"The idea," says the author of "Scripture Illustrated," "seems to be that of a person who, having met with ingratitude, leaves the ungrateful to all calamities; his field having got one wild beast in it, he relinquishes it to all wild beasts. The question is, what is this wild beast? Let us investigate the import of the words. The word oITH signifies the rusher,' whether bird, beast, or man. The word TJEBUO signifies 'stupid or streaked.' 'The stupid rusher,' then, is the literal meaning of the words used. The hyæna is most probably intended. It is well known at Aleppo,' says Russell, lives in hills at no great distance from the town, and is held in great terror.' It is of the size of a large dog; is remarkably striped or streaked; has much similitude to the wolf in nature and form, but has only four toes to each foot, in which it is very nearly singular; it is extremely wild, sullen, and ferocious; will sometimes attack men; rushes with great fury on flocks and cattle; ransacks graves, devours dead bodies, &c." Bishop Blayney, however, advocates the original translation of "the ravenous bird," but admits the impossibility of determining with certainty the species referred to.

One other passage in Scripture is supposed to point to the hyæna. It has been contended that the words rendered in our English version," the valley of Zeboim" (1 Sam. xiii. 18), should be translated "the valley of hyænas." Ancient interpreters of the sacred writings so understood it. But the evidence which Bochart has heaped together on the subject, and the chain of reasoning with which he supports this hypothesis, is too voluminous and abstruse for our pages.

WILD-CAT.

THE difficulty in identifying many of the animals mentioned in Scripture has been already referred to. The translators of the English version have evaded this in some measure in the present instance, by rendering the Hebrew word which the learned Bochart translates "wild-cats," by the indefinite expression "wild beasts of the desert" (Isaiah, xiii. 21, xxxiv. 14; Jer. 1. 39; Ps. lxxiv. 14). In the passage last quoted, they have, however, added still further to the confusion, by

rendering the same word "people inhabiting the wilderness." In addition to the authority already quoted, we may add that of Bishop Lowth, who translates the word "mountain-cats ;" and Dr. Blayney, in the passage in Jeremiah agrees with Bochart in rendering it "wild-cats." That the passage is not free from difficulty may, however, be inferred from some commentators insisting that the bat is the animal referred to, while others have rendered it "serpents."

The wild-cat is found in the deserts of Asia and Africa, and is by no means of unfrequent occurrence in our own country. It is chiefly distinguished from the domestic variety by its superior size and strength, and the greater fierceness of its disposition. Its fur is also longer and more shaggy. In England it delights in the mountainous districts of the north, and chooses for the place of its habitation the hollow of a tree. It produces four young ones at a litter.

During the day the wild-cat remains in a state of comparative inaction, reposing on the lower spray of forest trees; but about night-fall it becomes very active, and sometimes commits great

havoc in the poultry-yard. Its chief food consists of hares, partridges, and other game; and it is sometimes said to attack lambs. Though in this country it occasionally reaches a formidable sizesome instances having occurred in which it has measured five feet from the nose to the point of the tail-it never voluntarily attacks man; but when pursued and wounded it is apt to spring upon its assailant, and bite and scratch very fiercely. It is now the most powerful beast of prey with which our country is infested.

The ancient Egyptians held the cat in high estimation. We are informed by Herodotus, that when a cat died, the owner of the house shaved his eyebrows, and mourned as for a child. They embalmed the bodies of their cats, and afterwards carried them to a particular city for interment. To kill a cat was considered a capital offence, and punished by fine, at the will of the priests. These enactments were useful in a political point of view. It was necessary to put under the immediate guardianship of the laws, a species of animals whose protection was indispensable against the prodigious multitudes of rats and mice by which

Egypt was infested; and the most effectual means of securing themfrom injury, was to render them objects of religious veneration. In modern times these animals are no longer held sacred in Egypt, but they are still treated with great care and kindness.

THE CROCODILE (“LEVIATHAN”). COMMENTATORS are now very generally agreed that this is the animal mentioned by Job under the name of "leviathan." The older writers supposed that the whale was the animal referred to; but the learning and industry of Bochart has accumulated such a mass of evidence in favour of the crocodile, as almost to defy opposition. Dr. Mason Good thus sums up the argument: "It is a sufficient objection to the whale tribes that they do not inhabit the Mediterranean, much less the rivers that empty themselves into it; some of the species have occasionally been found in this quarter, but the great whale perhaps never. This family of marine monsters, moreover, have neither proper