64 
Other writers may also have adopted this opinion, which Studer (1) 
has discussed in his commentary, referring to Selden’s Uxor 
hebraica Il. 8. A modification of the skeleton-theory, and a 
truly foolish one, was that of Rosenmiiller: that the carcase 
may have been mummified in a short time by the hot sun; he 
does not take into account the foxes and jackals, as Bertheau 
does, in order to clean the skeleton more swiftly. Had the 
Jewish teachers thought of this, they would surely not have 
made a whole ,year“ out of a ,few days‘. At any rate, the 
word ,mappelet“ used in this instance, means literally carcase, 
and it is altogether improbable that a skeleton was meant by it. 
Finally, in support of this skeleton-theory a passage of Hero- 
dotus V. 114, is quoted, the story of the beheaded Onesilos, 
whose head was hung up by the Amathusians upon the city- 
gate, and having, in the course of time, become hollow, was 
occupied by bees with their honey-combs. The occurrence can- 
not have been a common one, because the Amathusians con- 
sulted an oracle about it, whose answer was that they should 
bury the skull, and render divine honors to Onesilos. They 
followed this bidding, and Herodotus found, at his time, the 
custom still honoured among them. 
Now any one can easily understand that bees might per- 
haps build in a hollow skull, which for them would differ but 
little from a wooden box, but not in the belly of a skeleton, 
which, after all, has no belly. Strange is the assumption of the 
Septuaginta, that the bees had built in the jaws of the lion, as 
if to give force to the expression: ,out of the strong came forth 
sweetness. 
The interpretation of the word mappelet by ,skeleton‘, in 
all these instances, has evidently no other purpose than to pro- 
vide a means of escape from the improbability of bees hiving 
in a cCarcase, as it is well known that bees do not like bad 
smells, and that nobody as yet has found honey in a carcase. 
The learned men knew from Aristotle’s ,Historia animalium‘ 
(1) Studer was a Professor in Berne. (Das Buch der Richter erklirt, Bern 1835.) 
