Page:Biblical Biology.pdf/5

 and the whole idea is absurd, but we are assured that by this means Jacob cheated his uncle Laban in the most scandalous manner.

The bush which burned with fire and was not consumed (Ex. iii., 2.) and the rod which became a serpent and then retransformed into a rod (Ibid iv., 2—4), offer much subject for study to the pious mind, while the kinds of dust that became lice (Ibid viii, 16, 17), and of ashes that became boils (Ibid ix., 8, 10), are fortunately confined to Egypt. The cattle that were all killed of murrain (Ibid ix., 6) and subsequently plagued with boils (Ibid 9), and later smitten with hail, so that they died again (Ibid 18—25), and of which some died a third time (Ibid xii., 29), smitten by the Lord, and others a third time drowned in the sea (Ibid xiv., 28) are also confined to that same curious land; in other countries animals only die once.

Lev. xi. gives some interesting facts of animal life. Now-a-days the camel's leg does end in two toes, although not very obvious ones, but in Moses' time it was not so (v. 4). The hare that chews the cud (v. 6) has become extinct, though all hares have a deceptive habit of munching, and the bat is not now classified as "a fowl" (compare verses 13 and 19). Probably at that time the bat was not a mammal, and it has only become one since with the object of damning the scientific biologist. The "fowls that creep, going upon all four" (v. 20) have also become extinct, and have left no fossils behind them to perpetuate their memory; four-legged fowls given to creeping are wholly unknown. So again with the "flying creeping things which have four feet," and go "upon all four" (verses 23, 21), such as locusts, beetles, etc. These have six legs now-a-days, having acquired two more since the days of Moses, and I desire to point out to scoffing sceptics that were it not for this blessed book these remarkable quadrupedal birds and insects would have remained unknown. Who after this can dare to say that the Bible makes no contributions to science?

I say nothing of the pregnant suggestion contained in the reference to the flying, creeping things that "have legs above their feet" (v. 21). To me this verse contains a hint that at that time there existed some four-legged birds with feet above their legs, a peculiarity that would necessitate a unique anatomical re-arrangement of the