STAR OF BETHLEHEM. 107 



were in ancient times eaten, Ijoth raw and cooked, as 

 Dioscurides testifietli. A very trivial blunder in copying 

 ur translating- might convert dove's milk into dove's 

 dung, and certain it is that Linnaeus and later writers 

 have regarded this ]A&\\t as the dove's dung, mentioned 

 in the Second Book of Kings vi. 25: "And there was 

 a great famine in Samaria : and, behold, they besieged 

 it, until an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of 

 silver, and the fourth part of a cab (alaout half a i)int) 

 of dove's dung for live pieces of silver.'' But we are 

 not bound to suppose an error anywhere in the text, be- 

 cause Dr. Boyle, and before him Bochart, declare that 

 "pigeon's dung" is a name in common use amongst the 

 Arabs for vegetable substances. In Smith's "Dictionary 

 of the Bible " the Rev. "William Drake says, " there 

 seems good reason for taking this as a literal statement," 

 but adds that " the Arabs call the herb Kali sparrow's 

 dung." Mr. Grindon, in his admirable work on " Scrip- 

 ture Botany," regards the passage as referring to the chick- 

 pea, which is the meanest kind of pulse. 



Let us return to the more agreeable sidjjet't of the 

 2)lace the plant has acquired by its familiar name in the 

 midst of previous associations. It is the star of Bethlehem 

 that shines amid the green herbage of the spring, and 

 pleasantly promises that the summer is coming, just as the 

 other heavenly star gave promise that the Sun of Righteous- 

 ness would arise with healing in His wings. How fitting 

 a theme for such a poet as Henry Kirke White, whose 

 sympathies were ever tenderest towards holy things ! 



The species of orriithogalinii are far too numerous for 

 any moderate amateur to be justified in ins2)ecting them. 

 The best of those that may with safety be j^laiited out 



