they are called aptiu and terpu. They were ap- parently not domesticated, but caught in nets, fattened and eaten (Lepsius, ii. 46 and 132). (6) Fowl in Neh 5" n'TEi- zipjidrtm, were probably domestic fowl introduced from Babylonia, to which they had been brought from India, their native country. In NT times they had become domesti- cated in Palestine. It is said in the Mishna that fowl were not allowed in Jerusalem [Baba Kama, vii. 7) ; but this is a mistake (see Mt 26'° and parallel passages). Our Lord was familiar with them and their habits, see Mt 23", where He quotes from 2 Es I**.
Eggs as articles of food in early times were those of wild birds {Dt22«, Is 10" 59") ; but with the in- troduction of geese from Egypt and domestic fowl from India they became much more important as a part of the diet, and now are very largely used (Lk U"). There is no reference to the ancient modes of cooking them, but at the present day they are boiled, or eaten swimming in hot butter and with honey (Finn. 141), or eaten with olives [ib. 272), or boiled \vith rice (Robinson, i. 91), or fried in fat.
The white of an egg (rno^n ti rir hallamfith) of Job 6' may be either the material literally ex- pressed, see Tract Chull. 64a, or curdled milk ; but IS understood by some as a succulent, tasteless plant like purslain, Portulaca oleracea, as in the KVm. This plant is common in most places in Palestine, and is in Arabic associated with imbecility. Golius quotes the proverb 'more foolish than purslain,' Sentent. Arab. 81. For other meanings see Gesenius, Thesaurus, snb voce.
Dove's dung, mentioned in connexion ■with the famine during the siege of Samaria, has been variously understood by commentators. It is said (2 K 6'^) that one imperial pint of it was sold for aboat 12s. 6d. o'jVnn hdriyonim. or as it is in I;Cer6 D'}i'?1 dibyonim, is understood by Josephus literally, and he supposes it to have been used as a condiment in place of salt {Ant. IX. iv. 4). The threat in Rabshakeh's appeal to the Jews (2 K 18'-'') is in favour of this view. Others have supposed that tliis material was used for fuel, as the cow dung in Ezk 4'^ ; and Harmer thinks it was used to manure melons and other vegetables grown within the city [Ohs. iii. 185 ; see Morier's Second Journey, p. 141). Fuller surmised that it might be the con- tents of the pigeon's crop. Linnaeus and Smith identify it as the root of a liliaceous plant, the Ornithogalum vmbellatum or star of Bethlehem ; but this as well as Bochart's conjecture, that it was a chick-pea or small species of deer, and the view that it was a small species of sorghum, are without foundation, as there is no reason wliy the price of these rare foods sliould be specified. On the whole, there is as much evidence for the literal interpretation as for any of these guesses.
(d) No reptile was permitted to be eaten ; of fishes all that have fins and scales were clean ; but it is a remarkable fact that no species of fish is mentioned in the Bible, nor is there any discrimina- tion except good or bad (Mt 13''*), and big and little (Jon 1", Jn 21", Mk 8''). The Sea of Galilee abounds in fishes, which are delicate and well flavoured (Robinson, ii. 386). Altogether 43 species have been found by Lortet, Tristram, and others, of which 14 are ptculiar to the lake and to the Jordan. One of the largest of these, Clarias macra- cnnthus, being scaleless, was unclean {KopaKims, Jos. BJ III. X. 8). The largest of the clean fishes are species of Chromis, which resemble the carp, and have large scales. One of these, Chromis Niloticus, called Moncht by the fishermen of Tiberias, has been found up to 5 lb. in weight ; another, C. Tiberiadis, is peculiar to the lake, and very plenti-
ful ; C. Andrece and C. Simonis are also peculiar, as is the C. Flavii Josephi. There are also wur species of barbel of the genera Barbus, Scaphiodon and Capoeta, as well as one species each of dace, loach, and bleak, and two blennies, B. Lupulus and B. varius. Sea fishery weis carried on at Tyre (Ezk 26°), and from thence preserved fish weie im- ported into Jerusalem (Neh 13"), probably dried and cured. It was likely some dried fishes which formed part of the food ^vith which the 5000 were fed. The fish-market at Jerusalem was probably at the fish-gate (2 Ch 33"). The fishpools o"f Heshbon (Ca 7*) have been regarded as indicating that the Jews kept fish in them for use ; but the word ' fish ' is here an interpolation. Abundance of fish was one of the elements in the pros])erity of Joseph, according to his blessing, Gn 49^. Fish was one of the staple foods in Egypt (Nu 11°). See picture of fishing in Baedeker's Egypt, p. 411, and Wilkinson, ii. 102.
(e) Four insects were allowed to be eaten accord- ing to the list in Lv ; these were : (1) the na-ix 'arbeh, LXX^poCxos, the swarming locust, ^dipodamigra- toria; (2) dj;^d sol' dm, LXX aTriKris, probably Aery- dium peregrinum, the bald locust of AV ; (3) '?j^n harg6l, LXX d^iofuixoi (AV beetle), a leaping animal, and therefore not a beetle, probably the khardjala of the Arabs, which tlie Rabbins supposed to be a grasshopper, more probably the lari'est of the locusts, ^dipoda cristata ; and (4) 3;ri hdgcib, LXX axpis, probably the little black locust found in the Sinaitic desert which tlie Arabs call Faras el-jundi or soldiers' horses, recalling the description of the locusts in Rev 9''. It is, however, not pos- sible precisely to identify these two latter fonns. Locusts formed part of the food of the Baptist (Mt3S Mk 1«). Doughty describes them as being prepared by salting, and then being stived into a leathern sack in which they kept good a long while. They mingle them, brayed small, with butter-milk. The best is the fat spring locust ; the later brood is dry and unwholesome (i. 203). Burckhardt says they are put alive into boiling brine, then dried in the sun, the head, legs, and wings being plucked off and then stored in bags. Tliey are sometimes mixed with butter and spread on bread. The}' taste not unlike shrimps. On one of the Assj-rian sculptures in the British Museum two slaves are represented with long sticks of locusts.