The Cuckoo only twice mentioned in Scripture—Difficulty of identifying the Shachaph—The common species, and the Great Spotted Cuckoo—Depositing the egg—Conjectures respecting the Shachaph—Etymology of the word—The various gulls, and other sea-birds.
ONLY in two instances is the word CUCKOO found in the Authorized Version of the Bible, and as they occur in parallel passages they are practically reduced to one. In Lev. 11:1616And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, (Leviticus 11:16) we find it mentioned among the birds that might not be eaten, and the same prohibition is repeated in Deut. 14:1515And the owl, and the night hawk, and the cuckow, and the hawk after his kind, (Deuteronomy 14:15), the Jews being ordered to hold the bird in abomination.
The Hebrew word is shachaph (the vowels to be pronounced as in “mat "), but as to the precise bird which is signified we can but conjecture. The etymology of the word gives us but little assistance. Shachaph is derived from a root that signifies leanness or slenderness; but it is not very easy to base an interpretation on such grounds. In the Jewish Bible the word is rendered as “Cuckoo," but with the addition of the doubtful mark.
It is possible that the bird may be the Shachaph of the Pentateuch, for several species of Cuckoo are known to inhabit the Holy hand. One of them is the species with which we are so familiar in this country by sound, if not by sight, and which possesses in Palestine the same habits as in England. It is rather remarkable, by the way, that the Arabic name for the bird is exactly the same as ours, the peculiar cry having supplied the name. Its habit of laying its eggs in the nests of other birds is well known, together with the curious fact, that although so large a bird, measuring more than a foot in length, its egg is not larger than that of the little birds, such as the hedge-sparrow, robin, or redstart.
Besides this species, another Cuckoo inhabits Palestine, and is much more common.
This is the GREAT SPOTTED CUCKOO (Oxylophus glandarius). The birds belonging to this genes have been separated from the other Cuckoos because the feathers on the head are formed into a bold crest, in some species, such as Le Vaillant's Cuckoo, reminding the observer of the crest of the cockatoo. This fine bird measures nearly sixteen inches in length, and can be distinguished, not only by the crested head, but by the reddish gray of the throat and chest, and the white tips of the wing and tail feathers.
This species lays its eggs in the nests of comparatively large birds, such as the rooks, crows, and magpies; and it is a remarkable fact, that just as the egg of the English Cuckoo is very small, so as to suit the nests of the little birds in which it is placed, that of the Great Spotted Cuckoo is as large as the average rook's egg, so as to be in proportion to the nests of the larger birds.
MANY commentators believe that by the word shachaph was signified some species of sea-gull, or at all events some marine Bird. As such birds live on fish, they would necessarily coma into the class of unclean birds, and there is on that account some probability that the suggestion is a correct one.
Dr. Lewysohn has a very elaborate disquisition on the subject, in which he decides that the creature was one of the sea-birds, and derives its name of Shachaph, or “attenuated," from the meagerness of its proportions. Of the various sea-birds, he selects the petrel as the species which he thinks to have been signified by the word. This bird, as he says, is a very lean one, having many feathers, but very little flesh, so that its limbs are no larger than olives, and no one could make a meal of it. This last remark, however, tends to diminish rather than to establish his theory, as, if the bird could not be eaten, there would have been no object in prohibiting the Jews from eating it.
He further proceeds to observe that the bird is unable to scratch, and may therefore be given to a child as a playfellow, and that it is capable of being domesticated and living in a cage. There is, however, no argument here, and the theory is not a tenable one.
Mr. Tristram, with far more probability, suggests that if the bird be not one of the Cuckoos, and be really a sea-bird, it may be one of the shearwaters which live in such numbers on the sea-shore of Palestine. He mentions especially two species, the Great Shearwater (Puffinus cinereus) and the Manx Shearwater (Puffinus anglorum), both of which are extremely plentiful on the coast, skimming continually over the water, and being at the present day regarded by the Mahometans with superstitious awe, being thought to be the ever-restless souls of the condemned, who are doomed to fly backwards and forwards continually until the end of the world, clad in sombre plumage, and never permitted to rest.
Besides the shearwater, many species of gull inhabit the same coast, and it is not at all unlikely that the word shachaph was used in a collective sense, as we have seen to be the case with tzippor, and signified any of the marine birds, without aiming at distinction of species.