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bering them with pheasants, and another bird which has been supposed to be the Asiatic partridge by some; but by others a different kind of bird, but what they could not well determine, (attagen Ionicus being the Latin name.)

It may not be amiss to add to the preceding account, relating to the tameness of many turtle-doves, what the Baron de Tott says in the Prelim. Disc. to his Mem. p. xvii. and in p. 208 of the first part of them. In the first place he remarks, that pigeons are more wild in Turkey than with us, because they are more neglected. In the other, that turtle-doves, on the contrary, are extremely familiar there. The government, he tells us, while their subjects are treated with great rigour, is very mero, sed suavitate gustus judicantur. Ep. ad Salvinam de Viduitate servanda. Hieron. Op. vol. iv. p. 667.

"We cannot with certainty," says Francis, in a note on the second Epode, "determine what the rhombus, scarus, or attagen were." If there are various birds not commonly known to us, even in our country, very delicious eating, as those called by the Scotch caperkyly, those called black game, and ptarmigans, (see Appen. to Pennant's Tour, 1769,) can it be any wonder we have not a very determi nate knowledge of what the ancient Greeks and Romans meant, by some of the terms they made use of? Norden mentions a bird they shot in Egypt, called coromane, ❝ of the size of a woodcock, of a delicious taste; but still more esteemed on account of its fine note. The Turks give for them eight or ten sequins, when they are taken young and have been taught to sing. With regard to their beauty, it consists only in their large eyes; for their feathers do not differ from those of the wild duck." Vol. 2, p. 37. According to Pliny, lib. 9, cap. 48, the attagen when abroad sings, though silent when taken, which much better agrees with the coramanes, than birds of the partridge kind. It is true, Ionia and Egypt are two very different countries, but there are other birds that pass from the one to the other: whether this species does, it is not said.

compassionate to these birds, allowing so much per cent. in favour of them: "A cloud of these birds constantly alights on the vessels which cross the port of Constantinople, and carry this commodity, uncovered, either to the magazines or the mills. The boatmen never oppose their greediness. This permission to feast on the grain brings them in great numbers, and familiarizes them to such a degree, that I have seen them standing on the shoulders of the rowers, watching for a vacant place, where they may fill their crops in their turn."

It could not be difficult to detain in Judea, through the winter, as many as they chose to do, by taking care to feed them.

OBSERVATION XXXV.

Olive Groves, Places of general Resort for Birds.

h

DR. Chandler supposes that the olive-groves are the principal places for the shooting of birds; and in his other volume, containing an account of his travels in Greece, he observes, that when the olive blackens, vast flights of doves, pigeons, thrushes, and other birds, repair to the olive-groves for food: the connection then between Noah's dove and an olive-leaf, Gen. viii. 11, is not at all unnatural.

b Trav. in Asia Minor, p. 84.

iP. 127. So Hasselquist heard the nightingale among the willows by the river Jordan, and among the olive-trees of Judea, p. 212.

The tops of olive-trees might alone, possibly, be in view of the place where the ark was then floating, though it is a tree of only a middling height; but if the dove saw a great number of other trees appear above the water, it was natural for it to repair to olive-trees, where it had been wont to shelter itself, preferably to others, according to this account. As to branches of olives being used afterwards as symbols of peace, that could be nothing to Noah, as, most probably, the associating the idea of reconciliation and peace with an olive-branch was the work of after times.

OBSERVATION XXXVI.

The Mediterranean well stored with Fish of different Kinds.

EZEKIEL supposes the Great Sea, by which he means the Mediterranean Sea, was very full of fish I would observe, that it was not necessary, as to the Jews, to derive this apprehension from the fish brought by the men of Tyre to Jerusalem;' their own people might draw this knowledge, from the fish they found near what were indisputably their own shores.

Doubdan, speaking of his going by sea from Sidon to Joppa, (or Jaffa, as he calls it,) in his way to Jerusalem, says, that on his en

* Ch. xlvii. 10. Their fish shall be according to their kinds, as the fish of the Great Sea, exceeding many." Nehem. xiii. 16.

tering into that port, they found it so abounding in fish, "that a great fish pursuing one somewhat less, both of them sprung at the same time about three feet out of the water; the first dropped into the middle of the bark, and the other fell so near that they had well nigh taken it with their hands: this happened very luckily, as it afforded our sailors a treat."

It would have been well, had he told us of what kind the two fishes were, for want of it L am not able even to begin a list of the species of fish which haunt, or which visit the Jewish shores. This is a desideratum in the natural history of that country. There is a vast variety in that sea, but they have particular: places, in which many of the different sorts appear, and which are not to be found in other parts of the Mediterranean.

Though the coast of that part of Syria which denominated Palestine, is not remarkable for the number of its ports, yet besides Joppa, St. John d'Acre, Caipha under Mount Carmel, and a few others that might be named, there are some creeks, and small convenient places, where little vessels, (and such are those that are used for fishing,) may shelter themselves, and land what they take, though there are very few rivers on all that coast." To

Voy. de la Terre-Sainte, p. 40.

The History of Ali Bey's Revolt says, that from Cæsarea to Joppa are 15 or 16 miles, and that about a mile and half before you come to Joppa, you cross a small ri vulet, which is the only running water in all that fertile country. p. 185.

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these places Deborah seems to refer, when she says, Asher continued on the sea-shore, and abode in his breaches, or creeks, as it is translated in the margin.

So we are told that Ali Bey, marching from Caipha, to Joppa by land, set out on the 12th of August, and crossing Mount Carmel, came on the 16th near Joppa, and pitched his camp by a brook north-eastward of the town, at a little distance from it; but the ships anchored in a creek, about six miles to the northward of Joppa.

So Rauwolff informs us, that when his vessel got clear of the frigates that came out from all sides near Caipha to seize upon it, and got about Mount Carmel, two ships pursued them, but were forced to leave them: this shows there are several places where small ships may put in and anchor, and where the children of Asher might continue in their ships, pursuing their marine employments; while others of the neighbouring tribes were hazarding their lives in fighting for their country by land.

What Doubdan says of the fish that jumped out of the sea near Joppa, in pursuit of another large fish, by which means one of them was taken, and feasted on by the seamen, and the other narrowly escaped, may put us in mind of the adventure of Tobit, on the bank of the Tigris: a fish leaping out of the water, and darting at him, as an object of prey. If one

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