2256. [3.] The clean animals are such as are not carnivorous. Their instincts are to direct us in the choice of our foods. What they eat, we may eat also. The principal domestic kinds even determine in this way, what should be selected for sacrifice.

Vine-leaves are not alone foul winter's prey,
But oft by summer-suns are scorch'd away,
And, worse than both, become th' unworthy browze
Of buffaloes, salt-goats, and hungry cows.

Dryden's VIRGIL, Georg. ii. l. 515.

2261.

Worms, according to a late discovery of the celebrated Naturalist Gotze, in Germany, are natural to swine. They reside in the cartilaginous vesicles of the liver, and when these vesicles burst in very hot weather, while the worms are yet extremely small, they pass into the blood with other fluids, and gradually increase in size. Should it be found, that these animalculæ become visible externally, and in great quantities, the butchers ought not to be permitted to kill such hogs, as the flesh easily acquires an uncommon acrimony, is much disposed to putrefy, and consequently improper to be used as food. See No. 103-106.

WILLICH, M. D.

2262. [9.] At Moorshedabad, the Mogul capital of the province of Bengal, one of the gardens, says FORBES, contained a large pellucid tank, stored with tame fish which were taught to repair daily to the steps for food, and perform

certain evolutions. We regaled them, he adds, with sweetmeats from the bazar, and were much amused by their docility. Orient. Memoirs, vol. iv. p. 97.

2263. [Lev. xi. 10.3 They who live near Thebes, and the lake Mæris, hold the crocodile in religious veneration: they select one, which they render tame (Jas. iii. 7) and docile, suspending golden oruaments from its ears, and sometimes gems of value; the fore feet are secured by a chain. They feed it with the flesh of the sacred victims, and with other appointed food. While it lives they treat it with unceasing attention, and when it dies, it is first embalmed, and afterwards deposited in a sacred chest.

The hippopotamus is esteemed sacred in the district of Papremis, but in no other part of Egypt.

The Egyptians venerate others, as they do also the fish called lepidotus, and the eel: these are sacred to the Nile, as among the birds is one called the chenalopex.

In the vicinity of Thebes there are also sacred serpents, very small, with two horns on the top of the head: when these die, they are buried in the temple of Jupiter, to whom they are said to belong. See HERODOT. Euterpe, lxix, lxxi, lxxii, lxxiv.

2264. [ 13, &c.] When it is said, 'Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat', we understand the prohibition to mean, that man was not to eat its fruit: This we understand aright immediately, because we have not been accustomed to eat the wood or branches of trees. But when we read here of 'fowls that shall not be eaten', we do not so immediately understand ourselves prohibited to eat their fruit or eggs; because, in the present depraved state of human appetite and feeling, we every where behold men, like birds of prey, tearing and devouring the limbs and the flesh of fowls. The law of Moses, however, in permitting us to take eggs from a bird's nest, humanely forbids our taking the dam. (See Deut. xxii. 6.) — The fact is, in eating the egg we eat the fowl in miniature, but we destroy not any sentient life; and thus do not kill, any more than when we eat vegetable seed.

See No. 68.

2265. [——— 14.] The vulture is a creature the least mischievous of any, pernicious neither to corn, plants, nor cattle. It only feeds on dead carcases, but neither kills nor preys upon any thing that has life. As for birds, it does not touch them even when dead, because they are of its own

nature.

PLUTARCH, vol. i. p. 88. What bird is clean that fellow-birds devours?ESCHYLUS.

2267. In the English colonies of North America, it was remarked, says MICHAELIS, that the Little Crow of Virginia frequented the peas-fields; and in order to put a stop to its ravages for ever, its utter extirpation was resolved on. But this was no sooner effected, than an insect of the beetle kind, which had always been known to do also some mischief to the peas, multiplied to such a degree that very few peas were left. Au intelligent naturalist thought this occurrence worth investigation, and found that the crows were not in quest of peas, but only devouring these beetles; and, of course, that had they not been extirpated, these insects could not have increased so much, and the crops of peas would have been more abundant. At somewhat less expense,

the same truth was some time ago confirmed in Sweden. The Common Crow was thought to be too fond of the young roots of grass, being observed sometimes to pick them out, and lay them bare. Orders were therefore given to the people to be at all pains to extirpate them; till some person, more judicious, opposed this, and shewed that it was not the roots of the grass, but the destructive caterpillars of certain insects which fed on them, that the crows searched for and devoured. For a fuller and more detailed account of both facts, Michaelis refers to the Hanover Magazine for the year 1767, p. 622, &c.

the Seleucis, or, as the Persians call it, Abmelek, was held sacred for clearing the land of the locusts that infest it; and the Megagarus, because it destroys the fearful swarms of flies that overspread Egypt. See Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. ii. p. 423.

