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eyes, behind a tree if she can but lose sight of her enemy, she appears to imagine herself out of danger. Nat. Delin. vol. i. p. 185.

the least distant noise or trivial occasion, she will seek her own preservation, though she neglect that of her offspring. In consequence of this timidity, the Arabs often meet a few of her little ones, no bigger than well grown pullets, half starved; straggling and moaning about, like so many distressed orphans, for their mother. BURTON, BUFFON and SHAW.

3596. Job xxxix. 13.]

The wing of the ostrich expands quivering,
The very feathers and plumage of the stork.

Dr. SHAW.

When the ostrich is full grown, the neck, particularly of the male, which before was almost naked, is now very beautifully covered with red feathers. The plumage also on the shoulders, the back, and some parts of the wings, from being hitherto of a dark grayish color, becomes now as black as jet; whilst the rest of the feathers retain an exquisite whiteness. His body is thus clothed with such black and white feathers as cover the stork. But his belly, thighs and breast, partake not of this covering; being usually naked, and when touched, are of the same warmth as the flesh of quadrupeds.

Verse 14.] Which deposits her eggs in the earth, And warms them in the sand.

Ibid.

Ibid.

The ostrich lays very large eggs, some of them being above five inches in diameter, and weighing above fifteen pounds. The first egg is deposited near the centre; the rest are planted, as conveniently as possible, round about it. In this manner she lays from thirty to fifty eggs in a season, and about twelve at one clutch. Yet notwithstanding the ample provision which is hereby made for a numerous offspring, scarce one quarter of these eggs are ever supposed to be hatched in these barren and desolate recesses where the ostrich chooses to make her nest, it would not be enough to lay eggs and hatch them, unless some proper food were near at hand, and already prepared for their nourishment; and accordingly, we find, the greatest part of the outside eggs are reserved for food: these the dam breaks and disposes of, according to the number and craving of her young ones. It has indeed been reported that the female, depositing her eggs in the sand and covering them up, leaves them to be hatched by the heat of the climate, and then permits the young to shift for themselves. The truth is, a constant incubation being unnecessary in those sultry regions, she frequently leaves her eggs by day, but always carefully broods over them by night. Yet no bird watches her eggs with greater assiduity, nor has a stronger affection and care for her young ones, particularly whilst they are for several days after they are hatched, unable to walk. During this time the old ones are very attentive in supplying them with grass, and very careful in defeuding them from danger: nay in their protection, they themselves will often encounter every danger.

BUFFON, SHAW and others.

Verse 16.] The ostrich, though not destitute of natural affection, is yet so timorous and fearful of danger, that on

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The medium weight of the ostrich may be estimated at 75 or 80 pounds; a weight which would require an immense power of wing to elevate it into the atmosphere; and hence all those of the feathered kind which approach to the size of this bird, such as the touyou, the cassowary, the dodo, neither possess, nor can possess, the faculty of flight. In running however, the ostrich can easily outstrip the fleetest horse: his wings, like two arms, keep working with a motion correspondent to that of his legs; and his speed would very soon suatch him from the view of his pursuers, but unfortunately for the silly creature, instead of going off in a direct line, he takes his course in circles; while the hunters, taking advantage of this, meet him at unexpected turns, and relieving each other, keep him thus still employed, still followed for two or three days together. At last, spent with fatigue and famine, and finding all power of escape impossible, he endeavours to hide himself from those enemies he cannot avoid, and covers his head in the sand, or the first thicket he meets. Sometimes however, he attempts to face his pursuers : and, though in general the most gentle animal in nature, when driven to desperation, he defends himself with his beak, his wings, and his feet. Whilst engaged in these combats, he sometimes makes a fierce, angry, hissing noise, with his throat inflated, and his mouth open; at other times, when less resistance is made, he has a chuckling or cackling noise, as

in the poultry kind; and thereby seems to rejoice and laugh, as it were, at the timorousness of his adversary. BUFFON and SHAW.

3599. [Job xxxix. 19.] The country round Damascus where Job dwelt, or rather all Arabia, at this period, was still destitute of horses. Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. ii. p. 450.

