The Birds of the Assyrian Monuments and Records. 115 
of an augural or sacred nature held with regard to certain 
kinds. The swallow is a NAM KHU, " destiny bird," by reason 
of its migrations; the turtle-dove is a NAM KHU, as being 
sacred to Astarte. But this idea is not always expressed, for 
in many migratory birds, the indicating character is not 
expressed, nor should its absence be understood of necessity 
to imply a negative. I may mention that the periodic migra- 
tion of birds is sometimes referred to in the historical records : 
thus Esarhaddon (W.A.I., I, 46, col. v, 1. 8) speaks of the land 
of Patusarra as a district whence the birds *~y<f | return, 
" in the country of Media, afar off." 
To what extent, in what manner, and on what occasion 
the Assyrians and Accadians practised augury, I believe we 
have no means of determining. Notions of good or ill luck 
seem to be implied in some of the cuneiform characters, thus 
>~y<y 2p pacae, Accad. ; sumelu, Assyr. ; " the left hand," 
" the left," is a compound of " bird " + " making." The 
character *-|J ^^E^s^ Sa = nabu, "to proclaim," is made 
up of "bird " + "to settle," j-JJJ gab = sumelu, "left hand," 
seems to consist of " bird " + " foot," or " bird " + " good 
fortune " (J = — gimillu). The idea of augury seems 
to be implied in the flight of birds to the left hand, or other 
modes of " settling down," as amongst the Romans. 1 
The name of a bird's nest is in Assyrian Mnnu. 
frequent in the inscriptions; in Accadian it is written 
u-ci-si-ga ^I^J fcJrT ^HT^)' an ms ^ ance °f the na PP v 
mode of writing words so as to harmonise with their mean- 
ing so frequent among the Accadians: for >=yy|£= = "food," 
" place," and ^yyy^ = " giving," i.e., " the place 
where food is given." Another Accadian word for a " nest," 
or rather a "pigeon hole," is ^l^y y*~ -j^ ^ with which the 
Assyrian y^ jjfz *~£*z{ a-pa-tu is identical ; apatu is to be 
referred to the Heb. HJIQ or nriQ, " to open." All these 
1 Cf. Cicero, " Div.," I, 39, " Quid Augur, cur a dextra corvus, a sinistra comix 
faciat raturu " ? 
