THE SYRIAN HARE.
Taking the latter point first, as being the simplest of the two, we find that the Hebrew word which is rendered as Hare is Arnebeth, and that it is rendered in the Septuagint as Dasypus, or the Hare,—a rendering which the Jewish Bible adopts. That the Arnebeth is really the Hare may also be conjectured from the fact that the Arabic name for that animal is Arneb. In consequence of the rather wide sense to which the Greek word Dasypus (i.e. hairy-foot) is used, some commentators have suggested that the rabbit may have been included in the same title. This, however, is not at all likely, inasmuch as the Hare is very plentiful in Palestine, and the rabbit is believed not to be indigenous to that part of the world. And, even if the two animals had been classed under the same title, the physiological difficulty would not be removed.
Before proceeding further, it will be as well to give a brief description of the curious act called rumination, or "chewing the cud."
There are certain animals, such as the oxen, antelopes, deer, sheep, goats, camels, &c. which have teeth unfitted for the rapid mastication of food, and which therefore are supplied with a remarkable apparatus by which the food can be returned into the mouth when the animal has leisure, and be re-masticated before it passes into the true digestive organs.
For this purpose they are furnished with four stomachs, which are arranged in the following order. First comes the paunch or "rumen" (whence the word "ruminating"), into which passes the food in a very rough state, just as it is torn, rather than bitten, from the herbage, and which is analogous to the crop in birds. It thence passes into the second stomach, or "honeycomb," the walls of which are covered with small angular cells. Into those cells the food is received from the first stomach, and compressed into little balls, which can be voluntarily returned into the mouth for mastication.
After the second mastication has been completed, the food passes at once into the third stomach, and thence into the fourth, which is the true digesting cavity. By a peculiar structure of these organs, the animal is able to convey its food either into the first or third stomach, at will, i.e. into the first when the grass is eaten, and into the third after rumination. Thus it will be seen that an animal which chews the cud must have teeth of a certain character, and be possessed of the fourfold stomach which has just been described.
Two points are conceded which seem to be utterly irreconcilable with each other. The first is that the Mosaic law distinctly states that the Hare chews the cud; the second is that in point of fact the Hare is not, and cannot be, a ruminating animal, possessing neither the teeth nor the digestive organs which are indispensable for that process. Yet, totally opposed as these statements appear to be, they are in fact, not so irreconcilable as they seem.
