Prejudice against the reportedly smelly

That was what we were taught—the lower classes smell. And here, obviously, you are at an impassable barrier. For no feeling of like or dislike is quite so fundamental as a physical feeling. Race-hatred, religious hatred, differences of education, of temperament, of intellect, even differences of moral code, can be got over; but physical repulsion cannot. You can have an affection for a murderer or a sodomite, but you cannot have an affection for a man whose breath stinks—habitually stinks, I mean. However well you may wish him, however much you may admire his mind and character, if his breath stinks he is horrible and in your heart of hearts you will hate him. It may not greatly matter if the average middle-class person is brought up to believe that the working classes are ignorant, lazy, drunken, boorish and dishonest; is it when he is brought up to believe that they are dirty that the harm is done.

George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1958), p. 85 (1st U.S. ed.; pub. in England in 1937)

Darwin's stinky South American deer

During our stay at Maldonado [Uruguay] I collected several quadrupeds, eighty kinds of birds, and many reptiles, including nine species of snakes. Of the indigenous mammalian, the only one now left of any size, which is common, is the Corvus campestris. . . .

The most curious fact with respect to this animal, is the overpoweringly strong and offensive odour which proceeds from the buck. It is quite indescribably: 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. This appears an astonishing instance of the permanence of some matter, which nevertheless in its nature must be most subtitle and volatile. Frequently, when passing at the distance of half a mile to leeward of a herd, I have perceived the whole air tainted with the effluvium.

Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle (London: John Murray, 1913 reprint ed., ch. III, pp. 49-50

Unscented fawns

Deer and elk, cervids, are graced with a natural survival trait that helps protect their offspring. Newborn deer fawns and elk calves have very little smell, so when the mother moves away from the herd to give birth, it's harder for predators to find the virtually odorless babies. But even with this protection, bears and other predators know when calving is going on and the smell of blood from the birthing process allows them to home in on the newborns.

Immediately after the calf is born, many of the mothers eat the afterbirth, the placenta, to lessen the chances for detection by predators. Then they move the calf away from the birth site, hide it in thick vegetation, and walk away. The scentless calf lies perfectly still until the mother returns, so a hungry predator can walk very, very close to the baby and pass it by without even realizing the calf is there.

Kim DeLozier & Carolyn Jourdan, Bear in the Back Seat II: Adventures of a Wildlife Ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (2014)

Sometimes it's good not to have a sharp sense of smell

Luckily, considering my line of work, I have a poor sense of smell, so the processing was more bearable for me than for the others.

Dr. Bill Bass & Jon Jefferson, Beyond the Body Farm: A Legendary Bone Detective Explores Murders, Mysteries, and the Revolution in Forensic Science (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), p.149. (I decided not to quote the part that explains what they were working on. Just imagine what a forensic anthropologist gets called in on.)

Do bears sniff in the woods?

It’s very easy for the bears to find garbage because they have what many scientists believe is the most sensitive nose in the world. Their sense of smell is seven times better than a bloodhound’s and 2,100 times better than a human’s.

Kim DeLozier & Carolyn Jourdan, Bear in the Back Seat 1: Adventures of a Wildlife Ranger in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (2013) 

Scent of a resident

I learned that exhaustion leaves its own olfactory imprint. The white coats of residents who had been up through the night had an acrid, stale odor—the smell of dirtied polyester, sweat-stained cotton, and human flesh trapped too long away from sunlight and normal circadian rhythms. I could recognize my exhausted colleagues with my eyes closed.

Pauline W. Chen, Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality  (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), ch. 8

Smelly Edison

[Thomas Edison] had the Victorian aversion to water, and throughout his life took at most one bath a week . . . [his] appearance was often accentuated by a pungent odor of things organic and inorganic.

Robert Conot, A Streak of Luck: The Life and Legend of Thomas Alva Edison (New York: Seaview Books, 1979), p. 86, quoted in Jon Gertner, The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation (New York: Penguin, 2012), p. 367.