peculiar beauty in such a reference, from the fact that the examination of these crystals conveyed exactly this impression to the mind of Captain Scoresby. He says, The extreme beauty and endless variety of the microscopic objects perceived in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, are perhaps fully equalled if not surpassed, in both particulars of beauty and variety, by the crystals of snow. The principal configurations are the stelliform and hexagonal; though almost every variety of shape of which the generating angle of 60° and 120° are susceptible, may, in the course of a few years' observation, be discovered. Some of the general varieties in the figures of the crystals may be referred to the temperature of the air; but the particular and endless modification of similar classes of crystals can only be referred to the will and pleasure of the First Great Cause, whose works, even the most minute and evanescent, and in regions the most remote from human observation, are altogether admirable.' No objection to the possibility of the reference here suggested can arise in this place from the consideration that Job could not have had any knowledge of such phenomena as these: for it will be observed that this, the first series of questions, refers distinctly to matters which he had not seen, did not know, could not understand; and then gradually proceeds to phenomena, objects, instincts, and circumstances, the aspects of which he might see and know externally, but the regulating principles of which he could not comprehend. 28. Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?'-Jablonski states that the Egyptians considered the moon to be the parent of dew, which, taken in connection with the question asked in the text, may suggest larger considerations than we have the means of tracing. Moses also says in his song, My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew.' The same metaphor occurs again in the particular benediction of the tribe of Joseph, and the collective one of Israel. David, in his 110th Psalm, ascribes to the Messiah the dew of a perpetual youth, which figure was retained by the prophets, who styled the Divine Presence a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest,' etc. From the extension of these notions, the pagan Arabs addressed prayers to the source of the clouds and the conqueror of the winds (Antar, iv. 124), which we may naturally refer to local circumstances. In countries parched with a perpetual heat, the rain and the dew ranked among the most eminent indications of Divine favour: hence, in the more florid parts of their prosaic compositions, and in the manifold imagery of their poetic style, these became frequent sources of simile and metaphor. 31. The Pleiades.'-Considerable difficulty has been at all times felt in determining the precise meaning of the astronomical terms used in the book of Job and in other parts of the Hebrew Scriptures. Our version, in the present chapter, follows the Septuagint, both in giving the synonymes of the Hebrew words, and in producing the original words where that ancient version did so, from being unable to offer such synonymes. In the present instance the Hebrew word is n chimah, which is clearly indicated as the constellation the heliacal rising of which announced the return of spring. The word implies whatever is desirable, delightful, or lovely; and therefore admirably corresponds with that season of which it formed the cardinal constellation in the time of Job. That it denotes the Pleiades is generally agreed, and is probably the least doubtful of the determinations of the Septuagint. The Pleiades are well known to be a cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus; and formed actually the leading constellation of the year at the time in which we have supposed Job to live; but we should greatly err in attempting to fix a particular year on the data which this fact offers. It is well known that the ancients determined the seasons by the rising and setting of certain constellations. Now, according to calculations formed on the usual rate of the precession of the equinoxes, the star Taigette, the northernmost of this constellation, was pre cisely in the colure of the vernal equinox 2136 years before Christ. This was before the birth of Abraham, according to the common chronology, and in his youth, according to the chronology of Dr. Hales; who, as we have intimated in the Introduction to this book, employs a similar process, with respect to the star Aldebaran, to fix the trial of Job to the year 2337 B.C. Now the fault of this process is, that it fixes the trial to the year in which the constellation became the leader of the spring, whereas it might, with more probability, be in some much later year-the time of Jacob, for