3600. [29.] The reason why the eagle is able to face the sun, and endure its brightest rays, is because it has two sets of eye-lids, the one thick and close, the other (the Nictitating Membrane) thinner and finer, which last it draws over the eye when it views that luminous body. (SMITH'S Wonders of Nature and Art, vol. ii. p. 36, note.) — Might not this nictitating membrane, which is found also in some other birds, fishes, &c. be usefully dried on those telescopic glasses, through which we view the sun?

3601. [Job xl. 15-24. Behold- behemoth] BOCHART contends that this animal is the hippopotamus or river-horse, which the antient Greek writers describe as an amphibious quadruped, found in the Nile, and which is sometimes to be met with in Upper Egypt.

Vol. iii. p. 754. See also SCHEUCHZER'S Physica
Sacra on Job, and Dr. SHAW's Travels, p. 246.

This animal, says Buffon, is seldom to be met with but in the rivers of Africa: his usual voice resembles the neighing of a horse; his length is about six feet nine inches from the extremity of the muzzle to the beginning of the tail; he is fifteen feet in circumference, and six feet and a half in height: he is naturally gentle, but extremely heavy and unwieldy in his motions whether he walks under water or in the open air; his body is so capacious and buoyant, that he swims quicker than he runs: when he quits the water to graze, he eats sugar-canes, rushes, millet, rice, roots, &c., of which he consumes a great quantity, and does much injury to the cultivated field when attacked on the land, he hastens to the water, and plunging, swims to a great distance before he re-appears; but if pursued and wounded, he faces about with great fury, rushes against the boats, and seizing them with his tremendous tusks, tears pieces out of them, and not unfrequently sinks them to the bottom. He comes out of the water in an evening to sleep; and when he returns, he walks very deliberately over head, pursuing his course along the bottom as easy and unconcerned as if he were in the open air this, where the water over him is clear and deep, affords a most astonishing sight.

WATSON.

3602. [Job xl. 15.] The largest elephants are from ten to eleven feet in height, some are said to exceed it; the average is eight or nine feet. They are fifty or sixty years before they arrive at their full growth; the female goes with young eighteen months, and seldom produces more than one at a birth, which she suckles until it is five years old: its natural life is about one hundred and twenty years. Its skin is generally a dark gray, sometimes almost black. — It is said they can travel, on an emergency, two hundred miles in forty-eight hours; but will hold out for a month, at the the rate of 40 or 50 miles a-day, with cheerfulness and alacrity. FORBES' Oriental Memoirs.

3603. [15, 23.] To keep the Elephant in full vigour, he is said to require daily a hundred pounds weight of rice, raw or boiled, besides fresh herbage to cool him; for he is subject to be over-heated, and must be led to the water twice or thrice a-day for the purpose of bathing. He sucks up water in his trunk, carries it to his mouth, drinks part of it, and, by elevating his trunk, allows the remainder to run over every part of his body. His daily consumption of water, for drink, has been calculated at forty-five gallons. BINGLEY'S Anim. Biog. vol. i. p. 151.

A young Rhinoceros, brought from the East Indies to England (that died before he had attained his third year), was fed chiefly on hay and oats, also potatoes, and other fresh vegetables; his consumption of which was prodigious, exceeding that of two or three working horses. Phil. Trans. 1801, p.

145.

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3605. [- 8. Remember the battle.] Behold the Crocodile rushing forth from the flags and reeds. His enormous body swells. His plaited tail brandished high, floats upon the lake. The waters like a cataract descend from his opening jaws. Clouds of smoke issue from his dilated nostrils. The earth trembles with his thunder. When lo! a rival champion emerges from the deep. They suddenly dart on each other.

The boiling surface of the lake marks their rapid course, and a terrific conflict commences.

