shores of the Adriatic. In Syria it secretes itself during the day in old quarries, caves, or 1uins, but in the forests of North Africa it is content with the cover of the brushwood.

Wherever the traveller camps in the Holy Land, he will nightly hear the wailing cry of the packs of jackals as they quarter the country in search of food. They often visit the camp itself, and carry off any piece of meat that has been left unsecured. About the ruins of Baalbek the packs of jackals secrete themselves by hundreds there their sudden howl would break the dead stillness of the night, as we lay under those towering columns, and, caught up from pack to pack, was echoed back from the cavernous temples below, till the air seemed filled as if with the wailing of a thousand infants; and the words of the prophet were brought vividly home. "The jackals shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces" (Isa. xiii. 22). "The wild beasts of the desert, with the jackals shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein " (Jer. 1. 39).

Nor is it only in the seats of ancient splendour that the jackals howl; they sweep the desolate ravines of the Dead Sea, and secrete themselves in the hermits' caves by Jericho. They nightly visit the walls of Jerusalem, and provoke a defiant chorus from the swarming pariah. dogs, as intolerant of them as the hound is of the fox. I have known them enter not only villages but walled towns. A pack one night entered the town of Caiffa, through a gap in the wall, and scoured the place unmolested. But they are most inoffensive to man; and cunning as a fox, they hush their wail when seeking to filch from the tent, and scamper off at the top of their speed when they find themselves observed. I once met a pack after midnight in a suburb of Algiers, who politely made way for me to pass, but instantly rushed in full pursnit after a belated dog.

Ehrenberg describes an animal which he calls Canis syriacus, but which is merely the jackal of the Lebanon, not really differing from that of other countries.

LEOPARD (Felis leopardus). Heb namer; Arab. nim'r; Gr. Tápdadis. Is several times alluded to in Scripture, and its swiftness, cunning, perseverance, and strength are spoken of. It is taken as a type of fierceness, when

in the coming time of the reign of Christ" the leopard shall lie down with the kid" (Isa. xi. 6). Agile, swift, and rapid in its attack, it is, in the prophecy of Daniel, the apt type of the sudden sweep of the conquering Alexander of Macedon, the founder of the third great empire: "I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl. . . and dominion was given to it" (Dan. vii. 6). Habakkuk compares the onslaught of the Chaldæan cavalry to the leopard, "Their horses also are swifter than the leopard" (i. 8).

The leopard, as is well known, will take up its station in concealment by a village or a watering-place, and

await for hours its opportunity of pouncing upon the cattle. This habit supplies the force of the comparison: "A leopard shall watch over their cities" (Jer. v. 6): "I will be unto them as a lion; as a leopard by the way will I observe them " (Hos. xiii. 7). The beautifullyspotted skin of the leopard is alluded to in the familiar text: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" (Jer. xiii. 23). (See Appendix, Note B.)

We have incidental proof that the leopard was formerly common in the Holy Land in the names of places derived from it, as Beth-nimrah, or Nimrah, a fenced city allotted to Gad, near the Jordan eastwards (Numb. xxxii. 3, 36).

It is curious to trace the change of names in the history of this place- The house of leopards' of old; as the country became more densely peopled, and the leopards disappeared, it had changed to the Beth-abara, or house of the ford' of the Septuagint and the New Testament, when John the Baptist baptized beyond Jordan. With the present desolation of the land the leopard has resumed its sway, and roams undisturbed; the ford has become disused and almost forgotten, and the Beth-abara of the Roman period has to-day regained its old appellation, and is the Nahr-Nimrim, i.e., the stream of the leopards' of the modern Arabs. Deservedly is it so named, for in its thickets the leopards lurk; and though I did not see the animals themselves, their fresh footprints were clear and unmistakable on the moist ooze. It is the broad massive footmark of the leopard which Lynch, De Saulcy, and other travellers have mistaken for that of the lion, which is there quite extinct. There is another Nimrim, leopards,' in the land of Moab, mentioned by Isaiah and Jeremiah: "The waters of Nimrim shall be desolate" (Isa. xv. 6; Jer. xlviii. 34). This is a rich verdant spot at the south-east end of the Dead Sea, which still bears the Arabic name of Nimeirah, and where, too, we found traces enough of the leopard. The mountains of the leopard' are also spoken of by Solomon (Cant. iv. 8).

The leopard is by no means so rare in Palestine as has been supposed. In the forests of Gilead it is still so numerous as to be a pest to the herdsmen, who, with their inferior weapons, are somewhat loth to encounter it in the chase, for a wounded leopard is the most terrible and cruel of beasts. The sheikh of one village shewed me no less than four leopard skins recently killed. About the Dead Sea we frequently saw their traces. We also tracked them on Mount Tabor, but throughout Galilee they are rare. On Mount Carmel they are still found, and while we were there a magnificent pair were killed by some Arabs, who sold the skins for 201. They were so large that it is not surprising that the spoor of such beasts should have been taken for tigers' or lions'. A leopard's skin is highly prized as a saddle-cloth by the Turkish officials, and also is frequently worn over the shoulders by a certain class of dervishes. There is another animal of the leopard kind, the well

known chetah, or hunting leopard of India (Felis jubata), which, though scarce, is found in different parts of the country. A few still haunt the neighbourhood of Tabor and the hills of Galilee. In Gilead it is more common. and a sheikh there presented me with three skins of chetah shot by his people. Though the chetah is much less formidable than the leopard, yet it does not appear to be discriminated by the Syrians, and is never by them domesticated or kept for hunting, as by the natives of

India; at least I could find no trace of such use of it, even among the sheikhs, who were learned in falconry. The chetah is doubtless comprehended under the Hebrew term 'namer.' The panther is merely a synonym of the leopard. One or two other large species of the Felida, or Cat tribe, as the lynx, and perhaps the caracal, are found in Palestine, but rarely, and did not come under our personal observation.

LEVIATHAN.-Though by some imagined to express the whale, yet is now admitted to mean the crocodile. [See LEVIATHAN, Reptiles, Chap. IX.]

CHAPTER VI.

MAMMALS.-PART III.

LION (Felis leo).-About 130 times is the king of beasts mentioned in Scripture. Several Hebrew words are used to express the lion. (1.) The common word is aryeh, denoting the animal in general, without regard to age or sex. (2.) Cepheer, a young lion,' not a mero enb, is always so rendered in our version, excepting in

two or three passages in Proverbs, where it is simply lion.' However, cepheer was not necessarily very different from aryeh, as both words are applied to the lion which Samson slew, and in the carcase of which the honey was found. (3.) Labi, Labiyah, (3.) Labi, Labiyah, an old lion,' 'lioness,' from a Coptic root. "Judah. . . couched as