Bible animals

by J. G. Wood

We next come to the vexed question of the word Tachmâs, which is rendered in the Authorized Version as Night-hawk.

This word only occurs among the list of prohibited birds (see Lev. xi. 16, and Deut. xiv. 15), and has caused great controversies among commentators. Some Hebraists have thought that the male ostrich was signified by tachmâs, the word bath-haya'anah being supposed by them to signify the female ostrich. It is hardly probable, however, that the sacred writer should have mentioned separately the sexes of the same species, and we must therefore look for some other interpretation.

Going to the opposite extreme of size, some scholars have translated tachmâs as Swallow. This again is not a very probable rendering, as the swallow would be too small a bird to be specially named in the prohibitory list. The balance of probability seems to lie between two interpretations,—namely, that which considers the word tachmâs to signify the Night-hawk, and that which translates it as Owl. For both of these interpretations much is to be said, and it cannot be denied that of the two the latter is perhaps the preferable. If so, the White or Barn Owl is probably the particular species to which reference is made.

THE NIGHT-HAWK.

"The owl, and the night-hawk, and the cuckoo."—Deut. xiv. 15.

Still, many commentators think that the Night-hawk or Nightjar is the bird which is signified by the word tachmâs; and, as we have already treated of the owls, we will accept the rendering of the Authorized Version. Moreover, the Jewish Bible follows the same translation, and renders tachmâs as Night-hawk, but affixes the mark of doubt.

It is not unlikely that the Jews may have reckoned this bird among the owls, just as is the case with the uneducated among ourselves, who popularly speak of the Nightjar as the Fern Owl, Churn Owl, or Jar Owl, the two last names being given to it on account of its peculiar cry. There are few birds, indeed, which have received a greater variety of popular names, for, besides the Goatsucker and the five which have already been mentioned, there are the Wheel-bird and Dor-hawk, the former of these names having been given to the bird on account of its wheeling round the trees while seeking for prey, and the latter on account of the dor-beetles on which it largely feeds.

This curious variety of names is probably due to the very conspicuous character of the Nightjar, its strange, jarring, weird-like cry forcing itself on the ear of the least attentive, as it breaks the silence of night. It hardly seems like the cry of a bird, but rather resembles the sound of a pallet falling on the cogs of a rapidly-working wheel. It begins in the dusk of evening, the long, jarring note being rolled out almost interminably, until the hearer wonders how the bird can have breath enough for such a prolonged sound. The hearer may hold his breath as long as he can, take a full inspiration, hold his breath afresh, and repeat this process over and over again, and yet the Nightjar continues to trill out its rapid notes without a moment's cessation for breath, the sound now rising shrill and clear, and now sinking as if the bird were far off, but never ceasing for an instant.

This remarkable cry has caused the uneducated rustics to look upon the bird with superstitious dread, every one knowing its cry full well, though to many the bird is unknown except by its voice. It is probable that, in the days when Moses wrote the Law, so conspicuous a bird was well known to the Jews, and we may therefore conjecture that it was one of those birds which he would specially mention by name.