19
As for starlings Cf. Gellius, Noctes Atticae, xiii. 21. 25; Alciphron, Epp. iii. 30. 1; Philostratus, Vita Apoll. i. 7; vi. 36; al. and crows and parrots which learn to talk and afford their teachers so malleable and imitative a vocal current to train and discipline, they seem to me to be champions and advocates of the other animals in their ability to learn, instructing us in some measure that they too are endowed both with rational utteranceFor the λόγος προφορικός see, e.g., Mor. 777 b-c. and with articulate voice; for which reason it is quite ridiculous to admit a comparison of them with creatures who have not enough voice even to howl or groan. Cf. Aristotle, Historia Animal. iv. 9 (535 b 14 ff.). And what music, what grace do we not find in the natural, untaught warbling of birds ! To this the most eloquent and musical of our poets bear witness e.g., Bacchylides, iii. 97; Anth. Pal. vii. 414. when they compare their sweetest songs and poems to the singing of swans and nightingales. Now since there is more reason in teaching than in learning, we must yield assent to Aristotle Historia Animal. iv. 19 (535 b 17); cf. ix. 1 (608 a 18); Cf. Aelian, De Natura Animal. iii. 40. when he says that animals do teach: a nightingale, in fact, has been observed instructing her young how to sing. A further proof that supports him is the fact that birds which have been taken young from the nest and bred apart from their mothers sing the worse for it Cf. 992 b-c infra.; for the birds that are bred with their mothers are taught and learn, not for pay or glory, but for the joy of rivalling each other in song and because they cherish the beautiful in their utterance rather than the useful.
