CREATION OF ANIMALS. 31 



Saurians, particularly the Plesiosaurus ; l the 

 Testudo also of the Greeks 2 seems to approach 

 some of the seals. The word we are considering, 

 in the first chapter of Genesis, is rendered by 

 our translators, whales. In the version of the 

 seventy, a word is used, 3 which the Greek 

 writers employ to signify any aquatic monster ; 

 thus, Theocritus, when he describes the Nile as 

 abounding in monsters, means the crocodile. 

 Our Saviour, when he speaks of Jonah in the 

 belly of the fish, uses the same word, probably, 

 for a shark, the dog Carcharias of the Greeks, 

 which was fabled to have swallowed Hercules, a 

 fable, no doubt, derived from the history of Jonah. 



It appears clearly that the word is also used 

 for a serpent, for it is employed to express the 

 animal into which the rod of Moses and those 

 of the Egyptian magicians were transformed as 

 related in the book of Exodus. 



The typical animal, however, if I may so em- 

 ploy that term, or the dragon proper of scripture, 

 is undoubtedly a Saurian, especially the amphi- 

 bious ones, such as the crocodile and its affinities. 

 In the Septuagint version the Hebrew word is 

 sometimes rendered by the term Siren, which 

 in other places is used for the ostrich, 4 derived 



1 Mantell's Age of Reptiles. Sussex Gazette. 



2 Sphargis coriacea. 



3 TO. Krirrj TO. fjie-yaXa. 



4 Isai. xiii. 21. Job, xxx. 29, &c. 



