68 The Birds of the Assyrian Monuments and Records. 
well suited to either the green, pied, or other species of 
bright-winged Picido3. 
We are told (W.A.I., V, 11, 37, a. b. c, and elsewhere) that 
the character ^ s to be rea d nuru, "brightness"; 
so that the Accadian Gls* 6lR applied to a bird may denote 
merely its " bright " colour. We must not, however, forget 
that the full Accadian word is clearly a combination of the two 
characters JiJ gti, "wood," and 6ir, "light," "meteor," 
&c, so that the idea of " wood " originally held a place, most 
likely, in the signification of this composite group; the 
character ^ (Hf<|) f° r tne cililuv, W.A.I., II, 37, 1. 11, 61, 
denotes " wood," and suggests " woodpecker "; so that the 
name Gis sir KHU may originally have meant the " wood 
bright "bird. 
It is well known that the woodpecker played an important 
part in ancient mythology, as being the personification of fire 
and lightning — sharing with other birds in this respect — as 
the Vedic fire-bhuranyus, the Hellenic Phoroneus, the Latin 
Picus Feroiiius, " the Avis incendiaria, the picus that carries 
thunder." The fire, which the bird was supposed to bring 
from heaven, was kindled in the wood by the boring of its 
beak into the stem or branch of a tree; and perhaps the bright 
red top of the male woodpecker's head also suggested "fire " 
to the primitive man. It is not a very great stretch of the 
imagination to see in the old Babylonian linear form of 
the character >-^^ for a " meteor," viz., \ /\ or 
^> a ruo ^ e representation of a fiery meteor, so 
that the translation of this Accadian bird-name, whether we 
regard it as the bright active denizen of woody glades, or as 
embodying in some of its characteristics the mythological 
notion of the fire-bringer, may not inaptly be given as " the 
meteor bird " of the woods. It is true that, thanks to the 
genius of Kuhn, Max Miiller, De Gubernatis, Steinthal, 
G. Cox, Kelly, and others, we know of these mythological 
legends, with their explanations, chiefly as they pertain to 
the great Aryan race, but when we consider how, in all 
primitive times, the mind of man is similarly constituted, and 
