More snippets, this time from "Pasta for Nightingales"

"Pasta for Nightingales" was the mystery book found beneath the Christmas tree this year, it being one I'd never heard of and that Scott ordered based on a description that caught his fancy. I had my doubts, but it turns out to be excellent. It's a 17th century bird guide, original title (translated from the Italian): The Aviary: Discourse on the Nature and Distinctive Characteristics of Diverse Birds, and in particular of those which sing, together with the way of catching them, raising them and maintaining them.

 I look at that title and think a) Jen better never complain about the length of another subtitle at work; b) Giovanni Pietro Olina (the author) doesn't use the serial comma; but mostly c) what about all the stuff about which ones are good to eat and which are prone to melancholy and which cure colic? Because this book is nothing if not encyclopedic.

But this post's title promises snippets. Such as:

From p. 12, the chapter "Of the Robin Redbreast":
It brooks no COMPANION, striving with every exertion to chase away any that would disturb its possession, from when is born the proverb, Unicum Arbustum non alit duos Erithacos ('A Single Bush does not feed two robins.') It is a friend of the BLACKBIRD, in whose company it is most often found, and on the contrary it is a great enemy of the Little Owl. 

From p. 56, the chapter "Of the Hawfinch":
. . . and they are good to eat but do not do well in Aviaries if they are very small, because in that case they annoy the other Birds. It is not held in esteem as a SINGER . . . "

From p. 88, the chapter "Of the Thrush ":
The thrush being good for singing, and for SERVING at Table, merits mention even though quite well known . . . 

And from p. 106,  the chapter "Of Our Native Sparrow":
They are most sagacious and shrewd, so much that they know the nets and BIRDLIME and Crossbows better than any other birds. They dearly love their own kind, so that when one has found enough to peck, it sings at once to call its companions thither, just as in the story told of PHILOSTRATE.

Truly, the whole book is charming and endlessly quotable. That means that my Christmas books, aka my first three books of 2020, are all fabulous. What are the odds?