection of their food; for instance, when fish are stupefied or fuddled as it is termed, I do not suppose their olfactory organs are affected by the berry or drugs, used to intoxicate or kill them. I am persuaded, that small balls of paste or bread would, if offered to them at the same time, be devoured at precisely the same rate as those prepared with ...
— The Teesdale Angler • R Lakeland

... insects are an olfactory organ turned inside out, prominent in space, and, further, very mobile. This allows us to suppose that the sense of smell may be much more relational than ours, that the sensations thence derived give them ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... horse, I put the flask and biscuit by his side, and departed in order to procure assistance to remove him. I recollected that a short time before, I had seen a smoke issuing from a deep ditch, and that my olfactory nerves had been saluted by a savoury smell as I passed. Guided by these indications, I retraced my steps to the spot, and found some Scotch soldiers sheltered by a hedge, very agreeably employed in cooking a quantity of beefsteaks over a wood ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 351 - Volume 13, Saturday, January 10, 1829 • Various

... the temples and other parts of the head, a tingling noise in the ear, a throbbing of the brain, especially of the temporal arteries—Symptoms of asthma, tickling coughs, visible inflations, and unusual scents affecting the olfactory nerves—Sometimes costive and sometimes relaxed—Sudden flushings of heat, and suffusions of countenance—In the night, alternate sweats and shiverings, especially down the back, which seems to feel as if water was poured down that part of the body—A ptyalism, or ...
— A Treatise on Foreign Teas - Abstracted From An Ingenious Work, Lately Published, - Entitled An Essay On the Nerves • Hugh Smith

... in the motionless smoke-wreaths, we felt the schooner's sides rasping against those of the barque; and, with a shout to my little party to follow, I sprang upon our own bulwarks, from thence to those of the barque, and so down on the slaver's deck—for a slaver she was, as our olfactory nerves now assured ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... over monocular vision, there results a check upon further approach towards identity of function and unity of structure. The other reason is that the interposed structures do not admit of any nearer approach. For the orbits of the eyes to be brought closer together, would imply a decrease in the olfactory chambers; and as these are probably not larger than is demanded by their present functional activity, no decrease can take place. Again, if we trace up the external organs of smell through fishes,[7] reptiles, ungulate mammals and unguiculate mammals, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... discovered, nations exterminated, countries laid waste, evidences forged, and witnesses invented. And this theory is to be swallowed in one solid and indigestible lump, unleavened with logic, unmoistened with grammar, unsweetened with rhetoric. Let those whose appetites are strong, and whose olfactory nerves are not too delicate, sit down ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various

... Esquimaux, whom our people had seen, evinced the same amicable disposition by which their whole race is distinguished. They received our people with open arms, and some of the young damsels seemed disposed to cultivate a closer intimacy with them than their ideas of propriety, or at least their olfactory nerves, would sanction. The effluvia that proceeds from their persons in the summer season is quite insufferable; it is as if you applied your nose to ...
— Notes of a Twenty-Five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory - Volume II. (of 2) • John M'lean

... at Port Carpenter after dinner. When he told Jacquemont what he wanted and why, the engineer remarked that it was a pity screens couldn't be fitted with olfactory sensors, so that he could smell ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper

... him, for no apparent reason, upon such an uncomfortable journey, he simply took matters into his own big head and without a with or by your leave waddled off, book in slobbering mouth, to look for his beloved, whom—his olfactory powers not being of the keenest—he felt to be somewhere in the neighbourhood, perhaps playing at hide-and-seek behind the tents, as she did on wet mornings at home ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest

... about a foot from Duke's nose, and the little dog's dreams began to be troubled by his olfactory nerve. This faithful sentinel, on guard even while Duke slept, signalled that alarums and excursions by parties unknown were taking place, and suggested that attention might well be paid. Duke opened one drowsy eye. What that eye beheld ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... turbaned and skirted were these Moro men, their jackets fitting so tightly that some one suggested they must have grown on them, that they were "quite natural and spontaneous, like the leaves of trees or the plumage of birds." One's olfactory nerves also bore evidence that frequent ablutions or change of garments were not customary among our guests, and the fact that when shown over the ship they evinced but little interest in ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel

