XIV.—Fauna and Flora.
The common animals of the country are often noticed in the Mishnah, including oxen, sheep, goats, camels, asses, and mules, with the gazelle (צבי) as already noticed. Among wild beasts we find the wolf, lion, bear, leopard (נמר Arab نمر), and the small panther, pardulus (ברדלס), which some render basilisk (Baba Kama, i, 4); they were all hunted apparently in Palestine (Sanhedrin, i, 4) which, if we could be certain of locality, would make the survival of the lion very late. The pardulus was perhaps a large wild cat, still found in wild districts. The wolf, bear, and leopard are still to be found.
The pig and dog were unclean (Baba Kama, vii, 7) with the wild boar, which is still numerous (Kholin, ix, 2). A wild ox (שור הבר or שור המדבר) is also noticed (Kilaim, viii, 6; Baba Kama, iv, 7), but whether this was the Reem (A. V. unicorn) hunted by Assyrians in the seventh century b.c., or the bubale or bovine antilope[1] is not clear. The latter is the Bakr el Wahash or "wild cow" of modern Arabs. Another doubtful animal was the Coi, which was a wild sheep (Bicurim, ii, 8; Nezir, v, 7; Kholin, vi, 1). It was doubtful whether the Coi (כוי) was cattle (בהמה) or game (חיה). It is to be noted that Coi is an ancient Turkish word for a "sheep," and that wild sheep are hunted in Cyprus. Probably they were found in Northern Syria at the time of which we treat. Tame sheep it may also be noted wore bells, as they still do (Nezir, vi, 2).
Another wild animal was the "sea dog," which was amphibious and came at times on land (כלב המים Kelim, xvii, 13), but whether in Palestine or elsewhere is not stated. There can be little doubt that the seal is intended, which would be familiar to the Jews in the Black Sea and in the Caspian, and which is occasionally found off the Syrian coast, as has been noted in the Quarterly Statement, Palestine Exploration Fund. [2] The Lybian ass like a camel (Kilaim, viii, 4)) was apparently only a large breed of ass from Egypt. The mole rat (Middoth, i, 3)[3] and the
- ↑ The "Cambridge Companion to the Bible," 1893, asserts that the Yahmur is the Bubale, which is an error. The Yahmur is the roebuck, as I ascertained in 1872. The Authorised Version (Deut., xiv, 5, 1 Kings, iv, 23) renders the word "fallow deer," but the Revised Version has adopted the true meaning in consequence of the note on the subject which I submitted to the revisers. This is an instance in which a new discovery has still not found its place in handbooks supposed to be well up to date, even after having been published for some 15 years.
- ↑ See Quarterly Statement, April, 1888, p. 106. The seal is still called Kelb el Bahr, "the sea dog." A mother and calf were caught in nets at Surafend, south of Haifa.
- ↑ The חלד is often translated "mole," but the term is now applied to the Khuld or Spalax Typhlus, "the mole rat." The mole is called אישה
