Pica 145 



ordinary sort, though not considerable to the eye ; for 

 them it is enough honour to have a kind of human 

 speech. However people deny that others are able to 

 learn, save those belonging to the group which lives 

 on acorns and of these again those with the greatest 

 ease which have five toes upon each of their feet : nor 

 even they except during the first two years of life. 

 Of late, however, and as yet infrequently, towards 

 the city from the Appennines there have begun to be 

 observed some sorts of Picse which being remarkable 

 for the length of their tails have been called "variae." 

 They have this special mark that they grow bald in 

 every year when rape is sown. 



Of Picae Pliny seems to make two kinds : this latter kind 

 of his would seem to be that Pie which here and there in 

 Germany and England plunders both the eggs and chicks of 

 fowls, possessing a long tail. I do not know another kind of 

 Pie provided with a tail so long as this. And furthermore 

 our common Pie is wont to grow bald every year. Now 

 what the second sort of Pie might be I doubted very long, 

 nor have I yet grasped it sufficiently. But when I was in 

 Italy upon the banks of the Po, and while my fellow- 

 travellers and I were walking out, a certain bird like a 

 Pie, in English called a Jay, in German mercolphus, offered 

 itself conveniently for observation. Thereupon I asked a 

 certain monk, who then by chance was present, its Italian 

 name, and he replied to me that it was called the Seed Pie 1 . 

 When therefore I perceived that with the common people of 

 Italy not only patent traces of the old Roman tongue still 

 actually existed, but also of things scientific, a suspicion 

 rose within me that this bird was of the group of Pies ; 

 moreover, since I knew that the same imitated human tones 

 much more correctly than the other Pie, which is the commoner, 

 so much was I confirmed in my suspicion that I can scarcely 

 refuse to credit that this Pie was Pliny's second kind, par- 

 ticularly as it lives on acorns more than any other bird. 



1 Ghiandaja is the modern Italian name, derived from 'glans' = an 

 acorn. 