instance-in which it continued to be such, and was well known to be such. Goguet makes the same calculation, yet feels quite at liberty under it to fix Job as a contemporary of Jacob. In fact, the Pleiades might serve, in the same latitude, for many centuries as the cardinal constellation of spring. On this subject there is a good observation of Mr. Landseer's: Before the colure of the vernal equinox passed into the Ram, and after it had quitted Aldebaran and the Hyades, the Pleiades were for about seven or eight centuries, or perhaps longer, esteemed to be the leading stars of the Sabæan year. It is not meant that the vernal colure continued to pass exactly through this cluster of stars for the above space of time, but that there were no other stars of the zodaic, between the Hyades and the first degree of Aries, sufficiently near to supersede them by becoming an astronomical mark.' (Sabaan Researches, p. 115.) Orion. The word is a chesil, which denotes 'a fool;' but as this has no apparent application, we may recur to the Arabic meaning, which is cold, inactivity, torpor,'-a very significant name, for it is evidently the name of a constellation, the appearance of which denoted the approach of winter, as contrasted with the chimah, which announced the presence of spring. Most writers now follow the opinion of Aben Ezra that the word chesil designates the Scorpion-a constellation opposed to the Pleiades by nearly the half of the heavens, and which announces the approach of winter when the other brings in the spring. The learned rabbi, indeed, fixes the denomination particularly to the star Antares, or the Scorpion's Heart, and in this also may be followed. The reader will not fail to observe the beauty of the contrast evolved by this explanation. Job is asked if he could hinder those 'sweet influences' to which nature yields when chimah announces the approach of spring; or whether he could loosen or retard that rigidity which contracts and binds up her fertile bosom, when the approach of winter is made known by chesil. 32. Mazzaroth.'-The word is ni which is doubtless the same, with the Syrian exchange of for, as the ni mazzaloth, of 2 Kings xxiii. 5. There are two principal explanations. One of them makes the word to denote Sirius, or the Dog-star; while the other supposes the signs of the zodiac to be intended. The former interpretation has been very extensively received; but the mass of instructed opinion is doubtless in favour of the latter alternative, in which we also concur. It seems to have evidently that meaning in 2 Kings xxiii. 9; and here it well agrees with the context. The word is plural; and to bring forth Mazzaroth (each) in its season' more clearly refers to the zodiacal signs, which appear successively above the horizon, than to anything else. It also comes in naturally after having spoken of two seasons of the year as announced by two different signs of the zodiac. (See Goguet, Sur les Constellations de Job.) Dr. J. M. Good supports this opinion by observing that To this term the Alcoran makes frequent allusions, hereby proving that it is a proper Arabian image, and which has probably never ceased to be common to their poets from the date of the book of Job. Thus, among other places, Sura xv."We have placed the twelve signs in the heavens, and have set them out in various figures, for the observation of beholders."" We have of course understood the solar zodiac; but an idea was promulgated by Dr. John Hill, which has found support from Mr. Landseer, that the lunar zodiac is intended. It is certain that such a zodiac formed part of a very ancient system of Arabian astronomy; that is, as the sun was observed from month to month to pass from one house or sign to another, so the moon was also said to change her mansion every night. Both hypotheses imply the existence of the same constellations; and we think either better than the alternative of the Dog-star. The same explanation will also apply to both, namely, that Jehovah alone possessed the power to bring forth Mazzaroth in its season;' that is to say, so to regulate or carry round the moon (or the sun), or its mansions, that, the mysterious cycle being completed, the pristine order of procession shall be renewed. Arcturus with his sons.'-The Hebrew word translated Arcturus is y aish here, and wash in chap. ix. 9. The etymology is uncertain. There are two opinions concerning what it denotes: one, that it is Arcturus, the principal star in the constellation Bootes; and the other, that it is the constellation Ursa Major, or the Great Bear. The difference is not very serious, being but that between the Bear and the Bear-keeper (Arcto-phylax), as Bootes, from its position and proximity to the Bear, was sometimes called. The two explanations will easily coalesce if we suppose that Arcturus, as representing the constellation Bootes, represented also the Bear as associated therewith. At any rate, that Ursa Major is intended may be well believed. Aben Ezra, in his commentary on Job, is clearly of this opinion. He says, 'Aish is a northern constellation composed of seven stars.' Further on he ob serves, The number of the northern constellations is twenty-one;' and afterwards, Aish and her sons are the stars of the Great Bear.' CHAPTER XXXIX. 