THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



95 



wander, to that end, far and w.de. The common yellow crocus of our gardens, not yet 

 naturalized in the fields, appears to be a form of the Turkish luteus. Two or three others, 

 notably the " cloth-of-gold," are cultivated by the curious. 



Allusions to the crocus are frequent in literature, but none of those occurring before the 

 time, probably, of Cowper and Thomson relate to our garden flower. Everything, at all 

 events, in classical verse, in mythology, and in the history of ancient ceremonies and 

 customs which involves mention of " crocus" is to be understood as relating not to the 

 flower per se but to saffron, the dried stigmas of the Crocus sativus, the name being 

 passed on from the drug to the plant from which it was procured. The sativus is one of 

 the autumn-blooming species ; the petals are of the same shade of purple as the nudiflorum, 

 which at a little distance might be mistaken for the economic plant, but is at once 

 distinguished by the crest of stigmas remaining within the flower, whereas in the sativus 

 it hangs out in the shape of an elegant golden tassel. While, accordingly, we look with 

 gladness at our lovely Spring display, mark how the flowers open their bosoms to the 

 embrace of the sunshine, and close when it retires; how the bees dive into the honeyed 

 caverns ; and, alas, how remorselessly the sparrows deal with them. When we turn to the 

 library it is quite a different story. In Oriental countries saffron has been collected from 

 time immemoiial for use as a condiment, a medicine, and a perfume. Luxury employed 

 it in various ways for the surprise and delight of guests at entertainments, and hence it 

 falls quite naturally into the list of odoriferous things valued by Solomon, though the 

 Hebrew word rendered "saffron" karkoni, may possibly also denote carthamine, the 

 yellow colouring matter prepared from safflower, the Carthamus tinctorius, so largely 

 used by the artists of ancient Egypt. Whether Solomon's saffron was prepared in 

 Palestine, or conveyed thither by the famous travelling merchants so often mentioned in 

 the Old Testament, there is no evidence to show. Most probably it was received from 

 Persia. The allusions in classical verse to the delicate amber-yellow denoted by " crocus " 

 are familiar; as, for example, when old Homer speaks of "crocus-robed Aurora," the 

 eastern horizon in the latitude of the Holy Land of the Ideal presenting this colour at the 

 time of sunrise : — 



The Cheerful Lady of the Light, decked in her crocus robe, 

 Dispersed her beams through every part of this enflowered globe. 



Girls, because maidenhood is the aurora of woman's existence, in ancient Greece wore 

 saffron-coloured dresses, as alluded to in ^Eschylus, when Iphigenia, about to be sacrificed, 

 smote everyone around her with the " piteous glance of her eye." Many other par- 

 ticulars were mentioned, in regard both to the garden flower and to saffron. 



THE SOUTH LONDON ENTOMOLOGICAL AND NATURAL 



HISTORY SOCIETY. 



Thursday, 8th March, E. Step, Esq., President, in the chair. 



Mr. R. Adkin exhibited a series of Erebia epipliron, Knoch var. cassiopc, Fb., from 

 Inverness, which were said to be of the type form (epipliron). He had, however, 

 failed to detect the white pupils to the ocellated spots, which was the typical charac- 

 ter. Mr. Weir said that the British form had no trace of the white pupil. 



Mr. Routledge, specimens of a brood of Selcnia bilunaria, Esp., which had laid over 

 the summer of 1892, emerging in April, 1893. Also individuals bred from a pair of 

 the latter, which had emerged at intervals from August, 1893, to February, 1S94, 

 and were all of the small form, although some had the pigment well developed. He 

 also brought a series of Aporopln/la lutulenta, Bork., captured in Cumberland, 

 among which were both the var. sedi, Gn., and the var. luneburgensis, Err. 



Mr. South, exceedingly large specimens of Ocncria dispar, L., formerly in the 

 possession of the late Mr. Standish. 



