[A Naturalist’s Voyage Round the World by Charles Darwin]@TWC D-Link book
A Naturalist’s Voyage Round the World

CHAPTER II
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In this country nobody goes on foot, and the deer knows man as its enemy only when he is mounted and armed with the bolas.

At Bahia Blanca, a recent establishment in Northern Patagonia, I was surprised to find how little the deer cared for the noise of a gun: one day I fired ten times from within eighty yards at one animal; and it was much more startled at the ball cutting up the ground than at the report of the rifle.

My powder being exhausted, I was obliged to get up (to my shame as a sportsman be it spoken, though well able to kill birds on the wing) and halloo till the deer ran away.
The most curious fact with respect to this animal, is the overpoweringly strong and offensive odour which proceeds from the buck.

It is quite indescribable: several times whilst skinning the specimen which is now mounted at the Zoological Museum, I was almost overcome by nausea.

I tied up the skin in a silk pocket-handkerchief, and so carried it home: this handkerchief, after being well washed, I continually used, and it was of course as repeatedly washed; yet every time, for a space of one year and seven months, when first unfolded, I distinctly perceived the odour.


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