152 SCRIPTURE NATURAL HISTORY. 



THE PEACOCK. 



OUR translators have very improperly introduced the peacock in- 

 to Job xxxix. 13, as the bird was unknown in Syria till the days of 

 Solomon. In the first 'book of Kings (ch. x. 22), and the parallel 

 passage of the second of Chronicles (eh. ix. 21), it is enumerated 

 among the costly articles imported by the ships of Tarshish, em- 

 ployed by the Hebrew monarch to enrich his country with the pro- 

 duce of foreign nations. Let any one attentively survey the pea- 

 cock in all the glorious display of the prismatic colors in his train, 

 cays Parkhurst, and he will not be surprised that Solomon's mari- 

 ners, who cannot be supposed ignorant of their master's taste for 

 natural history, should bring some of these wonderful birds with 

 them, from their southern expedition. 



The peacock is a bird originally of India, aud thence brought in- 



