310 M. Bureau on the Ancient History of' 



9,dly, respecting the native country of this animal, which must 

 at least be extended to Africa and Asia ; for to limit it to the 

 forests of France, as the Cuviers have done, would render it ne- 

 cessary to suppose, that, in the times of the Pharaohs, frequent 

 communications were established between Gaul and Egypt, and 

 that it was in consequence of these communications that the 

 cat was imported into the latter country. 



According to Bochart -f-, who passes for a good Hebrew 

 scholar, wild and domestic cats occurred in Palestine and Ba- 

 bylonia. Feles erant palatiis eoruni J, says Hosea ; Isaiah has 

 the words ulubant feles in palatiis eorum § ; and Jeremiah 

 adds, et occurrent cercopitheci felibus \\. The Hebrew name of 

 the cat is Tsigem, and the Chaldean name is Sinnmir, which^ 

 as well as the Chinese word Mao, being derived from the cry 

 of that animal, designates it of itself. This word has passed in- 

 to Arabic, and Pastel regards it as an onomatopeia. 



Mount Hermon was named Sener by the Amorrheans, or 

 the ilfowntom o/'Caf*, a name evidently derived, according to 

 Bochart, from the word Sinnaur, which signifies cat in Arabic, 

 or from the Chaldean Sunar. 



The cat is also named by the Hebrew authors golden cat %^ 

 an epithet which I imagine designates the three-coloured variety, 

 commonly known by the name of SpanisJi or Tortoise-shell cat, 

 in which the red is very bright and approaches the colour of 

 gold. Angora has also furnished a variety remarkable for the 

 length, fineness and silkiness of its hair. Here, then, we have 

 Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Asia Minor, and Babylonia, in which 

 the cat occurred in both the wild and domestic state. But the 

 native country of the cat is not so limited ; it was common in 

 India, and has there been reduced to domesticity from the 

 most remote antiquity. It is very frequently mentioned in the 

 Sanscrit, and among other books in the Itobades, the original 

 of the fables of Bidpay : It is named Acoubouk, eater of mice, 



• II, 66. t Hierozoic, p. 859. J Hosea, ix. 6. 



§ xiii. 22 ; xxxiv. 14. || L. 39 and 11. 



^ Thargum. Esther, 1, 2. 



