PREFACE.

IN the present little work, it has been the author's aim to relate, in a plain and familiar manner, all that is most interesting and instructive in the natural history of the various animals mentioned in Scripture, and more especially to note whatever sheds light on the passages in which they are introduced. With this view he has collected, from the narratives of the most recent travellers who have treated of the natural history of the East, as well as from other sources, some of them not readily accessible-accounts of the habits and instincts of such animals as came within the limits of his design. He has thus, he hopes, been enabled to add both to the value and interest of his little work, by blending anecdote and adventure, observation and disquisition. He has, however, studi

ously avoided the introduction of discussions turning on mere grammatical niceties, which could be intelligible only to the student of a branch of learning which has never yet been cultivated with the ardour which its importance demands.

To some of the anecdotes he is aware it may be objected, that they have but little bearing on the Scripture History of the animals. It was, however, part of his plan to introduce such interesting narratives, &c. as would tend to fix the attention of his young readers. He knows no better means of arresting their notice, and leading them to more important inquiries, than thus to strew the path of knowledge, if he may so speak, with the flowers of interesting anecdote and adventure.

BIBLE QUADRUPEDS.

CHAPTER I.

DOMESTICATED ANIMALS.

THE CAMEL-THE DROMEDARY-THE OX-THE ASSTHE DOG.

THE CAMEL.

THERE are two species of the camel, both of which are mentioned in scripture-the camel, properly so called, and the dromedary. In appearance and habits they are very closely allied; the principal difference consisting in the former having two humps on its back, while the latter has one only. The camel is also larger and stronger in the body, thicker in the legs, and, though these are not so ong as those of the dromedary, the animal altogether is taller.

B

The whole appearance of the camel is rugged and uninviting. Its neck, which is long and bending, supports a small head, surmounted by short ears, and furnished with a pair of eyes, large, dull, and unintelligent. Its lips are thin and projecting the upper one being divided, and the two lobes or portions capable of separate motion, thus serving, in some measure, the purpose of a hand, and enabling the animal to grasp and secure the higher branches of the plants on which it feeds. Its nostrils are of a peculiar slit-like form, and the power which it possesses of shutting them at pleasure, admirably adapts it for inhabiting the arid deserts of Arabia, where it has frequently in its journeys to encounter blasts of drifting sand, and but for some such contrivance would be constantly exposed to suffocation.

The joints of its legs and its breast-bone are armed with callosities, or thick accumulations of insensible skin, which save them from injury when it rests on the burning sand. It has been supposed, that this is peculiarly a mark of its subjection to man. It seems more likely to be one of those wise provisions of nature,

with which we find her furnishing animals so as to adapt them for the situation for which they are designed. But, perhaps, the most singular part of its external conformation consists in the hump, or protuberance, on its back, which, as has been mentioned, is single in the Arabian species or dromedary, and double in the Bactrian one. It consists of the same kind of fatty matter which is found on the backs of some species of oxen, the Brahminee bull of India for instance, and forms an ample provision against the time of want, to which in a wild state, and inhabiting such arid deserts, the animal would be frequently exposed. From this source alone it can for a considerable time derive sufficient nourishment for the support of life; nor does it die of want, until the whole substance of the hump has been absorbed, and applied to the general nourishment of the system.

Other parts of the animal no less strikingly display the hand of the all-wise Creator. Its foot consists of two toes, only partially free at the points; their extremities being protected by flat nails resembling hoofs. The sole consists of a callous, but not quite hard substance, something