Ferret

Lev. 11:30 (R.V., "gecko"), one of the unclean creeping things. It was perhaps the Lacerta gecko which was intended by the Hebrew word (anakah, a cry, "mourning," the creature which groans) here used, i.e., the "fan-footed" lizard, the gecko which makes a mournful wail. The LXX. translate it by a word meaning "shrew-mouse," of which there are three species in Palestine. The Rabbinical writers regard it as the hedgehog. The translation of the Revised Version is to be preferred.

אנקה, from אנק, or _cry out_, Lev. xi, 30. The ferret is a species of the weasel; but Bochart will have the _anakah_ to be the spotted lizard, called by Pliny _stellio_. Dr. James takes it for the frog, in allusion to the name, which literally signifies _the crier_, befitting the croaking of that animal; but we shall find the frog mentioned under another name. Dr. Geddes renders it _the newt_, or rather _the lizard of the Nile_; and it evidently must be of the lizard species. Pliny mentions “the _galleotes_, covered with red spots, whose cries are sharp,” which may be the _gekko_, which is probably the animal here intended. As its name, in the Indies _tockai_, and in Egypt _gekko_, is formed from its voice, so the Hebrew name _anakah_, or perhaps _anakkah_, seems to be formed in like manner; the double k being equally observable in all these appellations. If these remarks are admissible, this lizard is sufficiently identified.