CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. WILD INOFFENSIVE ANIMALS. The Wild Ass-The Rock Goat-The Antelope-The Hart and the Hind-The Hare-The Coney-The MouseThe Bat CHAPTER IV. DUBIOUS ANIMALS. The Behemoth-The Leviathan-The Unicorn CHAPTER V. BIRDS. Structure and Sagacity of Birds-Names and Divisions of The Peacock The Owl-The Partridge-The Quail-WATER BIRDS: CHAPTER VI. FISHES. Biblical Appellations-Tyrian Trade in Fish-Large Quan tities in the Sea of Galilee CHAPTER VII. REPTILES. Biblical Designations-Mistakes in the English Bible Ferret-Frog-Gecko. Their Rank in Animated Nature-Multiplicity and Variety - Wondrous structure of Insects-The Honey Bee- 225 The Reader will find that each volume after the first has a double paging, the top series of figures being limited to the individual volume, the bottom one running on through each four volumes, which will thus ultimately form one, with a continuous paging, and new title-pages and contents. Thus each subject is completed in a single volume, but the whole of the twelve volumes will be so arranged as to form an unbroken work, in three thick volumes -AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE. Vol. VII., THE SOURCES AND CHARACTER OF SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES, REAL AND IMAGINARY, will be published on the 1st of May, and the succeeding volumes, one on the 1st of each month, till completed. VIII. AN EXAMINATION OF SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES:THE PENTATEUCH. IX. AN EXAMINATION OF SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES:THE POST MOSAIC HISTORIES. X. AN EXAMINATION OF SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES:THE POETIC AND PROPHETIC BOOKS. XI. AN EXAMINATION OF SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES:THE GOSPELS. XII. AN EXAMINATION OF SCRIPTURE DIFFICULTIES:THE ACTS AND THE EPISTLES. PART IV. ZOOLOGY. INTRODUCTION. THIS part will complete the Natural Science of the Bible, embracing, as it does, the whole range of animated being. We need not add, that it forms one of the most interesting as well as useful branches of study and of knowledge. We have to acknowledge, however, that our information on the natural history, especially of the animals, of Palestine is comparatively limited and imperfect, and that we are still at a loss to identify some of the animals mentioned in the sacred text. The translators of the English Bible, learned and able though they were, ingenuously acknowledged their perplexity; and long after their time, the accomplished Linnæus names Palestine as one of the countries of the natural history of which there was great ignorance, of which, he says he himself partook. "With this remarkable country," as he observes, "we are less acquainted than with the remotest parts of India; and though its natural history is the most necessary for divines and writers on the Scriptures, who have used their greatest endeavours to know the animals therein mentioned, yet they could not, with any degree of certainty, determine which they were, 123 before some one had been there, and informed himself of the natural history of the place." The reference in the concluding sentence of this passage is to Dr. Hasselquist, who had been induced by Linnæus to supply the desideratum, and who, by his researches in Egypt and the Holy Land, removed much of the obscurity that had previously rested upon the subject. The learned J. D. Michaelis again directed attention to it, and Forskal and Niebuhr, under the patronage of the king of Denmark, added considerably to the stock of knowledge which Hasselquist had brought together. Dr. Shaw and Mr. Bruce also contributed to our information; and with the critical labours of Bochart, Rudbeck, Braunius, and others, and the narratives and itineraries of Forskal, Niebuhr, Hasselquist, Russell, Mandrell, Shaw, Burckhardt, Irby and Mangles, Robinson, Hooker, Canon Stanley, and Tristram,* in our hands, we possess materials for dealing with the natural history of Syria of which the biblicists of little more than half a century since were destitute. Nevertheless, we are far from being able to pronounce with certainty on some of the animals mentioned in the Old Testament―á consideration which will induce sound and cautious scholars to pause before they pronounce, as some with more temerity have done, on the character and habits of certain animals supposed to be mentioned in the eleventh chapter of Leviticus. But whatever may be our difficulties as to various of the Levitical animals, Moses seems to have had *We would strongly recommend Mr. Tristram's "Natural History of the Bible," recently published by the "Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge," to all who wish to enter fully into the subject. |