They now sink to the bottom folded together in horrid wreaths. The water becomes thick and discoloured. Again

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3606. [Job xli: 18.] Between the Tropics, where there is scarcely any horizontal refraction, the solar light, as viewed in the Heavens, displays in a serene morning five primordial colors. In the Horizon where the Sun is just going to exhibit is disc, a dazzling white is visible; a pure yellow, at an elevation of forty-five degrees; a fire-color, in the Zenith; a pure blue, forty-five degrees below, toward the West; and in the very West, the dark veil of night still lingering on the Horizon.

You there see those five colors, with their intermediate shades, generating each other nearly in this order: White, sulphur-yellow, lemon-yellow, yolk-of-egg-yellow, orange, aurora-color, poppy-red, fall-red, carmine-red, purple,

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3612.

BOYLE, on the Style of the H. Scriptures, p. 252.

There is a speech of good spirits, and of angelic spirits, composed of the speech of several speaking at the same time, particularly in circling companies or choruses. It is floating with a kind of rythm, or measure. The speakers are not intent on any expression: they think only on the sense and meaning of what is to be expressed ; and the expressious flow spontaneously from the sense. They close in unities, for the most part simple, but when compounded they then by an accent glide into a subsequent discourse. Such in old time was the form of Canticles; and such is the form of the Psalms of David.

Gentiles are capable of being initiated into choirs, consequently into harmony and agreement in the space of a single night; whereas, with many Christians, it requires a space of thirty years to effect the same purpose. Choirs or Choruses are such companies of spirits as speak together at the same time, all as one, and each as all.

3613.

SWEDENBORG, Arcana, nn. 1648, 2595.

In the composition of several Psalms,

the frequent transition from the first to the third person seems to intimate, that they were set to a music performed alternately; one part of the chorus answering to the other at proper stanzas and divisions, not unlike the choirs of our cathedrals. Univer. Hist. vol. viii.

p. 399. On musical instruments, See Dr. A. Clarke's FLEURY, p. 247.

3614. [Ps. viii. 4.] A single bee, in one day, will collect more honey, than a hundred chemists could do in a hundred years. A bee also, in one journey, will amass more wax than two men could collect in a whole day.

Nature Delineated, vol. i. pp. 93, 106.

3615. Instinct discovers to the animal its necessities only but man is raised from the dark womb of profound ignorance, to the knowledge and belief of a

GOD.

This religious character, which distinguishes him from every other sensible being, belongs more properly to his heart than to his understanding. It is in him not so much an illumination, as a feeling. The sensations of the infinity, of the universality, of the glory, and of the immortality with which it is connected, are incessantly agitating the inhabitants of the city, as well as those of the country. Man, feeble, miserable, mortal, indulges himself every where in these celestial passions. Thither he directs, without perceiving it, his hopes, his fears, his pleasures, his pains, his loves; and passes his life in pursuing or in combating these fugitive impressions of the DEITY.

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3619. 14. In the gates of the daughter of Zion] "In its most flourishing state, Jerusalem was divided into four parts, each enclosed within its own walls:

1. The old city of Jebus, on mount Zion, which became the residence of David and his successors, and was therefore called "the city of David."

2. The lower city, called "the daughter of Zion", on which stood the two magnificent palaces which Solomon built for himself and his queen; that of the Maccabean princes; the strong citadel built by Antiochus to overlook the temple; and the stately amphitheatre, built by Herod, capable of coutaining eighty thousand spectators.

3. The new city, which was chiefly inhabited by merchants, artificers and tradesmen ; and

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4. Mount Moriah, on which was built the famous temple of Solomon; and that erected by the Jews on their return from Babylon, and afterwards built almost anew, and sumptuously adorned by Herod the Great."

SMITH.

3620. [Ps. x. 4.] The boy so long delights in his play, the youth so long pursues his beloved, the old so long brood over melancholy thoughts, that no man meditates on the Supreme Being.

Works of Sir W. JONES, vol. vi. p. 428.

3621. [Ps. xii. 6.] One method of refining silver, then in

3623. [Ps. xvi. 2.] Our best performances are as useless services to God, as the heir's bringing wax to his departing father is to him; it adds not any thing to the rich man's store, and is by him desired and accepted, only to seal away a fortune to his son.

BOYLE'S Seraphic Love, p. 87.

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