My thesis, therefore, is that the birth-omens gave rise to the belief in all kinds of monstrous and fabulous beings. The resemblances between men and animals, as well as between an animal of one species with that of another, led to the supposition that all manner of hybrid beings =could= be produced in nature. The fanciful combinations in the collections of the =bârû=-priests, in part reflecting popular fancies, in part 'academical' exercises of the fancies of the priests, formed the basis and starting-point for the theory that at the beginning of time, pictured as a condition of chaos and confusion, such hybrid beings represented the norm, while with the substitution of law and order for chaos and confusion, their occurrence was exceptional and portended some approaching deviation from the normal state of affairs. It is not unusual in the history of religious and of popular beliefs to find fancy and fanciful resemblances leading to the belief in the reality. Once the thought suggested by the manifold abnormalities occurring in the young of domestic animals and among infants firmly rooted, there was no limit to the course of unbridled fancy in this direction. Adding to this the practical importance attached to birth-omens, what would be more natural than that with the development and spread of systems of divination devised to interpret the strange phenomena observed at birth, the belief in all kinds of monsters and monstrosities should likewise have been developed and should have spread with the extending influence of Babylonian-Assyrian divination. Babylonian literature furnishes many examples of the persistency of such beliefs. It is sufficient to refer (a) to the gigantic scorpion-men who keep guard at the gate of the sun in the mountain Mašu and who are described in the Gilgamesh epic[212] as 'terrible', whose very aspect is death, (b) to Engidu, the companion of Gilgamesh, who is pictured as a man with the body of a bull, and the horns of a bison[213], (c) to the monster Tiamat in the creation tale pictured in art with the mouth and foreclaws of a lion, wings and hind-feet of an eagle[214], or as a monstrous dragon with the head of a serpent, fore feet of a panther, hind talons of an eagle, or again described as a serpent of seven heads[215], and (d) to the 'mixed' creatures--man, bull or lion and eagle combined--above referred to and that appear in such various forms in Babylonian and Assyrian art[216], and reappear as sphinxes in Hittite[217] and Egyptian art. The Hippocentaur in various forms also appears in the Babylonian art of the Cassite period[218].