The appearance of a magpie

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Magpie-a symbol of good luck

Scientific name: pickup truck pickup truck

Also known as: magpie, guest magpie, flying barge bird, dry magpie, goddess.

English Name: Darkmouth Magpie

Name meaning

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Compendium of Materia Medica says that its name has two meanings, one is "magpie crows", and the other is "the spirit can give good news, so it is called joy", which together is everyone's favorite magpie. It is said that magpies can predict sunny and rainy days. The ancient book "Bird Classic" records: "When you sing, it will be cloudy, when you sing, it will rain, and people will be happy when they listen."

brief introduction

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Any of several long-tailed birds of the family passeriformes. The most familiar species is Darkmouth Magpie (Pica pica), which is 45cm (18 inch) long, black and white, and has a blue-green rainbow at its tail. Living in northwest Africa, the whole Eurasia and western North America. It is found in farmland and dense trees in Yuan Ye, and feeds on insects, grains, small vertebrates, eggs and chicks of other birds and fresh animal carcasses; Its nest is big and round, made of mud and branches. The blue crabs, sea crabs and sea crabs in Asia are bright blue or green. For magpies in Australia, please refer to the article Lingque.

Somatotype characteristics

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Magpie is a genus of passeriformes, also known as magpie. The body shape is characterized by black head, neck, back to tail, and purple, green, blue and green luster after removal. The wings are black and there is a big white spot on the shoulder. The tail is much longer than the wings and is wedge-shaped; The mouth, legs and feet are pure black. The abdomen is bounded by the chest, and the front is black and the back is white. The body length is 435 ~ 460 mm, and the male and female feathers are similar in color. The young bird's feathers look like an adult bird, but Kuroha is partially dyed brown, and its metallic luster is not obvious.

Iris brown; Black mouth; Feet-black.

Be distributed

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Magpies are widely distributed in almost all continents except Central and South America and Oceania. In China, there are 4 subspecies except grassland and desert areas, all of which are local resident birds.

Living habits

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Magpie is one of the most popular birds. It likes to nest in the big tree next to the house and move around the residential area. The nest is spherical, hermaphrodite, woven with dead branches, and the inner wall is filled with thick soil, lined with grass leaves, cotton wool, animal hair and feathers. Every year, new branches are added to the old nest to repair it. In addition to forming small groups in autumn, most of them live in pairs all year round. It's loud. Omnivorous, foraging in the wild and fields, preying on locusts, crickets, cutworms, scarabs, moth larvae, frogs and other small animals during the breeding season, stealing eggs and chicks from other birds, and eating fruits, grains and plant seeds. Magpies have been sexual partners for many years. Each nest lays 5 ~ 8 eggs. Eggs are light brown, cloth brown and grayish brown spots. Female birds hatch eggs, and the incubation period is about 18 days. The chicks are late-maturing, and their parents can only leave the nest after feeding them for about 1 month. Red-footed falcons often compete for nests of magpies or bald-nosed crows. Cry: This cry is a loud, gruff quack.

Subspecies differentiation

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Magpie is a very widely distributed species with many subspecies differentiation. Traditionally, magpies distributed in Europe, Asia and North America are all the same species, pica. Recently, however, some scholars believe that the North American subspecies of magpie is closer to another magpie distributed in the same area and should be an independent species of pica. Some scholars also pointed out that the common subspecies of magpie (Pica pica sericea Gould) is widely distributed in East Asia, while magpie is distributed in Europe.

Magpie welfare

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According to the investigation of scientific workers in Nanjing and Hunan, more than 80% of magpies' food in a year is insects that harm crops, such as locusts, grubs, scarabs, moth larvae or pine caterpillars. And 65,438+05% are the seeds of cereals and plants, as well as birds, snails, melons and weeds. So magpies are very beneficial to human beings. Hard-working farmers, working in the fields in the early morning, see magpies jumping in pairs on the grass to chase pests, and will not avoid humans, so they have a love for it, and its loud and monotonous chirping is hailed as a good omen.

Magpie and culture

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Magpie is a popular bird since ancient times, and it is a symbol of good luck. Magpies are most willing to decorate their new houses with newspaper clippings when celebrating weddings in the countryside. This is also a very common theme in Chinese painting, which often appears in China's traditional poems and couplets. In addition, in China folklore, every year on Tanabata, all magpies fly to the Tianhe River and build a magpie bridge to bring the lost cowherd and weaver girl together, so the magpie bridge often becomes a love affair between men and women in China culture.

