this kind.

If a woman gives birth to a child with the right hand lacking,
the land advances to destruction.

If a woman gives birth to a child with both hands lacking, the
city will witness no more births, and the land will be utterly
destroyed.

If a woman gives birth to a child with the fingers of the right
hand lacking, the ruler will be captured by his enemy.

If a woman gives birth to a child with six toes on the right
foot, through distress (?), the house of the man will perish.

If a woman gives birth to a child with six very small toes on
the left foot, distress (?) will come to pass.

If a woman gives birth to a child with six toes on the right
foot, some disaster is portending.

Altogether no less than ninety kinds of human deformities in the various
parts of the body are enumerated and interpreted.

The significance of the portents is naturally increased if the woman who
gives birth to a monstrosity happens to belong to the royal house. In
such a case, the omen has direct bearings on national affairs. The good
or evil sign affects the country exclusively. From a tablet of this
nature,[642] belonging to a different series than the one we have been
considering, we learn that six toes on the right foot or six on the left
foot mean defeat, whereas six toes on both feet mean victory. Royal
twins were a good omen, and so also a royal child born with teeth or
with hair on its face or with unusually developed features.

The same desire to find some meaning in deviations from normal types led
to the careful observation of deformities or peculiarities in the case
of the young of domestic animals. In the fifth tablet of the series that
we have chosen as an illustration, the compiler passes from babes to the
offspring of domestic animals. From the opening line, which is all that
has been published as yet,[643] and which reads:

If in the flock[644] a dog is born, weapons will destroy life
and the king will not be triumphant

it would appear that the first subject taken up was the anomalous unions
among animals, which naturally aroused attention when they occurred.

A number of tablets--at least seven--follow in which monstrosities
occurring among the young of sheep are noted.

The series passes on to signs to be observed among colts. From this
point on, the series is too defective (so far as published) to warrant
any further deductions; but it is