THE ZOOLOGIST. 
THIRD SERIES. 
Vou. IX] JANUARY, 1885. [No. 97. 
THE DOG OF SACRED HISTORY. 
By E. CAmBripGE Puaruuips, F.L.S. 
In the able and interesting article on “‘ Dogs, Ancient and 
Modern,”’ published in ‘The Zoologist’-of October last, the 
author, quoting Canon Tristram on the subject, infers that the 
dog being unclean to the Israelites was regarded and tolerated by 
them simply as a scavenger, and that domestic breeds were 
almost unknown. 
I have thought it worth while, therefore, to offer the readers 
of ‘The Zoologist’ the following observations, in which I have 
been assisted, as regards the Hebrew, by one of our best Hebrew 
scholars, and venture to hope that the remarks I have to make 
may cause the dog of Sacred History to be looked at in a very 
different light to that in which it is usually regarded. 
Exception may be taken to the statement (p. 399) that the 
earliest record of the dog in Sacred History is in connection 
with the sojourn of the children of Israel in Egypt. In Gen. 
x. 9, as also Gen. xxv. 27, the word ‘‘ hunter” signifies ‘‘one who 
lays snares”; but the Septuagint version, in Greek from the 
Hebrew, renders the word xwmyor, i.c. “‘dog-leading.” The 
inference is fairly plain that dogs were led in slips and used for 
coursing various kinds of game, and probably also for driving it 
into snares or nets; or possibly to follow up and course animals 
wounded with the arrow, as in Gen. xxvii. 3, where Isaac says to 
Ksau, ‘‘ Take, I pray thee, thy weapons, thy quiver and thy bow, 
ZOOLOGISIT.—JAN. 1885. B 
