though a mammal, was included by the Hebrews among the fowls as having wings; in fact, the word 'fowl' in Hebrew is literally winged,' and is as applicable to bat as to a bird. In Isaiah bats are spoken of as inhabitants of ruins and desolate places: "In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which they made each one for himself to worship, to the moles and to the bats" (ii. 20); and in the apocryphal book of Baruch bats are mentioned as sitting on the heads of the Babylonian idols (vi. 22). Their habit of resorting in great numbers to caves, ruins, and other dark places, is well known; and bats of many species resort by thousands to the caverns and ruins of Palestine.

One small species of short-tailed small bat (Vesperugo kuhlii), well known in the south of Europe, swarms in the quarries under the Temple at Jerusalem, and in the Cave of Adullam, to such a degree that it is almost impossible to keep a torch alight while creeping through the caverns. Another small species, with a tail as long as its body, and the singular horse-shoe nose characteristic of several genera-Rhinopoma microphyllum also found in Egypt, dwells in thousands in the caves by the Dead Sea and in the Jordan valley. In Galilee especially, near the Lake of Gennesaret, the caves are inhabited by clouds of a very large tawny-coloured bat (Taphozous nudiventris), an African species. In the wooded districts of the country we also found in caves a large fox-headed tawny bat (Xantharpyia ægyptiaca), measuring more than twenty inches across the wings. Besides these several other species were collected by us; among others, the greater horse-shoe bat, rather rare in England (Rhinolophus ferrum-equinum); another horse-shoe bat (Rh. clicosus), the European mouse-coloured bat (Vespertilio murinus). The common long-eared bat of England (Plecotus auritus) flits constantly about the Sea of Galilee and harbours in the glens near it; and other south-European and Egyptian species are met with. In Central Palestine, as in Britain, the bats are dormant during the winter; but in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, owing to the warmth of the climate, we found them active throughout the year.

BEAR. Heb. dôb.-The bear is now comparatively rare in Palestine, but in former times appears to have been common throughout the country. Owing to the clear

ance of timber, and the more powerful weapons devised by man, it has been completely extirpated in the south, and in the north is only rarely to be met with in some of the ravines of Galilee. On some parts of Lebanon and on Hermon it is still by no means uncommon. Of its former abundance we have evidence both in the incidents mentioned in the sacred writings and in the frequent allusions to its habits and characteristics. Thus David mentions, in his conversation with Saul, his having slain a lion and a bear which had robbed his father's flock (1 Sam. xvii. 34), a circumstance which corroborates a fact of which we have other evidence, viz., the former abundance of wood in that now denuded district of Judæa.

Again, when the children of Bethel mocked Elisha, and bid him go up after Elijah, we read that "there came forth two she-bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two of them" (2 Kings ii. 24). The ravine leading up from Jericho to Bethel is now entirely bare of timber, and could afford no cover for the bear; but when clothed with wood it must have been, from its ruggedness, a secure fastness for any wild animals. The bear is rarely met with except in forest, and always has its lair under such cover; it therefore is hardly necessary to suppose that the bears migrated from Lebanon and Hermon to the lowlands in winter, traces of them being found in Central Palestine as late as the crusading times.

The

Although the bear rarely seeks an encounter with man unprovoked, yet in all countries where it is found it is a familiar fact that individuals, as is also the case with the lion, will acquire a taste for human flesh, which they will gratify at all hazards. Ceylonese bear is sometimes the terror of Cingalese villages, from its ravages among the unarmed women and children; but the attack of the bears on the children of Bethel was clearly a divinely-directed visitation apart from the ordinary habits of the animal. That the Syrian bear was formidable to man we have from Amos (v. 19): "As if a man did flee from a licu, and a bear met him;" and the ferocity of the she bear, when aggravated by the loss of her whelps, is repeatedly mentioned. Thus Hushai says to Absalom: They (David and his men) "be mighty men, and

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they be chafed in their minds, as a bear robbed of her whelps in the field" (2 Sam. xvii. 8). "Let a bear robbed of her whelps meet a man, rather than a fool in his folly" (Prov. xvii. 12). "I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps" (Hos. xiii. 8). The lament of those who mourn over disappointed hopes is compared to the deep monotonous growl of the bear by Isaiah: "We roar all like bears" (lix. 11).

