h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Eurasian Jays - Colourful Corvids - A87982690
Author: SashaQ - happysad and 'slightly mad' - U9936370

Here's a little Entry inspired by DG's Bluejays

I love their Latin name!

So Jays are corvids and Magpies are corvids - how interesting....
You know there's an old nursery rhyme about magpies, with a plethora of different versions, but usually along the lines of:

One for sorrow,
Two for mirth/joy
Three for a funeral/girl
And four for birth/a boy

and so on and so forth. If you're counting corvids in general, is 19 for a disease?

<BB<

I have heard a 'mirth' version of the magpie rhyme before, but not that one - a plethora of versions indeed! Sorrow/joy is the one for this area

Thinking about it, it might be worth a explaining what the corvid family is. (Possibly also explaining why a crow is like an escritoire. I've always wanted to know, though that is not really directly relevant to an entry on Jays).

<BB<

Here.

Corvidae, or corvids, belong to a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that includes crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs, and nutcrackers.
'Cosmopolitan' means the birds are distributed around the world in appropriate climates.
'Oscine' means they sing.
'Passerine' means they have three toes pointing forward and one back, which makes it possible for them to perch.

PLEASE leave the raven 'joke' out of this entry , but Cecil Adams has a lot to say on the subject, FYI:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1173/why-is-a-raven-like-a-writing-desk/

Thanks both - I made a tweak to confirm that crows etc are corvids, so hopefully that clarifies

Yes, Cecil Adams does explain that riddle well - I particularly like “Because neither one of them is made from aluminum”

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