ftp.perl.org strangeness

[Rick Knospler]

I am running the latest cvs build of freebsd 4.9 stable..

I'm trying to connect via ftp to ftp.perl.org to do an automatic cpan perl 
module installation.

I am getting an error message

[rick at cherry ~]: ftp ftp.perl.org
ftp: ftp.perl.org: Non-recoverable failure in name resolution
ftp>

however, ping works fine for name resolution and other ftp sites resolve 
and connect fine as well..

This happens on 2 different freebsd servers..  Works great from a windows box..

Any clues?

-Rick