... is, her olfactory nerves becoming strongly excited, she insisted upon having a search, and after snuffing about, she came near my hiding-place, and found the ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May

... again assuming its normal tilt. She held small Pete by one chubby hand, and with a wry face he was licking out an absurd little red tongue at least twice each moment, as if uncertain as to whether his olfactory or gustatory nerves had been offended. Billy was standing with the nonchalant unconcern of one strong of stomach, and the four other little Poteets, ranging in size from Shoofly, on the floor, to Tobe, the buried, were shuffling their bare feet in the dust with ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess

... say, does she leave, along the road traversed, not a series of conducting threads, for she is not equipped for that work, but some odorous emanation, for instance some formic scent, which would allow her to guide herself by means of the olfactory sense? This view is pretty generally accepted. The Ants, people say, are guided by the sense of smell; and this sense of smell appears to have its seat in the antennae, which we see in continual palpitation. It is doubtless very reprehensible, but ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... disease has its origin in uncleansed skin as a chronic condition. That will be a small-minded reader who draws conclusions from these statements that the author is not highly in favor of having bodies and clothes kept so habitually clean as not to be an offence to the finest fibred olfactory nerve at close range. In the use, then, of water on the body be physiologically sensible, and not the slaves of the bath-tub ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey

... my readers, when I say that very few people understand music. For most people it is, as Victor Hugo said, an exhalation of art—something for the ear as perfume is for the olfactory sense, a source of vague sensations, necessarily unformed as all sensations are. But musical art is something entirely different. It has line, modeling, color through instrumentation, all making up an ideal sphere where some, like the writer of these lines, live from childhood on, which ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens

... at a flash of light, or a threatened blow, a reflex action takes place, in which the afferent nerves are the optic, the efferent, the facial. When a bad smell causes a grimace, there is a reflex action through the same motor nerve, while the olfactory nerves constitute the afferent channels. In these cases, therefore, reflex action must be effected through the brain, all the nerves involved being cerebral. 'When the whole body starts at a loud noise, the afferent auditory nerve gives rise to an impulse ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot

... for a fortnight, by which time we had accumulated some three hundred and eighty thousand oysters, and had laid them out upon the island to undergo the process of decay in the scorching rays of the sun. And that they were undergoing that process at a very rapid rate our olfactory nerves soon informed us; for the odour of them became perceptible as early as the fourth day, while by the end of the fortnight it was so strong as to be scarcely endurable even on the oyster bank itself, which was about a mile to leeward of the island, although, by berthing the schooner every night ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... an ascensive step in development, higher and more strongly marked than that by which the preceding sub-class was distinguished from the one below it. Not only do the cerebral hemispheres overlap the olfactory lobes and cerebellum, but they extend in advance of the one and farther back than the other. Their posterior development is so marked that anatomists have assigned to that part the character of a third lobe; it ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... of residence; but the smell of it I shall never, never forget. In that respect it was the vilest in a vile series of slum dwellings, and many and many a time had caused me to revile my naturally keen olfactory organs. I had endured it for almost a month, and would suffer its unmanning horrors no more. Indeed, I would suffer nothing like it again. Why should I? My earnings were increasing. I would escape from the whole district, its miseries, its smells, its ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... the stone has not been shattered. Under the temple there are large vaults, which we found filled up with young kids, who had gone in there to escape the heat of the sun. The portico was occupied by sheep, which at first refused to make room for us, and gave strong olfactory evidence of their partiality for the ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor

... a modus of their own, undirected and un- 212:18 sustained by God. They produce a rose through seed and soil, and bring the rose into contact with the olfactory nerves that they may smell it. In 212:21 legerdemain and credulous frenzy, mortals believe that unseen spirits produce the flowers. God alone makes and clothes the lilies of the field, and this He does by 212:24 means ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... so give rise to corresponding dreams. As Radestock observes, these lower sensations do not commonly make known their quality to the sleeper's mind. They become transformed at once into visual, instead of into olfactory or gustatory percepts. That is to say, the dreamer does not imagine himself smelling or ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully

