The Birds of the Assyrian Monuments and Records. 89 
Turkey, where it is held in esteem as a scavenger and a 
destroyer of snakes. It is mentioned in the lists under the 
name of rak-rakk-u £>- ^^^Z^) or la-ka-la-ka (*~£z\ A- J 
>~£| ^— J), which is evidently identical with the lak-lak 
(<Jlii}) °f the Arabs, at present used in Turkey to denote this 
bird. Although the white stork is included in the name of 
lak-lak, or rak-kak, originally meant in Arabic to be expressive 
of the sound produced by the bird, it would appear that the 
black stork is the species which the Accadians had in view 
when they named the stork. By them it was called the Si-zi 
bird, i.e., " the green bird"; for si-zi (^y ^IV")' or ideo- 
graphically £==T l , is the equivalent of the Assyrian arku, 
u green," and the KHU-SI-ZI bird is, in one of the bilingual 
lists (W.A.I., II, 26, 56 1.), identified with the ra-ak-ra-ku 
(g^yy g^yy « a stork." Now there is not a bit 
of green colour in the plumage of the white stork, neither 
in its beak nor legs ; but in the black stork ( Ciconia 
nigra) the whole of the dark plumage is varied with purple 
and copper-coloured and green reflections, so as fully to 
justify the name which the Accadians gave to this bird. 
The colour signified by the si-ZI and arak is either " green," 
like grass, hence urcitu "verdure," or yellowish-green, or 
yellow, or golden-yellow, or any colour of varied green. 
The Hebrew word yerakrak (p^|?"V) is used of the feathers 
of a dove in Ps. Ixi, 14 ; and the golden colour refers to the 
beautiful play of metallic lustre observed in the neck of 
several wild pigeons ; compare Tennyson — 
"In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove." 
— (" Locksley Hall," 1. 19.) 
"The common stork is found all over the plateaux of 
Persia, building its nests on minarets, and oftener on the low 
towers which flank the mud walls of Persian villages. It is 
not molested by Persians, who say that it makes a pilgrimage 
to Mecca during its annual winter absence, whence its name 
1 The pronunciation of £=f as *>^\ si or si (t) is given in W. A. I., V, 27,1. 6 : 
*~TI V Y £=! ^"IT *^^T ~ " some green insect." 
