TS'BI (41y; Sopxcls). This may be regarded as a designation applying to a whole group or sub genus of the antelope family, that of the gazelles ; of which at least one species, if not more, may still be found in the deserts and uplands of Egypt, Arabia, and the eastern and southern borders of Palestine. The term doreas was apparently gene ralised so as to include the roebuck of Europe, which was certainly not, as in our translation, the ts'bi of Scripture. It appears from Hermolaus that neither Aristotle nor Dioscorides confounded such distinct genera, and that they used the term dorx for the species with persistent horns, and dorcas for the roebuck, whose horns are annually renewed. This confusion, created by the classical grammar ians of antiquity, was further increased by school men and sportsmen constantly confounding fallow deer with roebuck till within the 17th century, as is plainly perceptible in the writings of Gesner, that mine of zoological lore, not sufficiently con sulted by Scriptural commentators. The Biblical species clearly included in tbe section gazella are Antilope dorcas, Linn. ; Ariel or A. Arabica, Licht.; more remotely, A. kevella, A. cert./ma, auctor. ; and for eastern Arabia, A. cora, Ham. Smith ; while A. subgutturosa, Guldenst., may be claimed for the north-eastern countries, where the species exists both in Asia Minor and Armenia, and therefore on the borders of Syria. All these species are nearly allied, the largest not measuring inore than two feet in height at the shoulder, and the least, the corinna, not more than about twenty inches. They are graceful and elegant in form,
with limbs exceedingly slender, and have large and soft eyes, lyrated horns, black, wrinkled, and striated—most robust in subsutturosa and kevella, most slender in carinna, and smallest in cora. Their livery is more or less buff and dun, white beneath, with small tufts of hair or brushes on the fore-knees : they have all a dark streak passim,. from each ear through the eyes to the nostrils aria a band of the same colour from the elbow of the fore-leg along the sides to the flank, excepting the corinna, whose markings are more rufous and general colours lighter. Most, if not all, have a feeble bleating voice, seldom uttered, are unsur passed in graceful timidity, gregarious in habit, and residents on the open deserts, where they are unceasingly watchful, and prepared to flee with such speed, that greyhounds are liable to be killed by over-exertion in the chase. Of the species here enumerated, all, but more especially A. Arabica, A. a'orcas, and A. cora, must have been designated by the terms dorcas and ts'bi, and the Arabic tsabi : generically, Gaza/. The Chaldee tabitha, and Persic ztebegat, may refer more immediately to A. subgulturosa, the ahu of Kxmpfer, tseiran of modern Persia, and jairozt of the Turks.
One or other of these, according to geographical localities, occurs in the A. V. under the name of roe or roebuck ; in Deut. xii. 15, 222' xiv. 5 ; xv. 22 ; r Kings iv. 23 ; Chron. xii. 6; 2 Sam. ii. 18 ; Prov. vi. 5 ; Cant. vii. 3 ; viii. 14; Is. xiii. 14; dorcas, Eccles. XXVII. 20.-C. H. S.