The Syrian bear, known by the same name (dúb), in Arabic, as in Hebrew, is a species very closely allied to the brown bear of Europe (Ursus arctos); but dis

tinguished by naturalists as Ursus syriacus, though Giebel and other writers consider the two identical. It is much lighter in colour than the bear of Europe, but does not appear otherwise to differ in any but very trivial characteristics, and, like it, it lives chiefly on fruits and roots, occasionally varying its diet by a visit to the sheepfolds, or to the goats of the villages. The same species extends through Armenia and Northern Persia. If it be merely a local variety of the brown bear, which is most probable, as no difference excepting the shade of colour has been defined, the same animal

extends from the Pyrenees and Norway to the Himalayas and Siberia.

I never but once saw the Syrian bear south of Hermon; this was in winter, in a rugged ravine near the Lake of Gennesaret. When we visited Hermon, before the snow had melted from the top, we found the snow ridges trodden in all directions by the tracks of bears, which were well known, but not much feared, by the shepherds, and we also saw their traces in the snow on Lebanon. They descend both sides of Hermon, and do considerable damage to the crops, especially the lentils, of which they are very fond.

The Rev. F. W. Holland gives me the following account of the Syrian bear on Hermon :-" On June 27, 1865, I slept on the top of Mount Hermon. Just as the sun was setting, I saw two bears rolling each other over in the snow about 400 yards distant. We went to sleep, fully expecting a visit from them during the night; but they did not disturb us, though at daybreak we found them still near us. When the sun had risen they left the snow and went down the mountain side. As we descended we came upon another in a narrow gorge busily engaged in rolling over the large boulders, though there did not appear to be food of any kind for him among the stones. I was some distance ahead of my companions, and he did not see me till I got within about fifty yards of him. He then reared himself up, and sat grinning at me as I approached with my little revolver, my only weapon. Unfortunately, the Syrian we had with us came in sight, and set up a shout, which so frightened the bear that he turned and fled, falling head over heels on a frozen spring, but did not stop till he was fully a quarter of a mile off, when, turning round for a moment, he shook his head angrily and then galloped away again. Bears must be very common on Mount Hermon. When I pointed them out to our guide, who lived in one of the villages at the foot of the mount, and was a charcoal-burner by trade, he laughed at my appearing surprised to see them, and evidently did not consider them worth looking at or thinking about, saying there were many of them. When we were there, there was but little snow, and the bears had doubtless come up from the lower parts of Hermon to enjoy a roll in it."

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BEAST, WILD.-The Hebrew word chayah, so translated and already mentioned, evidently stands for wild beasts in general. So also does zîz, i.e., moving things, rendered wild beasts' in Ps. 1. 11: The wild beasts of the field are mine;" and Ps. lxxx. 13: "The wild beast of the field doth devour it." In Isa. xxxiv. 14 we read: "The wild beasts (ziim) of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts (iyim) of the island." When, as iyim probably denotes a particular animal, ziím may also stand for some desert wild beast, as the hyæna contrasted with the jackal. So also xiii. 21: "Wild beasts (ziim) of the desert shall lie there." In three passages the plural form iyim, meaning 'the howlers,' occurs. The wild beasts (iyim) of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces" (İsa. xiii. 22). See also xxxiv. 14, quoted above, and Jer. 1. 39: "Therefore the wild beasts (ziim) of the desert with the wild beasts (iyim) of the island shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein." There can be no doubt that iyim stands for jackals,' the howling of which is so well known, and one of the Arabic names of which is also the sons of howling.' These animals, though so common in Palestine, are not mentioned specially under any other names, excepting shu al, which also includes the fox. Bochart considers the iyim to be the same as the Greek thoes, which he attempts, I think scarcely satisfactorily, to prove to be some other animal, distinct from either wolf or jackal. But as no such creature is known to exist, and as Pliny's definition of the thoes exactly fits the jackal, we may be content with this interpretation. See JACKAL.]

BEHEMOTH.-The Hebrew for beasts,' i.e., great beasts,' in our version left untranslated, where it occurs in the Book of Job. Elsewhere it is frequently used for cattle, herds, or wild beasts, and is so translated. But in Job a very different and distinct animal, the hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius) is portrayed in the address of the Lord to the patriarch: "Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox. Lo now his strength is in his loins, and his force is in the navel of his belly. He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways