The above four instances are the only hypotheses at variance with the received text and interpretation worthy of notice: if indeed the case of the shark can be deemed at all at variance, as the term κῆτος was used to designate many different fishes. Jebb (_Sacred Literature_, p. 178.) says that the whale's stomach is not a safe and practicable asylum; but-- "The throat is large, and provided with a bag or intestine so considerable in size that whales frequently take into it _two_ of their young, when weak, especially during a tempest. In this vessel there are two vents, which serve for inspiration and expiration; there, in all probability, Jonas was preserved." John Hunter compares the whale's tongue to a feather bed; and says that the baleen (whalebone) and tongue together fill up the whole space of the jaws. Josephus describes the fish of Jonah as a κῆτος, and fixes on the Euxine for the locality as an _on dit_ (ὁ λόγος). The same word in reference to the same event is used by Epiphanius, Cedrenus, Zanarus, and Nicephorus. The Arabic version has the word حُوْتا (_choono_), translated in Walton's Polyglott _cetus_; but the word, according to Castell, means "a tavern," or "merchants' office." This may have led to Herman de Hardt's whim. The Targum of Jonathan, and the Syriac of Jonah, have both the identical word which was most probably used by our Lord, _Noono_, fish, the root signifying _to be prolific_, for which fishes are eminently remarkable. _Dag_, the Hebrew word, has the same original signification. The word used by our Lord, in adverting to His descent to Hades, was most probably that of the Syriac version, [Syriac](_noono_), which means _fish_ in Chaldee and Arabic, as well as in Syriac; and corresponds to the Hebrew word דַג, (_dag_), _fish_, in Jonah i. 17., ii. 1., 10. The Greek of Matthew xii. 40., instead of ἰχθὺς, has κῆτος, _a whale_. The Septuagint has the same word κῆτος for (1) _dag_ in Jonah, as well as for (2) _leviathan_ in Job iii. 8., and for (3) _tanninim_ in Genesis i. 21. The error appears to be in the Septuagint of Jonah, where the particular fish, _the whale_, is mentioned instead of the general term _fish_. Possibly the disciples of Christ knew that the fish was a κῆτος, and the habits of such of them as were fishermen might have familiarised them with its description or form. It is certain that the κῆτος of Aristotle, and _cetus_ of Pliny, was one of the genus _Cetacea_, without gills, but with blow-holes communicating with the lungs. The disciples may also have heard the mythological story of Hercules being three days in the belly of the κῆτος, the word used by Æneas Gazæus, although Lycophron describes the animal as a shark, κάρχαρος κύων. "Τριεσπέρου λέοντος, ὅν ποτε γνάθοις Τρίτωνος ἠμάλαψε κάρχαρος κύων."