Mongol prince studying the Quran, miniature from a fourteenth-century edition of Rashid al-Din’s Compendium of Chronicles. Universal History Archive / UIG / Bridgeman Images.
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Miscellany
Fairy wren nestlings learn “passwords,” or unique single notes, from their mothers while still in their eggs; after birth they must use the passwords when calling for food, or the mothers will abandon the nest. In a 2012 study, scientists in Australia experimented with switching eggs and mothers, and found that passwords were not genetically inherited; the chicks assumed the passwords of their adopted mothers.
Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo.
—Matsuo Basho, c. 1685
