Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 5.djvu/74

190] $undefined$ found in Hibbur ha-Ma'asiyyot, fifth commandment, and is very likely borrowed from there in the Ma'asehbuch 194.In these sources the following stories are welded into one: The story from 1 Alphabet 7a 7b, with the lesson “not to do any good to the wicked, so that one should not suffer from them”; the story given in vol. IV, pp. 138 141, concerning the man who understood the language of the animals; as well as the one about the pious son.This, of course, proves that the sources are quite new.WR 22.4 and Koheleth 5.4 must certainly have been made use of by Alphabet and the two other sources mentioned.—The Talmudim, like the Midrashim, contain very extensive material of animal folk-lore, a very small part of which is to be found in Lewysohn, Zoologie des Talmuds (350 358).As to the post-talmudic period, see Duran, Magen Abot (comp., e.g., 35b37b) and Shebet Musar (particularly chapter 22), which contains vast material on this subject.The following contains material taken from the older sources.The propagation of animals is usually the result of cohabitation, but there is also spontaneous generation, i.e., animals springing forth as the result of the putrefaction of animals or vegetables.Man, fish, and serpent are the only species whose mates face each other during cohabitation, because they are the only living creatures to whom God spoke (Gen. 3.14; Jonah 2.11); hence this distinction is conferred upon them; Bekorot 8a; BR 20.3.Once in seven years God transforms nature, as a result of which the hornet springs forth from the remains of the horse; bees from the cattle; the wild boar from the mountain-mouse; the multipede from the backbone of the fish; the serpent from the backbone of the human body which did not formerly bow down at the time of prayer; Yerushalmi Shabbat 1, 3b.The beginning of this passage is badly corrupted, part of it, however, may be restored in accordance with Baba Kamma 16a (bottom) and with the text of R. Hananel, Baba Kamma loc. cit.One may read, with certainty, .It is questionable whether and  in Yerushalmi and Babli are to be taken as bramble-bushes.Targum on Is. 34.13 and Hos. 9.6 takes these nouns to be certain species of animals, as has been rightly observed by Duran, Magen Abot, 58b; comp. also Kimhi on the first passage.Both Yerushalmi and Babli speak in this connection of the sexual metamorphosis of the hyena (comp. note 177 with respect to the peculiarity of giving birth through the mouth, comp. Huppat Eliyyahu 3, where this is ascribed to the raven), and Babli knows 