DOVES DUNG. 



(Star of Bethlehem.) 



On itliogalum Umbellatum. 



name occurs only in 2 Kings vi. 25, where it is 

 said that in the famine at Samaria a &quot;fourth part of a 

 cab [or nearly a pint] of doves dung was sold for five 

 pieces of silver.&quot; This has not generally been supposed 

 to be the name of a plant; and, if not, perhaps the use 

 to which the substance spoken of was put was such as might 

 be made of any fertilizer. Some, however, have supposed that 

 the name is that of a certain little plant, the bulbous root 

 of which was eaten not long after the times of our Saviour; 

 for Dioscorides says that it was dried, pulverized, and mixed 

 with bread-flour, and was eaten raw as well as roasted, and 

 speaks of thirty-six known species. In the times of Lauren- 

 tins, the peasants of Italy and the neighboring countries ate 

 the roasted roots of the onithogalum as they would eat chest 

 nuts. The Rabbins think that the contents of the crops of 

 pigeons was the article referred to, and that after full meals 

 from the encampments of the besiegers those birds fled to 

 their homes in the besieged city. But it seems probable that 

 the pigeons or doves would have been slain for food long before 

 the extremity of the famine ; and, in any case, they must have 

 been slain to obtain the contents of the crops, when it would 