... PALACE OF HORTICULTURE north of the Transportation Building, our organs of sight and olfactory nerves were equally affected by the dazzling and odoriferous display of exuberant flowers and fruitage. Had it been admissible, we would have been glad to put our organs of tasting in active operation, likewise. For, we longed to ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... butter, with an apple, a pear, or other fruit, while the teacher was as regularly provided with something warm—chop, a cutlet, a slice of fish, salmon, perch, trout, or whatever was in season, accompanied by salad and potatoes. The smell of the meat never failed to appeal to the olfactory nerves of the Prince, and he often looked, longingly enough, at the luxuries served to his tutor. The latter noticed it and felt sorry for him; but there was nothing to be done: the royal orders were strict and could not be disobeyed. One day, however, the lesson, one of repetition, had gone ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... not dangerous, and experience has taught these officials to locate the compounds, wherein millions of oysters are to decompose, in positions where the trade winds waft the smells seaward or inland, without greatly affecting the camp's health. The British official whose olfactory organ survives a season at the pearl camp deserves from his home government at ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... considerable time I believe; at length, opening my eyes, I found myself lying on a bed in a middle-sized chamber, lighted by a candle, which stood on a table—an elderly man stood near me, and a yet more elderly female was holding a phial of very pungent salts to my olfactory organ. I attempted to move, but felt very stiff—my right arm appeared nearly paralysed, and there was a strange dull sensation in my head. "You had better remain still, young man," said the elderly individual, "the surgeon will be here presently; I have sent a message for him ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... Chevalier. N.B. I have got a 1/8 inch object-glass, and it is grand. I have been getting on well with my beloved Cirripedia, and get more skilful in dissection. I have worked out the nervous system pretty well in several genera, and made out their ears and nostrils (27/4. For the olfactory sacs see Darwin's "Monograph of the Cirripedia," 1851, page 52.), which were quite unknown. I have lately got a bisexual cirripede, the male being microscopically small and parasitic within the sack of the female. I tell you this to boast of my species theory, for the nearest closely allied ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin

... portion of the brain, formed by the ganglion of the 2d primary segment; also termed antennal or olfactory lobes ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith

... bustling about the great roaring fire, and around the various tables, where all sorts of culinary rites were in active progress; while the mingling of savoury odours that pervaded the whole place so tickled the olfactory organs of Blazius, Herode, and Scapin, the gourmands of the troupe, that their mouths expanded into the broadest of grins, as they edged as near as possible to the numerous saucepans, etc., from which they issued. In a few moments a servant came to conduct them to the rooms that had been prepared ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... collapse. Then, face-plate valves cracked, he sniffed cautiously, finally opening his helmet wide. Nadia followed suit and the man laughed as she wrinkled her nose in disgust as two faint, but unmistakable odors smote her olfactory nerves. ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... whirling in musical waves, engulfed in the mystic whirlwinds of his infancy. The songs learned at the Jesuits reappeared, bringing with them pictures of the school and the chapel where they had resounded, driving their hallucinations to the olfactory and visual organs, veiling them with clouds of incense and the pallid light irradiating through the stained-glass windows, ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... with poetic genius. His clear and full blue eyes had the brusque vivacity which may be noticed in searchers for occult causes. The nose, probably perfect in early life, was now elongated, and the nostrils seemed to have gradually opened wider from an involuntary tension of the olfactory muscles. The cheek-bones were very prominent, which made the cheeks themselves, already withered, seem more sunken; his mouth, full of sweetness, was squeezed in between the nose and a short chin, ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... dice, or the Differential Calculus out of the clash of billiard-balls? I am not all bereft of this Vorstellungs-Kraft of which you speak, nor am I, like so many of my brethren, a mere vacuum as regards scientific knowledge. I can follow a particle of musk until it reaches the olfactory nerve; I can follow the waves of sound until their tremors reach the water of the labyrinth, and set the otoliths and Corti's fibres in motion; I can also visualise the waves of aether as they cross the eye and hit the retina. Nay more, I am able to pursue ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... the beluga might not be frightened, to the ruin of the extensive fishery that has existed there for more than two hundred years. Its sight, touch and taste are also well developed but it has no olfactory nerve and is apparently without the sense of smell. The creature has qualities that we should hardly expect. It has been tamed and almost domesticated. The enterprising Barnum exhibited in New York a beluga which drew a boat ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... There was a slight fall of snow on the 11th November, followed by severe frost, and the elephants were beginning to suffer from the cold. Three of them succumbed on the Lataband Kotal, much to the annoyance of the olfactory nerves of all passers-by. It was impossible to bury the huge carcasses, as the ground was all rock, and there was not wood enough to burn them. So intense was the cold that the ink froze in my pen, and I was obliged to keep my inkstand ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... generalizations that were growing up in my mind during my exile, the simplified picture into which I translated the billions of sights and sounds and—smells, for every part of the world has its distinctive olfactory palette as much as its palette of colors—that rained daily and nightly upon ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells

