EARTH-HOUSES, EIRD-HOUSES, or YIRD-HOUSES, the name which seems to have been generally given throughout Scotland to the under-ground buildings which in some places are called also " Picts' houses" (q.v.), and in others, it would appear " weems," or caves. Martin, in his Description of the Western Islands, printed in 1703, when their use would appear to have been still remembered, speaks of them as " little stone-houses built under ground, called earth-houses, which served to hide a few people and their goods in time of war." The earth-house, in its simplest form, is a single, irregularly shaped chamber, from 4 to 10 ft. in width, from 20 to 60 ft. in length, and from 4 to 7 ft. in height, built of unhewn and uncemented stones, roofed by unhewn flags, and entered from near the top by a rude doorway, so low and narrow that only one man can slide down through it at a time. When the chamber is unusually wide, the side-walls converge, one stone overlapping another, until the space at the ter) can be spanned by stones of 4 or 5 ft. in length. In its more advanced form, the earth-house shows two or more chambers, communicating with one another by a narrow passage. There are. instances in which one of the chambers has the circular shape and dome-roof to which archreologists have given the name of the "Beehive-house" (q.v.). Occasionally, as many as forty or fifty earth-houses are found in the same spot, as in the moor of Clova, not far from Kildrummy, in Aberdeenshire. They appear to have been almost invari ably built in dry places, such as gravelly knolls, steep banks of rivers, and hill-sides. They are generally so near the surface of the ground that the plow strikes upon the flagstones of the roof, and thus leads to their discovery. The object most frequently found in them is a stone quern, or hand-mill, not differing from that which continued to bensed in remote corners of Scotland within the memory of living men. Along with the quern are generally found ashes, bones, and deer's horns; and more rarely small round plates of stone or slate, earthen vessels, cups and implements of bone, stone celts, bronze swords, gold rings, and the like. Occasionally the surface of the ground beside the earth-house shows vestiges of what are supposed to have been rude dwelling-houses, and folds or inclosures for cattle. This, with other things, would indicate that the earth-houses of Scotland and Ireland (for they are found also in that island) were put to the same purpose as the eaves which, as Tacitus (writing in the 2d c.) tells us, the
Germans of his day dug in the earth, as storehouses for their corn, and as places of retreat for themselves during winter or in time of war.
a popular name for the tubers of certain umbelliferous plants, particu larly bunium bulbocastanum and B. jlexuosum, which are common in most parts of Europe. Names of the same signification are given to them in a number of European languages. Arnut, yernut, and jurnut, Scotch and English provincial names, are cor ruptions of earth-nut. PIG-NUT is another common English name, pigs being very fond of these tubers, grubbing up the ground in quest of them, and soon becoming fat upon them. They are also called earth-chestnut, from their resemblance in taste and qualities to chestnuts, perhaps also from their resemblance in size, and their being black or very dark brown externally, and white within. By some they are preferred to chestnuts, and they are much used for food in different parts of Europe; and occasionally in some parts of England, either roasted or in soups. They arc wholesome and nutritious; they form an article of trade in Sweden, and have sometimes been recommended as worthy of an attention which they have never yet received in Britain. The two species are very similar in general appearance, although B. bulbocastanum, has by some botanists been referred to Ike geniis cierum (earaWay), because single vitae between the ribs, whilst"/3. flexuokum has three. The former is also a plant of stouter habit.
Both have umbels of small white flowers, much divided leaves with very narrow seg ments, and a single roundish tuber at the foot of each plant. B. flexuosum is common in woods, pastures, waysides, etc., in most parts of Britain. B. bulbocastanum is found only in some of the chalk districts of England, but is abundant in many parts of Europe. B. feruktceum likewise affords tubers, which are used as food in Greece.—The somewhat similar tubers of another umbelliferous plant, oenanthe pimpinelloides, which grows in the pastures of some parts of the s. of England, are sometimes also used for food, not withstanding the very poisonous qualities of some of its congeners. See WATER-DHOr wORT.-A Himalayan mnbelliferous plant (clurrophyllum fuberosusn), a species of chervil (q.v.), yields edible tubers or name earth-nut is sometimes extended to other small tuberous roots of similar quality, although produced by plants widely remote in the botanical system, as apios tuberoses and lathyrus tuberoses. See Arms and LATHYRUS.