2271. [Lev. xi. 17.] The ibis is of the size of a ravenhen, and is seen in great numbers, during the overflowing of the Nile, in those places which the water does not reach, and afterwards in the places which the water has deserted. It feeds on insects and small frogs, which abound in Egypt during the inundation of the Nile, and for some time after, being by this means of great service to the country. They often assemble, particularly mornings and evenings, in the gardens, in such numbers as to cover the palm-trees. When this bird rests it sits upright, so as to cover its feet with its tail, and raises the breast and neck.

2272.

HASSELQUIST.

To the Egyptian Ibis has succceded the stork, a bird now become so excessively numerous in that country, that Dr. SHAW tells us he observed three flights of them, in their passage from Egypt into Syria, as he lay at anchor at the foot of Mount Carmel, each of which took up more than three hours in passing by, and extended itself above half a mile. (See Modern Univer. Hist. vol. xiv. p. 162.) Is it not hence probable, that the modern stork is, at least, a species of the antient Ibis?

2273.

It was a capital offence in antient Egypt to kill an ibis or a hawk; the former was venerated because it devoured the serpents and reptiles which bred in the country after the inundation of the Nile: the inhabitants of Holland are as strongly attached to the stork, because it destroys the rats, mice, and other vermin which undermine their dykes.

FORBES' Orient. Memoirs, vol. ii. P. 308.

2274. A very rare bird, the Bay Ibis (Tantalus Fancinellus of Linueus) was in Nov. 1814, shot in Wales, and reposited with Dr. Dyer, of Bristol. There is only one other British specimen known to naturalists, and that was shot the 26th of September 1793, while skimming with another over the River Thames between Henley and Reading.

Gesner's Ornithology, renders, according to Hasselquist, important services to the people of Egypt, Palestine, and Arabia; in destroying the dead asses and camels, with which the track of the caravans from Cairo to Mecca always abounds, and which, by their stench, could not fail to produce putrid diseases. For the service it thus does the coun try, the people are so grateful, that devout and opulent Mahometans are wont to establish foundations for its support. These eleemosynary institutions, and the sacred regard shewn to these birds by the Mahometans, -are likewise testified by Dr. Shaw, in his Travels.

See Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. ii. p. 422.

2276. [Lev. xi. 18.] The wood pelican, correctly figured by Catesby, feeds on serpents, young crocodiles, frogs, and other reptiles. He is commonly seen near the banks of great rivers, in vast marshes or meadows, especially such as are caused by inundations; and also on the vast deserted rice plantations: he stands alone on the topmost limb of tall dead cypress-trees, his neck contracted or drawn in upon his shoulders, and beak resting like a long scythe on his breast: in this pensive posture and solitary situation, he looks extremely grave, sorrowful, and melancholy, as if in the deepest thought. He is never seen on the salt-sea coast, and yet is never found at a great distance from it. He appears to be of a different genus from the tantalus, and perhaps approaches nearest to the Egyptian ibis of any other bird yet known.

Public Prints.

2275. [ 18.] The Racham, the Mountain Falcon of Linneus, the Egyptian Vulture, the Perenopterus of

2279. The crested heron is only the male, not another species: it makes a most beautiful appearance with its snowy neck and long crest streaming in the wind.

PINKERTON'S Coli. part ix. p. 8.

2281. [ 20.] Of volant animals in Africa, we may mention, as very remarkable, what the natives call the fourwinged bird; not that it has really so many, but because there is a kind of additional one which grows at the end of each of its pinions which leaves a kind of chasm between, so that, when it spreads them abroad, they look so like double wings, that any person might easily suppose it to have four wings. It is a bird of prey, and of the size of a large turkey-cock, well shaped in body, with a fine tuft on its head, a large hooked bill, and its feet armed with long claws. What is most singular in this creature, we are told, that it stirs not out for its prey but in the night, or dusk of the evening, and yet finds provision enough to keep itself, contrary to other birds of prey, fat and full of flesh. (Modern Univer. Hist. vol. xiv. p. 81.) Is not this a marvellous description of the large oriental bat?

