GOING BEFORE THE SHEEP.

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though thus disguised."-Narrative of a Mission to the Jews, p. 174.

"The business of the day being over, we enjoyed a walk outside the Zion gate. . Two flocks were moving slowly up the slope of the hill, the one of goats the other of sheep. The shepherd was going before the flock, and they followed, as he led the way toward the Jaffa gate."-Narrative of a Mission to the Jews, pp. 173, 174.

"The (African) shepherd with his crook usually goes before the flock, and leads them to fresh pasture, by merely calling out with a loud but slow voice, 'Hot! hot!' while the sheep keep nibbling as they follow."Discoveries in Africa.

"We were struck with the wondrous facility with

SHEEP AND SHEPHERDS.

which a shepherd managed his flock. his voice, and they followed him.

His sheep knew We noticed him

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OBEDIENCE OF SHEEP.

'going before them,' and them coming after him in rank and file. On his uttering a peculiar cry, they scampered off to the watering-place; and he had only to raise his voice again, to recall them to the pastures. The goats were not so obedient, and they were sure to be in the rear. Yet he had command of them also."--WILSON'S Lands of the Bible.

The Rev. John Hartley, who has travelled as a missionary in Greece, records in his journal the following interesting illustration of our Saviour's words :-" Having had my attention directed last night to the words in John x. 3, I asked my man if it was usual in Greece to give names to sheep. He informed me that it was, and that the sheep obeyed the shepherd when he called them by their names. This morning I had an opportunity of verifying the truth of this remark. Passing by a flock of sheep, I asked the shepherd the same question which I put to my servant, and he gave me the same answer. I then bade him to call one of his sheep. He did so; and it instantly left its pasturage and its companions, and ran up to the hand of the shepherd, with signs of pleasure, and with a prompt obedience, which I had never before observed in any other animal. The shepherd told me that many of his sheep are still wild; that they had not yet learned their names, but that by teaching they would all learn them. The others which knew their names he called tame."-HARTLEY'S Researches in Greece and the Levant, pp. 307, 308.

HYENA CAUGHT IN A GIN.

CHAPTER XXII.

HUNTING, FOWLING, AND FISHING.

HUNTING.-NETS AND TRAPS FOR ANIMALS.--SNARING BIRDS.FISH AS AN ARTICLE OF FOOD.-FISHING.-VARIOUS KINDS OF NETS.

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HUNTING has been always regarded as an art of the highest importance in a rude state of society. Nimrod, the greatest hero of Biblical antiquity, is described as "a mighty hunter before the Lord" (Gen. x. 9). Ishmael "became an archer," and lived on the produce of his bow and arrows (Gen. xxi. 20); and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field" (Gen. xxv. 27). Among the Israelites hunting was no longer a matter of necessity, but they followed it up for the sake of procuring the flesh of the roebuck and the hart (Deut. xii. 15); as well as for the occasional destruction of wild beasts.

Various means were adopted for the latter object. Sometimes they were caught in nets, in reference to

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METHODS OF CATCHING BEASTS.

which Isaiah uses the comparison :-"Thy sons have fainted, they lie at the head of all the streets, as a gazelle (in our version "wild bull ") in a net" (li. 20). At other times the pitfall was used:-"He (Benaiah) went down also and slew a lion in the midst of a pit in the time of snow (2 Sam. xxiii. 20). Again gins and traps of various kinds were laid. All these contrivances supplied the Psalmist with images to of the wicked, such as:-"In the net is their own foot taken" (Ps. ix. 15). my feet out of the net" (xxv. 15). cause have they laid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have digged for my soul" (xxxv. 7). "In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me" (cxlii. 3).

express the arts which they laid "He shall pluck "For without

The use of the net is well illustrated by one of the Assyrian sculptures, described in Bononi's Nineveh (p. 396) in the following terms:-"The artist intends to inform us that a considerable space, comprehending rocky hills and wooded valleys, has been inclosed with nets of sufficient height and strength to prevent the escape of animals of the size of the fallow-deer. Two men are shown, the one trying to extricate the deer from the trap in which it has been caught; and the other, at some distance off, setting a trap or gin. Within the great field inclosed are seen four deer, the foremost of a herd in rapid flight towards the inevitable boundary."

The pit or pitfall is still the ordinary mode of killing the larger animals in southern Africa, as described by Livingstone:- "The 'hopo' consists of two hedges in the form of the letter V, which are very high and thick near the angle. Instead of the hedges being joined there, they are made to form a lane of about fifty yards in length, at the extremity of which a · pit is formed. The whole is carefully decked with short green rushes, making the pit like a concealed pitfall. As the hedges are frequently about a mile

long and about as much apart at their extremities, a tribe making a circle three or four miles round the country adjacent to the opening, and gradually closing up, are almost sure to inclose a large body of game. Driving it with shouts to the narrow part of the hopo, men secreted there throw their javelins into the affrighted herds, and on the animals rush to the opening presented at the converging hedges, and into the pit till that is full of a living mass."-Travels, p. 26.

BIRD TRAPS.

Snaring birds appears to have been a favourite occupation of the Jews, if we may judge from the numerous allusions to the practice in the Psalms and other poetical books: we may quote the following as instances: -"Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowler" (Ps. cxxiv. 7): "As a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life" (Prov. vii. 23): "The prophet is a snare of the fowler in his ways" (Hos. ix. 8). The Egyptian monuments show that this art was carried to a high perfection in that country. Various kinds of nets and traps were used for the purpose: and occasionally a decoy bird was employed, to which Jeremiah alludes in the words: "As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit" (Jer. v. 27).

Fishing was an art that the Israelites might well have acquired in Egypt, the inhabitants of that country