60 The Birds of the Assyrian Monuments and Records. 
for the Egyptian vulture, a bird supposed to be excessively 
devoted to its young ones ; but the Accadian equivalent of 
CA SU CUD DA, a bird, that is, which " tears with beak and 
talons," is against this identification, for the Egyptian vulture 
has, comparatively speaking, weak claws and a iveak bill, not 
fitted for tearing its prey in any remarkable degree. 1 All that 
can be said of these names is that the bird denoted is some 
rapacious bird which tears its food with violence — in fact, 
that it was a regular " tooth and nail bird " — more cannot be 
definitively affirmed. 
(3.) I am strongly inclined to believe that the Egyptian 
vulture (Neopl iron per cnopterus), that very common scavenger 
of the East, is definitely signified by the names ca-ti-ma-tuv 
(-EHHf< ET£%>nd >e-ru-ul-luv (fcfl ^ <^ ^-). 
The first name very likely points to the verb ca-ta-mu, " to 
cover," of very common occurrence in Assyrian. The second 
name 'erulluv may certainly be traced to the Hebrew root 
('a rSl), " to be uncircumcised "; and I think that the 
idea of this bird, with its neck covered with feathers — in this 
respect so unlike that of the griffon vulture, whose neck is 
bare, or covered only with down — and feeding on carrion ■ 
like it, staining itself with the clotted gore of the carcase it 
was feeding on, naturally suggested itself, and found ex- 
pression in the name of the uncircumcised or impure bud. 
(4.) The tas-ba-luv, or ur-ba-luv, kha-Jchar Hi or ca-ri-ib 
bar-kha-a-ti, has been referred by Dr. Delitzsch with much 
probability to the bearded vulture or lammergeier {Gypaetus 
barbdtus). The first word Dr. Delitzsch reads ur-ba-luv, 
comparing it with the Arabic ghariba, "to be black," 
the Assyrian word being a quadriliteral, but the lammergeier 
cannot in the slightest sense be said to be black in its adult 
or mature stage of growth. The young ones it is true are 
black downy creatures, and the brown hue of the back of 
immature birds is very dark ; but I think it is hardly likely 
that the name refers to this stage of the bird's life. The 
adult bird is of a greyish-brown colour, dashed with white 
1 Moreover, though many eagles and hawks scream, when they tear their 
food, the Egyptian vulture never does so. 
