252 
that they who have applied themselves to the extension of one 
branch of knowledge may not only be encouraged to carry 
forward their exertions by the approbation of those who have 
applied themselves to other branches, but may occasionally 
derive from them valuable assistance. 
‘© The decipherment and the interpretation of records con- 
tained in a lost language seem at first to have no possible 
connexion with zoology ; and yet the names of animals may 
occur in those records, and statements may be made concerning 
them, which may perhaps enable the zoologist to say which 
of the animals now existing in the country spoken of were 
designated by these names; or, it may be, to pronounce that 
animals must have existed there formerly, which are now no 
longer to be met with—even as the wolf and the beaver have 
disappeared from the Fauna of Great Britain, and the dodo 
from its last dwelling-place in the entire earth. 
‘* In the present paper I propose to treat of the animals 
mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions; and I hope that ‘the 
knowledge of zoology possessed by some of those who may 
hear it read will enable them to throw light on points which 
mere philological research has left in obscurity. 
‘There is much greater difficulty in determming what 
animals were designated by Assyrian names than by Egyptian 
ones; and that for two reasons. The Egyptian sculptures 
present to us many representations of animals, with their 
hieroglyphical names over or beside them. When these names, 
therefore, are met with in ordinary Egyptian texts, it is known 
what animals they denote, even if no representation of the 
animal should follow its name; which, however, it very fre- 
quently does. On the other hand, the few determinatives 
which accompany the Assyrian names of animals bear no re- 
semblance to them; and, consequently, do not indicate at all 
what the animals were. The Assyrian sculptures also very 
seldom contain representations of animals, accompanied by 
names which we can feel certain of belonging to them. In 
