ISO OUR DOMESTIC FOWm. 



Is the use of guano after all, an agricultural 

 art of high antiquity? We -will not trust 

 ourselves to answer. The following passage 

 from the Pictorial Bible gives a compendium 

 of all that has been mooted on the subject. 

 *' The fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for 

 five pieces of silver. This was about half a 

 pint for 1 2s. 6d. There has been much diver- 

 sity of opinion about the 'dove's dung.' 

 Some of the rabbins inform us that it was 

 used for fuel. Josephus says, that it was 

 purchased for its salt. Some think it means 

 grain taken from the crops of pigeons, which 

 could of course get out of the beseigedtown and 

 feed in the open country ; many believe that it 

 was wanted for manure, and Bochart, followed 

 by most modern commentators, contends that, 

 the name though literally dove's dung means an 

 article of vegetable food. As he observes, the 

 Arabs give the name of dove's dung to a kind 

 of moss that grows on trees and strong ground, 

 and also to a sort of pulse or pea which ap- 

 pears to have been very common in Judaea, and 

 which may be the article here indicated. Large 

 quantities of it are parched and dried and 

 stored in magazines at Cairo and Damascus. 

 It is much used during journeys, and parti- 