Magpies wander between sages and secular.

Meet the magpie bridge, occupy the magpie nest, climb the branches, look like eyebrows (plums), spend the magpie with a long tail, marry the daughter-in-law and forget the mother ... Magpie, as the nearest bird, has penetrated into our lives, legends and cultural expressions. They are "secular" and noble, and even become the template of "sages".

In the whole North China Plain, or in the north of China, the most easily seen bird's nest on the roadside is the magpie's nest. Xu Gang, an environmental writer, said that once he interviewed in the northwest desert, he saw several magpie nests on a small tree less than one meter high. He thinks this is unusual, which shows the "weakening of behavior demand" caused by environmental degradation. Because magpies like to "jump up" most, their nests are generally chosen on tall poplars. However, magpies are the closest birds to humans. They can eat scavengers, and human excrement happens to be their most abundant and stable food source. Therefore, they entered the human speech system very early and became an important element of cultural expression.

■ the voice of the saints

If you read some essays of ancient Confucianism, you will find that the status of magpies is actually very noble, and they are known as "sages". If you continue to ask, you will find that the reason is very simple, because the ancients believed that magpies always made sounds in one tone whether they were singing or singing, whether they were happy or sad, whether they were on the ground or on the branches, whether they were young or decadent, whether they were dying or newborn. In the eyes of Confucianism, sages and gentlemen should behave like magpies in a constant, stable, clear, firm and consistent manner. Therefore, Confucianism often requires people to learn from magpies and regard magpies as some kind of template for sages.

Why is this happening? I think in ancient North Renye Fang, magpies were accompanied every day, and they even instinctively regarded magpies as a sign of success or failure when going out for things. However, I am afraid that no one has really studied magpies for a long time. They see "probably", define "artistic conception" and use its "outline". Therefore, what magpies enter the eyes, minds and hearts of traditional culture is the monotonous, hoarse, unpleasant-sounding but "stable as usual" croak.

■ Where does the joy come from?

At the same time, magpie is the most "secular" bird, because it is too close to human daily life and is easy to be borrowed. There are not many bird names taken by the ancients in China, and even fewer can become the scientific names of birds today. Magpie has always been used because of its "high public awareness". Most of the names of ancient birds are not scientific definitions, but "literary definitions", and the "happiness" of magpies is an obvious example. Some people say that the combination of "magpies" can be found in Cheng Peng's "Mo Ke Xing Rhino" in the Song Dynasty: "Northerners like crows, but they hate magpies, and southerners hate crows. Crows have good and bad voices, and magpies have good and bad voices, so they are called magpies. " Later it was called "Lingque".

Since the magpie is called "happiness", there must be an incidental story. I searched and searched in ancient books. Finally, in Volume IV of Zhang Kun's Record of the Ruling and Opposition in the Tang Dynasty, I found such a legend: "Magpie noisy prison building", which is quite similar to "Night Cry": "In the last years of Zhenguan, Li Jingyi in the southern Tang Dynasty lived in an empty castle, and the people who lost cloth nearby later falsely accused Jingyi of stealing it, and he was locked in Nankang Prison for more than a month, so he illegally refused. If you want to hear it, its magpie is parked in the prison building and happy in Jingyi, which seems to be a message. There is forgiveness for its spread in Japan. The lawsuit came, just as I said when I saw Xuan. After three days of forgiveness, Jingyi returned to the mountain. The one who knows the mysterious clothes is also handed down by magpies. "

This is a very traditional story type that birds and animals repay kindness in China. Magpie is very grateful to people because it always eats the food fed by its neighbors. When its owner was in trouble, he not only personally went to the prison building to report the good news, but also became a human being, falsely preaching the imperial edict and helping the benefactor out of trouble. "Mysterious clothes and plain clothes" is the image of magpie's clothing.

■ Magpie climbing branches

The phrase "Flower Magpie, with a long tail, marries a daughter-in-law and forgets her mother" has nothing to do with the characteristics of magpies, but is based on the instinct of China's traditional "Bixing Art" to "cheer up" the birds closest to human beings, in order to illustrate a state of human mothers: the sense of loss of sons marrying and starting a family.

Of course, if it must be so, so be it, because magpies like to "cock their tails". When they fly from somewhere and land on branches, they often tilt their tails to keep their balance. When you are free, you often use your tail to coordinate your body. Therefore, the action of "cocking your tail" is used to describe a person's complacency.

