2. Allium Ascalonicum. The Ascalonian Garlic, or Shallot, with a naked stem, awl-shaped leaves, 
globose umbels, and 2-cleft stamens, is a perennial plant, a native of the Holy Land, where it was observed 
by Hasselquist. Eschalot (. Eschalotte , Fr.) is the more correct appellation, the name being thus derived by 
some old authors, (Bauhin for example,) and it is styled cepa sterilis, or barren onion, from the circumstance 
of its seldom sending up a flower-stalk. It was cultivated here in 1633. In size and general growth the 
plant resembles the Chive ; but it produces bulbous roots composed of cloves like garlic. These are used 
for culinary purposes in the manner of garlic, but they are milder, and do not communicate to the breath 
the offensive flavour which garlic or even raw onions impart. 
3. Allium Scgrodoprasum. Rocambole Garlic ; Ail d’Espagne of the French, is a perennial plant, 
indigenous to Sweden and Denmark, and was cultivated by Gerarde in 1596. It has compound bulbs, like 
the common garlic, but the cloves are much smaller. It sends up a stem two feet high, which is bulbi- 
ferous ; the leaves are rather broad and crenate at the edges ; the flowers, which are collected in a sort of 
globular head, are of a pale purple colour. The cloves are used in the same manner as garlic or shallot, and 
nearly for the same purposes. 
4. Allium Fistulosum. Cibol or Welsh Onion; La Ciboule de St. Jaques of the French, is a perennial 
plant, a native of Siberia. It appears to have been cultivated in 1629, but it was known a long time pre- 
viously. It produces no bulbs, but the fistular leaves, and the lower part of the stems, are much used in 
salads, in the spring months. 
Medical Properties and Uses. — Garlic resembles the squill in its medical properties, being dia- 
phoretic, and expectorant. Cullen asserts that it acts as a stimulus more promptly and energetically than 
any other, and it is much commended by Bergius for its virtues in agues ; in dropsical affections by Syden- 
ham; and in scurvy by Dr. Lind. It has long been celebrated as a domestic remedy for worms; and in- 
stances are related by Mosentein and Tissot of its expelling tsenia; the usual method of administering it 
being to give the expressed juice in a little milk, or to boil it with sugar to form a syrup : it is, however, 
rarely used in modern practice, having given place to remedies of more decided utility, and less nauseous to 
the taste. In France, the expressed juice diluted, is much employed in asthma, catarrh, and torpor of the 
abdominal viscera. Sydenham extols the application of garlic to the soles of the feet, as an efficacious 
method of producing revulsion from the head ; and it is occasionally applied in the form of poultice to boils 
and indolent tumours. Given in considerable doses, garlic is capable of producing inflammation of the 
alimentary canal ; but taken in moderation, is considered highly beneficial to soldiers and sailors when ex- 
posed to a damp atmosphere; and is recommended to make part of the regimen of those who are exposed 
to the plague and other pestilential disorders. Celsus recommends garlic mixed with rue, as an external 
application against the bites of scorpions and venomous spiders : “ Et ad scorpionis autem et ad aranei ictum 
allium cum ruta recte miscetur, ex oleoque contritum, superimponitur.” — De Med. 1. v. c. xxv. 6. 
Garlic, and onions of various kinds, were highly esteemed in Egypt, and according to Hasselquist, not 
without reason. He conjectures that the A. cepa, which is still used in that country in amazing quantities, 
and forms a most delicious food, is one of the species of onion arter which the Israelites longed when in the 
wilderness. He says, “whoever has tasted onions in Egypt will allow that none can be had better in any 
part of the universe. Here they are sweet, in other countries they are nauseous and strong; here they are 
soft, whereas, in the northern and other parts, they are hard, and their coats so compact that they are 
difficult of digestion. Hence they cannot in any place be eaten with less prejudice and more satisfaction 
than in Egypt.” 
There are none of our customs, says William Howitt, which more mark our selfishness than that of keeping 
singing birds in perpetual confinement, making the pleasure of our ears their misfortune, and that sweet gift, 
Avhich God has given them wherewith to make themselves happy and the country delightful, the curse of their 
lives. If we were contented, however, with taking and rearing young ones, which never knew the actual blessing 
of liberty, or of propagating them in cages or aviaries, the evil would not be so enormous. But the prac- 
tice of seizing singing birds, which have always enjoyed the freedom of the earth and air, in summer when 
they are busy with the pleasant cares of their nests or young broods, and subjecting them to a close prison, 
is detestable — doubly detestable in the case of migratory birds. They have not merely the common love 
of liberty, but the instinct of migration to struggle with ; and it may be safely asserted, that out of every 
ten nightingales so caught, nine pine away and die. Yet the capture of nightingales is very extensively 
practised. The bird-catchers declare them to be the most easily taken of all birds ; and scarcely can one 
of these glorious songsters alight in a copse or a thicket, but these kidnappers are upon it. Some of these 
men assure me that the female birds arrive about ten days later than the males, whose songs give notice 
of their retreats, on hearing which the females alight ; therefore, when nightingales first appear, the bird- 
catchers are almost sure of taking only male birds, which, being the singers, are the only ones they want. 
The nightingale, a bird which God has created to fly from land to land to crown the pleasantness of spring 
with the most delicious music ; or a lark, which he has made to soar, in the rapture of its heart, up to 
Heaven’s gates, — “cribbed, cabined and confined” in a narrow cage by man, is one of the most melancholy 
objects on earth. Let those who have hearts for it keep them, and listen to them with what pleasure they 
may ; for my part, while I am myself sensible of the charms of freedom, and of the delights of the summer 
fields, I shall continue to prefer the “ wood notes wild ” of liberty to a captive’s wail. 