1 Of the wild goats and hinds. 5 Of the wild ass. 9 The unicorn. 13 The peacock, stork, and ostrich. 19 The horse. 26 The hawk. 27 The eagle. KNOWEST thou the time when the wild goats of the rock bring forth? or canst thou mark when 'the hinds do calve? 2 Canst thou number the months that they fulfil? or knowest thou the time when they bring forth? 3 They bow themselves, they bring forth their young ones, they cast out their sorrows. 4 Their young ones are in good liking, they grow up with corn; they go forth, and return not unto them. 5 Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass? 6 Whose house I have made the wilderness, and the barren land his dwellings. 7 He scorneth the multitude of the city, neither regardeth he the crying of the driver. 8 The range of the mountains is his pasture, and he searcheth after every green thing. 9 Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? 10 Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? 11 Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? 12 Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn? 15 And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. 16 She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not her's: her labour is in vain without fear; 17 Because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding. 18 What time she lifteth up herself on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider. 19 Hast thou given the horse strength? hast thou clothed his neck with thunder?" 20 Canst thou make him afraid as a grasshopper? the glory of his nostrils is 'terrible. 21 He paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: he goeth on to meet the armed men. 22 He mocketh at fear, and is not af frighted; neither turneth he back from the sword. 23 The quiver rattleth against him, the glittering spear and the shield. 24 He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet. 25 He saith among the trumpets, Ha, ha; and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting. 26 Doth the hawk fly by thy wisdom, and stretch her wings toward the south? 27 Doth the eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high? 28 She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. 29 From thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes behold afar off. 30 Her young ones also suck up blood: and 'where the slain are, there is she. Verse 5. Who hath sent out the wild ass free? or who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?'-In this verse a distinction is lost which appears in the original, where different words stand where wild ass' equally appears in our translation. And yet this is not altogether wrong, for it would appear that only different kinds or species of the wild ass are represented by the two different words. Tyndale marked the distinction by rendering the last term not by 'ass' but by mule,' and in this has been followed by Good, Lee, and others. The first of the two words here is pere. It is the same which occurs in Gen. xvi. 12, where it is rendered 'wild,' as an epithet applied to Ishmael; in Job xxiv. 5, where, as here, it is rendered 'wild ass,' as it is also in Isa. xxxii. 14; Jer. ii. 24; xiv. 6; Hos. viii. 9; most of which places indicate by the context that the animal led a wild life in the wilderness. The other word is i orud, which apparently occurs only here and in Dan. v. 21; but is perhaps also intended where we ready in Jer. xvii. 6; xlviii. 6, where, however, the translation is 'heath '-most erroneously, as no heath exists in the wildernesses of Asia. We may take names thus discriminated to denote two varieties in race of the wild ass known in Asia; for nothing is clearer than that if the two words, as appears probable, denote different varieties, both of them are described as being wild. But the difficulty only here begins, as the subject of the wild asses of Asia is involved in great obscurity from the varying accounts and names of travellers, so that it is not easy to determine the differences; and some incline to think that all the wild asses under the different names of Koulon in Northern Asia, of Djiggetai in Central Asia, of Ghur or Ghurkud in South-Western Asia, etc., all apply to the same animal. Col. C. Hamilton Smith distinguishes them, though he seems to think that the ancient, and some