THE FIG. 245 



them to that which the taste of human blood is said to 

 have upon the lion ; for if once they have been suffered 

 to fly upon a fig-tree and help themselves to its produce, 

 the only way, says he, to prevent their attacking the 

 trees again is to kill them. But the most delicious form 

 in which the fig can possibly be partaken of is when it 

 becomes itself animated, for though a feathered flying fig 

 may seem rather a startling notion, it is nevertheless a 

 fact, realized, ,to the great felicity of gourmands, in the 

 Becqfico, a mere animal assimilation of ihefaus, described 

 by Viellot as " like a small lump of light fat savoury, 

 melting, easy of digestion, and, in truth, an extract of the 

 juice from the delicious fruits it has fed upon." In the 

 southen parts of France and in Italy almost all little 

 birds with slender beaks are indiscriminately called JSeca- 

 Jico, because in the autumn they attack and eat the figs, 

 whereby even their flesh becomes very fat and well- 

 flavoured ; but the bird to which that name really and 

 peculiarly belongs, and which, it would seem, seldom stoops 

 to any other food, surpasses all in its exquisite delicacy, 

 and has been prized in all ages as the daintiest morsel of 

 the bon vivant, having been reckoned by the ancients 

 among the most refined of dishes, and forming at Rome 

 the sole exception to that gastronomic theorem which 

 pronounced that nothing was worth eating in birds but 

 the leg and lower part of the body, the fig-pecker enjoy- 

 ing the exclusive privilege of being eaten entire. 



To return, however, to the fig proper. In former times 

 it gained an evil notoriety as a common vehicle for poison, 

 probably on account of its being so generally a favourite 

 fruit; and the " fig of Spain" alluded to in Shakespeare 

 is supposed to have referred to the popular belief in the 

 prevalence of this custom in the Peninsula; while, in 

 classic days at least, the " Livian Eig " owed its name to 

 the assertion that it had been used by Livia, the wife of 

 the Emperor Augustus, to convey to her husband a fatal 

 and infallible notice of divorce. It was in a basket of 

 figs, too, that the asp reposed whose next resting-place 

 was on the throne that kings had coveted the fair bosom 

 of the doomed Cleopatra, with whom this fruit is said to 



