132 Brigade- Surgeon J. E. 'I\ Aitchison's Notea on Products 

 Meles species. The ]>adger, gorkan. 



Melon — the fruit of Cucumis Melo. 

 Merc ury — slmCih. 



Merendera persica, Boivi<. Iaisiac^jy.. 



The corms, which may be one of the forms of the Hekmo- 

 DACTYLUS of the ancients. ShamhalU, shdnhalU, surinjdn. 

 This plant is very common all over the Badghis and 

 Khorasan ; the corms are largely collected and exported from 

 Meshad to be employed in medicine, through Persia to India, 

 via the Persian Gulf. It occurs in abundance on the Shutar- 

 gardan Pass in the Kuram district, and extends as far south 

 as the Salt-range in the Punjab, and east to Gugarkhan, in 

 the form of Merendera Aitchisoni, Hook. fit. It was col- 

 lected on the encamping ground at Gugarkhan in the Punjab 

 by General P. Stubbs, E.A., and subsequently at the same 

 place by myself ; this, I suppose, is its most southern and 

 eastern limit. 



Mesh — jij,^ — a sheep. 



Meshad — the holy city of the Persians ; Mash-had 



— cs^L^ — a burying-place, especially for those 



who have been killed fighting for their religion. 

 Metals, and their salts ; see arsenic, copper, gold, 



iron, lead^ silver, zinc, tin. 

 Meth — Baluchi for a sheep. 

 Mica — dbrak, talk. Is imported as a medicine, and 



also to be crushed and employed as a facing to 



plaster of Paris. 



Microrhynchus spinosus, Benth. et Hooker. Composit.!;. 



The plant, charklia, cMrkha, sid-kd ; the glue-like gum, 

 sliilim-i-chirkha. This is a very common shrub, yielding a 

 gelatinous strongly-scented glue-like substance. It appears 

 at first as a milky juice exuding from different parts of the 

 stem and branches, which as it dries resembles little chips 

 of glue, and which when fresh gives forth a most nauseating 

 odour like that of decomposed meat. It is collected and 

 employed to adulterate the true anzarut, or the Saecocolla 

 drug. 



