86 THE EEV. F. A. WALKEi;, D.D., F.L.S., Oi\ 



generally recognised as the " lotns " is that of the 

 water lily, and especially the famous Egyptian 

 species, tiympha'a Lotus, in particular. 



The Duke of Westminster's famous collection of aquatic 

 plants at Eaton Hall, comprising not only the Egyptian 

 lotus but sundry other species of water lily, too, is known as 

 the Lotus house. 



The accompanying enumeration may serve to throw some 

 light on the subject : — 



(1) Lotus, \cot6<; (lotos), the icatci' lili/ mentioned in Hero- 



dotus, II, 92; Edgar A. Poe's .4^ Aamaf; T. 

 Moore's LciUa Rookli. 



(2) Lotus, t/te Greek lotos, a kind of clover in meadows 



round Sparta and Troy. Perhaps Trifolium meli- 

 lotus. Homer JL 21, 351 ; Gd. 4, 603. 



(3) Ijotus, Cyrenean lotos, an African shrub whose fruit 



was the food of certain tribes on the coast, hence 

 called L^Gtopluiyi Herodotus, IV, 177; Homer, Od. 

 IX, 84; Tennyson, Lotos-eaters. In the Gd. its 

 fruit also is called Xoirb^; /j,e\i7jS7J<i, " sweet as 

 honey." 



And Herodotus compares it in size to the fruit of the 

 a'xJvo'i (as large as the mastich), in taste to the date ((polvi^} 

 aiid says that wine was made of it. 



"Avdtvov eLSap in the Gdyssey refers not literally to the 

 flower being eaten, but to the vegetable nature of the 

 food. {Addenda J V.) 



Lord Tennyson has not helped to make matters clearer,, 

 when in his L^otos-eaters he has sung of the gaUngal in 

 North Africa. GaUngal is the Kviretpov of Homer mentioned 

 along with the abundance of clover (Gd. ]\, 603) in the 

 description of the realm of ^Menelaus of Sparta. 



2i' yap TTeBioio avacraeis 

 'Evpins, o) €Vi fxiv Acoroy ttoXvs ev 8e KVTveipov. 



Thus gaUngal, Avhich is a kind of sedge, and that I have 

 myself gathered both north and south of Naples, at the 

 Solfatara, and at Massa, the Cyperxis esculentus of botanists is 

 mentioned in Greece as growing along with lotos, the clover, 

 by Homer. 



Tennyson has spoken of it in Cyrene as growing along- 

 with lotos, the shrub. Yet again, he has described the 



