148 POPULAR SCRIPTURE ZOOLOGY.

break. Cows’ milk is held in comparatively little esteem,
and is in fact much inferior to that which our own cows
produce*.” In 2 Samuel xvii. “cheese of kine” is men-
tioned, evidently as a distinction from that of goats; and
wherever it is not specified, the former of these may be
generally understood.

That the Jews had conformed to the worship of the bull
Apis, when sojourning in Egypt, may be gathered from many
parts of their history, and is, indeed, expressly mentioned
in Joshua xxiv.: “ Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve
him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which
your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in
Egypt;”’ it is, therefore, no matter of surprise, that during
the absence of Moses in the Mount, the fickle people, de-
spairing of his return, should propose to Aaron the fashion-
ing of a golden calf—‘ Up, make us gods, which shall go
before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us
up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of
him.” The Apis of the Egyptians was a living bull, gene-
rally supposed to be a symbol of their chief deity Osiris, or
the sun; it was necessary that the animal selected for this
honour should be black, with a square or triangular white

* Pictorial Bible.