The law of shechitah applies only to cattle, beasts, and birds (‏בהמה‎, ‏חיה‎ and ‏עוף‎); there is no commandment as regards the killing of fish. Tradition supports this exception by reference to the distinction made in Num. xi. 22: “Shall the flocks and the herds be slain (‏ישחט‎) for them, to suffice them? or shall all the fish of the sea be gathered together (‏יאסף‎) for them, to suffice them?” Although the latter term (‏יאסף‎) is also used of quails (ibid. 32), no such inference is made with regard to birds, because in ver. 32 the term ‏יאסף‎ is not contrasted by ‏ישחט‎; besides, the verb ‏שחט‎ is frequently applied in the Law to birds, but never to fish. Comp. Babyl. Talm., Chullin, p. 27b. There is this difference to be observed between ‏בהמה‎ on the one hand, and ‏חיה‎ and ‏עוף‎ on the other. In the case of the latter two the shechitah must be followed by the covering of the blood (‏כסוי דם‎ Lev. xvii. 13). The object of this law is, according to some, to prevent the blood being used for idolatrous and superstitious purposes, as birds and beasts were generally hunted in the fields, mountains, and woods, places frequently associated in the imagination of the ancients with evil spirits and the like. (Comp. Commentary of R. Obadiah Seforno on the Pentateuch, ad locum.) The law was perhaps intended to impress the lesson on the mind of the hunter that the blood shed of a living being presents a ghastly sight that offends the eye of man. He will accustom himself to think that taking away the life of another being, even of an animal, is an act of grave responsibility, and will not be led to misuse his weapons against any of his fellow-men. 5. On Page 460—3b. Comp. Mishnah, Treatise Chullin, iii. 6.—The characteristics of the clean and the unclean cattle and beasts are given in the Pentateuch, but the characteristics of the clean or the unclean birds are not mentioned in the Law. Our Sages, however, declared every bird of prey—or every bird that seizes its food with its claws, and lifts it up from the ground before eating it (Rashi) to be an unclean bird; while all birds are clean that have a projecting claw (‏אצבע יתרה‎ a claw longer than the rest) and a crop (‏זפק‎), and whose stomach has a membrane that can easily be peeled off (‏קרקבנו נקלף‎). Another rule is this: Birds that dwell and associate with unclean birds are unclean. “Not without reason does the starling go to the raven: they are of the same species” (Babyl. Talm., Chullin 65b). The sentence serves also as a moral lesson (ibid., Baba Kama 92a). At present, however, only those birds are killed for food which are known traditionally to have always been considered as “clean birds” (Maimonides, Mishneh-torah, Hilchoth maachaloth asuroth, i. 14–20; Tur Joredeah, chap. lxxxii.). 6. On Page 461—7.