THE LION. 67

Aristotle thought this resemblance greater than existed in
any other animal, and we are not aware that our acquaint-
ance with a great number of animals not known to him has
tended to weaken this conclusion. There is no other animal,
the face of which is compared to the human, in Scripture.”

The allusions to the “king of beasts” are too numerous
to particularize, but there is an interesting parable in the
prophet Ezekiel, in which a lamentation for the princes of
Israel is expressed under the figure of lions’ whelps taken
in a pit, to which I would call the attention of my readers,
as a specimen of oriental imagery, showing that the habits
of the lion were well understood by the prophet. The first
lion’s whelp is supposed to signify Jehoahaz, who was car-
ried prisoner into Egypt by Pharaoh Necho; the second,
Jehoiakim, or his son Jeconiah, in all probability the former,
as it is said in 2 Chron. xxxvi. that Nebuchadnezzar bound
him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon.

The hunting of the lion, as well as other wild animals,
formed a great amusement in most oriental countries, and
this practice, no doubt, gave rise to much of the imagery
the language of the prophets, in which are frequent allusions
to nets, snares, and pits, showing the manner in which the
denizens of the forest were subdued by the art of man.