of Fu Kien, as follows:  ’As regards the native saffron, the largest specimens are seven or eight feet high.  The leaves are like those of the p’i-p’a (Eriobotrya japonica), but smaller and without hair.  In the autumn it produces a white flower like a grain of maize (Su-mi, Zea mays).  It grows in Fu Chou and Nan Ngen Chou (now Yang Kiang in Kwang Tung) in the mountain wilderness.  That of Fu Chou makes a fine creeper, resembling the fu-yung (Hibiscus mutabilis), green above and white below, the root being like that of the ko (Pachyrhizus thunbergianus).  It is employed in the pharmacopeia, being finely chopped for this purpose and soaked overnight in water in which rice has been scoured; then it is soaked for another night in pure water and pounded:  thus it is ready for prescriptions.’  This plant, as far as I know, has not yet been identified, but it may well be identical with Polo’s saffron of Fu Kien.”

LXXX., pp. 226, 229 n.

THE SILKY FOWLS OF MARCO POLO.

Tarradale, Muir of Ord, Ross-shire, May 10, 1915.

In a letter lately received from my cousin Mr. George Udny Yule (St. John’s College, Cambridge) he makes a suggestion which seems to me both probable and interesting.  As he is at present too busy to follow up the question himself, I have asked permission to publish his suggestion in The Athenaeum, with the hope that some reader skilled in mediaeval French and Italian may be able to throw light on the subject.

Mr. Yule writes as follows:—­

“The reference [to these fowls] in ‘Marco Polo’ (p. 226 of the last edition; not p. 126 as stated in the index) is a puzzle, owing to the statement that they are black all over.  A black has, I am told, been recently created, but the common breed is white, as stated in the note and by Friar Odoric.

“It has occurred to me as a possibility that what Marco Polo may have meant to say was that they were black all through, or some such phrase.  The flesh of these fowls is deeply pigmented, and looks practically black; it is a feature that is very remarkable, and would certainly strike any one who saw it.  The details that they ‘lay eggs just like our fowls,’ i.e., not pigmented, and are ‘very good to eat,’ are facts that would naturally deserve especial mention in this connexion.  Mr. A.D.  Darbishire (of Oxford and Edinburgh University) tells me that is quite correct:  the flesh look horrid, but it is quite good eating.  Do any texts suggest the possibility of such a reading as I suggest?”

The references in the above quotation are, of course, to my father’s version of Marco Polo.  That his nephew should make this interesting little contribution to the subject would have afforded him much gratification.

A.F.  YULE.

The Athenaeum, No. 4570, May 29, 1915, p. 485.

LXXX., pp. 226, 230.

SUGAR.