the Sept. translators of Exodus, mentions the ki'itteq (the (T/cj'T0s(." of the Sept.) among insects able to distin- guish the smell of honey ( //^V. A nimal. iv, 8), and refers to species of birds which he calls (jKimropuya, that live by hunting (jKin-mg (viii, G). His pupil Theophrastus savs, '• The Kvling are born in certain trees, as the oak, the fig-tree, and they seem to subsist upon the sweet moisture which is collected under the bark. They are also produced on some vegetables" {Hist. Plant, iv, 17, and ii, ult.). This description applies to aphides, or rath- er to tlie various species of " gall-flies" {Ci/nips, Linn.). Hesvchius, in the beginning of the third century, ex- plains (TKvrijj as "a green four -winged creature," and quotes Phrynichus as applying the name to a sordid wretch, and adds, "From the little creature among trees, which sjteedily devoiu-s them." Philo (A.D. 40) and Origen, in the second century, who both lived in Egypt, describe it in terms suitable to the gnat or mosquito (Philo, I'iVa lUosis, i, 97, 2, ed. Mangey ; Origen, IlomUia tertia in Exod.'), as does also Augustine in the third or fourth century (Z'e Convenientia, etc.). But Theodore t, in the same age, distinguishes between ckvIttiq and kw- VMTvtQ (Vita Jacohi). Suidas (A.D. 1100) says (jKfiip. '•resembling gnats," and adds, "a little creature that cats wood." These Christian fathers, however, give no authority for their explanations, and Bochart remarks that they seem to be speaking of gnats under the name aKi'liTEc, which word, he conjectures, biased them from its resemblance to the Hebrew. Schleusner adds {Glos- seina in Octateucli) CKvlcjiiQ, " less than gnats," and {Lex. Q/r(7?«, MS. Brem.), " very small creatures like gnats." From this concurrence of testimonj- it would appear that not lice, but some species of gnats, is the projier render- ing, though the ancients, no doubt, included other spe- cies of insects under the name. Mr. Bryant, however, gives a curious turn to the evidence derived from ancient naturalists. He quotes Theophrastus, and admits that a Greek must be the best judge of the meaning of the Greek word, but urges that the Sept. translators con- cealed the meaning of the Hebrew word, which he la- bors to prove is lice, for fear of offending the Ptolemies, imder w hose inspection they translated, and the Egyp- tians in general, w-hose detestation of lice was as ancient as the time of Herodotus (ii, 37) (but who includes "any other foul creature"), and whose disgust, he thinks, would have been too much excited by reading that their na- tion once swarmed with those creatures through the in- strumentality of the servants of the God of the Jews {riacpies of Ecjijpt, Lond. 179-1, p. 50, etc.). This sus)ii- cion, if admitted, upsets all the previous reasoning. But a jilague of lice, upon Brj'ant's own principles, could not have been more oifensive to the Egyptians than the plague on the liiver Nile, the frogs, etc., which the Sept. translators have not mitigated. Might it not be sug- gested ^vith equal probability that the Jews in later ages had been led to interpret the word lice as being peculiarly humiliating to the Egyptians (see Josephus, ii, 14, .S, who, liowever, makes the Egyptians to be afflict- ed with phthiriasis). The rendering of the Yulg. affords us no assistance, being evidently formed from that of the Sept., and not being illustrated by any Koman natural- ist, but found only in Christian Latin writers (see Fac- ciolati, s. v."). The other ancient versions, etc., are of no value in this incpiiry. They adopt the jiopular notion of the times, and Bochart's reasonings upon them in- volve, as Kosenmiiller (apud Bochart) justly complains, many imsafe permutations of letters. If, then, the Sept. be discarded, we are deprived of the highest source of infomialion. Bochart's reasoning upon the form of the •word (liieroz. iii, .518) is unsound, ns, indeed, tliat of aU others who have relied upon etymolngy to finuish a clew to the insect intended. It is strange that it did not oc- cur to Bochart that if the plague had been lice it would have been easily imitated b_\'the magicians, which was attempted by them, but in vain (Exod. viii, 18). Nor is the objection valid that if this plague were gnats, etc., the plague of flies would be anticipated, since the latter
most likely consisted of one particular species having a different destination [see Fly], whereas this may have consisted not only of mosquitoes or gnats, but of some other species which also attack domestic cattle, as the cestrus, or tahunus, or zimh (Bruce, Travels, ii, 815. 8vo), on which supposition these two plagues would be suf- ficiently distinct. See Plaguks of Egypt, But, since mosquitoes, gnats, etc., have ever beeii one of the evils of Egypt, there must have been some pecidiar- ity attending them on this occasion which proved the plague to be " the finger of God." From the next chap- ter, ver. 31, it appears that the flax and the barley were smitten by the hail ; that the former was beginning to grow, and that the latter was in the ear, which, accord- ing to Shaw, takes place in Egypt in IMarch. Hence the hinnim would be sent about February, i. c. before the increase of the Nile, w^hich takes place at the end of May or beginning of Jime. Since, then, the innumer- able swarms of mosquitoes, gnats, etc., which every year affect the Egyptians, come, according to Hassehiuist, at the increase of the Nile, the appearance of them in Feb- ruary would be as much a variation of the course of na- ture as the appearance of the astnis in January would be in England. They were also probably numerous and fierce beyond example on this occasion, and, as the Egyp- tians would be utterly unprepared for them (for it seems that this plague w^as not announced), the effects would be signally distressing. Bochart adduces instances in which both mankind and cattle, and even wild beasts, have been driven by gnats from their localities. It may be added that the proper Greek name for the gnat is iinric, and that probabl}' the word icwvuiip, which much resembles Ki'itp, is appropriate to the mosquito. Har- douin observes that the KilTrie; of Aristotle are not the tUTTtSec, which latter is by Pliny always rendered cidices, a word which he employs with great latitude. See Gnat. For a description of the evils inflicte^l bj' these insects upon man, see Kirby and Spence, Introduction to Entomolof/i/, Lond. 1828, i, 115, etc. ; and for the annoy- ance they cause in I'.gypt, Maillet, Descript. de VEgypte par I'Abbe jMascrier (Paris, 1755), xc, 37 ; Forskal, Descr. A nimal. p. 85. Michaelis proposed an inquiiy into the meaning of the word aKvT^ic to the Societe des Savants, with a full description of the qualities ascribed to them by Philo,Origen, and August ine {Reciieil, etc. Amst. 1744). Niebuhr inquired after it of the Greek patriarch, and also of the metropolitan at Cairo, who thought it to be a species of gnat found in great quantities in the gar- dens there, and whose bite was extremely painful. A merchant who was present at the incjuiry called it dubub- el-keb, or the dofj-fnj {Description de VA ruhie, Pref. p. 39, 40). Besides the references already made, see Itosen- miiUer, Scholia in Exod. ; jNIichaelis, Siippl. ad Lex. He- braic. 1203 sq. ; Oedmann, Verm. Samml. aiis der Na- turhunde, i, 6, 74-91 ; Bakerus, A nnotat, in Ef. M. ii, 1090 ;