2.] They are commonly represented as haunting the fir-woods, and often as perched upon the trees.

One appears, in a sculpture of Sargon's.

in the act of climbing the stein of a tree, like the nut-hatch or the woodpecker.
Another has a tail like a pheasant, but in other respects cannot be said to resemble that bird.

The artist does not appear to aim at truth in these delineations, and it probably would be a waste of ingenuity to conjecture which species of bird he intended.
We have no direct evidence that bustards inhabited Mesopotamia in Assyrian times; but as they have certainly been abundant in that region front the time of Xenophon to our own, there can be little doubt that they existed in some parts of Assyria during the Empire.

Considering their size, their peculiar appearance, and the delicacy of their flesh, it is remarkable that the Assyrian remains furnish no trace of them.
Perhaps, as they are extremely shy, they may have been comparatively rare in the country when the population was numerous, and when the greater portion of the tract between the rivers was brought under cultivation.
The fish most plentiful in Assyria are the same as in Babylonia, namely, barbel and carp.