Listen for haughty sniffing. Vain, haughty, but incredibly beautiful, the unicorn . . . spoke to me. -- Rita, quoted in Self-Hypnosis: The Chicago Paradigm by Stephen Kahn (1990) Simon Green reports a unicorn's "haughty sniffing" in Blue Moon Rising (1991). That said, a unicorn's sniffing is more likely practical than patronizing. A unicorn's capacity for smell can range up to 10,000 different airborne scents, though the precise figure may be influenced by air temperature, altitude, and pH. A short, polite sniff is typically used to reveal fleeting environmental smells. Very occasionally, a unicorn's sniffing will be a manifestation of mild allergies, but this is too rare a phenomenon to concern us here. Accounts of unicorn sniffing in literature include: The unicorns sniffed at them and snorted expressively, but didn't make any hostile moves. -- Christine Morgan, "Lead Me Not" (1997)