A comparison has also been made, but erroneously as I think, between the Biblical and Chaldean Deluge and a story only found complete in the _Bundahesh-pahlavi_;[48] though, as a few of the older books contain allusions to some of its circumstances;[49] it must date further back than this edition of it, which is recent. Ahuramazda determines to destroy the Khafçtras--_i.e._, the maleficent spirits created by Angrômainyus, the spirit of evil: Tistrya, the genius of the star Sirius, descends at his command to earth, and, assuming the form of a man, causes it to rain for ten days. The waters cover the earth, and all maleficent beings are drowned. A violent wind dries the earth, but some germs of the evil spirit's creation remain, and may reappear, therefore Tistrya descends again under the form of a white horse, and produces a second Deluge by another rainfall of ten days. To prevent him accomplishing his task, the demon Apusha assumes the appearance of a black horse, and engages in combat; but he is struck with lightning by Ahuramazda, as well as the demon Çpendjaghra, who had come to his aid. Finally, to bring about the complete destruction of evil, Tistrya descends the third time under the form of a bull, and produces a third Deluge by a third rainfall of ten days, after which the waters divide to form the four great and the twenty-four small seas. Now all this relates to a cosmogonic fact, anterior to the creation of man. The Khafçtras, from which Tistrya undertakes to purge the earth, are the hurtful and venomous beasts created by Angrômainyus which fervent Mazedans make it a duty to destroy in our actual world--such as scorpions, lizards, toads, serpents, rats, &c. There is no allusion here to humanity, or the punishment of its sins. If we were bent on finding in our Bible any parallel to this first rain falling on the surface of the earth--which both destroys the hurtful creatures by which it was infested and renders it productive of a fertile vegetation--we should turn, not to the account of the Deluge, but to what is said in Gen. ii. 5, 6. The Greeks had two principal legends as to the cataclysm by which primitive humanity was destroyed. The first was connected with the name of Ogyges, the most ancient of the kings of Bœotia or Attica; a quite mythical personage, lost in the night of ages, his very name seemingly derived from one signifying deluge in Aryan idioms, in Sanscrit _Ângha_. It is said that in his time the whole land was covered by a flood, whose waters reached the sky, and from which he, together with some companions, escaped in a vessel.