The Birds of the Assyrian Monuments and Records. 61 
on the upper surface. The word may with equal probability 
be read as tas'-ba-luv, and be referred to the Hebrew SlD 
§abal, "to bear or carry," in allusion to this bird's habit of 
carrying some of its food, whether in the shape of snakes, 
or tortoises, or marrow bones, high into the air, and then 
letting it fall, so as to break it, and be able the more readily 
to consume it. The klia-klxar-ili, "raven of the gods," may 
allude to the lammergeier, and the third name of carib 
barkhdti, " the antelope attacker," may refer to another habit 
of this bird in approaching these and other animals with 
menacing violence and actual assault in knocking them down 
precipices. 1 There is, however, the name of a bird men- 
tioned which you will see by-and-by, where the urbaluv 
or tasbaluv again occurs ; it is called its-tsur Samu, i.e., bird of 
a " bluish or slaty-brown colour " ; it has also the name of 
kha-akh, an imitative word usually expressive of the Corvidce 
or crow family. This very possibly stands for the same bird, 
whatever kind be denoted. The kha-khar, or kha-akh, is 
better suited to some of the Corvidw than to the lammergeier, 
and the expression of approaching dead antelopes would 
quite well suit the raven, as would also the notion of black- 
ness conveyed by the name of urbaluv. We have, it is true, 
another name of the raven, viz., a-ri-bu, but as there are 
two well-known species of raven, namely, the Comix corax 
and the C. umbrinus, occurring frequently in Assyria and 
the adjacent lands, it is not at all improbable that the 
urbaluv kha-khar-ili, or " black raven of the gods," stands for 
the large well-known common raven, while the latter bird, 
which is of more gregarious habits, and will explain a dis- 
puted passage by-and-by e, is denoted by urbaluv khdkh samu, 
i.e.. " the black cawing bird with a brownish neck." 
(5.) As to the bird denoted by the iaradu-sa cipratu, 
" terror of heaven (regions)," Sayce, " SylL," 428), as 
meant by its name of iar-rad cipri or lal-la cip-par (?) 
1 The modem Greeks tell curious stories of the ravenous nature of the 
lammergeier. Not only marrow bones will it swallow, but a small axe's head 
into the bargain. Whereupon a writer in the "Ibis" humorously remarks that 
the meeting of the marrow-bones and the clearer in such a situation must have 
been most affecting. 
