the Holy Land, in some of the lakes and pools of which country the Frogs are so amazingly numerous that they cover the surface towards evening in one solid, unbroken mass. In neither country is the Common Frog of England, nor, indeed, any other species of Ground Frog, found.

The little Tree Frog (Hyla arborea), which is only about an inch and a half long, is very common in the Holy Land and in Egypt, living on the trees, sitting on a leaf, and catching the flies as they pass. It is a beautiful little creature, varying in colour, but generally light green above, with a pink edge, and white underneath.

The Toad is not mentioned in Scripture. Only one species has been met with in the Holy Land (Bufo pantherinus), a southern form, and which is very common iu all parts of the country.

CHAPTER X.

FISH, FISHING, FISHERMAN.

1. CREATION OF FISHES.-Fish are included in the first chapter of Genesis among the moving creatures created

on the fifth day, along with great whales (which are, strictly speaking, not fishes, but mammalia), reptiles, doubtless, and birds. They are thus set forth as having been brought into existence prior to the inhabitants of

the dry land. The researches of geology have illustrated this order of creation in a striking manner.

Fishes, as they are the lowest class in organization of any of the vertebrate animals, so they are the earliest to appear in the strata of which the crust of the earth is composed. In the old red sandstone rocks a few species of Ganoid and Placoid fishes (related to our existing sharks) are found; and they become more numerous in the more recent strata, until they reach their full development at the end of the secondary period, or the Chalk epoch, just as warm-blooded mammals or quadrupeds were first beginning to predominate on the earth. Thus geological research corroborates the order of sequence in the Mosaic record, testifying that 'the moving creature that hath life appeared' upon the earth in the waters long before it existed on the dry land.

The creation of fishes is combined in the same day with that of whales or marine monsters, reptiles, and birds; and it is to be noticed that all these classes of the earlier creation, or that of the fifth day, are oviparous, bringing forth their young from eggs or spawn (with the single exception of the Whale), while the creation of the sixth day is of mammalia, or milk-giving animals, which bring forth their young alive. Besides this point of affinity between the different orders created on the fifth day, or fifth epoch of creation, microscopists assure us that the globules of the blood of birds and fishes, when closely examined, are seen to be the same, and do not at all resemble the globules of the blood of the mammalia, or animals which sprang from the earth on the sixth day.

2. CLEAN AND UNCLEAN FISHES.No particular species of fish is directly mentioned in Holy Scripture, and the only distinction made between kinds of fish is that in Lev. xi. 9-12, between those that have fins and scales, and those that have none: "These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters; whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. . . . Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you." The restrictions, therefore, were not extensive. Besides reptiles, all of which were unclean, the only forbidden kinds were the Silurida, or Sheat-fish. the species of which

are very common in fresh water in the East; the Raida, or Skate fish; the Petromyzida, or Lampreys; and, though not strictly without scales, the Squalidæ, or Sharks. To these the Rabbis added as unclean the Muranidæ, or Eels, whose scales are very minute and covered with a slimy substance.

3. SPECIES OF FISHES.-We read of Solomon that "he spake. . . . also of fishes" (1 Kings iv. 33). Doubtless the royal father of natural history distinguished the immense variety of species of fishes found on the coasts and in the inland waters of Palestine; but it is remarkable that, while the Greek language possesses more than 400 names for fishes, not one has come down to us in the Hebrew. Josephus, indeed, has noticed one or two of the most remarkable of the fishes of the Sea of Galilee.

4. ECONOMY OF FISHES.-In the economy of fishes, the Hebrews had early noticed their marvellous fecundity: as when Jacob, in blessing the sons of Joseph (Gen. xlviii. 16), where the expression, "Let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth," is in the original," Let them grow as fishes do increase."

5. FISHES OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.-The fishes of the coasts of Palestine do not require special mention, as they are the same with those of the Mediterranean generally, though some species, as the Mullets, seem to be relatively more abundant in the Syrian waters. Sharks are occasionally seen; and besides fishes, among the Cetacea, Porpoises and Dolphins are common, and held unclean by Jews and Mohammedans alike.

6. FISHES OF THE NILE.-The Nile and all the lakes and canals of Egypt abound in fishes of many species. They are frequently alluded to in Scripture, and, thongh forbidden to the Egyptian priests, were an important part of the food of the rest of the people. Hence the severity of the plague which turned their waters into blood and destroyed their fish; and the force of the denunciation of Isaiah, in the burden of Egypt (xix. 8): "The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brook shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.” When Israel murmured for flesh in the wilderness, their complaint was, "We re member the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely" (Numb. xi. 5); and the word translated in the previous

verse flesh, is by the best Hebraists considered to apply exclusively to the flesh of fish-certainly a much more savoury food than any flesh diet which was likely to be within the reach of the oppressed Israelites-whereas fish was and is to this day a staple article of subsistence among the poor in that country. Not only man, but myriads of waterfowl, which abound in Lower Egypt more perhaps than in any other country in the world, depend upon fish, and yet the supply is as inexhaustible

as ever.

Herodotus, Josephus, and other ancient writers, notice the prodigious abundance of fish in the Egyptian waters. The same sorts were held to be unclean as among the Jews, and probably the reason of the prohibition in both cases was sanitary as much as ceremonial, for the various kinds of Sheat-fish, or Siluroids, the most abundant of the unclean species, are, as we can testify from experience, most unsavoury eating. The greater number of the fresh-water fishes of Egypt belong to the Bream, Perch, and Carp tribes (Sparidæ, Labridæ, Chromida, and Cyprinidæ).

7. FISHES OF THE SEA OF GALILEE.-Very similar in character to the fishes of the Nile are the species of the Jordan and its affluents, abounding most of all in the Lake of Galilee. Josephus remarks upon this fact (Bell. Jud. III. x. 8), and says that the country people thought it to be connected with the Nile, because of the identity of the Coracine (Sheat-fish) found in it. The density of the shoals of fish in the Sea of Galilee can scarcely be conceived by those who have not witnessed them. quently these shoals cover an acre or more of the surface and the fish, as they slowly move along in masses, are so crowded, with their back fins just appearing on the level of the water, that the appearance at a little distance is that of a violent shower of rain pattering on the surface.

Fre

We obtained fourteen species of fishes in the lake, and probably the number inhabiting it is at least three times. as great. Among those we collected two very abundant species (Chromis nilotica, Hasselquist, and Clarias macracanthus, Günther), the Bream and Sheat-fish, are identical with the common species of the Nile. Four other species, three of which were very abundant, were hitherto unknown to science, but all essentially African in their characteristics-the genus Hemichromis. Their nearest