BLOOD FEUD, the right of individual, or family, vengeance in cases of bloodshed. In a very primitive state of society the ten dency toward private instrumentality in the punishment of crime is largely unchecked. In passing from this stage to the highly organ ized system of legal penalties enforced by modern civilized governments, the regulation of the blood fetid was a marked step in the advancement of the race. It is true that the right of private vengeance was recognized, but it was put under restrictions and gradually nar rowed in its action. The slayer had the right of sanctuary, illustrated by the cities of refuge in Israel tinder the Mosaic economy, by the altars of pagan deities and by the churches of the Middle Ages. The danger of dragging entire clans into retributive warfare to avenge a single murder was averted by limiting the right of vengeance to the immediate family, or the next of kin to the one slain, and the privilege of purchasing exemption by the were geld tended to check a blood penalty. The ac ceptance of the blood-money was finally made obligatory. The amount of the fine imposed upon the murderer varied among the Anglo Saxons according to the rank of the victim. The family feuds among the mountain whites in certain sections of the United States form an interesting modern instance of the survival of the primitive institution of blood feud. See
ASYLUM, RIGHT OF; AVENGER OF BLOOD; CITIES OF REFUGE and consult Jenks, 'Law and Poli tics in the Middle Ages); Maine, 'Ancient Law' (London 1905); 'Lectures on the Early History of Institutions' (6th ed., London 1893); Pollock and Maitland, 'History of Eng lish Law' (2d ed., Boston 1899); Stephen, 'History of the Criminal Law of England' (London 1883).
or a genus (themanthus) of about 60 species of summer- and autumn-blooming bnlbous-rooted plants of the family Amaryllidacece, natives mostly of south Africa, named from the gen eral color of their flowers, which are arranged in umbels arising on an often beautifully col ored scape either before the foliage or from a rosette of radical leaves. The few species cultivated in American greenhouses have not become widely popular, but are worthy of more extended culture, since the individual flowers are often two inches in diameter and the umbel sometimes a foot across. They may be cultivated like the nerine. Since some of the most attractive species reproduce slowly, the bulbs are often cut in two horizontally and treated like hyacinth bulbs similarly cut. Several new bulbs form around the margin of the cut halves. Consult Bailey, 'Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture' (1915).