110 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



hearts of perishing sinners, the prophet Isaiah borrows the same 

 figure : * Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue 

 of the dumb shall sing,' chap. xxxv. 6. 



The hind, or female stag, is a lovely creature, and of an elegant 

 shape ; though she is more feeble than the hart, and destitute of 

 horns. It is not known, we believe, that the hind is more sure foot- 

 ed than the hart, although the figure employed by both David and 

 Habakkuk, seems to indicate as much. The royal Psalmist, allud- 

 ing to the security of his position, under the protection of his God, 

 says, ' He rnaketh my feet like hind's feet, and setteth me upon my 

 high places,' (Psalm xviii. 33) ; and the prophet, reposing in the 

 same power, anticipates a full deliverance from his existing trou- 

 bles, and a complete escape from surrounding dangers: 'He will 

 make my feet like hind's feet, and he will make me to walk upon 

 mine high places,' Hal), iii. 19. This passage has given rise to con- 

 siderable discussion among the learned. 



In Prov. v. 18, 19, Solomon admonishes the young man to let 

 the wife of his bosom be to him 'as the loving hind and pleasant 

 roe ;' a beautiful allusion to the mutual fondness of the stag and 

 hind. The only remaining passage of scripture in which this ani- 

 mal is mentioned, requiring illustration, is the prophetic blessing 

 pronounced on Naphtali by the dying patriarch a passage which 

 is involved in considerable difficulty and obscurity. In our trans- 

 lation it stands thus : ' Naphtali is a hind let loose, he giveth good- 

 ly words,' (Gen. xlix. 21) ; a rendering which exhibits a singular 

 confusion of ideas. The subject of the prophecy is represented as 

 being both masculine and feminine : a hind is said to speak words 

 goodly words a phraseology in which there is no unity of allu- 

 sion, to say nothing of its want of correspondence with the subse- 

 quent history of the tribe, but which correspondence is found in a 

 nice degree, in every other paragraph of this beautiful composition. 



The late editor of Calmet undertook a very careful analysis of 

 this passage, and gives, as its result, the following version : ' Naph- 

 tali is a deer roaming at liberty, he shooteth forth noble branches 

 (majestic antlers.? The English word branches, is applied to the 

 stag, with exactly the same allusion as the Hebrew word : the French 

 say bois (wood), for a stag's horns. The horns of a stag are annu- 

 ally shed, and re-produced ; and as we have already said, they are 

 ample if his pasturage has been plentiful and nutritious ; or stinted 

 in their growth, if his food has been sparing, or deficient in nourish- 

 ment. liufFon reasons at length on this subject. ' There is so inti- 

 mate a relation,' he says, 'be- ween nutrition and the production of 

 the antlers, &c. that we have formerly established its entire depen- 

 dence on a superabundance of nourishment. After the first year, in 

 the month of May, the horns begin to shoot, and form two projec- 

 tions, which lengthen and harden, in proportion as the animal takes 

 nourishment. This effect (of nourishment) appears, especially on 

 the summit of the head, where it manifests itself more than every 

 where else, by the production of the horns . . . Another proof that 



