72 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY OP [1893. 



of the forest do creep," the word used in the original Hebrew to 

 express the idea of beasts moving or creeping is rmsh. The word 

 rmsh being so associated with beasts it is as justifiable to suppose that 

 the moving or crawling animals that the waters so abundantly pro- 

 duced at this period of the earth's history, " day the fifth " so-called, 

 were aquatic mammals as that they were aquatic reptiles. Such an 

 interpretation is consistent with the facts of paleontology, the earliest 

 mammal yet discovered, Dromatherium, obtained from rocks of 

 Triassic age and probably of monotrematous nature, being preceded 

 by reptile-like animals, such as the theromorphric Pelycosauria of 

 the Permian, described by Cope. Returning to the exposition of the 

 21st verse it will be observed that while in the 20th verse, in referring 

 to the creation of birds, the Hebrew word ouph alone is used, in the 

 21st verse the same word is coupled with another word, knp. The word 

 knp, being derived from the stem word knp, to cover, when used as a 



S / y a a un 



noun should be translated " wing," the Arabic word vj2_X> , Knf 



having that meaning. The birds with wings, ouph, knp, were 

 created then, according to Genesis, after the birds ouph, presumably 

 without wings. The order of creation, however, is that of evolu- 

 tion, since the reptiles appeared first, being followed by reptile-like 

 birds, Compsognathus, and bird-like reptiles, Archeopteryx, Hes- 

 perornis (Marsh.) 



Passing now to the'consideration of the 24th verse, containing the 

 account of the creation of beasts, and translating the original 

 Hebrew literally we would read as follows : 



nvob ifn P5J y*\xn sxin dtiVk idk*! 



kind its for living creature the earth the forth bring shall Aleim said and 



p« irvm tfoni nnnz 



earth the of beasts wild and thing moving and cattle 

 or as rendered in the old and new Versions " And God said let the 

 earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creep- 

 ing thing and beast of the earth." 



The Hebrew word bhm is probably derived from a stem word, 

 bhm, though as a matter of fact there is no such verb in use at the 

 present day. As the kindred words in the Arabic and the Ethio- 

 pian languages signify, however, "dumbness," the word used in 

 Hebrew as a noun has come to be accepted as meaning "dumb beasts." 

 According to this interpretation it was rendered by the Seventy, 



