Cuckow

The Heb. word is from a root signifying leanness. It occurs only in Lv 11" and Dt 14'°, in the list of un- clean birds. No scholar now renders it by ciwlcuw {cuckoo). Various slender birds have been proposed, as the stormy petrel, the shearwater, the tern, and the gull or seamew. The RV, following the LXX and the Vulg., has seamew. It is probably to be understood generically for birds of the Lariuce, the gull family. G. E. PosT. CUCUMBER (D'Kij^p kishshu'tm, aUvoi, cucuTrures).

— Cucumbers are universally cultivated in the E., and are a favourite article of food. Two species or varieties are common, Cucumis sativus, L. , which is the ordinary green or whitish cucumber, ami C. C/uite, L., which is originally an Egyptian plant. The former is called in Arab, khiudr. It lias a very delicate flavour, and is more wliolesome than the Eurojiean variety. The latter is known by the name kiththd or inikti, which is a modilication of the Heb.

K»p, and is doubtless the vegetable referred to as one of the good things of Egypt (Nu 11'). It is longer and more slemler than tlie com- mon cucuiiilier, being often more than a foot long, and sonieliines liss than an inch thick, and pointed at both ends. It has a thick, hairy, mottled or striped green rind, with a less juicy pulp than the k/iii/Ar, but a similar, though less delicate, tlavour. Although originating in Egypt, it is everywhere 532 CULTURE CUNNING cultivated in the East.

It is esteemed coarser than the khiyAr, and sold cheaper. A cardinal dili'erence between the kiththd and the khiyAr is that the latter cannot be cultivated without constant irrigation. The kiththd, while often cultivated on watered soil, and then attain- ing a large size, grows on perfectly dry soil also, without a drop of water through the hot summer months, during which it flourishes. The word khiydr i« said to be of Persiui origin. A *LODOI Cf A GARDEN OP OUODUBBSB.'

The expression 'garden of cucumbers' (Is 1') is nj'PC mikshdh, a noun of place, meaning the place of kisltshu, and is exactly reproduced in the Arab. miktha'at. Tlie lodge is the booth of the man who watches the patch. This booth is made of four upright poles, 6 or 8 ft. high, planted in the ground, and tied by withes of flexible bark to four hori- zontal poles at their tip. Over the frame made by these horizontal poles are laid cross poles, and, over all, branches of trees.

Sometimes a floor is made by tying four other horizontal poles at a few inches or feet above the ground, and laying over them a flooring of cross poles. Walls are some- times made of wattled branches, more or less enclosing the frail tenement. Such booths are to be seen in all the cucumber and melon patclies, and in vineyards and other cultivated land which requires watching.

They are fitting emblems of instability, as the withes with which they are tied together give way before the winds of autumn, the branches are scattered, and the whole structure soon drops into a shapeless heap of poles and wattles, themselves soon to be carried ofl' and used as firewood, or left to rot on the ground. G. E. Post.