... circumstances it would have been quite impossible to have deceived a dog. The evidence in favour of and against the acute smelling powers of carrion-vultures is singularly balanced. Professor Owen has demonstrated that the olfactory nerves of the turkey-buzzard (Cathartes aura) are highly developed, and on the evening when Mr. Owen's paper was read at the Zoological Society, it was mentioned by a gentleman that he had seen the carrion-hawks in the West Indies on ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... systems in respect of their function and topography. One of the most puzzling features in its structure, and, at the same time, one of the greatest obstacles to the view that it is essentially primitive and not merely a degenerate creature, is the entire absence of the paired organs of special sense, olfactory, optic and auditory, which are so characteristic of the higher vertebrates. Although it is true that there is a certain amount of gradation in the degree of development to which these organs have ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... not charge out, and I need hardly say that I promptly drew back. Sometimes a cave may be so deep and tortuous that the bear cannot be got out with the aid of a pole, and to meet such cases I had stink balls made, as bears have very fine olfactory nerves and seem particularly to object to disagreeable smells. These balls were composed of asafoetida, pig dung, and any other offensive ingredient that suggested itself to me at the time, and made up into about the ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot

... that the fish form of brain is distinctly apparent, as shown by Tiedemann. The fish form is that in which we have only a rudiment of the cerebrum, which is so large in man. Behind the little cerebrum, which is smaller than the bulb of the olfactory nerve, we have the middle brain or optic lobes, which give origin to the optic nerves, and behind them ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, June 1887 - Volume 1, Number 5 • Various

... now hung as a badge of trade on the door-jambs; and the frying of eggs, that have long lost their market value, with Bombay ghee and young garlic, the whole mellowed and perhaps refined by the continual vapors from open sewers. One fragrance that perhaps tickles the olfactory nerve with more delicacy than all others and might be called a perfumed "dream," comes from baking a garlic pie piping hot in the open, with Turkish Limburger as a substantial ingredient. This zephyr when in full action sets at naught the vain attempt of asafoetida to hold its place in ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne

... three times as much as he should—a scheme, be it said, in which my boy took no part. It was truly a fearful den, where man and beast lived in promiscuous and insupportable filth. The dung-heap charms the sight of this agricultural people, without in the slightest wounding their olfactory nerves, and these utilitarians think there is no use seeking privacy to do what they regard as beneficial and productive work. The bed here was the worst I had had offered me. The mattress, upon which every previous traveler for many years had left his tribute of vermin, was not fit ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... an odour, we have evidence that infinitely smaller particles act on our nerves. When a dog stands a quarter of a mile to leeward of a deer or other animal, and perceives its presence, the odorous particles produce some change in the olfactory nerves; yet these particles must be infinitely smaller* than those of the phosphate of ammonia weighing the one-twenty-millionth of a grain. These nerves then transmit some influence to the brain of the dog, which leads to ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin

