But as for starlings, magpies, and parrots, that learn
to talk, and afford their teachers such a spirit of voice, so
well tempered and so adapted for imitation, they seem to
[p. 189]
me to be patrons and advocates in behalf of other creatures, by their talent of learning what they are taught;
and in some measure to teach us that those creatures also,
as well as we, partake of vocal expression and articulate
sound. From whence I conclude it a most ridiculous thing
in them that would compare these creatures with a sort of
mute animals, I mean the fish, that have not voice enough
to howl or make a mournful noise. Whereas, in the natural and untaught notes of these creatures, what music,
what a charming grace do we observe! To which the
famous poets and choicest singers among men bear testimony, while they compare their sweetest odes and poems
to the singing of swans and melody of nightingales. Now
in regard there is more of reason in teaching than in
learning, we are to believe Aristotle,1 who assures us that
terrestrial animals do that likewise, in regard that nightingales have been observed instructing their young ones to
sing. Of which this may be a sufficient proof, that such
nightingales are known to sing worse that are taken very
young from the nest and deprived of the education of the old
one. For they both learn and are taught from the old one,
not for hire or to get reputation, but merely out of a delight in mixing their notes together, and because they
have a greater love for that which is excellent and curious
in the voice than for what is profitable. Concerning
which I have a story to tell you, which I heard from several Greeks and Romans, who were eye-witnesses of the
thing.
A certain barber in Rome, who had a shop right against
the temple which is called the Greeks' Market, bred in
his house a kind of a prodigy of a magpie, whose tongue
would be always going with the greatest variety imaginable, sometimes imitating human speech, sometimes chattering her wild notes, and sometimes humoring the sounds
[p. 190]
of wind instruments; neither was this by any constraint,
but as she accustomed herself, with a more than ordinary
ambition, to leave nothing unspoken, nothing that her imitation should not master.
It happened a certain person of the wealthier sort, newly
dead in the neighborhood, was carried forth to be buried
with a great number of trumpets before him. Now in
regard it was the custom of the bearers to rest themselves
before the barber's shop, the trumpeters being excellent in
their art, and withal commanded so to do, made a long
stop, sounding all the while.
After that day the magpie was altogether mute, not so
much as uttering her usual notes by which she called for
what she wanted, insomuch that they who before admired
as they passed to and fro at the chattering and prating of
the bird now much more wondered at her sudden silence;
and many suspected her to have been poisoned by some
that affected peculiar skill in teaching this kind of birds.
But the greatest number were of opinion, that the noise
of the trumpets had stupefied her hearing, and that by the
loss of her hearing the use of her voice was likewise
extinguished. But her unusual silence proceeded from
neither of these causes, but from her retiring to privacy, by
herself to exercise the imitation of what she had heard,
and to fit and prepare her voice as the instrument to express what she had learned. For soon after she came of
a sudden to sight again, but had quitted all her former
customary imitations, and sounded only the music of the
trumpets, observing all the changes and cadences of the
harmony, with such exactness of time as was not to be
imagined; an argument, as I have said before, that the
aptness in those creatures to learn of themselves is more
rational than readiness to be taught by others. Nor do I
think it proper to pass by in silence one wonderful example of the docility of a dog, of which I myself was a
[p. 191]
spectator at Rome. This dog belonged to a certain mimic,
who at that time had the management of a farce wherein
there was great variety of parts, which he undertook to
instruct the actors to perform, with several imitations
proper for the matters and passions therein represented.
Among the rest there was one who was to drink a sleepy
potion, and after he had drunk it, to fall into a deadly
drowsiness and counterfeit the actions of a dying person.
The dog, who had studied several of the other gestures
and postures, more diligently observing this, took a piece
of bread that was sopped in the potion, and after he had
ate it, in a short time counterfeited a trembling, then a
staggering, and afterwards a drowsiness in his .head.
Then stretching out himself, he lay as if he had been
dead, and seemed to proffer himself to be dragged out of
the place and carried to burial, as the plot of the play
required. Afterwards understanding the time from what
was said and acted, in the first place he began gently to
stir, as it were waking out of a profound sleep, and lifting up his head, he gazed about him. Afterwards to the
amazement of the beholders, he rose up, and went to his
master to whom he belonged, with all the signs of gladness and fawning kindness, insomuch that all the spectators, and even Caesar himself (for old Vespasian was
present in Marcellus's theatre) were taken with the sight.
1 History of Animals, IV. 9, 19.
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