We now come to a different class of animated beings. We have already found that the sacred writers were very loose in their nomenclature of the mammalia and birds, and we may therefore expect to find that even greater uncertainty prevails with regard to the Reptiles. It is evident that the sacred writers classed together the "creeping things" of the earth, without troubling themselves about zoological accuracy, and that by them a lizard, a centipede, and a caterpillar would have been alike classed as belonging to the "creeping things." For example, we learn in Deut. xiv. 19 that "every creeping thing that flieth" is unclean. On referring to Levit. xi. 21, we find that the same prohibition is repeated, but with an addition that shows that the sacred writer is treating of insects under the head of "creeping things." "Yet these may ye eat of every flying creeping thing that goeth upon all four, which have legs above their feet, to leap withal upon the earth;
"Even these of them may ye eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind.
"But all other flying creeping things which have four feet shall be an abomination unto you."
As to the particular species signified by these different insects, the reader is referred to that portion of the work which treats of entomology; and it is sufficient to observe that in this passage the term "creeping things" is employed to designate insects.
If we pass to verse 42 of the same chapter, we find that among the "creeping things" the centipedes, millepedes, and very probably the caterpillars, are ranked. "Whatsoever hath more feet among all creeping things that creep upon the earth, them ye shall not eat, for they are an abomination.
"Ye shall not make yourselves [or, your souls] abominable with any creeping thing that creepeth, neither shall ye make yourselves unclean with them, that ye should be defiled thereby."
Again, in Ps. civ. 24, 25, different orders of animals are classed under the name of creeping things: "0 Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all: the earth is full of Thy riches.
"So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts." In this passage it is probable that the sacred writer classed together all the inhabitants of the sea that creep and that do not swim with fins, and that under this term are first comprised the marine turtles, and perhaps snakes. Indeed, from verses 10 and 11 of Levit. xi. it is almost certain that marine and aquatic reptiles are signified: "All that have not fins and scales in the seas and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of every living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
"They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination."
This prohibition also includes the whole of the molluscs, and the marine worms, or annelids.