... Pennsylvania Railroad bridge is extremely mythical. There is an unmistakable scent of burnt wood. It would not be strange if the carcasses of domestic animals, which must be hidden in the enormous mass, were finally to be realized by the olfactory organs of ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... difference in size between the brains of dogs belonging to large and small breeds "is something prodigious." "Some dogs' brains are high and rounded, while others are low, long, and narrow in front." In the latter, "the olfactory lobes are visible for about half their extent, when the brain is seen from above, but they are wholly concealed by the hemispheres in other breeds." (1/56. Dr. Burt Wilder 'American Assoc. Advancement of Science' 1873 ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin

... what option had he? While thus musing, he turned impatiently round, and saw that the shabby man and the dusty hag were engaged in an amicable game of ecarte, with those very cards which had so offended his olfactory organs. At that sight the old instinct of the gambler struggled back; and, raising himself up, he looked over the cards of the players. The miserable wretches were, of course, playing for nothing; and Losely saw at a glance that the man was, nevertheless, trying ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... said that Jack had a great respect for good eating and drinking, and, moreover, was blessed with a good appetite: every person has his peculiar fancies, and if there was anything which more titillated the palate and olfactory nerves of our hero, it was a roast goose with sage and onions. Now it so happened, that having been about seven months on board of the Mendacious, Jack had one day received a summons to dine with the Admiral, for the ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... soft fat or marrow, instead of washing them with water. This practice they say preserves the skin soft, and protects it from cold in the winter, and the moschetoes in summer, but it renders their presence disagreeable to the olfactory organs of an European, particularly when they are seated in a close tent and ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin

... Our olfactory nerves had already told us that in this lovely little seaside paradise there are such prosaic things as defective drains. This is more detectable in the evening on the beach, than elsewhere, in the daytime; but is being rectified ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... so much about these personal susceptibilities, if I had not a remark to make about them that I believe is a new one. It is this. There may be a physical reason for the strange connection between the sense of smell and the mind. The olfactory nerve—so my friend, the Professor, tells me—is the only one directly connected with the hemispheres of the brain, the parts in which, as we have every reason to believe, the intellectual processes are performed. To speak more truly, the olfactory "nerve" ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... of a man who was deficient in the corpus callosum; at the age of sixty-two, though of feeble intelligence, he presented no signs of nervous disorder. Claude Bernard made an autopsy on a woman who had no trace of olfactory lobes, and after a minute inquiry into her life he found that her sense of smell had ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... Some persons sneeze from looking up at the light sky in a morning after coming out of a dark bedroom. The olfactory nerves are brought into too great action by their sympathy with the optic nerves, or by their respective sympathies with some intervening parts, as probably with the two extremities of the lacrymal sac; that is, with the puncta lacrymalia and the nasal ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... the minutest microscopical details, the eye, the ear, the olfactory organs, the nerves, the spinal cord, the brain of an ape, or of a dog, correspond with the same organs in the human subject. Cut a nerve, and the evidence of paralysis, or of insensibility, is the same in the two cases; apply pressure to the brain, or administer a narcotic, ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... stood in this interesting position, it became apparent to Harry's olfactory nerves that the atmosphere was impregnated with tobacco smoke. Looking hastily up, he beheld an apparition that tended somewhat to increase ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne

... itself to run up hill in any way more easily than water, which cannot do it at all. The young Knights thus saw that if they desired to escape drowning, they must finish the combat without further delay; the odour of the monster was excessively disagreeable to their olfactory nerves, being like the essence of ten thousand pole-cats, weasels, skunks, ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston

... which also bears two ganglia, these being in close relation to a special sense-organ called the subradular organ, an epithelial projection with nerve-endings, lying in front of the radula and probably gustatory in function. One osphradium or branchial olfactory organ is usually present on each side, on either side of the anus on the inner wall of the mantle, near the base of the last gill. In Lepidopleuridae an osphradium occurs at the base of each gill. The sense organs of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... of abstract mental content is inferable from the mere fact that we can use intelligently words of which the meaning is abstract. It is clear that a sufficiently ingenious person could manufacture a machine moved by olfactory stimuli which, whenever a dog appeared in its neighbourhood, would say, "There is a dog," and when a cat appeared would throw stones at it. The act of saying "There is a dog," and the act of throwing stones, would ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell

