A living writer, who has considered this subject with great attention, gives as the result of his inquiry, that the saphan of the ancient Hebrews, rendered "cony" in the English Bible, is a very different animal; that it has a nearer resemblance to the hedgehog, the bear, the mouse, the jerboa, or the marmot, though it is not any of these. It is the webro of the Arabians, the daman-Israel of Shaw, the ashkoko of Bruce, and clipdass of the Dutch.[198] The prophet Isaiah, in recording the idolatrous and profane habits of his countrymen, mentions the "eating of swine's flesh, and the abomination, and the _mouse_." This is supposed to be the jerboa, an animal common in the East, about the size of a rat, and which only uses its hindlegs. There can be little doubt that this is the creature alluded to by the Hebrew legislator when he said, "Whatsoever goeth upon its _paws_, among all manner of beasts that go on all four, those are unclean unto you." Hasselquist tells us that the jerboa, or leaping-rat, as he calls it, moves only by leaps and jumps. When he stops he brings his feet close under his belly, and rests on the juncture of his leg. He uses, when eating, his fore-paws, like other animals of his kind. He sleeps by day, and is in motion during the night. He eats corn, and grains of sesamum. Though he does not fear man, he is not easily tamed; for which reason he must be kept in a cage. The porcupine, or _kephad_, is spoken of in the writings of Isaiah under the denomination of the bittern. "I will make Babylon a possession for the bittern and pools of water." In another chapter, the inspired author associates the kephad with the pelican, with the yanshaph or ardea ibis, and with oreb, or the raven kind; and hence a considerable difficulty has arisen in regard to the class of animals in which it ought to be ranked. Bochart had no doubt that the porcupine was in the mind of the prophet when he wrote the description of the Assyrian capital wasted and abandoned. This creature is a native of the hottest climates of Africa and India, and yet can live and multiply in milder latitudes. It is now found in Spain, and in the Apennines near Rome. Pliny asserts that the porcupine, like the bear, hides itself in winter. In a Memoir on Babylon, by the late Mr. Rich, it is stated that great quantities of porcupine-quills were found on the spot; and that in most of the cavities are numbers of bats and owls.