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Can Birds Smell?

Abstract

EXAMINATION of the Bird's brain shows that the sense of smell can be but little developed. The olfactory bulbs are small. No medullated nerve-fibres unite them with the rest of the brain. Yet in no birds are the bulbs entirely absent, so far as I am aware. The olfactory membrane of birds presents certain structural peculiarities which are difficult to interpret. The nasal chambers which it lines are not large in any bird, but in some they are sufficiently extensive to suggest that olfaction is not completely in abeyance. The fact that they are better developed in birds which seek their food in the sea (petrels, the tropic bird, &c.), in which pursuit smell can, one would suppose, be of little service, than they are in most other birds seems to indicate that they have some function other than olfaction. Perhaps they serve to warm the inspired air; although here again we are confronted with the difficulty that, in the frigate bird (Fregata), in which the nasal chambers are relatively large, the nostrils are obliterated. Air may, of course, enter the nasal chambers through the cleft palate, but such a mechanism cannot provide for the warming of the air on its passage to the lungs. The teachings of anatomy being so obscure, it seemed to me desirable that direct observations should be made.

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HILL, A. Can Birds Smell?. Nature 71, 318–319 (1905). https://doi.org/10.1038/071318b0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/071318b0

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