WHITE CATTLE : AN INQUIRY INTO THEIR ORIGIN, ETC. 405 



In the Authorised Version quotations from Isaiah, marginal 

 readings make the Unicorn into the Rhinoceros, which, I 

 suppose, our divines thought was not such an absurdity under 

 the circumstances as the Unicorn. Canon Tristram says the 

 Unicorn is the Aurochs or Bison, and writes : — " The Unicorn 

 (Heb. Reem), i.e., the Auerochs, the extinct wild ox (Bos jjrimi- 

 geniusjj is a familiar emblem of untamed strength and ferocity in 

 the earlier books of the Bible, but is only once alluded to after 

 the time of David. It has nothing to do with the fabled one- 

 horned Unicorn of heraldry, our version being here incorrect. 

 It had two horns, as we see from Deut. xxxiii. 17, where its 

 horns symbolise the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. It 

 became extinct also in Assyria about 1000 B.C., as the country 

 became more thickly peopled." As Canon Tristram found the 

 teeth of Bos j*}rimi^e7i'izts in Lebanon, we may take it for 

 granted that the JReem was not the Bison, but the Urus.^ The 

 Reem, or Eem (Assyrian Rhnu), is the animal which (according 

 to legend) had to be towed behind the Ark, as its horns would 

 not allow it to get in by the door. We are told that the 

 Assyrian monarchs hunted wild oxen of great height and size, 



1 T. M. Harris, in The Natural History of the Bible, 1824, says : 

 "The v.'ild bull is found in the Syrian and Arabian Deserts [Footnote — The 

 Urus of Pliny and the ancients]. It is frequently mentioned by the 

 Arabian poets, who are copious in their descriptions of hunting it, and 

 borrow many images from its beauty, strength, swiftness, and loftiness of 

 its horns. They represent it as fierce and untamable ; as being white on 

 the back and having large shining eyes. 



Some authors have supposed the buffalo, well known in India, Abyssinia, 

 and Egypt, to be intended . . . others (Bochart, Shaw, Lowth, &c. ) 

 have thought it the oryx of the Greeks, or the Egyptian Antelope, 

 described by Dr. Shaw under the name of Behlcer el loash. [Footnote — It 

 is also an inhabitant of Syria, Arabia, and Persia. It is the Antelope Oryx 

 of Linnseus."] 



Then again — John Brown, of Haddington, in his Dictionary of the 

 Bible, 1806, says : — " What animal the reem, which we render unicorn, is, 

 whether the wild ox, the wild goat or deer, or a creature called the unicorn, 

 is not agreed. . . . It is certain the Scripture reems are fierce, strong, 

 and almost untamable animals. I suppose the urus or wild ox, which is 

 found in Arabia, Hungary, and many other places, is of that kind ; or the 

 rhinoceros, which is the strongest of all four-footed beasts, and hath one 

 and sometimes two horns growing on its nose about a yard or more in 

 length," 



