KOPH ; Gr. Kipros, icijpos ; whence the Latinized name Cephus). In the Hebrevir and Semitic cognate tongues, and in the classical lan ,guages, these names, under various modifications, designate the Simiadce, including, no doubt, species of Cercopithecus, Macacus, and Cynocephalus, or Guenons, apes, and baboons ; that is, all the animals of •the quadrumanous order known to the Hebrews, Arabs, Egyptians and the classical writers. Accordingly, we find 'Pliny and Solinus speaking of Ethiopian Cephi exhibited at Rome : and in the upper part of the celebrated Prmaestine mosaic representing the inundation of the Nile, figures of Simiad occur in the region which indi cates Nubia ; among others, one in a tree, with the name KH111EN beside it, which may be taken for a Cercopithecus of the Guenon group. But in the ttiumphal procession of Thothmes III at Thebes, nations from the interior of Africa, probably from Nubia, bear curiosities and tribute, among which the Camelopardalis or Giraffe and six quadrumana may be observed. The smallest and most effaced animals may be apes, but the others, and in par ticular the three figured and coloured from careful drawings, in Plate xxi. of Rosellini's work, are un doubtedly Macaci or Cynocephali, that is, species of the genus baboon, or baboon-like apes. Natu ralists and commentators, not deterred by the interminable list of errors which the practice has occasioned, are often unnecessarily anxious to assign the names of animals noticed in Scripture and in the ancient classics, to species characterised by the moderns ; although the original designations are to be taken in a familiar sense, and often extend even beyond a generical meaning. In the instance before us we have the futility of this practice fully exemplified ; for Buffon presumed his Mona (Cer copithecus Mona) to be the Kebos of the Greeks, and not without plausibility, since the western Arabs, it seems, apply the word Moune to all long-tailed apes. Linnteus referred Cephus to his Simia Cephus, now Cercopithecus Cephus, or Moustache Guenon, of a different group ; while Lichtenstein referred it to his Simia, or rather, as now arranged, Cercopithecus Diana. But as none
of these are known to inhabit eastern Africa, it is more probable that the Keipen of the Prxnestine mosaic is in reality the Cercopithecus Griseovirides, or Grivet of Cuvier, which, with equal pretensions in regard to form, has the advantage of being a native of Ethiopia and Nubia, and belongs, with the two last mentioned, to the group which has been called Callitrix.
But these considerations do not serve to point out the Koph of Scripture; for that animal, named only twice (i Kings x. 22, and 2 Chron. ix. 2t), is in both cases associated with 1:1"7111, Thoukiim, perhaps erroneously rendered peacocks.' Now neither peacocks nor pheasants are indigenous in Africa : they belong to India and the mountains of high Asia, and therefore the version peacocks,' if correct, would decide, without doubt, not only that Koph denotes none of the Simiadm above noticed, but also that the fleet of Tarshish* visited India or the Australasian islands. Thoukiim, ap parently meaning crested, indicates birds, perhaps parrots, but cannot refer to the pintado or Guinea hen, the Numidia of naturalists and the Meleagris of the ancients ; nor to the Pterocles or Sandgrouse, both being familiarly known in Upper Egypt, and the last mentioned, in particular, abundant in Arabia and Palestine. The interpretation pro posed by Hase, which would convert Kophim into Succim—a'wellers in eaves—is inadmissible, such a description being quite inapplicable to long-tailed monkeys. Like the whole order of quadrumana, they are constituted not for troglodyte, but arboreal life, or to be dwellers in trees ; baboons alone ven turing beyond woody covers in steep rocky situa tions, and sometimes finding shelter in clefts. For these reasons we conclude that the Hebrew koph, and names of the same root, were, by the nations in question, used geuerically in some instances and specifically in others, though the species were not thereby defined, nor on that account identical.