upon the earth; and unto them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And they had tails like unto scorpions; and there were stings in their tails: and their power was to hurt men five months."[203] We ought not to be surprised that the translators of the English Bible were occasionally at a loss to distinguish the genera and species of the several animals mentioned in the Sacred Writings; for even at the present day, when we possess infinitely higher advantages in point of natural knowledge, we cannot precisely determine even the class or order to which some of them belong. We have an example of this obscurity in the fourth chapter of the book of Lamentations, where it is said that "even the sea-monsters draw out the breast, they give suck to their young ones." The original expression, tannin, appears applicable to those amphibious animals that haunt the banks of rivers and the shores of the sea, and was probably used by the prophet with a reference to the seal species, which suckle their young in the manner described in his pathetic elegy. It is true, that it is used in Genesis in connection with the epithet large, and is therefore not improperly rendered "great whales." Hence it has been concluded, that the word tannin may comprehend the class of lizards from the eft to the crocodile, provided they be amphibious; also the seal, the manati, the morse, and even the whale, if he came ashore; but as whales remain constantly in the deep, they seem to be more correctly ascribed to the class of fishes. Moreover, whether the people of Syria had any knowledge of the whale kinds, strictly so called, is a point which deserves inquiry before it be admitted as certain. At all events, it is manifest that the tannin of the Scripture must have indicated an animal which has many properties common to the seal, for it not only applies the breast to its young, but has the power of exerting its voice in a mournful tone. The prophet Micah says, "I will make a wailing like the tanninim," a phrase which, in our translation, is unhappily rendered "dragons." It has also the faculty of suspending respiration, or of drawing in a quantity of breath and of emitting it with violence. "The wild asses," says Jeremiah, "stand upon the high places; they puff out the breath like the tanninim (here again translated dragons); their eyes fail because there is no grass." On the whole, remarks the editor of Calmet, we may consider the Hebrew _tahash_ as being decidedly a seal; but tannin as including creatures resident both on land and in water, or, in other words, the amphibia.[204] SECTION VI.--FRUITS AND PLANTS.