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appeared so great, if this respectable writer had observed that the connective vau is wanting in the original text, which may be thus rendered: " As a crane, a swallow, so did I chatter." The two nouns are not, therefore, necessarily connected with the verb tsaphtsaph, but admit the insertion of another verb suitable to the nature of the > first nominative. The ellipsis may be supplied in this manner: "As a crane, so did I scream, as a swallow, so did I chatter." Such a supplement is not, in this instance, forced and unnatural; for it is evidently the design of Hezekiah to say, that he expressed his grief after the manner of these two birds, and therefore suitably to each; and he uses the verb tsaphtsaph, which properly corresponds only with the last noun, to indicate this design, leaving the reader to supply the verb which corresponds with the other. It is also perfectly agreeable to the manners of the east, where sorrow is expressed sometimes in a low interrupted voice, and anon in loud continued excla mations. The afflicted monarch, therefore, expressed his extreme grief after the manner of the orientals, in loud screams like the crane, or in low interrupted murmurings like the swallow. According to some writers, the verb under consideration signifies the note of any bird, and by consequence may with equal propriety be employed to denote the loud scream of the crane, or the melancholy twitter of the swallow; if this be so, the difficulty admits of an easy solution.

It only remains to be observed, that the crane, although in several points resembling the stork, which the Jewish lawgiver has pronounced an unclean bird, is classed among the clean animals which his people were permitted to eat. The reason is, the crane does not, like the stork, live on

impure or venomous creatures, but on fruits and seeds. It was the design of Jehovah, by those prohibitory laws concerning meats, to prevent his people from tasting impure or unwholesome food; and thus at once to secure, as far as the choice of food can do so, their bodily health and comfort; and suggest the moral and evangelical purity, to which, as a holy nation, they were bound to aspire. In subserviency to these great and benevolent purposes, the crane, which is a granivorous bird, was placed in the list of clean animals, which they might eat without injury to themselves, or offence to their divine sovereign.

The Partridge.

We find only two allusions to this bird in the holy Scriptures. The first occurs in the history of David, where he expostulates with Saul concerning his unjust and foolish pursuit: "The king of Israel is come out to seek a flea, as when one doth hunt a partridge on the mountains." The other in the prohecies of Jeremiah : "As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool.1"

k

The Hebrew name for the partridge is (p) kore, from the verb kara to cry, a name suggested by the harsh note of that bird. Bochart indeed refuses that kore signifies the partridge; he thinks the wood-cock is intended, because the kore of which David speaks in the first quotation, is a mountain bird. But that excellent writer

m

Ælian de Nat. Animal. lib. ii, cap. 1.

gorlas de tus AiyuxTING

καταλαμβανεσι, και τραπεζαν, ως αν ει ποις, άφθονον την εν ταις αρέραις ενροντές»

See also Bochart. Hieroz. lib. i, p. 68.

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* 1 Sam. xxvi, 20. 1 Jer. xvii, 11.

m Hieroz. lib. i, c. 12, p. 80.

did not recollect that a species of partridge actually inhabits the mountains," and by consequence his argument is of no force. Nor is the opinion of others more tenable, that the kore hatches the eggs of a stranger, because Jeremiah observes, "she sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not;” for the passage only means, that the partridge often fails in her attempts to bring forth her young. To such disappointments she is greatly exposed from the position of her nest in the ground, where her eggs are often spoiled by wet, or crushed by the foot.

The manner in which the Arabs hunt the partridge and other birds, affords an excellent comment on the complaint of David to his cruel and unrelenting sovereign ; for observing that they become languid and fatigued after they have been hastily put up two or three times, they immediately run in upon them and knock them down with their bludgeons. It was precisely in this manner that Saul hunted David; he came suddenly upon him, and from time to time drove him from his hiding places, hoping at last to render him weary of life, and find an opportunity of effecting his destruction.

When the prophet says the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not, the male seems to be understood: because both the verbs are masculine, and the verb yalad in the masculine gender cannot signify to lay eggs. The red partridges of France, says Buffon, appear to differ from the red partridges of Egypt; because the Egypttian priests chose for the emblem of a well regulated family, two partridges, the one male, the other female, sitting or brooding together. And by the text in Jere

n Buffon's Nat. Hist. vol. ii, p. 368.

• Shaw's Trav. vol. i, p. 425.

P Nat. Hist. vol. ii, p. 361.

miah, it seems that in Judea the male partridge sat as well as the female. But while the incubation of other birds, which are by no means so attentive, is generally crowned with success, the hopes of the partridge are frequently disappointed by circumstances already noticed, which she can neither foresee nor prevent.

CHAP. XII.

THE SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

The Quail. The Cock.-The Peacock. The Sparrow.

The Quail.

THIS bird is somewhat less than a pigeon, and larger than a sparrow. Its Hebrew name is (w) shelav, which Bochart traces to (bw) shalah, which signifies to live peaceably, or to abound, because in warm countries no bird is more abundant. From its remarkable obesity, it has obtained from the Arabs the name of sumana, which is not less characteristic than the other. But it is more probable that the Hebrew name alludes to the foolish and ruinous security in which the quail is known to indulge. When she lights upon a field abounding in grain, she resigns herself to the power of appetite without fear or suspicion. Devoted entirely to the happiness of the moment, she betrays herself with her incessant singing, and is easily enticed into the snare of the fowler." Josephus renders the term by the Greek word ogruž, and the Septuagint • Bochart. Hieroz. lib. i, p. 96.

by ogrurga, which, in the opinion of some writers, denote birds of a different species. This is the sentiment of Augustine, although he admits that the difference be tween these birds and the quail is very inconsiderable. They appear from the description of different authors, to be only varieties of the same species, of which the ortygometra is represented as in every respect entitled to the preference. She is the mother of the family, of a larger size, and according to Pliny, the hereditary leader in their migrating journies. These terms are, therefore, often used promiscuously to denote the quail.

b

In opposition to this opinion, Ludolf, an author of great celebrity, contends, that the sacred historian alludes to the locust. For if the Hebrew word is derived from a verb which signifies to abound, it applies to the locust with still more propriety than the quail; he adds, that all the oriental versions, and the Arabic authors, have retained the Hebrew word without understanding it, and that Josephus is the first who gave it the common signification, without producing any reason for his interpre

tation.

His arguments, it is readily granted, possess no inconsiderable force; and in the opinion of Saurin, they invalidate, or at least involve the common interpretation in doubt and suspicion. But it may be replied in general, to the reasonings of Ludolf, that the term bw, no where else in the sacred volume, signifies the locust; and therefore ought not, without more powerful reasons than he has been able to produce, to be so rendered in this passage.. Nor will the root from which it proceeds admit of his conjecture; for no creature is more restless than the locust. Besides

b Nat. Hist. lib. x, cap. 33.

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