The "Magpie Climbing the High Branch" often painted by painters means that a person is climbing and a family is moving forward. If you open the "Magpie Climbing Branches" painted by the ancients in China, you will often find that the magpies here are actually gray magpies, not "flower magpies". There are two kinds of magpies closest to people. From the scientific classification, one is called magpie and the other is called grey magpie. Magpies are bigger than grey magpies. Relatively speaking, magpies often stroll on the ground. Magpie's body is a mixture of white and steel blue, so it is often called "flower magpie". The nests we see most are magpies' nests, and the nests built by grey magpies are much more hasty and simple. Therefore, in May, the storm is urgent, and many grey magpie chicks will be blown to the ground and die helplessly.

■ Quechao Wine Stack

Now, there are more grey magpies and more cuckoos in the city-cuckoos. Rhododendron fourtone lays eggs on the nest of grey magpie and hatches and breeds by it; Once the cuckoo's eggs fall into the nest of the grey magpie, its own children will be lost. It worked hard for a year to help other birds breed. Naturally, someone asked at this time, is this the origin of the "Magpie Nest"? Let's open the Book of Songs and compare the "Que Nest" poem in "Calling Nanzi": "Wei Que has a nest, and Wei Dui lives in it. The son of the son returns, and one hundred and two are imperial. " This is a metaphor commonly used in ancient poems, probably used in weddings. "The son of a son returns home" means that a person gets married; "Bailiangyu" is to use a cart with many horses as her "wedding team". Naturally, the first two sentences mean that this woman, like a pigeon, married her man "Magpie" and lived in his home "Magpie Nest".

However, Mao Heng's Biography said: "The cuckoo does not make its own nest, but the magpie makes its own nest"-this is a typical scholar's annotation. Because China's literati have only a messy perception of nature, there are often piles of fallacies when interpreting things, names and objects. Since ancient times, note-takers have been repeating a problem, that is, to explain science by speculation and speculation. Many words in Confucian classics have changed in secular life and have been distorted and flexibly used according to people's "natural understanding". After a long time, it is easy to be recognized literally. Some people occupy other people's positions or "houses" in a less aboveboard way.

■ Queyin Bridge

There is a beautiful legend called "Magpie Seal", which was recorded in Gan Bao's Seeking God in the Jin Dynasty. It is said that Zhang Hao of the Han Dynasty turned pebbles into mountain magpies and got a gold seal engraved with the words "loyalty and filial piety". Zhang Hao dedicated it to the emperor, a "hidden secret house", and later Zhang Hao became an official. Since then, "Magpie Seal" has been used to refer to the position of Duke. Therefore, in the Tang Dynasty, Cen Can borrowed this allusion to write a poem, and the third article of "Offering seal as a doctor and breaking the immortal song" said: "It is unheard of to beat the country with drums. The husband's magpie prints the moon, and the general's dragon flag pulls the sea cloud. " In Ming Dynasty, Xu Wei's "Bian Ci" also said: "Why do you read Long Tao? The magpie print naturally hangs on the arm. " Chen Ruyuan's Story of Jin Ping Mei in the Ming Dynasty said: "Li Guang is hard to seal, don't forget the magpie seal; Although Feng Tang is old, he still prefers to be a leader. "

There is a word called "Ming", probably from Zhuangzi. His old gentleman said, "When you have time, you must do it, and when you lose it, you must get up." Liu Zhou's "New Debate" in the Northern Qi Dynasty said: "Under Kunshan, jade arrived in Ukraine; On the coast of Peng Li, fish can be fed to dogs. People who don't love it are either light or rich. " "Jade to Wu" or "Jade to Magpie" is a metaphor that is talented but useless.

Of course, the most beautiful legend is "meeting at the bridge". Because of this legend, the Milky Way is also called "Que River", and China's "Valentine's Day" is also scheduled for the seventh day of the seventh lunar month. On this day, the Weaver Girl crossed the Milky Way to meet the Cowherd, and the magpies contributed their feathers and bodies to fill the river into a bridge. That after this day, many magpies are bare. In the Tang Dynasty, Huang Tao's Ode to Ou said: "Gaichun went to Qiu Lai because he despised Zhu Hong; Laugh at the magpie river, and it will be prosperous for a long time. " "The Song Poem Partridge Sky" said: "The Weaver Girl crossed the Que River in the early autumn, and more than ten years later, the toad garden hired Chang 'e."