184 POPULAR SCRIPTURE ZOOLOGY.

an house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may
lay her young, even thine.altars, O Lord of Hosts, my king
and my God ;” for though this passage need not be taken in
its literal sense, yet the birds in the East being less exposed
to molestation than in our country, they, in all probabi-
lity, were allowed to, and did, build their nests in the beams
and rafters of the sacred buildings. In Psalm cii., where
the same Hebrew word occurs, the general signification
would suit the sense much better, and consequently many
commentators subsitute “solitary bird,” or “bird alone,”
for “sparrow” in the following verse: “I watch and am as
a bird alone upon the house-top.”

Corvus Corax.—The Raven.

The original Hebrew word translated “raven,” is “ ored,”
which might be construed “the bird of night,” a name
which it probably derived from its sable plumage. “A word
of the same origin is extended by the Arabian writers to the
rook, crow, and jackdaw, as well as to the raven; in fact,
it seems to include all those species which are by Cuvier
ranged under the genus Corvus. The predominant colour
of these is black; hence ‘ Hreb’ (the origin of the classic
Erebus), implying a sable hue, is a very proper word as a
generic appellation, corresponding to Corvus.”