modern writers, confounded the two former, if not all three, in their descriptions. But he shews that the Djiggetai is distinguished from the Koulon by its neighing voice, and by the deficiency of two teeth in the jaws, and that it is distinguished from the Ghur among other distinctions by the fact that it does not bray (Art. Ass, in Kitto's Biblical Cyclopædia). Now, if two varieties of the wild ass are indicated in the present text, there can be little doubt they are the Ghur and the Djiggetai, putting the Koulon out of view. Then the question is, which of the two answers to the PERE, and which to the ORUD. Col. C. Hamilton Smith himself supposes that the word orud is derived from the braying voice of the animal; and as the Djiggetai does not bray, he concludes that the Ghur is the ORUD, and the Djiggetai the PERE. The same line of inference would, however, conduct us to the opposite conclusion. For, while we are unable to find any reference to braying in the word ORUD, it is clear, from Job vi. 5, that the PERE was a braying animal, for this is the wild ass' of that text, which indeed is the only one in Scripture where the word 'bray' occurs. On this ground, therefore, the Ghur, and not the Djiggetaiwhich does not bray, should be the PERE of Scripture. The text in question 'Doth the wild ass [PERE] bray when he hath grass? or loweth the ox over his fodder?'-. shews that the PERE brayed when he had no grass, as much as the ox lowed when it had no fodder. Col. Smith's other reason for his conclusion, that the ORUD is in the present text described as untameable, whereas the Djiggetai is actually used at present as a domestic animal at Lucknow, seems to us the less convincing as the description exhibits the animal rather in an untamed condition than as absolutely untameable; and besides, Col. Smith himself holds that the common labouring ass of South-Western Asia is a domesticated race of the Ghur, which he regards as the ORUD. We therefore, with great submission to so high an authority, feel disposed to invert his conclusion, and say that the PERE of Scripture, being the word most frequently used, is the Ghur of South-Western Asia; and that the more rare word ORUD represents the Djiggetai of Central Asia. As the animals are of similar habits, and nothing in fact is stated that is not common to both, the description is probably intended for both, although the immediate antecedent is the ORUD in the second line. Let us read the whole in a somewhat improved version, thus: 'Who hath sent forth the PERE free? Or the bands of the ORUD who hath loosed? The Scriptural intimations respecting the PERE, identified as the modern Ghur, should be regarded as materials for its natural history. From the passage before us, it, as well as the ORUD, appears to have been an animal of the desert and the mountain-perhaps changing from the one to the other with the season, and bounding, as if in exultation at his freedom from the yoke man had imposed upon his kind. It seems, also, that it was less an inmate of Palestine than of the bordering plains and mountains. The intense wildness of the animal is implied in nearly all the allusions to it; hence its adoption as the symbol of a perverse and incorrigible character in man, in which sense it occurs several times, as in Job xi. 12: Vain man would be wise, though he be born a wild ass's colt. The Arabs still describe as an ass of the desert' an indocile and contumacious person. The animal brayed not over his grass, that is, when his food abounded (Job vi. 5); and in times of excessive drought, and therefore of corresponding scarcity of food to man and beast, The wild asses did stand in the high places, and snuffed up the wind like dragons: their eyes did fail because there was no grass' (Jer. xiv. 6). This is beautifully true to nature; for in its natural state the ass never seeks the woodlands, but upland pasture, and mountains and rocky retreats; and it is habituated to stand upon the brink of precipices (a practice not entirely obliterated in our own domestic races), whence, with protruded ears, it surveys the scene below, blowing and at last braying in extreme excitement. We are also assured by an Apocryphal writer that the wild ass (Onager) was the prey of the lion in the wilderness (Ecclus. xiii. 9). The Ghur or proper Wild Ass stands much higher on its limbs than the common ass. Its legs are longer and more slender, and it is altogether a more graceful and symmetrical animal, with a greater predominance of equinine forms and qualities than the domestic ass exhibits, and having therefore less resemblance to it than to a very fine mule. The mane is composed of short erect hair, of a dusky hue, and rather woolly texture. The colour of the body is uniform silvery grey, with a broad coffee-coloured