YANSHUPH (rn•jy,; Lev. ii. 17; Dent. xiv.
16; Is. xxxiv. I). In the Septuagint and Vul gate it is translated Ibis,' but in our version Owl ;' whicli last Bochart supports, deriving the name from "it:": nesheph, twilight.' It may be re marked that ibis ' in Europe, and even in medi mval and modern Egypt, was a very indefinite name, until Bruce first pointed out, and Cuvier afterwards proved, what we are to understand by that denomination. The Ibis is probably the Abou-hannes of Bruce, and certainly the Ibis reli giosa of Cuvier, who discovered specimens in the mummy state, such as are now not uncommon in museums, and, by comparison, proved them to be identical with his sacred ibis. The species is no- ' where abundant ; it occurs, in the season, on the Upper Nile, a few in company, seldom coming down hito Lower Egypt, but extending over cen• tml Africa to the Senegal. A bird so rare about Memphis, and totally unknown in Palestine, could not be the Yanshuph of the Pentateuch, nor could the black ibis which appears about Damietta, nor any species, strictly tenants of hot and watery regions, be well taken for it. Bochart and others, who refer the name to a species of owl, appear to disregard two other names ascribed to owls in the 16th verse of the same chapter of Leviticus. 4 therefore, an owl was here again intended, it would have been placed in the former verse, or near to it In this difficulty, considering that the Seventy were not entirely without some grounds for refer ring the Hebrew Yanshuph to a wader ; that the older commentators took it for a species of ardea ; and that the root of the name mav refer to twi light, indicating a crepuscular bird; we are inclined to select the night heron as the only one that unites these seveml qualities. It is a bird smaller
than the common heron, distinguished by two or three white plumes hanging out of the black-capped nape of the male. In habit it is partially noc turnal. The Arabian Abou-onk (?), if not the identical bird, is a close congener of the species, found in every portion of the tempemte and warmer climates of the earth : it is an inhabitant of Syria, and altogether is free from the principal objec tions made to the ibis and the owl. The Lin mean single Ardea nycticorax is now typical of a genus of that name, and includes several species of night herons. They fly abroad at dusk, frequent the sea-shore, marshes, and rivers, feeding on mollusca, crustacea, and worms, and have a cry of a most disagreeable nature. This bird has been con founded with the night hawk, which is a goat sucker (caprimulgus), not a hawk.—C. H. S.