preters of the Law. According to them, a pigeon could only be ranked among the Beni-yonâh for a short period of its life, and, if it were too young or too old, it might not be offered as a sacrifice.

The test of proper age lay in the feathers. If the bird were so young that the feathers could be pulled out without drawing blood, it was considered as being below age. If, on the contrary, blood followed the feathers, but the plumage of the neck exhibited a metallic lustre, it was reckoned as having passed the age of Beni-yonâh. It might be a father, and not the son, of pigeons. When these feathers are visible, the bird changes its name, and is called Tôr- a word which will be presently explained.

According to some of these old writers, the Dove was considered as having a superiority over other birds in the instinctive certainty with which it finds its way from one place to another. At the present time, our familiarity with the variety of pigeon known as the Carrier has taught us that the eye is the real means employed by the pigeon for the direction of its flight. Those who fly pigeons for long distances always take them several times over the same ground, carrying them to an increasing distance at every journey, so that the birds shall be able to note certain objects which serve them as landmarks.

Bees and wasps have recourse to a similar plan. When a young wasp leaves its nest for the first time, it does not fly away at once, but hovers in front of the entrance for some time, getting farther and farther away from the nest until it has learned the aspect of surrounding objects. The pigeon acts in precisely the same manner, and so completely does it depend upon eyesight that, if a heavy fog should come on, the best-trained pigeon will lose its way.

The old writers, however, made up their minds that the pigeon found its way by scent, which sense alone, according to their ideas, could guide it across the sea. They were not aware of the power possessed by birds of making their eyes telescopic at will, or of the enormous increase of range which the sight obtains by elevation. A pigeon at the elevation of several hundred yards can see to an astonishing distance, and there is no need of imagining one sense to receive a peculiar development when the ordinary powers of another are sufficient to obtain the object.

That dove-cotes were in use among the earlier Jews is well known. An allusion to the custom of keeping pigeons in cotes is seen in Isa. lx. 8: "Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?" or, as the Jewish Bible translates the passage," as the doves to their apertures?" In this passage the sacred writer utters a prophecy concerning the coming of the world to the Messiah, the Gentiles flocking to Him as the clouds of pigeons fly homeward to their cotes.

over.

The practice of pigeon-keeping has survived to the present day, the houses of wealthy men being furnished with separate pigeon-houses, built up of a number of earthen jars, and roofed Each jar is the habitation of a pair of pigeons, and the whole principle of this dove-cote is exactly the same as that which was employed by the late Mr. Waterton in erecting the starling-houses in his garden and grounds. Poorer people, who cannot afford to build a separate house for the pigeons, set up jars for them in their own houses, the pigeons gaining access to their nests through the door.

The Talmudical writers have even their regulations respecting the keeping of tame pigeons. No one was allowed to do so who had not a sufficiency of ground around his house to supply food for them. According to their regulations, the pigeon-house must not be within fifty paces of cultivated ground belonging to any one except the owner of the pigeons. The reason for this prohibition was, that as the pigeon was known to be an exceedingly voracious bird, it should not feed at the expense of a neighbour. It was conventionally supposed to feed by choice in the immediate vicinity of the house, and, when it had filled its crop, to be unwilling to fly farther than was absolutely necessary.

Being so familiar with this bird, it was to be expected that the writers of the Scriptures would make many references to it. The plaintive, monotonous cooing of the pigeon is several times mentioned. For example: "And Huzzab shall be led away captive, she shall be brought up, and her maids shall lead her as with the voice of doves, taboring upon their breasts" (Nah. ii. 7). The Jewish Bible gives this passage in another and certainly a more forcible manner: "And Huzzab shall be uncovered and brought up, and her maids shall sigh as the voice of doves, drumming upon their breasts." Here the prophet alludes to the ancient custom of beating the breast as a sign of sorrow (a

custom that survived even in this country until a very recent date), accompanied with the moanings of distress.

The prophet Isaiah makes use of a similar metaphor: "I did mourn as a dove: mine eyes fail with looking upward" (xxxviii. 14). Also in chap. lix. 11: "We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves."

