Gleanings from the Natural History of the Ancients [Lects] (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1879 edition. Excerpt: ...air?" (N. IT., x. 37). The pigeon was employed also as a messenger in affairs over which Cupid, rather than Mars, presided; we find Anacreon thus making use of the hird as early as B.c. 500. The Peacock is an Indian bird, from some part of which country it was introduced into Judea by Solomon (1 Kings x. 22). In the Hebrew word for "peacocks," tukkiyim, we have an interesting illustration of the simple name revealing the animal denoted thereby. The Septuagint and Vulgate explain the word by rawves anipavo, "peacocks." The Hebrew is a loan word; it has been traced to the Tamil or Malabaric togei, "the crested bird," a name still used in Ceylon for a peacock; and as the names of the other commodities introduced with peacocks into Palestine by Solomon--namely, apes and ivory--are not of Semitic but of foreign origin, so it is with the Hebrew loan word tukkiyim for "peacocks." The names of these three things, apes, ivory, and peacocks, show us that India was the country from which they were introduced into Judea. Buffon and Cuvier think that the J peacock was first introduced into Europe by Alexander; but this bird was certainly known to the Greeks before Alexander was born. Aristotle speaks of the peacock as a wellknown bird when he says, "Some animals are vain and jealous like the peacock" Hist. An., i. 1, 15). I suspect that the Greeks first became acquainted with the peacock in their relations with the Persians, who may have received their birds originally from India. From Greece these birds gradually extended into Italy and other parts of Europe. Among the Eomans Q. Hortensius is said to have first introduced the peacock as an article of food, at a banquet on the installation of an...