Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1890 — SMELL IN HORSES. [ARTICLE]

SMELL IN HORSES.

Examples to Prove that the Sense Is Extremely Keen. The horse will leave musty hay untouched in his bin no matter how hungry, says the Horse and Stable. He will not drink of water objectionable to his questioning sniffs, or from a bucket which some other odor makes offensive, however thirsty. His intelligent nostril will widen, quiver and jquery over the daintiest bit offered by the fairest of hands. A mare is never satisfied by either sight or whinny that jhqp colt is really hers until she has certified the fact by means of her nose. Blind horses, as a rule, will gallop wildly about a pasture without striking the surrounding fence. The sense of smell informs thorn of its proximity. Others will, when loosened from the stable, go directly to the gate or bars opening to their accustomed feedinggrounds, and when desiring to return, ■after hours of careless wandering, will distinguish the one outlet and patiently await its opening. The odor ■of that particular part of the fence is {their guide to it The horse in brow - ttng, or while gathering herbage with mis lip, is guided in its choice of proper food entirely by its nostrils. Blind horses do not make mistakes in their diet In the temple of Olympus a bronze horse was exhibited, at the sight of which six real horses experienced the most violent emotions. riSlian judiciously observed that tha most perfect art could not imitate nature sufficiently well to produce so perfect an illusion. Like Pliny and Pausanias, he consequently affirms that “in casting the statue a magician had thrown hippomanes upon it,” which, by the odor of the plant deceived the horses, and therein we have the secret of the miracle. The. scent alone of a buffalo robe will cause many horses to evince lively terror, and the floating scent of a railway train will frighten some long after the locomotive is out of sight and hearing.