Behold, thou art fair,

The beauty of the bird is mentioned in many passages, several of which occur in the Song of Solomon. my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast dove's eyes" (i. 15). "His eyes are the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set" (v. 12). And in several other places the beloved is spoken of as a Dove, as in the following passage: "My dove, my undefiled, is but one; she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bare her" (vi. 9).

Allusion is made to the peculiar metallic gleam of the Dove's plumage in a well-known passage of the Psalms: "Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove

covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold" (Ps. Ixviii. 13).

The strong flight of the Dove is also mentioned by the Psalmist in an equally familiar passage: “And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove for then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness (Ps. lv. 6, 7). It is scarcely necessary to advert to the wellknown passages in which reference is made to the gentleness of the Dove.

That the pigeons which are not domesticated live in the rocks was known to the Scripture writers, who make several references to the fact.

See, for example: "O ye that dwell in Moab, leave the cities, and dwell in the rock, and be like the dove that maketh her nest in the sides of the hole's mouth" (Jer. xlviii. 28). See also Ezek. vii. 16: "But they that escape of thein shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning, every one for his iniquity."

This is an especially graphic image. The deep valleys that run between the mountain ranges are literally crowded with pigeons who have made their nests in the cavities. Several of these are so well known that they go by the name of "Valleys of Pigeons."

In the Song of Solomon (ii. 14) is another reference to the rock-loving propensities of the Dove: "O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice." The Jewish Bible gives a slightly different rendering, translating the word which is given as "stairs" in the Authorized Version as "cliffs."

That the Doves were caught in nets is evident from a passage in Hosea (vii. 11, 12): "Ephraim also is like a silly dove withort heart they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria.

When they shall go, I will spread my net upon them; I will bring them down as the fowls of the heaven; I will chastise them, as their congregation hath heard."

There is one passage in the Old Testament about which great controversy has taken place. It occurs in 2 Kings vi. 25. When Ben-hadad besieged Samaria, and tried to reduce it by starvation, the famine was so great in the city that "an ass's head was sold

for fourscore pieces of silver, and the fourth part of a cab of dove's dung for five pieces of silver."

Objection has been taken to this passage on the score of the exceeding repulsiveness of the food. This objection, however, cannot hold good; for, although such diet must have been most repulsive, it could not have been more so than the flesh of the ass, an animal which was strictly forbidden as food, and held as unclean. Moreover, as we see in verse 29 that parents actually ate the flesh of their own children, it is evident that the mere repulsiveness of the food cannot be taken as an objection.

A far stronger objection is to be found in the fact that even all the dove-cotes of Samaria could not furnish a sufficient quantity for food, especially as the Doves themselves must have been killed and eaten long before the people were driven to such an extremity as to eat the flesh of their own children. It is far more probable that the "dove's-dung" was the name of a vegetable of some kind. We find a similar nomenclature in the popular names of many of our own plants, such as oxlip, cowslip, horse-tail, hart's-tongue, mouse-ear, maidenhair, and the like.

We now come to the various species of Pigeons which inhabit Palestine.

In the Holy Land are found all the species of Pigeons which inhabit England, together with one or two others. First, there is the Rock Pigeon, or Blue Rock Dove (Columba livia), which is acknowledged to be the origin of our domestic breeds of Pigeons, with all their infinite variety of colour and plumage. This species, though plentiful in Palestine, is not spread over the whole of the land, but lives chiefly on the coast and in the higher parts of the country. In these places it multiplies in amazing numbers, its increase being almost wholly unchecked by man, on account of the inaccessible cliffs in which it lays its eggs and nurtures its young, its only enemies being a few of the birds and beasts of prey, which can exercise but a trifling influence on these prolific birds.

In other parts of the country the Egyptian Rock Dove (Columba Schimperi) takes the place of the more northern species. It is a little smaller than our own Rock Dove, and has not the whitish plumage on the lower part of the back. This species is quite as numerous as the other, and builds in similar places. Mr. Tris