The Birds of the Assyrian Monuments and Records. 83 
jackdaw, may be the casid cibarti of the bilingual list. The 
Accadian equivalent is in this tablet entirely lost, with the 
exception of about four characters, mere endings of names, 
and as no other Assyrian word occurs, no other help is 
afforded us. On the whole, however, I think that the jackdaw 
is the bird which Buxtorf designates as the " daughter of 
sepulchres," and has decidedly the best claim. 
(24.) There is good reason to identify the bal-lu-tsi-tu 
(^KISJ-ElH) or tu-bal-la-ats 
with the Arabic word hilissi ^^ab^, which is said to 
be the same as the bird called sorad (jp), defined by 
Freytag to be " a black and white bird, larger than a 
sparrow, with a thick head, which pursues sparrows." The 
second word is identical with the first, having merely the 
noun formative prefix of t. The modern Arabic name of the 
magpie is 'ak-ak; the "green magpie " is shakrdk, and denotes 
the Roller. In one of the columns, after the word tuballats, the 
words ci-na-Sa, "its nest," or "its slave," appear. 1 Did the 
large conspicuous nest of the magpie appear worthy of 
mention? Perhaps the figures on the monuments of some 
long-tailed bird are meant for the magpie (Pica caudata). 
(25.) Some kind of wild pigeon, probably the wood- 
pigeon" (Columba palumbus), 2 is designated by the names of 
ur-sa-nu (JJ^J Jyyy and ta-am-si-lu (^HY ^j*- ISJ)' 
the first name is by Delitzsch referred to the Arabic warashdn 
(^LS^), which is translated Columba sylvestris, " wild dove." 
The second name looks like the Talmudic tasil or tasilah 
(^DJl), which is explained as " the young of pigeons or 
doves," or " some kind of dove." Lewysohn (Die Zoologie 
des Talmuds, p. 205) considers that tasil denotes some full 
grown small dove, and suggests the rock-dove ( Columba 
livia) as the species. These birds are called beni yonah 
(J12V *0l), "sons of the dove," and Lewysohn thinks that 
1 The pallutsitu is explained by tupallats cinaia, "the tupallats of her nest " 
or " of her slave," but the explanation is by no means easy. 
2 Palumbes is the ordinary Latin name of a " dove," but Columella and 
Martial use the form palumbus. 
