CLASSIFICATION OF THE SPECIES. &I 
that the translators of the Septuagint and Vulgate 
had, at least, as good means of information on this 
point as we have now. In particular, Jerome, the 
author of the Vulgate translation, lived for many 
years in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and would, 
doubtless, have used another word instead of Crabro, 
hornet, had he not thought that the hornet was 
intended in the original text. 
It is true that we cannot assert that there was any 
great precision in the use of terms of natural history 
in the Greek language, which included under the one 
name of otpovOos, a sparrow and an ostrich. And 
og¢nkia was probably a general term for all, wasps 
and hornets alike, in Greek, as Crabro certainly was 
in classical Latin. Perhaps, in accordance with this 
usage, the original word in the Bible might have been 
meant to include all stinging insects that fly; just as, 
apparently, all stinging insects that crawl on the 
ground are called scorpions.* Still, in the Bible, a 
distinction is observed between various insects. For 
when the remote Egyptian fly is mentioned, the 
terms in which the plague is spoken of clearly dis- 
tinguish it from the hornet, as well as from another 
stinging insect which comes from a nearer quarter, 
namely, the Assyrian bee.t And really there seems to 
fear or a terror, citing the word estrus asa parallel instance. The 
converse instance of bug might also have been cited, Psalm xci, 5, as 
pointed out in that admirable little book ‘ Gosse’s School Zoology,’ 
p. 158, note. The article Hornet in the ‘ Bible Cyclopzedia,’ 2 vols, 
folio, London, 1841, asserts the literal correctness of the text, and 
supports this view by well chosen illustrations. 
* Deuteronomy viii, 15. Revelation ix, 3—10. 
+ Isaiah vii, 18. The fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers 
of Egypt, and the bee that isin the land of Assyria. 
E 2 
