SHU'AL. 5rat,.., and jackal (?), are both somewhat arbitrarily interpreted by the word fox ; ' although that denomination is not uniformly em ployed in different texts (Judg. xv. 4; Neh. iv. 3 ; xi. 27 ; Ps. ro ; Cant. ii. 15 ; Lam. v. 18 ; Ezek. xiii. 4). Fox is thus applied to two or more species, though only strictly applicable in a syste raatic view to Taaleb, which is the Arabic name of a wild canine, probably the Syrian fox—Vulpes Thaleb or Taaleb of modern zoologists--and the only genuine species indigenous in Palestine. Fox is again the translation of ciXthrnE, in Matt. Ira 20 ; Luke ix. 58 ; xiii. 32 : but here also the word in the original texts may apply generically to several species rather than to one only.
We have no proof that shu' al denotes exclusively the fox, and that iyim and Hasselquist's little foxes refer solely to jackals ; particularly as these animals were, if really known, not abundant in Western Asia, even during the first century of the Roman -empire ; for they are but little noticed by the Greek writers and sportsmen who resided where now they are heard and seen every evening ; these authorities offering no remark on the most pro minent characteristic of the species—namely, the chorus of howlings lasting all night—a habit so intolerable that it is the invariable theme of all the Semitic writers since the Hegira whenever they mention the jackal. We may therefore infer that shn'al is a general denomination, and that ijim, if the etymology be just, is derived from howling or barking, and may designate the jackal, though more probably it includes also those wild Canidm which have a similar habit.
Vulpes Taaleb, or Taleb, the Syrian fox, is of the size of an English cur fox, and similarly formed ; but the ears are wider and longer, the fur in general ochry-rufous above, and whitish beneath : there is a faint black ring towards the tip of the tail, and the back of the ears are sooty, with bright fulvous edges. The species burrows, is silent and solitary, extends eastward into Southern Persia, and is said to be found in Natolia. Ehrenberg's two species
of Taleb (one of which he takes to be the Anubis of ancient Egypt, and Geoffrey's Canis Niloticus, the Abou Hossein of the Arabs) are nearly allied to or varieties of the species, but residing in Egypt, and further to the same south, where it seems they do not burrow. The Syrian Taleb is reputed to be very destructive in the vineyards. or rather a plunderer of ripe grapes ; but he is certainly less so than the jackal, whose ravages are carried on in troops and with less fear of man.
None of the explanations which we have seen of the controverted passage in Judg. xv. 4, 5, re lative to the :kW alim, foxes, jackals, or other can ines, which Samson employed to set fire to the corn of the Philistines, is altogether satisfactory to our mind. First, taking Dr. Kennicott's pro posed explanation of the case by changing 134171tV to 1:63,tv, thus reading sheaves' instead of foxes,' and translating =t ends' instead of tails,' the meaning then would be, that Samson merely con nected by bands or ends three hundred shocks of corn, already reaped, and thus burned the whole. We admit that this, at first view, appears a rational explanation ; bat it should be observed that three hundred shocks of corn would not make two stacks, and therefore the result would be quite inadequate, considered as a punishment or act ot vengeance upon the Philistine population, then predominant over the greater part of Palestine : and if we take shocks to mean corn-stacks, then it may be asked how, and for what object, were three hundred corn-stacks brought together in one place from a surface of country at least equal to Yorkshire? The task, in that hilly region, would have occupied all the cattle and vehicles for several months ; and then the corn could not have been threshed out without making the whole population travel repeatedly, in order finally to reload the grain and take it to their threshing-floors.