116 POPULAR SCRIPTURE ZOOLOGY.

which, descending into the plains to graze on the cultivated
fields, invited the Israelites to the healthful exercise of the
chase, and supplied their tables with a species of food
equally abundant and agreeable.”

In Proverbs the gazelle is mentioned as the “pleasant
roe;” and it is interesting to observe that, “ whenever in
Scripture a comparison drawn from it is applied to man, it is
with reference to its agility and speed, but when to woman
the comparison regards its graceful form, timidity, and gen-
tleness. This is precisely the same among the modern
orientals, with whom in fact the gazelle and the monkey
represent the extremes of beauty and ugliness.” The Arabs
express a woman’s beauty by saying she has the eyes of a
gazelle; the burden of their love-songs is the gazelle’s eyes,
and it is to this creature they invariably compare their
mistresses, when they wish to give in one word: the idea of
perfect beauty. These gazelles are indeed very pretty
creatures, and there is a certain innocent fear about them
that may well be compared to the modesty and bashfulness
of a young girl*.”

The Aart and hind, which are so often named in the dif-
. ferent books of Scripture, were probably general names for
| * Pictorial Bible.