The Birds of the Assyrian Monuments and Records. 53 
These, I suppose, would be such large birds of prey which, 
from being gorged with food, were unable to fly. Gins, nets, 
and such like devices were doubtless used by the Assyrians, 
though I am not aware of any definite statement to that effect. 
That ideas of good or ill fortune prevailed among the 
Assyrians, as belonging to different kinds of birds, appears 
nearly certain, for the character (^J^)' which among 
others is that of "destiny," is also used to denote a 
" swallow," the bird or a bird of destiny, as foretelling or pro- 
claiming (nabu) by its periodic returns the advent of spring, 
while the old pictorial form of the character, as I have on a 
previous occasion endeavoured to show, represents the 
figure of a bird in flight dropping its eggs, together Avith an 
ideograph which may be interpreted as representing " going 
away and again returning in the vault of heaven." The 
swallow clearly was, as among ourselves, so with the ancient 
Accadians and Assyrians, the harbinger of spring, and of 
the warm returning rains, when the herbage would grow 
again, and good fortune and prosperity attend mankind ; and 
in connection with this idea it is interesting to note that one 
of the different Assyrian names for the swallow is bu-li-li, 
i.e., "the bird of beneficial rain," — for the Arabic word to 
which I think it is to be referred denotes both " rain or 
moisture " and " prosperity " — as if the one depended on the 
other, which, indeed, is neither more nor less than absolute 
fact. Similarly the cuckoo was favourably regarded as a 
bringer in of prosperity. 
The common Accadian character (^y<y) khu, though, 
perhaps, not generally pronounced, representing birds as a 
class, is the ordinary determinative suffix ; the names of 
" eggs," " nests," young brood, &c, will be noticed by- 
and-by. In Assyrian the general name of a bird is its-tsu-ru 
(izf t^~S= ^TT)? which like the Hebrew tsippor (TIG?) is 
an imitative word, expressive of the chirping or twitter- 
ing of many kinds of birds. A nest was called kennu 
^Eijjpff ^A) like the Hebrew ken (||?) from the root pj? 
or rtip " to form or build." 
t't 
The ornithological character of the fauna of Assyria, 
