MARCH 41 



latum), whereof the leaves, now pushing up luxuriantly 

 over wide spaces of ground, so closely resemble those of 

 the crocus. Although a native of southern Europe and 

 Syria, it is quite at home in our sloppy climate, 

 spreading freely through the grass, punctual in opening 

 its starry white flowers in early summer at 11 P.M. 

 and closing them at 4 P.M. (Greenwich, not summer, 

 time). About the generic name Ornithogalum, meaning 

 bird's milk, Mr. Weathers remarks in his excellent 

 Bulb Book origin mysterious ; but its significance is 

 easily explained. We read in 2 Kings vi. 25 that the 

 famine^in besieged Samaria was so severe that ' an ass's 

 head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver and the 

 fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of 

 silver.' Now from early youth onward it puzzled me to 

 imagine to what use could dove's dung be put as nutri- 

 ment. The matter was explained to me by the late 

 Canon Tristram of Durham, who had travelled much in 

 the East and wrote The Land of Moab. He told me 

 that the star of Bethlehem whitened the plains of Syria 

 with its flowers in spring, which had earned for it from 

 the Greeks the name of Ornithogalon bird's milk, but 

 from the Arabs a less elegant term expressing ' dove's 

 dung.' The bulbs of this plant being edible, of course 

 commanded a high price during the siege. When a 

 friend presented me with a copy of the revised version 

 of the Old Testament, I turned up the passage in Kings 

 to see whether the true sense had been given to the 

 statement ; but found that the only change had been 

 to spell the measure ' kab ' instead of ' cab ' ! 



At first sight it seemed strange that the bulbs of the 



