THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



"And the streams thereof shall be turned into 

 pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and 

 the land thereof shall become burning pitch. 



"It shall not be quenched night nor day; the 

 smoke thereof shall go up for ever : from genera- 

 tion to generation it shall lie waste; none shall 

 pass through it for ever and ever. 



"But the cormorant and the bittern shall pos- 

 sess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in 

 it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of 

 confusion, and the stones of emptiness. 



"They shall call the nobles thereof to the king- 

 dom, but none shall be there, and all her princes 

 shall be nothing. 



"And thorns shall come up in her' palaces, net- 

 tles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it 

 shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for 

 owls. 



"The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet 

 with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr 

 shall cry to his fellow; the screech-owl also shall 

 rest there, and find for herself a place of rest. 



"There shall the great owl make her nest, and 

 lay, and hatch, and gather under her shadow; 

 there shall the vultures also be gathered, every 

 one with her mate." 



A fine accumulation is here of wild and dreary 

 images ; and I do not know a better exemplifica- 

 tion of the category of natural phenomena under 

 consideration than, this awful passage of Holy 

 Writ. 



Sir Emerson Tennent, in his elaborate volumes 

 on Ceylon, lately published, has alluded to a bird 

 of night which superstition invests with peculiar 

 terrors. He thus speaks of it. Like the whi tsaw, 

 it seems to be "vox et pneterea nihil." 



"Of the nocturnal accipitres the most remark- 

 218 



