30 BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 



it treats of the nomenclature of plants ; l but 

 lie meets the difficulties which this peculi- 

 arity presents, difficulties which Prof. Meyer 

 has already insisted on, with a general plea 

 of rejection. He thinks that it is Ibn "Wah- 

 shiya who has substituted the names in use 

 in his own time for Nabathaean names, and 

 that he has added to them their various 

 synonymes. That is certainly by no means 

 impossible. It must be remembered, how- 

 ever, that Ibn Wahshiya is neither a 

 botanist nor an agronomist by profession. 

 He is a translator, proud of the ancient 

 literary glory of his race, and who translates 

 alike every Xabathsean work which comes 

 to hand. What would be natural in an 

 agronomist, pre-occupied with the practical 

 utility of his book, cannot be attributed to 

 him. He never appears to endeavour to 

 accommodate his translation to the exigency 

 of his age, as is the usual case in an ordi- 

 nary work. The Greek names given by Ibn 

 Wahshiya, moreover, are not the vulgar, but 



1 Pp. 81, 82. 