-

2282. [ — 22.] In order to paint the air, the vicissitudes and agitation of which every body feels though it be invisible, the Egyptians in their symbolical writing made use of the scarabeus or the wings of a fluttering insect, the motions of which vary every instant. To intimate that He who rules the motions and changes of the air, is likewise the dispenser of the productions of the earth, and the master of the seasons; a globe, accompanied with the wings of the scarabeus or butterfly, is found at the top of most of their pictures relating to religion.

Abbe PLUCHE's Hist. of the Heav. vol. i. p. 44.

2284. [

expiated.

2285. [Lev. xi. 25.] These lares used to be placed near fire-places.

2286. [ 30.] The Chameleon swarms all over Africa. Modern Univer. Hist. vol. xiv. p. 85.

The learned PANCIROLUS Romanus, in his anatomy of the chameleon, assures us that it is altogether of a gray or ash color (the hue it actually retains after death); and that, whatever change is observed in it, is not caused by the proximity of any object, but is rather owing, as many suppose, to the transparency of its flat and emaciated body, through which the objects on the other side easily transmit their various colors. Ibid. note.

34.] Perhaps many of our diseases arise from such waters as have monocuti in them. I have frequently observed, says KALM, abundance of these minute insects in water taken from the deepest wells, which has been also remarkable for its clearness.

See Pinkerton's Coll. part liv. p. 583.

2291. [Lev. xi. 34.] The Persians are much more scrupulous than any other Eastern nations in permitting foreigners to go into their baths.—A Mr. Jones, a gentleman of the Bassora-factory, while residing at Shirauz, going one night to the bath there, after he was undressed, was informed by the keeper of the house, who understood he was an European, that he must dress himself immediately, and quit the place; alleging in excuse, that if it were known he had admitted a Feringy (a Christian), he should lose both his custom and reputation, as the bath would thereby be deemed polluted.

2295. [42.] The most dreadful of all the African insects are their ants, of which they have such a variety, and such innumerable swarms, that they destroy not only the fruits of the ground, but even men and beasts, in so short a time as one single night; and would, without all doubt, prove more fatally destructive to the inhabitants, were they not destroyed by a proportionable number of monkeys, that greedily ferret and devour them. Modern Univer. Hist. vol. xiv. p. 86.

the significant figures relating to each of these months were put, in order to inform the young priests educated there of the order of the heaven and the Egyptian polity. Abbe PLUCHE'S Hist. of the Heav, vol. i. p. 143.

2298. [Lev. xi. 46, 47.] The animals of the zodiac denote not sidereal constellations, but societies of good and evil spirits seen in the spiritual spheres around our earth, and referred to by the antient sages, as directly under the different coustellations. The spiritual sphere of a constellation, dipping in the spiritual atmosphere of our earth, gives, according to their combined qualities, a receptacle for good or evil spirits represented there in the appearance of good animals or of evil beasts. The prohibitions in this Chapter denote that the sacrificial offerings of Gentiles, consecrated under the influence of evil societies, were not to be eaten in the Jewish Church. It is very remarkable, that the zodiac of the Indians contains the same signs as that of the Greeks and other western nations; that these signs were, in part, used by the Egyptians; and, as limited here by Moses, still more partially by the Jews. The Turks, Persiaus, Tartars and Chinese have in their zodiac a series of signs totally different, consequently must have derived their knowledge from a different source; but at the same time from a people who had observed the courses of the heavenly bodies (and their concomitant societies, perhaps in the opposite hemisphere). On the whole, it should seem that the people of Upper Egypt aud Nubia, who were considered as Ethiopians, were the first (at least in their hemisphere) who had a knowledge of the planets and heavenly bodies; and that their knowledge was communicated to the Egyptians, Arabians, and Indians, and to the whole East.

As the Indians believe that the world was created under the sign Aries, on the commencement of April, when the sun enters into that sign, they offer sacrifice to the sun and the planets, in order that the genii of these stars may confer good fortune and happiness on their worshippers during the course of the new year.

A complete revolution of signs and fixed stars, they say, cannot pass from the Eastern to the Western hemisphere in less than 24,000 years.

See BARTOLOMEO, note by Forster, pp. 347, 348. The Redemption effected by Jesus Christ extending to the spiritual world, the societies of evil spirits previously stationed in the unclean bestial and reptile appearances under their respective constellations and planets, were ejected, the zodiacal creatures seen by Peter thus " cleansed", the Gentile world redeemed, aud the spiritual "obsessing" hells removed from mankind,

Before the Incarnation, the influence of heaven came through the spiritual societies represented by the clean zodiacal beasts specified in this Chapter. Since the glorification, all heavenly influence comes to men through Jesus Christ alone, the true and genuine Mediator now of God and

man.