HAVOTH JAIR (ha'voth Wir),(Heb. 17: :inn, khav-vothe' yaw-eer', buts or hamlets of Jair), such as belonged to the Arabians, and a collection of which is regarded as forming a hamlet or village.
The district of Havoth-jair Clair's hamlets), mentioned in Num. xxxii :41, and Deut. :14, was beyond the Jordan in the land of Gilead, and belonged to the half-tribe of Manasseh. (See also Josh. xiii :3o; Chron. :22, 23; Kings iv :13 ; x :4.) (See jam) HAWK (hak), (Heb. nayts, Lev. xi:i6; Deut.
xiv:i5; Job xxxix:26; CIFQ, takh-mawce', an un clean bird), night hawk, by sume rendered ostrich, by 9thers ow/.
The English name is an altered form of the oId word fawk or falk. Western Asia and Lower Egypt, and consequently the intermediate territory of Syria and Palestine, are the habitation or tran sitory residence of a considerable number of spe cies of the order Raptores, which, even including the shortest vinged, have great powers of flight, are remarkably enterprising, live to a great age, are migratory, or followers upon birds of passage, or remain in a region so abundantly stocked with pigeon and turtle-dove as Palestine, and afford ing such a variety of ground to hunt their partic ular prey—ahounding as it does in mountain and forest, plain, desert, marsh, river and sea-coast.
Falcons, or the 'noble' birds of prey used for hawking. have for many ages been objects of great interest, and still continue to be bought at high prices. They are consequently imported from distant countries, as Central Asia, Iceland, Bar bary, etc. Their love of liberty often renders them irreclaixnable when once on the wing; and their powers and boldness, independent of cir cumstances, and the extent of range which the long-winged species in particular can take, are exemplified by their presence in every quarter of the globe. The Falco communis, or Peregrine falcon, is so generally diffused as to occur even in New Holland and South America.
Next we may place Falco Araeris of Sir J. G. Wilkinson, the sacred hawk of Egypt. This, if it be not in reality the sante as, or a mere variety of, the Peregrine, should have retained the an cient epithet of Hierax, and the hawkers' name of Sarre. Innumerable representations of it occur in Egyptian monuments.
The Hobby:Fa/co subbuteo, is no doubt a sec ond or third species of sacred hawk, having sim ilar gernonia. Both this bird and the tractable Merlin, Falco cesalon, are used in the falconry of the inferior Moslem landowners of Asiatic Tur key.
Besides these, the Kestrel, Falco tinnunculus, occurs in Syria, and Falco tinnunculoidcs, or lesser Kestrel, in Egypt ; and it is probable that both species visit these two territories according to the seasons.
To the 'noble' birds we may add the Gerfalcon, Falco gyrfalco, which is one-third larger than the Peregrine; it is imported from Tartary, and sold at Constantinople, Aleppo, and Damascus.
HAY (ha), (Help. "1"4'7,, khaw-tseer').
This word in Prov. xxvii :25, and elsewhere. does not denote dried grass, as it does with us. The management of grass by the Hebrews as food for cattle was entirely different from ours. It was never dried and stored for winter use, but was cut green as it was wanted; and the phrase "mown grass" (Ps. lxxii: 6) would be more properly rendered "grass that has just been fed off.' So in Prov. xxvii :25 the word translated "hay" means the first shoots of the grass; and the whole passage might properly be rendered, "The grass appeareth, and the green herb showeth itself, and the plants of the moun tains are gathered." And in Is. xv :6 "hay" is put for "grass," and "grass" is put for the "green herb." The tenderness of grass, the rap1dity of its growth, and the early period at which it is cut down and consumed afford the sacred writ ers some striking and beautiful illustrations (Ps. ciii :15 ; Is. xl :6; Cor. (See CiiKrzol.)