stripe extending down the back from the mane to the tail, and crossed on the shoulder by the same transverse band which the domestic variety exhibits. The head of the species west of the Euphrates is much finer than that of Persia and Central Asia, and it is altogether a considerably handsomer animal. Indeed, we are informed by Colonel Smith (to whom we are indebted for the figure we give), that not only is the Syrian wild ass larger and more handsome than the Ghurkhud of Persia (which is the same or closely similar to the Djiggetai), but that the species improves west of the Euphrates, and is very fine in the Bahar el-Abiad, in Africa. These wild asses are often mentioned by ancient writers. The notice of Xenophon, whose description refers to the same desert on the skirts of which Job resided, is particularly interesting from its correspondence with the Scriptural intimations. After describing the march of the army of the younger Cyrus through Syria, he proceeds: They then proceeded through Arabia,* still keeping the Euphrates on their right hand; and, in five days, made, through a desert, a distance of thirty-five parasangs. This country appeared to the eye a complete flat, and as smooth as the sea. It abounded in absinthium; and whatever herb or shrub grew there had an aromatic scent but no trees whatever appeared. Of wild creatures, the most numerous were, wild asses, with plenty of ostriches, besides bustards and roe-deer, which afforded sport to our horsemen. The wild ass, however, being swifter of foot than our horses, would, on gaining ground upon them, stand still and look around; and when their pursuers got nearly up to them, they would start off, and repeat the same trick; so that there remained to the hunters no other method of taking them, but by dividing themselves into dispersed parties which succeeded each other in the chace. The flesh of the wild asses taken in this manner was found to be like that of the red-deer, but more tender' (Anabasis, I. 1). This is a very correct account, not only of the animal, but of the desert region it inhabits. The method of hunting it is the same as here described; and the manner in which it repeatedly stops to give the pursuer an opportunity of approaching, and then starts off again, is a striking indication of an exulting and even a derisive consciousness of its own superior speed. We know not on what authority it is usually affirmed that the wild ass has withdrawn beyond the Euphrates, and no longer exists in Asia west or south of that river. The facts we have just stated evince the contrary. Rauwolff, travelling from Tripoli to Aleppo, says, 'In these countries are a great many wild asses, called Onagri,' and proceeds to describe the use made of its skin in forming the scabbards of swords and daggers; and Nau affirms that he saw gazelles and wild asses among the wild animals in the *They had crossed the Euphrates, and were therefore in Mesopotamia; but the desert part of this region is of precisely the same character as to the west of the river; and was, properly enough, considered part of Arabia Deserta by the ancients. plains of Sharon. Burckhardt declares that the wild asses are found in great numbers' in Arabia Petræa, near the gulf of Akaba. 'The Sherarat Arabs hunt them, and eat their flesh, but not before strangers. They sell their skins and hoofs to the pedlars of Damascus, and to the people of the Hauran. The hoofs furnish materials for rings, which are worn by the peasants on their thumbs, or fastened under the arm-pits, as amulets against rheumatism.' In Persia the wild ass is a favourite object of chace, and its flesh is esteemed much as we esteem venison; and as such is served up on high occasions at royal tables. It is doubtful, however, which of the two species or varieties is that which travellers in Persia and the Persian historians notice, unless where they describe them; as it seems that both the Ghur, already noticed, and another called the Ghurkhud-which more approximates to, if it be not the very same with the Djiggetai-are found in that country, being, as it were, a common ground on the outskirts of the respective habitats of both. With respect to the Ghurkhud or Djiggetai, which we regard as the ORUD of the text, it would seem to have been distinguished from the other so early as the time of Job; but among the Greek writers they were confounded much later under the general name of Onager or Wild Ass. Aristotle seems to have been the first to distinguish them; and fron that time the species or variety have, among the Greeks, the name of Hermionos, or desert ass. Col. Hamilton Smith describes it as little inferior to the wild horse; in shape it resembles a mule, in gracefulness a horse, and in colour it is silvery, with broad spaces of flaxen or bright bay on the thigh, flank, shoulder, neck, and head; the ears are wide like the zebra's, and the neck is clothed with a vertical dark mane, prolonged in a line to the tuft of the tail. The company of this animal is liked by horses, and when domesticated it is gentle; it is now found wild from the deserts of the Oxus and Jaxartes to China and Central India. In Cutch it is never known to drink, and in whole districts which it frequents water is not to be found; and, though the natives talk of the fine flavour of the flesh, and the Ghur in Persia is the food of heroes, to an European its smell is abominable.' 