302 POPULAR SCRIPTURE ZOOLOGY.

seems, however, that a person doing this might, under
certain circumstances, escape further consequences by sub-
mitting to be scourged : “ Whosoever eateth a whole fly or
a whole gnat, whether alive or dead, is to be beaten on
account of the flying creeping thing.”

The great solicitude which was hence exhibited to exclude
the smallest insects from drinks, gave occasion to the pre-
sent proverb, applied to much care about small matters and
none about greater. The camel need occasion no more
difficulty in this proverb than in that which refers to a
camel’s passage through the eye of a needle; for the camel,
being about the largest animal commonly known to the
Hebrews, was naturally selected to give the hyperbolical
point, usual with the orientals, to their contrast of the great
with the little. Hence, the elephant is also mentioned in
the same manner and for the same reason as the camel, in
many proverbs of the East; as in that analogous Arabian
one, cited by Pococke, “He swallows an elephant, and is
strangled by a flea*.”

The word rendered “lice” in Exodus viii. is translated
in-the Septuagint by dinnim, which means the mosquito,
and, as the translators lived in Egypt, their opinion is en-

* Pictorial Bible.