two young pigeons," such as he is able to get, whence it is not improbable that domestic pigeons were reared at an early, though not very remote period, if not for food, for the appointed offerings and sacrifices; but of this we are by no means sure, nor unless the birds were kept in cages, which we do not hear, could their domestication be effected by a nomadic people. This observation is equally applicable to other species of the feathered tribes. Domestic poultry necessarily require a settled state of society, the permanent occupation of dwellings, a fixed residence, a definite possession of the land, an exchange of camps and migrations in search of pasturage for permanent villages and systematic agriculture. Hence, though the Egyptians might possess various domestic birds, coming under the general title of poultry, and though these might be known to the patriarchs, still, as they were not among their possessions, and for obvious reasons could not be, we cannot be surprised that the Old Testament, in the earlier books, makes no mention of them. When, indeed, the Israelitish nation became established, and its power consolidated, the stronghold of Zion being won from the

Jebusites, and the power of the Philistines utterly destroyed, then we might expect to hear of the rise of the arts of civil life, of commerce, and of its attendant circumstances. David established the Israelitish kingdom. His son Solomon, who succeeded him, ascended the throne in peace, and immediately began to extend commerce, to patronize science, to build and plant, and accumulated treasures. His own words are, "I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: I made me gardens and orchards, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruits: I made me pools of water, to water therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees (growing plantations): I got me servants and maidens, and had servants born in my house; also I had great possessions of great and small cattle above all that were in Jerusalem before me: I gathered me also silver and gold, and the peculiar (precious) treasure of kings and of the provinces: I gat me men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of the sons of men, as musical instruments and that of all sorts. So I was great and increased more than all that were before me in Jerusalem: also my wisdom remained with me." Eccles. ii.

4-9. Elsewhere we read of the monarch's acquirements in natural history, and have reason to believe that he wrote on the subject, though the works are lost. We know that he procured ivory, apes, and peacocks, by means of the ships of Tarshish, which returned every three years from the remote east, laden with treasures. Other remarkable animals, and, no doubt, beautiful plants, and other curious productions of the distant countries visited by the fleet, were brought for the scientific monarch, as conducive to the establishment of a menagerie, and the ornament of his gardens, as well as the increase of his wealth. We have noticed the peacock, a native of India, as one of the importations, and a beautiful ornament it was to the courtyards, the lawns, and gardens of the palace.. This bird, however, was known at a far earlier period, for it is briefly alluded to in the same chapter (39th) of the book of Job, as that in which the wild ass and the war-horse are so finely depicted; but, in the time of Solomon, it must have been tolerably abundant, and in

*

*Perhaps its feathers only had reached western Asia, ty some circuitous route from India, and not the bird itself. European naturalists were acquainted with the elegant plumes of many birds, long before they were able to acquire specimens,

the possession of his friend Hiram, king of Tyre, whose "shipmen that had knowledge of the sea" conducted the expeditions. Nor would his great men and nobles be forgotten. Another notice occurs in the history of Solomon, (1 Kings iv. 23,) which leads us to infer, and we think legitimately, that ordinary domestic poultry, of some kind or other, was reared by the Israelites, as it undoubtedly was by the Egyptians, whose monarch's daughter Solomon had married. In the account of the daily consumption of the palace, we read of "ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the pastures, and a hundred sheep, besides harts and roebucks, and fallow deer, and fatted fowl." We do not mean that poultry was kept in the city, but in the adjacent villages and the farms, particularly those of the king and his nobles. At a far later period, poultry was kept even in Jerusalem. The editor of the Pictorial Bible, referring to the expression in Matthew xxvi. 74, "the cock crew," says, "To this it has been objected that there were no cocks kept in Jerusalem, lest their habit of turning over dunghills, where they might find creeping things, should expose to pollution the holy food, the peace-offerings and thank

offerings, which were eaten in that city. It is not disputed that such a regulation existed, but we know that it was, on some account or other, dispensed with or not enforced. For Lightfoot and others have shown that cocks were actually kept at Jerusalem as in other places, and instance the story in the Jerusalem Talmud of a cock which was stoned by the sentence of the council for having killed a little child." That the pigeon was now domesticated, or rather reconciled to breed in dove-cotes, there can be little doubt, but great numbers, in a still wilder condition, tenanted the ledges and holes in the rocks, as they tenant the towers of old ruins, the steeples of abbeys and churches, and the cliffs along the coast of our island. The demand for the young of this bird, as offerings in the temple, was extremely great, till at length they were publicly sold within the walls of the sacred edifice.

The swan, and evidently the wild swan, is mentioned in the Levitical code, among the unclean meats; but though the Divinely di rected legislator must have been well acquainted with the goose and duck, birds kept, as we have said, in great abundance in Egypt,