Note 125 — Chapter XXXVIII · RESTRICTIONS IN DIET (concluded)

Leviticus, xi. 6, 8. Cæsar, De bello Gallico, v. 12 (ancient Britons). The Chinese have a deep-rooted prejudice against eating the flesh of the hare, which they have always regarded as an animal endowed with mysterious properties (Dennis, Folk-Lore of China, p. 64). With reference to the Biblical prohibition of eating camel’s flesh, old exegetes observed that the camel is a very revengeful animal, and that its vindictiveness would be transferred to him who partook of its meat (Wiener, in Zeitschr. f. Ethnol. viii. 104); but whether the prohibition in question originated in such a belief is open to doubt.