THUKIYIM (c"mln and t"Zr1). It is a • • question, perhaps, more of geographical and his torical than of Biblical interest to decide whethei thukiyint (t Kings X. 22 ; 2 Chron. ix. 21) denote peacocks strictly so called, or some other species of animal or bird ; for on the solution of the ques tion in the affirmative depends the real direction of Solomon's fleet ; that is, whether, after passing the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, it proceeded along the east coast of Africa towards Sofala, or whether it turned eastward, ranging along the Arabian and Persian shores to the Peninsula of India, and per haps went onwards to Ceylon, and penetrated to the great Australian, or even to the Spice Islands. Bochart, unable to discover a Hebrew root in ro+zn, rather arbitrarily proposes a transposition of letters, by which he converts the word into Cuthiyim, denoting, as he supposes, the country of the Cuthei, which, in an extended sense, is ap plied, in conformity with various writers of anti quity, to Media and Persia ; and Greek authorities are cited to show that peacocks abounded in Baby lonia, etc. This mode of proceeding to determine the species and the native country of the bird is altogether inadmissible, since Greek writers speak of Persian peacocks at a much later period than the age of Solomon ; and it is well known that they were sucoessively carried westward till they passed from the Greek islands into Europe, and that, as Juno's birds, tbe Romans gradually spread them to Gaul and Spain, where, however, they were not common until after the Toth century. But even if peacocks had been numerous in Media and northern Persia at the time in question, how were they to be furnished to a fleet which was navi gating the Indian Ocean, many degrees to the south of the colder region of High Asia ? and as for the land of the Cuthei, or of Cush, when it serves their purpose, writers remove it to Africa along with the migrations of the Cushites. The Milk/yin: have been presumed to derive their ap pellation from an exotic word implying tufted' or crested,' which, though true of the peacock, is not so obvious a character as that afforded by its splendid tail ; and therefore a crested parrot has been supposed to be meant. Parrots, though many species are indigenous in Africa, do not appear on the monuments of Egypt ; they were unknown till the time of Alexander, .and then both Greeks and Romans were acquainted only with species from Ceylon, destitute of crests, such as Psittacus Alexandri ; and the Romans for a long time re ceived these only by way of Alexandria, though in the time of Pliny others became known. Again, the pheasant has been proposed as the bird in tended ; but Phas. Colchicus, the only species known in antiquity, is likewise without a promi nent crest, and is a bird of the colder regions of the central range of Asiatic mountains. Follow ing a line of latitude, it gradually reached west ward to High Armenia and Colchis, whence it was first brought to Europe by Greek merchants, who frequented the early emporium on the Phasis. The centre of existence of the genus, rich in splendid species, is in the woody region beneath the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, reaching also eastward to northern China, where the common pheasant is abundant ; but not, we believe, any where naturally in a. low latitude. Thus it ap pears that pheasants were not the birds intended by the Hebrew Thukiyinz, although all versions and comments agree that after the apes (probably Cereofithecus Entellus, one of the sacred species of India) some kind of remarkable bird is meant and none are more obviously entitled to the appli cation of the name than the peacock, since it is abundant in the jungles of India, and would be met with. both wild and domesticated, by naviga tors to the coasts from Camboge to Ceylon, and would better than any of the others bear a long sea voyage in the crowded ships of antiquity.
Moreover, we find it still denominated Togei in the Malabaric dialects of the country, which may be the source of Thuki, as well as of the Arabic Tawas, and Armenian Taus. With regard to the objec tion, that the long ocellated feathers of the rump, and not those of the tail, as is commonly believed, are the most conspicuous object offered by this bird, it may be answered, that if the name Togel be the original, it may not refer to a tuft, or may express both the erectile feathers on the head of a bird and those about the rump or the tail ; and that those of the peacock have at all times been sought to form artificial crests for human orna ments. One other point remains to be considered ; namely, whether the fleet went to the East, or pro ceeded southward along the African shore ? No doubt, had the Plicenician trade guided the He brews in the last-mentioned direction, gold and apes raight have been obtained on the east coast of Africa, and even some kinds of spices in the ports of Abyssinia ; for all that region, as far as the Strait of Madagascar, was at that early period in a state of comparative affluence and civilisation. Bnt in that case a great part of the commercial produce would have been obtained within the borders of the Red Sea, and beyond the Straits ; the distance to be traversed, therefore, being but partially af fected by the monsoons, never could have required a period of three years for its accomplishment ; and a prolonged voyage round the Cape to the Guinea and Gold Coast is an assumption so wild, that it does not merit serious consideration ; but intending to proceed to India, the fleet had to reach the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb in time to take advantage of the western rnonsoon ; be in port, perhaps, at or near Bombay., before the change ; and after the storms accompanying the change, it had to proceed during the eastern monsoon under the lee of the land to Coodramalli, or the port of Palesimundus Taprobana, on the east coast of Ceylon; thence to the Coromandel shore, perhaps to the site of the present ruins of Mahabalipuram ; while the return voyage would again occupy one year and a half. The ports of India and Ceylon could furnish gold, precious stones, eastern spices, and even Chinese wares ; for the last fact is fully established by dis coveries in very ancient Egyptia.n tombs. Silks, which are first mentioned in Proverbs xxxi. 22, could not have come from Africa, and many articles of advanced and refined social life, not the produce of Egypt, could alone have been derived from India [OPmal Though in this short abstract of the arguments respecting the direction of Solomon's fleet there may be errors, none, we believe, are of sufficient weight to impugn the general conclusion, which supports the usual rendering of Thukiyim by peacocics ;' although the increase of species in the west does not appear to have been rymarkable till some ages after the reign of the great Hebrew monarch, when the bird was dedicated to Juno, and reared at first in her temple at Samos. There are only two species of true peacocks—viz. that under consideration, which is the Pavo eristatus of Linn. ; and another, PaVO MiltiCUS, more recently. discovered, which differs in some particulars, and originally belongs to Japan and China. Peacocks bear the cold of the Himalayas : they run with great swiftness, and where they are serpents do not abound, as they devour the young with great avidity, and, it is said, attack with spirit even the Cobra di Capella when grown to considerable size, arresting its progress and confusing it by the rapi dity and variety of their evolutions around it, till exhausted with fatigue it.is struck on the head and dispatched.
A detailed description of a species so well known we deem superfluous.—C. 11. S.