... population quite dumbfounded. Americans amused but not excited. One hundred to one on Buttons eagerly offered, but no takers. Beppo jumped to his feet like a wild cat. Eyes encircled with ebon aurioles, olfactory quite demolished. Made a rush at Buttons, who, being a member of the Dodge Club, dodged him, and landed a rattler on the jugular, which again sent ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille

... abroad in search of the myriad flowers that hide in the depths of the thickets. She has to discover the honey and pollen that lurk in the labyrinths of the nectaries and in the most secret recesses of the anthers. And yet her eyes and olfactory organs are like the eyes and organs of the infirm, compared with those of the male. Were the drones almost blind, had they only the most rudimentary sense of smell, they scarcely would suffer. They have nothing to do, no prey to hunt down; their food ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... those warm, soft evenings which impart a sense of ease to flesh and spirit alike. All is enjoyment, everything charms. The balmy air, laden with the perfume of grasses and the smell of seaweed, soothes the olfactory sense with its wild fragrance, soothes the palate with its sea savor, soothes the ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... the open double doors. They were stiff little chairs of an inconsequent, mongrel pattern; armless, with perforated wooden seats; legs tortured by the lathe to a semblance of buttons strung on a rod; and they had that day received a streaky coat of a gilding preparation which exhaled the olfactory vehemence mentioned. Their present station was temporary, their purpose, as obviously, to dry; and they were doing some incidental gilding on their own account, leaving blots and splashes and sporadic little round footprints ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... from which the olfactory nerves proceed, are large, whilst the optic and muscular nerves of the orbit are singularly small for so vast an animal; and one is immediately struck by the prodigious size of the fifth nerve, which supplies the proboscis with its exquisite ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... The jail, for the moment, challenged all their waking senses, the olfactory by no ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy

... as well, drifted over the olfactory intelligence a certain subtle, warm-breathed aroma, that genially combatted the chill and darkness of the day without, and, resurrecting long-dead Christmases, brimmed the grateful ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley

... of this fact is equally significant. In the vertebrates, in general, the olfactory lobe of the brain is largely developed, much exceeding in size the lobe of the optic nerve. It forms the anterior portion of the cerebrum, and in many instances constitutes a large section of that organ, being marked off from it by only a slight surface depression. If ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris

... 742. The OLFACTORY NERVE (first pair) passes from the cavity of the skull through many small openings in a plate of the eth'moid bone. (This plate is called crib'ri-form, from its resemblance to a sieve.) This nerve ramifies upon the membrane that lines the ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... the word survives in the so-called onomatapoetic words, which aim simply at reproducing the sounds of nature. A second order of imitation arises through the associations of sensations. The different sensations, auditory, visual, olfactory, tactile, motor, and organic have common qualities, which they share with other more complex experiences; of form, as force or feebleness; of feeling, as harshness, sweetness, and so on. It is, indeed, another case of the form-qualities to which we ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer

... come. The olfactory nerves remained placid, until the visitors had departed. Then she retreated to the inner cave, drew the grey shawl over her head, and awaited the development of ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne

... the body of an animal is frequently surrounded by a dozen or more of them, almost as soon as it has dropped dead, although five minutes before there was not a single bird in view. Whether this power is to be attributed to the keenness of his olfactory or his visual organs, is a matter still in dispute; although it is believed, from a minute observation of its habits in confinement, to be rather owing to its quickness ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... that at the base of the brain are collected certain masses of nervous matter, that constitute nervous centres or cerebral ganglia, that are in very intimate connection, on the one hand, with nerves of special sense, as the optic[42] and olfactory,[43] on the other with nerves of general sensation and motion.[44] To this intricate part of the brain, these centres, converge the nerve-fibres collected in the spinal cord and medulla oblongata, and from them radiate other fibres that pursue a divergent course, ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... that in all probability had never tasted moisture before. All this amused my pursuer vastly; it watched with the leisure of one who knows its fish will be landed in safety, and there suddenly came to me, through my olfactory nerves, a knowledge that it was speaking to me in the language of scents—the language I never understood till now was the ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell

