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What is the yellow bird? Regarding the "yellow bird", Mao Chuan said: "Yellow bird, millet also"; "Two ya? "Bird Release" said: "Yellow, yellow bird"; Hao Yixing said in Yi Shu: "In this view, the yellowbird is today. It is shaped like a yellow sparrow, so it is named yellowbird, also called millet. " ; Wang Xianqian's Collection of Poems said: "Duan Yucai and Mao Chuan explained the yellow bird by slapping the millet, which means that there is no cloud in the field, and it is the yellow bird in the poem. The oriole pecked the millet, so it was named' slap the millet', because it was changed to' hit'. "Guo Moruo said in the Times of Poetic Books:" A yellow bird is a waque "; Justice quoted Lu Ji's poem "Yi Shu" and said: "Yellow birds and orioles stay, or orioles stay, and people in Youzhou call them orioles." About Qin Feng? Among the yellow birds, Mao Chuan said, "Make friends and show your face". Regarding the "yellow bird" in Kaifeng, Li Shizhen explained the name in Compendium of Materia Medica: "Ying, Huang Bird, Cang Geng"; [Collection] said: "The warblers are everywhere. Birds are bigger than birds, flying in pairs, with yellow hair, black tail, black eyebrows, pointed mouth and green feet. "About Xiaoya? As for the yellow bird in Mianman, Mao Chuanyue said, "Mianman is like a bird". In Compendium of Materia Medica, Li Shizhen explained: "A small and yellow mouth is a yellowbird". [Collection] said: "Sparrows are everywhere. Feathers are brown, jaws and mouth are black. Head as big as garlic, eyes as pepper. The tail is two inches long and the claws are yellow and white, so you don't have to step on it when you jump. Its eyesight is amazing, its eyes are blind at night, its eggs are spotted and its sex is the most obscene. The youngest is called yellowbird. August and September flock to the fields. The body is absolutely fat, and the back is full of fat. "
In the interpretation of the names of people and things in the Book of Songs in past dynasties, the yellow bird was either interpreted as a yellow bird or regarded as an oriole. Therefore, we can infer that this yellow bird is nothing more than an oriole, a yellow bird. What kind of bird is it? In other words, the two were inseparable in the era of The Book of Songs.
Looking through the article "Goldfinch" in Volume 14 of Fauna of China, we can see its geographical distribution: "It is a breeding bird in Northeast China, Jiangsu and Zhenjiang; Southeast of Northeast China, eastern Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Henan, Shandong and Jiangsu are tourist birds, and a few are eastern migratory birds. In Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Taiwan Province, Nanchong, Wanxian and Huishui, Guizhou, they are all winter migratory birds. " We know that more than two thousand years ago, when The Book of Songs was written, Nan Zhou was regarded as a folk song in the southern region under the rule of Duke Zhou. The scope includes the southern part of Luoyang and Jianghan area. Because of the large collection area, it is compiled separately, so it is collectively called "South" to show southern poetry. This is inconsistent with the geographical distribution of yellowbird. Another example is Qin Feng? Yellow birds appeared in Qin, which is also inconsistent with the geographical distribution of yellow birds. So we can boldly conclude that the "yellow bird" in these five poems is "oriole".
Of course, we can look through the article "Black Pillow Oriole" in the genus Oriole of China passeriformes (commonly known as "oriole" in the north and "oriole" in the south), which says that it is mainly distributed in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Shaanxi and the eastern and southern parts of Hebei. Southeast Yunnan, Hainan and Taiwan Province provinces (residents, some tourists). ⑤ Therefore, it is almost certain to be an "oriole" only from the distribution difference between them.
Judging from their other living customs, orioles live in groups, often about 30 birds are integrated into a group, while orioles live in pairs or alone. And we can't find any evidence of "yellow birds" clustering in these five poems. In addition, the oriole's main habitat is the low mountain forest and the big tree or sparse forest near the village, so it is easy to be recognized by most people, which may be the reason why "oriole" appears in all five poems. And this kind of bird is arboreal and rarely falls to the ground, such as "Nan Zhou? In Ge Tan, "yellow bird" means "gathering in the bushes"; Qin Feng? The yellow bird stops at the spine, mulberry and Chu; In Xiaoya? Yellow birds are concentrated in valleys, mulberry trees and Xu. From these aspects, the "yellow bird" is an oriole.
Finally, let's look at two more pictures (see attached figures 3 and 4). Fig. 3 is a meticulous sketch of mulberry yellow bird drawn by Song people, and fig. 4 is a photo of a black pillow oriole. We can clearly see that they are very similar, so the "yellow bird" in the mulberry yellow bird refers to a black-pillow oriole. Therefore, we can be sure that the "yellow bird" is the black pillow oriole.