Leviticus 11:17

17. The little owl Hebrew cos. The Authorized Version is evidently correct, though Bochart argues that cos means pouch, and hence that the pelican is intended. But Psalms 102:6 decides that it is an owl of some kind. The little owl, to which species Tristram assigns cos, is by far the most abundant of all owls in Palestine. He is a grotesque and comical-looking little bird.

The cormorant Hebrew shalac. Since it occurs only here and in the parallel passage, Deuteronomy 14:17, it is difficult to identify. The Seventy render it by καταρακτης , the plunger, which Furst says is a species of pelican, which precipitates itself from high crags into the water after fish. The cormorant is, however, closely allied to the pelican, being of the same family group, so that our translators were not far astray. The common cormorant is very common on the coast, and comes up the Kishon, visiting also the Sea of Galilee.

The great owl Hebrew yansuph. Aside from the two catalogues of unclean birds, it is named but once, in Isaiah 34:11, in the prophetic desolation of Edom.

The Chaldee and Syriac are in favour of some kind of owl, but the Seventy and Vulgate have ιβις , Ibis religiosa, the sacred bird of Egypt. “But the passage in Isaiah plainly puts this interpretation out of the question, for the ibis is strictly a bird of the reedy marshes and mud flats, the very last to be thought of among the ruins of Petra.” It is doubtless the Egyptian eagle-owl, a large and noble-looking bird, that is signified in these passages, found in great numbers in the rock tombs of Petra. Tristram thinks that it is the Egyptian eagle owl.