... peculiarity of the male Crustacea consists not unfrequently in a more abundant development on the flagellum of the anterior antennae of delicate filaments which Spence Bate calls "auditory cilia," and which I have considered to be olfactory organs, as did Leydig before me, although I was not aware of it. Thus they form long dense tufts in the males of many Diastylidae, as Van Beneden also states with regard to Bodotria, whilst the females only possess ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller

... surround a stellate depression, the primitive buccal cavity or stomatodaeum, from which the mouth and nasal cavities are developed. The buccal cavity is bounded above by the fronto-nasal process, which is divided by a fissure—the nasal cleft or olfactory pit—into a lateral nasal process, and a mesial nasal process, at the outer angle of which a spheroidal elevation ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... who scents himself with some doctor's stuff like cologne?" continued Low, with the disgust of keen olfactory sensibilities. ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte

... Each cavity is divided into three long, narrow passages by the two pairs of turbinated bones. The lining membrane is the nasal mucous membrane, the lower two-thirds or respiratory portion differing from the upper one-third, in that the latter possesses the nerve endings of the olfactory nerve and is the seat of smell. The five pairs of head sinuses communicate with the nasal cavities. Posteriorly and near the superior extremity of the nasal passages, are two large openings, the guttural, that open into ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... The olfactory, optic, oculo-motor, pathetic, ophthalmic division of the trigeminal, and the abducens nerves are all liable ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... long window aided the deception, and was fitted up solely with goods in the grocery line; but enter the dark low door-way, and get an odorous whiff from within, and one's olfactory nerves would soon convince one ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... and whisky on the breath of a fellow strap hanger, or the cheap perfume emanating from the person of the wondrous lady sitting in front of us, and deplore the fact of our sensitive noses; but, as a matter of fact, we cannot smell at all, our olfactory organs are practically atrophied, by comparison with the development of the sense among the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... formerly seen a stream running from a large reedy pool, was also dry. The hot salt spring of Serinane, east of Lopepe, being undrinkable, we pushed on to Mashue for its delicious waters. In traveling through this country, the olfactory nerves are frequently excited by a strong disagreeable odor. This is caused by a large jet-black ant named "Leshonya". It is nearly an inch in length, and emits a pungent smell when alarmed, in the same manner as the skunk. The scent must be as volatile as ether, for, on irritating the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... shall be glad to show you a treatise on the plant written by an eminent Spanish botanist. Its effect upon me is instantaneous and yet it might serve you quite differently, as our sensitiveness to these reactions of the olfactory nerve are largely idiosyncratic. Let me tap your upper ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson

... definitely. Some believe hearing lies in the antennae. Hicks has made an especial study of a fluid filled cavity closed by a membrane that he thinks he has demonstrated to be the seat of hearing. Leydig, Gerstaecker, and others believe this same organ to be olfactory. Perhaps, after all, there is room for only one more doctor of science who will permanently settle this and a few ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... Droit et l'Homme Gauche," Revue Philosophique, October, 1901. It is here shown that in the constitution of their nervous system the ambidextrous are demonstrably left-sided persons; their optic, acoustic, olfactory, and muscular sensitivity is preponderant on ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... nature of language itself, that there must necessarily be as many modes of conveying our impressions to our fellow-creatures, as there are senses or modes of receiving impressions in them. Accordingly, there are five senses and five languages; to wit, the audible, the visible, the olfactory, the gustatory, and the sensitive. To the two first belong speech and literature. As illustrations of the third, or olfactory language, may be cited the presentation of a pinch of Prince's Mixture to a stranger, or a bottle of "Bouquet du Roi" to a fair acquaintance; both of which ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... was hot, and the shop, close shut and surrounded by so foul a neighbourhood, was ill-smelling. Monsieur Defarge's olfactory sense was by no means delicate, but the stock of wine smelt much stronger than it ever tasted, and so did the stock of rum and brandy and aniseed. He whiffed the compound of scents away, as he put down his ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens



Words linked to "Olfactory" :   olfactive, olfactory impairment, olfactory bulb, olfactory sensation, olfactory brain, olfactory nerve, olfactory modality, smell, olfactory property



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