9. Unicorn.'-The original is here D', usually DN, REEM, which the Septuagint has in this place and elsewhere rendered by μovókepws, one-horned'-equivalent to our 'unicorn.' No one now seeks for it in the heraldic animal that passes under the name, and which never had any but an imaginary existence. There is nothing in the Hebrew word to imply that the reem was one-horned; it is indeed mentioned as horned; and on referring to the passages in which the term is introduced, the only one which is quite distinct on this point seems clearly to intimate that the animal had two horns. That passage is Deut. xxxiii. 17: 'His horns are like the horns of the "reem;"' the word here is singular, not plural, and should have been 'unicorn,' not 'unicorns,' as in our version; but it would have been inconsistent to have said the horns of the unicorn'-the one-horned, and so the word was rendered in the plural. The second passage is Ps. xxii. 21: The horus of the unicorns,' which affords no information. The third is Ps. xcii. 10 (DND) vattarem ki-reem karni), literally, But thou wilt exalt, as the reem, my horn.' If 'horn' be supplied in the parallel, as in our version-' as the horn of the unicorn,' then there would be nearly the same evidence for concluding the reem had one horn, as the first-cited text affords for its having two; but we should even then have to consider that it is usual, poetically or in common discourse, to speak of the horn' of an animal that has actually two horns; but never of the horns' of a creature that has but one. And as this text now stands, requiring an addition to make the assigned sense distinct, its authority for giving the animal one horn is not equal to that of Deut. xxxiii. 17, for giving it two. As we are thus exonerated from the necessity of finding a one-horned animal to suit the Hebrew REEM, we may with the more advantage read the highly-coloured and truly poetical description of the animal which the present text offers: 'Will the REEM submit to serve thee; Will he go to rest at thy stall; Canst thou make the harness bind him in thy furrow; Will he plough up the valleys after thee? Wilt thou rely upon him because his strength is great; Wilt thou trust to him to carry out thy seed Here the horn is not at all mentioned, and the attention is chiefly directed to the wildness of the animal, to its swiftness, and to its strength. The notion which has seemed in most translations to give the sanction of Holy Scripture to a known fable, appears to have originated with the Septuagint, which renders the Hebrew word by Monoceros (uovókeows), whence the Latin Unicornis, and thence the English Unicorn. RHINOCEROS SIMUS. There has been a very general disposition to identify the REEM of Scripture with the rhinoceros, and obviously on the ground that this is the only animal that has a single horn, which, as we have seen, is by no means required for the Hebrew REEM. Pennant, proceeding on this ground, is very confident that the Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros Indicus) is 'the unicorn' of Scripture, chiefly, as it appears, because this species has but one horn, whereas that of Africa has two. But since his time an African species has been found with a horn much longer, and more tapering, shapely, and erect than that of the Asiatic species, and much resembling that which is popularly ascribed to the unicorn. This species is called the Rhinoceros simus, and belongs to Southern Africa. The species has become very rare. A head was brought to this country by the Rev. John Campbell, the missionary, and the whole animal has since been described and figured with great exactness by Dr. Smith. There seems, however, an insuperable objection to identifying any rhinoceros with the Scriptural reem, whether the fables of the unicorn did or did not originate with that animal. It is very certain that the rhinoceroes does not, and never did, within historical memory, inhabit Western Asia, and could not be known to the Scriptural writers so familiarly as the REEM evidently was. Sensible of this, some writers have proposed to substitute the buffalo, which is certainly known in Western Asia. But this animal, so far from