396 MAMMALIA—GAZELLE 
black eagle, which is trained for that purpose. In summer they are alinost 
purblind, which is another cause of their destruction. This is occasioned 
by the heat of the sun, and the splendor of the yellow deserts, where they 
dive in a wild state. They seem to have no voice,—yet when brought up 
tame, the young utter a short kind of bleating, like the sheep. 
THE GAZELLE. 

Or all the animals in the world, the gazelle has the most beautiful eye 
extremely brilliant, and yet so meek, that all the eastern poets compare the 
eyes of their mistresses to those of this animal. The epithet of gazelle- 
eyed is considered the highest compliment that a lover can pay; and, in- 
deed, the Greeks themselves thought it no inelegant piece of flattery to 
compare the eyes of a beautiful woman to those of a cow. 
The gazelle is, for the most part, more delicately and finely limbed than 
even the roebuck; its hair is as short, but finer and more glossy. The 
hinder legs of some of the species are longer than the fore ones, as in the 
hare, which gives it greater security in ascending and descending steep 
places. In swiftness it equals, if not surpasses, the roe, running and 
springing with vast bounds, and leaping with surprising elasticity. It fre- 
quently stops for a moment in the midst of its course to gaze atits pursuers, 
and then resumes its flight. The fleetness of the antelope, indeed, was pros 
verbial in the country it inhabited, even in the earliest times; hence the 
speed of Ashuel (2 Sam. ii. 18) is beautifully compared to the tzebi; and 
the Gradites were said to be as swift as the antelopes (translated roes) upon 
the mountains. 
Most of these animals are brown on the back and white under the belly, 
with a black stripe separating those colors. Their tail is of various lengths, 
but in all is covered with rather long hair; and their ears are beautiful, well 
placed, and terminating in a point. They all have cloven hoofs, like the 


1 Antilope dorcas, Lin. 
