52 The Birds of the Assyrian Monuments and Records. 
varieties, and it is from this source that our domestic fowls 
came, through Persia, to Greece and Rome, and elsewhere 
westerly. We know that the Assyrians kept different kinds 
of birds in confinement in what we may call aviaries, and that 
wild water fowls formed a pleasing feature in their gardens, 
and on their artificial ponds or lakes. From this source they 
may have obtained a portion of their eggs, which doubtless 
were used as food. Figures of ducks in a recumbent posture 
were carved out of marble and other kinds of stone, and used 
as weights. Specimens of these duck-weights may now be 
seen in the British Museum. 
As regards the question whether the ancient Assyrians 
kept song-birds, there is no positive information. Sennacherib 
tells us that he made captive Hezekiah, King of Judah, and 
kept him as a bird in a cage (ina kuppi), i.e., in some confined 
place. Mention is made in the lists of a bird called paSpasu 
and its-tsur rabi. It is called a small bird. Paspasu is, I think, 
imitative, denoting some singing bird. The words its-tsur 
rabi can only mean bird of the great. These birds bred in 
confinement, for the young of these birds of the great are 
mentioned. Therefore the chirping or " singing bird of the 
great" seems to allude to some rare and perhaps foreign bird, 
which kings and great men would keep in their houses, or in 
their aviaries, and prize for its singing powers. Could they 
possibly know anything of parrots? A parrot-like bird is 
figured on the monuments. Parrots were known to the 
Greeks in the time of Aristotle, and there are several notices 
of these birds in the classical Greek and Latin authors, to 
whom they were first made known, perhaps, about the time 
of Alexander's Asiatic campaigns. The green Palwomis 
torquatus 1 is the species with which they were familiar. It is 
quite probable, therefore, that the Assyrian monarchs obtained 
parrots from India, and possibly some kind of parrot might 
be meant by the expression " small piping bird of the great." 
As to the methods adopted in killing winged-game, the 
monuments show us that the bow and arrow were effectively 
used. The larger kind were sometimes killed with clubs. 
1 P. torquatus, the rose-ringed parakeet, is well-known in Nubia, Abyssinia, as 
well as in India. The allied species, P. Alexawdri, might also have been known. 
