drying in the sun, and the proverbial delicacy of its flesh, are characteristics which all unite in the Quail.

BEFORE closing our account of the Quail, it will be as well to devote a short space to the nature of the mode by which the Israelites were twice fed. Commentators who were unacquainted with the natural history of the bird have represented the whole occurrence as a miraculous one, and have classed it with the division of the Red Sea and of the Jordan, with the various plagues by which Pharaoh was induced to release the Israelites, and with many other events which we are accustomed to call miracles.

In reality, there is scarcely anything of a miraculous character about the event, and none seems to have been claimed for it. The Quails were not created at the moment expressly for the purpose of supplying the people with food, nor were they even brought from any great distance. They were merely assisted in the business on which they were engaged, namely, their migration or customary travel from south to north, and waiting on the opposite side of the narrow sea for a south-east wind. That such a wind should blow was no miracle. The Quails expected it to blow, and without it they could not have crossed the sea. That it was made to blow earlier than might have been the case is likely enough, but that is the extent of the miraculous character of the event. Taking the word in its ordinary sense, no miracle was wrought, simply because none was wanted. Granting to the fullest extent that He who arranged the course of the world can alter His arrangements as easily as He made them, we cannot but see that in this case no alteration was needed, and that, in consequence, none was made.

THE RAVEN.

Signification of the word Oreb-The Raven tribe plentiful in Palestine-The Raven and the Dove-Elijah and the Ravens-Various explanations of the circumstance-Feeding the young Ravens-Luis of Grenada's sermon-The white Raven of ancient times-An old legend-Reference to the blackness of the Raven's plumage-Desert-loving habits of the Raven-Its mode of attacking the eye-Notions of the old commentators-Ceremonial use of the Raven-Return of the Ravens-Cunning of the bird-Nesting-places of the Raven-The magpie and its character—The starling-Its introduction into Palestine-The Rabbi perplexed-Solution of the difficulty.

It is more than probable that, while the Hebrew word oreb primarily signifies the bird which is so familiar to us under the name of RAVEN, it was also used by the Jews in a much looser sense, and served to designate any of the Corvidæ, or Crow tribe, such as the raven itself, the crow, the rook, the jackdaw, and the like. We will first take the word in its restricted sense, and then devote a brief space to its more extended signification.

As might be expected from the cosmopolitan nature of the Raven, it is very plentiful in Palestine, and even at the present time is apparently as firmly established as it was in the days when the various Scriptural books were written.

There are few birds which are more distinctly mentioned in the Holy Scriptures than the Raven, though the passages in which its name occurs are comparatively few. It is the first bird which is mentioned in the Scriptures, its name occurring in Gen. viii. 7: "And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made; "And he sent forth a raven, which went forth to and fro, until the waters were dried up from off the earth."

Here we have, at the very outset, a characteristic account of the bird. It left the ark, and flew to and fro, evidently for the purpose of seeking food. The dove, which immediately followed the Raven, acted in a different manner. She flew from the ark in search of food, and, finding none, was forced to return again.

The Raven, on the contrary, would find plenty of food in the bodies of the various animals that had been drowned, and were floating on the surface of the waters, and, therefore, needed not to enter again into the ark. The context shows that it made the ark a resting-place, and that it "went forth to and fro," or, as

the Hebrew Bible renders the passage, "in going and returning," until the waters had subsided. Here, then, is boldly drawn the distinction between the two birds, the carrion-eater and the feeder on vegetable substances-a distinction to which allusion has already been made in the history of the dove.

Passing over the declaration in Lev. xi. 15 and Deut. xiv. 14, that every Raven (i.e. the Raven and all its tribe) is unclean, we

come to the next historical mention of the bird. This occurs in 1 Kings xvii. When Elijah had excited the anger of Ahab by prophesying three years of drought, he was divinely ordered to take refuge by the brook Cherith, one of the tributaries of the Jordan. "And it shall be, that thou shalt drink of the brook; and I have commanded the ravens [orebim] to feed thee there. "So he went and did according unto the word of the Lord : for he went and dwelt by the brook Cherith, that is before Jordan.

"And the ravens brought him bread and flesh in the morning, and bread and flesh in the evening, and he drank of the brook."

In this passage we have a history of a purely miraculous character. It is not one that can be explained away. Some have tried to do so by saying that the banished prophet found the nests of the Ravens, and took from them daily a supply of food for his sustenance. The repetition of the words "bread and flesh" shows that the sacred writer had no intention of signifying a mere casual finding of food which the Ravens brought for their young, but that the prophet was furnished with a constant and regular supply of bread and meat twice in the day. It is a statement which, if it be not accepted as the account of a miracle, must be rejected altogether.

I may here mention that an explanation of the passage has been offered by some commentators, who render the word orebim as "Arabs," and so arrive at the conclusion that the prophet was fed in his retirement by the Arab tribes which came to the brook for water. Others have thought that the Orebim were the inhabitants of a village called Orbo, near the Cherith. There is, however, no need of any such explanations. The account of the prophet's flight to the Cherith and of the daily supply of food which he received has been accepted as a simple statement of facts by all Jewish writers, and there is no alternative but either to accept it in the same sense or to reject it.

This part of the subject naturally leads to certain passages in which the feeding of the young Ravens is mentioned. See, for example, Job xxxviii. 41: "Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat." This passage is rendered rather differently and more

forcibly in the Jewish Bible. "Who provideth for the raven his food, when his young ones cry unto God, and wander for lack of meat?" A passage of similar import occurs in Ps. cxlvii. 9: "He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry." An evident reference is made to these passages in Luke xii. 24: "Consider the ravens : for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?"

In all these cases reference is made to a curious idea which prevailed respecting the Raven. It was thought that the Raven was a cruel parent, and that after the eggs were hatched it cared nothing for the young until they were full fledged. As, moreover, the bird was thought to be peculiarly late in attaining its plumage, the young Ravens must all die of hunger, were they not fed in some remarkable manner. This subject is treated at some length by Luis of Grenada in his Sermons. As the passage in question is a very curious one, I give both the original and a translation. For the latter I am indebted to the Rev. C. J. Smith, author of "Synonyms and Antonyms," who has preserved, with much success, the quaint structure of the language.

"Dominica XIV. post Pent. Concio 1:

"Nisi hæc enim omnia magnam nobis admirationis materiam divinæque providentia notitiam præberent, nequaquam Dominus inter cetera sapientiæ et providentiæ suæ argumenta hoc etiam commemoraret, cum ad Job ait: Quis præparat corvo escam suam, quando pulli ejus clamant ad Deum vagantes eò quòd non habeant cibos ?' Et in Psal.: 'Qui dat jumentis escam ipsorum et pullis corvorum invocantibus eum.' 2

"Cur autem hoc in loco pullorum corvi præcipuè meminerit, in causa est, quod in his miro modo singularis providentiæ cura elucet. Ait enim interpres quidam corvorum pullos eum implumes adhuc sunt, candorem præ se ferre: ideoque a parentibus ut nothos negligi, quod eorum non referant colorem. Quo tempore divina providentia, quæ nusquam dormit, eos ad se clamantes alit. Vermiculos enim quosdam in nidulo nasci constituit, quorum esu sustentantur donec nono tandem die nascentibus plumis parentum colorem referant, atque ita demum ab illis nutriantur.