The Birds of the Assyrian Monuments and Records. 131 
animals might have formed part of the tribute of the Land 
of Musri, but the representation of one only was sufficient 
for the purpose of illustration. . The representation on the 
obelisk of either one or more animals was probably optional 
on the part of the sculptor, and would depend on the space 
available for portraiture and inscription. 
Some scholars, including Lenormant, refer the word 
Bazidti to an Aryan origin, and compare it with the Sanskrit 
vdsita (^jf%rT)? " a female elephant." I will only observe 
that the figure of this proboscidean on the obelisk is a male, 
as the well-developed tusk clearly shows. The Indian female 
elephant is destitute of tusks ; the African species has them. 
I still am inclined to adhere to my suggestion {Transactions, V, 
p. 350) that the Assyrian bazidti may be referred to the 
Hebrew root tt£, Arabic jj "to seize," "take hold of"; and 
with this idea of the elephant being " the seizing animal," I 
would compare the Sanskrit hastin (^f%*f) 5 "an elephant," 
and hasta "the hand," "an elephant's trunk," and 
again, kara (3T^), "the hand," "the trunk of an elephant," 
as being the instrument with which the animal " does " any- 
thing ; (kara = kri -f a). One of the names of the male elephant 
is dantin (^f%^, from danta (Latin dens), " a tooth"; as 
being the animal with tusks ; this may illustrate the amii of 
the Accadians, if that name really designates the elephant, 
and be not a fuller form of the am merely. The tablet to 
which Delitzsch (Assyrische Lesestuche, p. 29) refers, where 
the amii kharran is explained by i-bi\_ln?~], £zj [IeJJ^]» 
whatever ibilu may definitely mean, would show that the 
animal was not always an " elephant " ; ibilu seems to be some 
strong - horned ruminant — the plural form ibili occurs with 
agali in W.A.I. I, column vi, 1. 55, pi. 42, and it seems almost 
certain that the ibi[lu], which represents the am&i kliarran of 
the tablet, must represent the amsi kliarran of Tiglath Pileser's 
hunting expedition ; so that I consider ka when used alone 
to signify " ivory," but when used with amki to refer to the 
" horns " of the aurochs. 