possessing the untameable wildness ascribed to the reem, is, and has been immemorially, domesticated in all the countries where it is known, and trained to the very Jabours for which the book of Job describes the reem as unfit. The reem was manifestly a wild animal, and, of all the wild animals known in the Biblical region, it is difficult to fix on any with so much of confidence and probability as on the Oryx leucoryx, commonly called the wild ox, but very erroneously, seeing that it belongs not to the bovine, but to the antilopine family of animals. REEM (high) seems to be its poetical name, for there is reason to think that its common name was Yachmur, translated, most erroneously, fallow-deer' in Deut. xiv. 5, under which text a figure of it is given; and it is important to remark that rim or reem is one of the names which the species bears in Arabie. This animal is still found in the wilder regions of Syria and Arabia; and that it was so anciently, and was a favourite object of the chace, is shewn by the paintings in the Egyptian tombs. It is, for one of this genus, a large and powerful animal, exceedingly swift in flight, and of an unusually vicious and savage nature, and seems to answer all the conditions required by the Hebrew REEM. It may recommend this explanation that, although we cannot allow that the REEM of Scripture has any necessary connection with the notions about unicorns, it is highly probable that these notions were founded upon this very animal, which we are disposed to identify with the Hebrew reem: and, if so, it is easily to be understood how the Seventy came to translate the word by monoceros, in which translation all the discussion about Biblical unicorns has originated. A slight view of the figure of the oryx will indicate a striking resemblance to the fabled unicorn. From the form of its head, and from the manner in which the horns spring close to each other from the middle of the forehead, it is clear that if one of the horns were broken off near the root, and the fracture covered by the white hair which grows around it, most unscientific observers would suppose that they beheld an animal naturally one-horned. It is indeed a curious fact that this animal is usually so figured as to shew but one horn in the Egyptian monuments, but it is not agreed whether these figures intend to represent the animal as from accident or design one-horned, or that the artist merely proposed to intimate that the further horn was concealed by the nearer in the profile view of the animal. In speaking of its wildness, we must be understood with some limitation, for, although the strength of the animal could not be subdued to any useful service, it was so far tamed by the Egyptians that large numbers of them were kept in the preserves of their villas. 10. Will he harrow the valleys after thee ?-It is interesting to find anything like a harrow mentioned so early as the patriarchal age of Job. It seems more than likely, however, that the passage alludes to a practice mentioned in the subjoined extract from Wilkinson's Ancient Egyp tians (v. 39); and this probability is strengthened by the mention of valleys as the scene of the operation:- When the levels were low, and the water had continued long upon the land, they often dispensed with the plough, and probably, like their successors, broke up the ground with hoes, or simply dragged the moist mud with bushes, after the seed had been thrown upon the surface; and then merely drove a number of cattle, asses, pigs, sheep, or goats into the field, to tread in the grain. This simple process of tillage without the plough is probably alluded to in Deut xi. 10, where the Israelites are reminded of the land of Egypt, in which they sowed their seed as in a garden of herbs.' 13. Gavest thou the goodly wings,' etc.-The words 'Gavest thou' are not in the original, which is so difficult of construction in this instance, that the Greek translators of the Septuagint seem to have confessed their ignorance by writing the Hebrew words in Greek characters, an expedient often resorted to when they were at a loss about the meaning of the text. The following seems to come near to their import. The wings of the ostrich vibrate and flutter, but are they like the pinions of the stork and the hawk?' The ostrich is remarkable for the shortness of its wings, which, instead of fanning the air with that magnificent sweep observed in the pennons of the hawk and the stork. beat it in rapid flutter like the pulsations of a sounding board. And yet reared upon its tall legs it will oar itself along with so much speed as to outstrip the fleetest grey hound, so easily can the Almighty compensate any real or apparent defects, which seem the ground of the challenge here given. A passage in Dr. Shaw's Travels illus |