HARDNESS OF HEART (hard'n6s Ov hart), (Gr. crevnpoKapsta, sklay-rok-ar-dee'ah, Matt. xix:8; Mark iii:5; Gr. raynocrts, po'ro-sis, callousness), des titution of feeling. (See HARD, Ftkurative.) HARE (har), (Heb. ar-neh'beth), occurs in Lev. xi:6, and Deut. xiv:7, and in both in stances it is prohibited from being used as food, because it chews the cud, although it has not the hoof divided.
The animal which is now called the hare does not actually chew the cud, but has incisor teeth above and below, set like chisels, and calculated for gnawing, cutting, and nibbling, and when in a state of repose the animals are engaged in work ing the incisor teeth upon each other. This prac tice is a necessary condition of existence, for the friction keeps them fit for the purpose of nib bling, and prevents their growing beyond a proper length. As hares do not subsist on hard sub stances, like most of the genera of the order, but on tender shoots and grasses, they have more cause, and therefore a more constant craving, to abrade their teeth; and this they do in a manner which, combined with the slight trituration of the occasional contents of the cheeks even modern writers, not zoologists, have mistaken for real rumination.
It follows that both with regard to the Shaphan and the Hare we should understand the original in the above passages, rendered 'chewing the cud,' as merely implying a second mastication, more or less complete. The act of 'chewing the cud' and 're-chewing' being considered identical by the He brews, the sacred law-giver, not being occupied with the doctrines of science, no doubt used the expression in the sense in which it was then understood. C. H. S.
"The Arab of the present day regards the hare as a ruminant, and for that reason eats its flesh. As Tristram well says, 'Moses speaks of animals according to appearances, and not with the pre cision of a comparative anatomist, and his object was to show why the hare should be interdicted, though to all appearance it chewed the cud, viz.: because it did not divide the hoof. To have spoken otherwise would have been as unreason able as to have spoken of the earth's motion, in stead of sunset and sunrise: " (G. E. Post, Hast ings' Bib. Diet.) There are two distinct species of hare in Syria, one, Lepus Syriacus. or Syrian hare, nearly equal in size to the common European, having the fur ochery buff, and Lepus Sinaiticus, or hare of the desert, smaller and brownish. They reside in the localities indicated by their trivial names, and are disting-uished from the common hare, by a greater length of ears, and a black tail with white fringe. There is found in Egypt, and higher up the Nile, a third species, represented in the out line paintings on ancient monuments, but not colored with that delicacy of tint required for distinguishing it from the others, excepting that it appears to be marked with the black speckles which characterize the existing species.