The Hidden Children by Robert William Chambers Chapter 14 Page 4

“That is true,” I said.

“It is true, Loskiel. As a dog scents water in a wilderness and comes to it from afar, so can I also. Like a dog, too, can I wind the hidden partridge brood — though never the nesting hen — nor can a mink do that much either. But keen as the perfume of a bee-tree, and certain as the rank smell of a dog-fox in March — which even a white man can detect — are the odours of the wilderness to him whose only home it is. And even as a lad, and for the sport of it, have I followed and found by its scent alone the great night-butterfly, marked brown and crimson, and larger than a little bat, whose head bears tiny ferns, and whose wings are painted with the four quarters of the moon. Like crushed sumac is the odour of it, and in winter it hides in a bag of silk.”