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er, was not what its name would seem to import, but a kind of pulse or pea, which is common in Judea, and to which the Arabians give this name. See 2 Sam. xvii. 28.

The TURTLE is only a variety of the dove, as is also the common pigeon. The former is something the smaller of the two; but the principal difference between this and the other birds, is in its migratory disposition. To this circumstance there is evidently an allusion in Jer. viii. 7: The stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed times; and the turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming.' It is also referred to in Cant. ii. 11, 12, where it is recognised as the welcome harbinger of the returning spring: Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away; for, lo! the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.'

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THE only mention of this bird is in Isaiah xxxviii. 14., and Jeremiah viii. 7. In the former passage, Hezekiah, referring to the severity of his recent affliction, says, 'Like a swallow, or a crane, so did I chatter.' The note of the swallow, being quick and mournful, the allusion of the king has been supposed to be to his prayers, which were so interrupted by groanings, as to be but like the quick twitterings of the swallow. This seems to have occasioned the pious monarch to regard with suspicion the sincerity and fervor of his supplications, thus delivered but in broken accents; and in bitterness of spirit he casts himself upon the unbounded mercy of his God, exclaiming, 'O Lord, I am oppressed; undertake for me.' The passage in Jeremiah, refers to the well-known migration of this bird; a circumstance from which the faithful prophet takes occasion to reprove the ingratitude and infidelity of the favored tribes: The turtle, and the crane, and the swallow, observe the time of their coming; but my people know not the judgment of the Lord

THE SPARROW.

In the sacred writings, the word tzeppur, which is a general termi applied to the feathered race, is in a more restricted sense appropriated to the sparrow. This remark is the more necessary to be borne in mind, because some translators, and among them the English, have introduced the sparrow into the text, where this bird was evidently not intended by the inspired writers. Our own translation, however, requires correction but in one passage, namely, Psalın cii. 7: 'I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top.' To justify this translation, interpreters have represented the sparrow as a solitary, moping bird, which loves to dwell on the house-top alone; and so timid, that she endeavors to conceal herself in the darkest corners, and passes the night in sleepless anxiety. But her character and manners by no means agree with this description. On the contrary, she is a pert, loquacious, bustling creature; which, instead of courting the dark and solitary corner, is commonly found chirping and fluttering about in the crowd. The term in this text, therefore, must be understood in its general sense, and probably refers to some variety of the owl. Jerom renders it, 'I was as a solitary bird on the roof." The Hebrew text contains nothing which can with propriety suggest the sparrow, or any similar bird: and, indeed, nothing seems to be more remote from the mind of David: all the circumstances indicate some bird of the night; for the Psalmist, bending under a load of severe affliction, shuns the society of men, and mingles his unceasing groans and lamentations with the mournful hootings of those solitary birds, which disturb the lonely desert. 'By reason of the voice of my groanings, my bones cleave to my skin; I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am like an owl of the desert.' He then proceeds with his comparison: 'I watch, and am as a bird upon the house-top alone.' I watch; that is, I have

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spent a sleepless night; or, as it is paraphrased in the Chaldee, have watched the whole night long, without once closing my ey Every part of this description directs our attention to some noct nal bird, which hates the light, and comes forth from its hidin place when the shadows of evening fall, to hunt the prey, and, fro the top of some ruined tower, to tell its joys or its sorrows to slumbering world.

A passage in the eighty-fourth psalm, which was probably per ned by the royal minstrel when driven from his throne and the s cred temple, by the rebellion of his unnatural son, refers to this bir Ardently desirous of associating with the people of God in the pre scribed ordinances of public worship, the pious Psalmist seems t envy these birds their proximity to the sacred altar: The sparrow hath found out a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, wher she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God,' ver. 3. Parkhurst's translation removes som of the difficulties of the usual reading: 'Even [as] the sparrow findeth her house, and the dove her nest where she hath laid her young, [so shall I find] thine altars, O Jehovah of Hosts, my King, and my God.'

Among the appropriate and felicitous illustrations interwoven with our Lord's arguments for a special or particular providence, is one taken from the care of our heavenly Father exercised towards this mean and generally despised bird: Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father,' (Matthew x. 29); or, according to Luke, 'not one of them is forgotten before God,' chi. xii. 6. Not that we are to conclude from these texts, as Pope has falsely done, that

He views with equal eye, as Lord of all, goient goalle That sent hero perish, or a sparrow fall;'

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THE Ostrich is considered to be the largest of birds, and the connecting link between quadrupeds and fowls. Its head and bill some

what resemble those of a duck; and the neck may be compared to that of a swan, but that it is much longer. The legs and thighs resemble those of a hen, but are very fleshy and large. The end of the foot is cloven, and has two very large toes, which, like the leg, are covered with scales. These toes are of unequal sizes; the largest, which is on the inside, being seven inches long including the claw, which is near three-fourths of an inch in length, and almost as broad; the other toe is but four inches long, and is without a claw. The height of the ostrich is usually seven feet, from the head to the ground; but from the back it is only four: 'so that the head and the neck are above three feet long. From the head to the end of the tail, when the neck is stretched in a right line, it is seven feet long. One of the wings, with the feathers stretched out, is three feet in length. The plumage is generally white and black, though some of them are said to be grey. There are no feathers on the sides of the thighs, nor under the wings. The lower half of the neck is covered with smaller feathers than those on the belly and back, and the head and upper part of the neck are covered with hair. At the end of each wing, there is a kind of spur, resembling the quill of a porcupine, about an inch long, and about a foot lower down the wing is another of the same description, but something smaller.

The ostrich has not, like most other birds, feathers of various kinds; they are all bearded with detached hairs or filaments, without consistence and reciprocal adherence. The consequence is, that they cannot oppose to the air a suitable resistance, and therefore are of no utility in flying, or in directing the flight. Besides the peculiar structure of her wings, the ostrich is rendered incapable of flight by her enormous size, weighing seventy-five or eighty pounds; a weight which would require an immense power of wing to elevate into the air.

The ostrich is a native only of the_torrid regions of Africa and Arabia, and has furnished the sacred writers with some of their most beautiful imagery. The following descriptions and illustrations are chiefly selected from Professor Paxton and Dr. Harris.

The ostrich was aptly called by the ancients a lover of the deserts. Shy and timorous in no common degree, she retires from the cultivated field, where she is disturbed by the Arabian shepherds and husbandmen, into the deepest recesses of the Sahara. In those dreary wastes, she is reduced to subsist on a few tufts of coarse grass, which here and there languish on their surface, or a few other solitary plants equally destitute of nourishment, and in the Psalmist's phrase, even withered before they are grown up.' To this dry and parched food may perhaps be added, the great variety of land-snails which occasionally cover the leaves and stalks of these herbs, and which may afford her some refreshment. Nor is it improbable, that she sometimes regales herself on lizards and serpents, together with insects and reptiles of various kinds. Still, however, considering the voracity and size of this camel-bird, (as it is called in the East,) it is wonderful how the little ones should

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