THE COCK

OF THE

SECOND

CENTURY.

By E. CAMBRIDGE PHILLIPS, F.L.S., &c.

THROUGH the kindness of the Rev. P. H. S. Strong of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, I send you an impression of a curious antique bloodstone or Gnostic gem, found by him at a place called Hillah, near Baghdad, almost on the ruins of Babylon, where Hillah, a small town, is situated. This gem is figured in Mr. King's Handbook of Engraved Gems, p. 97, and is almost identical with the above, except that this one faces towards the west, and I think the head of the cock is more distinct, whilst those in the handbook referred to face towards the east, and the heads there somewhat resemble that of an eagle's, except in that numbered 3.

In the one before us the head of the cock is unmistakable, and it will be interesting to those who take an interest in the origin and subsequent history of domestic poultry, as pointing out the prevalent type of poultry at this time viz., the second century. This, I think, we may fairly accept, assuming-and I fear assumption must go some way-that the engraver copied his bird's head from the ordinary domestic cock of the country.

The cock's head in this instance is plainly single-combed, somewhat serrated, with the hackle plainly distinguishable, and with rather pendulous wattles-the last a probable sign of domestication. I think, on the whole, we may consider the head resembling that of the Game breed, and that this was probably the representative fowl of the East at this date. It is worth while remarking that the double comb, as well as the pea-comb, seems to have been unknown at this time-the former being, I believe, a development of the latter within the last three centuries. I have never observed it either in paintings by Hondecooter or any of the old masters, although I have occasionally seen the leaf-like comb of the Houdan depicted in birds much resembling those of the present day.

Into the meaning and further description of the above gem I will not now enter, but merely refer my readers to the excellent account of it in King's Handbook of Engraved Gems.

THE DOG

OF

SACRED

HISTORY.

By E. CAMBRIDGE PHILLIPS, F.L.S., &c.

IN the able and interesting article on "Dogs, Ancient and Modern," published in The Zoologist, of October, 1884, the author, quoting Canon Tristram on the subject, infers that the dog, being unclean to the Israelites, was regarded and tolerated by them simply as a scavenger, and that domestic breeds were almost unknown.

I have thought it worth while, therefore, to offer the following observations, in which I have been assisted, as regards the Hebrew, by one of our best Hebrew scholars, the Rev. F. S. Stooke Vaughan of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, and I venture to hope that the remarks I have to make may cause the dog of sacred history to be looked at in a very different light to that in which it is usually regarded.

66

Exception may be taken to the statement (p. 399) that the earliest record of the dog in sacred history is in connection with the sojourn of the children of Israel in Egypt. In Gen. x., 9, as also Gen. xxv., 27, the word "hunter," signifies one who lays snares"; but the Septuagint version, in Greek from the Hebrew, renders the word kunyos, i.e., “dog-leading." The inference is fairly plain that dogs were led in slips and used for coursing various kinds of game, and probably also for driving it into snares or nets; or possibly to follow up and course animals wounded with the arrow, as in Gen. xxvii., 3, where Isaac says to Esau, "Take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver, and thy bow, and go out to the field and take (Hebrew, ‘hunt') me some venison,” though it by no means follows that this was the usual way of killing game at that time, the commands of the patriarch, and the particular mention of the weapons to be employed, seeming to indicate extreme haste.

That there were shepherd dogs at a very early date is evidenced from Job xxx., 1 (probably the most ancient book extant, supposed by many to be even before the time of Abraham), in which the "dogs of my flock" are specially mentioned. In Proverbs xxx., 31, and after the exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt, occurs also that curious text, "A greyhound; an he-goat also; and a king, against whom there is no rising up." Unfortunately the word "greyhound" is a mis-translation, the Hebrew being "one girt about the loins." Some refer it to the horse. Both German editions of the Bible, however, render the word, "dog," and as such the fact is worth recording. How the word " greyhound" has crept into our version I am unable to explain; it being the only passage in the Bible wherein a special breed of dog is mentioned. I allude to it, however, in order to show that the text has not escaped my observation.

The words in Isaiah lvi., 10, "They are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark," would seem to show that at that time dogs were used as a watch for houses,

especially when taken in conjunction with the preceding words, "His watchmen are blind." This was certainly the case later on, in the time of our Saviour, the words, "Yet the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their master's table" (Matt. xv., 27), showing unquestionably that dogs were then allowed not only in the house, but at the best table, i.e., the master's, the article (Tous Kuvaριois) implying the presence of dogs, or rather little dogs or puppies.

It is to be regretted that there is no Hebrew version of the Book of Tobit, or possibly the breed of dog there referred to may have been mentioned. As it is, the word in both texts (Tobit v., 16; xi., 4) is simply KUWV. Assuming the genuineness of the book, and up to the present time no valid reason has been shown to the contrary, the information contained in these texts is valuable, as showing that the dog was at that time known as the friend and companion of man. It would seem, also, that although the dog was unclean to the Jews, yet it had a certain value in their eyes, and that it was placed before other unclean animals, for the Talmud says "Dogs may be fed on the Sabbath day, but not swine"; and we learn from Josephus that Herod kept a regular hunting establishment as well as a huntsman, following up the sport in a country abounding with stags and other wild animals.

The words of the text (2 Kings viii., 13), “Is thy servant a dog (or more correctly, the dog), that he should do this great thing?" is commonly quoted, with the omission of the word " great," to show the very low estimation in which dogs were held by the Jews, whereas it may very possibly allude to the power of the dog in Hazael doing this "great" and terrible thing, or has reference only to the pariah.

