THE NATURALIST. 



JUNE, 1832. 



THE FIG TREE. 



The fig tree is evidently a native of that part of Asia, where the 

 garden of Eden is generally said to have been situated, as it is the 

 only tree particularly named in those passages of the Bible, which 

 relate to the creation and fall of man. ' And they sewed fig leaves 

 together and made themselves aprons.' It is a fruit that appears to 

 have been highly esteemed by the Israelites, who brought figs 

 out ol the land of Canaan, when they were sent by Moses to as- 

 certain the produce of that country. 



The fig tree is often mentioned both in the -Old and the New Tes- 

 tament, in a manner to induce us to conclude that it formed a 

 principal part of the food of the Syrian nation. In the twenty- 

 fifth chapter of the first book of Samuel, we read, that when Ab- 

 agail went to meet David, to appease him for the afiront given by 

 Nabal her husband, she took with her, among other provisions, a 

 present of two hundred cakes of figs. 



"When Lycurgus banished luxury from Sparta, and obliged the 

 Spartan men to dine in one common hall, to enforce the practice 

 of temperance and sobriety, every one was obliged to send thith- 

 er his provisions monthly, which consisted of about one bushel of 

 flour, eight measures of wine, five pounds of cheese and two 

 pounds and a half of figs. 



The Athenians were so choice of their figs, that it was forbid- 

 den to export them out of Attica. Those who gave information 

 ofthis fruit being sold contrary to law, were called sykophantai, from 

 two Greek words signifying the discoverers of figs; and as they 

 sometimes gave -mahcious information, the term was afterwards 

 apphed to all informers, parasites, liars, flatterers, imposters ^"C, . 

 from whence the word sycophant is derived. 

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