Although the Hebrews were not, as a rule, much given to field sports, lions being taken in pitfalls (2 Sam. xxiii., 20), as at the present day by the Arabs, and birds in traps or snares (Amos iii., 5; Ecc. ix., 12), which may possibly account for the few occasions on which dogs are mentioned in the Scriptures, yet I think it may be inferred, from the various texts I have quoted, that several breeds of dogs were known to the Israelites, differing from the miserable pariah, the scavenger of the East; such, for example, as shepherd dogs, watch dogs, house dogs, companionable dogs, and dogs used for the chase; and certainly dogs of far higher grade than the dog of sacred history is popularly supposed to have occupied.

No mycologist can deny that according to the standard he sets voluntarily or involuntarily for himself, he prefers some species of the larger fungi to others. Beauty of colour, elegance of growth, or perhaps extreme rarity may cause him to come to the conclusion that he prefers A to B or B to C, So also with those who study the microscopical forms of fungi, we do feel more interested in some species than others. One friend of mine scarcely believed any fungi could approach the order Mucedines, he gloried in a Peronospora or an Oidium. Another satiated himself in the Ecidia, he wanted any number of them. He began with them, worked well at them for two or three years, then stopped, and to the best of my knowledge never worked at any other fungus.

Now, to-night, I ask you to hear a little about the genus Pestalozzia, which to my mind is a very pretty and interesting fungus. It is a genus named by Dr. Notaris, and is very appropriately placed under the family Melanconiei. This family has several genera, noted for the fact that from the host plant a black mass, very much like black Japan or olive-black, oozes out. You can make your fingers as black as a sweep's hand if you wish, from Melanconium bicolor (Nees) on birch, or M. magnum (Berk) on walnut, or Stegonosporium cellulosum (Corda) on beech. This black stuff is always worth examining, and especially so when it happens to be Pestalozzia, because it consists of septate brown spores with hyaline portions above and below. The lower part forms the pedicel, the upper part is crested and has appendages of different numbers which swell out under water, and then assume an altered position to what they do when dry. You have therefore a brown body as the spore with transparent attachments above and below.

The number of species of course increases, in common with all other species of fungi. In fact one begins to think that the sooner students of crypotagamic plants begin, the better for them. Cooke's handbook could be considerably enlarged if reprinted. What will Professor Saccardo's Sylloge Fungorum be when complete? What will be the size and cost of future books if carried out upon his world-wide knowledge, if written 20, 50 years hence?

But about the Pestalozzia-there are several of them. America, Africa, Asia, Europe, have all contributed to swell the lists of them. They have been found on various substances-hops, apples, pears, seeds of water-melons, have supplied them. So have junipers, cypresses, oaks, hollies, camellia leaves, ferns such as pteris aquilina, the leaves of cocoa-nut palm, vines, willow, &c. In England, to the best of my knowledge, only five are known, they are Pestalozzia Guepini (Desm), growing on the leaves of camellia plants, by no means difficult to obtain, because the leaf when affected by the fungus assumes an ivory patch of considerable size, becoming shaded or dirty as it matures, and having in the patch small pustules of the Pestalozzia.

The second species is Pestal: funerea, another of Desm: plants, which grows on the twigs and branches of cypress, and which I have found in fair abundance at Stratford-on-Avon on thuja.

The third is P. lignicola (Cooke), growing on chips, known to the Woolhope Club, inasmuch as Mr. Griffith Morris has met with it more than once.

The fourth is P. truncatula (Fckl). which I found in May, 1876, on willow twigs at Forden.

And the fifth is P. stellata (B. & Curtis), which was obtained by myself on the leaves of holly at Hermitage, in Berks, in September, 1879. There were several bundles of holly tied up, evidently to be carried away for burning; they had been cut when green, and had become quite dead. It was on these dead leaves the fungus grew.

These two last species have never been recorded as British up to the present night.

But about those beautifully hyaline appendages on the crest of the spores of Pestalozzia, what purpose do they serve? They cannot be useless, or they would not have been created. They remind us somewhat of the splendid arrangements we find on some of the composite plants in phanerogamic botany-the goat's beard, the colt's foot, the common dandelion. Their parachute heads are most useful in conveying the seeds, when they leave the parent plant, to a distance, so that thereby they get fresh soil on which to grow, and they are also of great service in depositing the seed itself heels downwards in the ground. Still, useful as these appendages are in the Composite, we can scarcely imagine it likely that the Pestalozzia would need to be transferred in this way, especially when P. monochote has only one hyaline appendage, the other species having three, four, or five of them. They certainly are analogous in fungi to the flowering plants, to which reference has been made. But beyond their being made for the pleasure of the Great Creator, we are not able to supply any specific cause for them.

Are they not very short lived? I mean the appendages of the Pestalozzia! I mention this in the hope that some of the veterans, who have studied the most minute forms of fungi, may confirm my idea that they may aid in attaching the spore to the place where it begins its vegetation until maturity-that in process of time the appendages die away, and leave the spore with unmistakable proof that they have been present, and that still further on they are not to be distinguished at all from the genus Stilbospora. I remember exainining some spores in various stages and found them from a true Pestalozzia, to an equally true Stilbospora.

As regards the life-history of the Pestalozzia, after the appendages have ceased to do their work, I am not aware that any attempt has ever been made to trace it, but that they are only forms of fungi which will eventually be resolved in process of development into higher forms, I have no doubt. That they are not autonomous we may feel certain. But what do they become?