Cold trumpet bird, the native name flying squirrel. This figure is copyrighted by the Internet.
Today is the twenty-third of the twenty-four solar terms of the lunar calendar, Xiao Han. What does "Little Cold" mean?
If the "winter solstice" means that winter has officially come to the land of China, then "little cold" means that the coldest season has begun to arrive. "Little Cold" is the coldest time to start. The coldest end time is the "Great Cold". (About the author: Wang Tianxiang, a native of Qingdao, Shandong, is a senior journalist and writer, who has published 42 monographs on novels, tourism literature, reportage literature, history and culture, tourism culture, poetry appreciation, enterprise management, market analysis, success studies, and talent studies, written more than 200 episodes of TV series, created dozens of special TV films such as history, culture, scenery, and documentary, published hundreds of articles in various newspapers and periodicals, and published more than 1,000 online articles. ）
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" > ★ proverb "small cold wins big cold"</h1>
This figure is copyrighted by the Internet
As the old saying goes, "A small cold wins a big cold." Why? Because people feel the small cold festival, the degree of cold begins to increase, and even compared with the "big cold" festival after 15 days, the degree of cold is even worse. Because, the three or nine days of "cold but three nine" are after the arrival of the small cold festival. The old hunters, old wooden gangs, and old plough climbers in the Changbai Mountains said: "When you enter the small cold day, the leather clothes are changed to cotton", that is, the cotton jacket and cotton pants can no longer withstand the cold after the "small cold". Especially hunters, lumberjacks, and plow-climbers who hunt in the snowy fields of the forest sea. They said that when it comes to the "little cold" festival, no matter how thick the cotton clothes, the cold can be frozen through, and the cold wind can also be blown through.
Xiao Han, on January 5-7 of the Gregorian calendar, is a basically fixed time. Because the air conditioner "accumulates for a long time and is cold", the small cold is the meaning of the cold weather but not yet to the extreme, it is the same as the big cold, the small summer, the big summer and the heat, are the solar terms that indicate the change of temperature cold and warm.
Cheng Yingtie photography
Why is it cold? That's because after the winter solstice, cold air frequently travels from north to south, and the temperature drops all the way, and the temperature drops to the lowest level during the year's small and cold times. The folk proverb says: "When the cold is cold, it is two or three or nine, and the cold is cold to the point of trembling." From the perspective of geographical meteorology, in the small cold season, the direct sun is still in the southern hemisphere, the heat in the northern hemisphere is still in a state of dissipation, and the heat absorbed during the day is still less than the heat released at night, so the temperature in the northern hemisphere continues to decrease day and night. According to China's long-term meteorological records, the small cold festival in the northern region is colder than the big cold festival, so there is a saying that "the small cold is better than the big cold".
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" > ★ the small cold festival arrives, and the mountain cold trumpet birds call</h1>
This figure is copyrighted by the Internet. Cold trumpet birds and magpies
The people in the Changbai Mountains said, "When the little cold festival arrives, the cold birds in the mountains call." Just as spring comes, the cuckoos must first fly through the mountains and sing "cuckoo, cuckoo", and the cold trumpet birds in the Changbai Mountains also begin to cry out in the middle of the night after the small cold festival. The cries of the cold trumpet birds in Changbai Mountain are special. First, don't bark until midnight. Second, the cry was terrible, like a complaint. Third, the sound is long and chilling.
I remember that when I was in primary school in Shandong, I read the story of "Cold Horn Bird", and now, the widely circulated folk story of "Cold Horn Bird" has once again been selected into the primary school textbook. Later, after consulting the data, I learned that "Cold Trumpet Bird" was rewritten according to a fragment in the "Nancun Quit Farming Record" by the literary scholar Tao Zongyi in the late Yuan and early Ming Dynasties. The folk story of the "cold trumpet bird" probably also comes from Tao Zongyi's article. "Nancun Quit Farming" belongs to the historical trivia notes, and some stories are what Tao Zongyi saw and heard or hearsay, just like Pu Songling's "Liaozhai" story, which is not only interesting, but also has a very strong warning.
The cold trumpet bird in flight - flying squirrel. This figure is copyrighted by the Internet
The story of "Cold Horn Bird" tells that a cold trumpet bird that lives in the crevice of a cliff and a magpie in a big tree are neighbors. Whenever autumn arrives in the "boundless wood", magpies are always busy collecting appropriate branches and building their nests for winter. The cold trumpet bird, on the other hand, wanders around all day doing nothing. The magpie keeps reminding it: Cold trumpet bird, winter is coming, hurry up and build a house! The cold trumpet bird always says: not busy, not busy, the time is still early. Winter is coming, the wind is howling, and the snow is fluttering. The magpies live in their warm nests, while the cold trumpet birds have to burrow into the crevices of the cliffs to escape the cold winds. After the winter solstice, the weather is even colder, and the cold trumpet birds are a little too cold to stand. But it is lazy and self-inflicted. As soon as the little cold festival arrived, the temperature in the mountains was even lower, the cold in the crevices of the cliffs was as cold as iron, and the cold bird froze so much that it couldn't stand it, so it cried out in regret: "Long-winded, wordy-loud, almost freezing me." Tomorrow I'll build a nest. "After the sun came out the next day, the weather warmed up. The magpie advised it: "Cold trumpet bird, hurry up and build a nest!" The cold trumpet bird enjoyed the warmth of the sun, but said: "Long-winded, wordy-loud, as soon as the sun comes out, it will be warm, and there is no need to build a nest." However, at night, when the cold trumpet bird was too cold to bear it, it cried and shouted: "Oh, how, howl, I am about to freeze to death, tomorrow I will build a nest." But the next day, as soon as the sun came out, it found a leeward and sunny place to stay, and sang as if "As soon as the sun comes out, it will be warm, and there is no need to build a nest." "So one day after another, and finally in three or nine days, the cold trumpet bird froze to death in the crevice of the stone, and its mournful cry could no longer be heard in the mountains. People lament: this is the end of "getting by and getting by"!
This figure is copyrighted by the Internet.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" > ★ the cold trumpet bird is not a bird, it is a flying squirrel</h1>
I had seen the Cold Horn Bird in the Changbai Mountains, but it was not a bird, but a squirrel-like animal. A few decades ago in the winter, a few young companions and I were cutting wood in the forest under a cliff, when we suddenly saw a few birds flying between the cliffs and trees. At first I thought it was the sparrowhawk that lived on the cliff, the falcon, a small bird-catching bird. One moment they flew from the cliff to the woods, and the next they flew from the branches of the trees to the cliff. Like hawk falcons, they fly motionless in the woods, unlike birds such as magpies and crows that need to constantly flap their wings. I sometimes look at them in a daze and find them very strange and very interesting. Suddenly, my companion threw the wrench of an egg-thick climbing plow rope two or three feet long into the air. Coincidentally, the rod whistled and turned, and even shot down a flying "eagle falcon". We were overjoyed, and hurried to the kneeless snow, running to the place where the falcon fell, and then digging out of the falcon that fell in the depths of the snow, and when we looked, we were stunned--this is not a bird like a falcon, but an animal the size of a squirrel.
It has no wings, but a bat-like flesh membrane between its front and back legs. The tail appears to be somewhat flattened, connected between the fleshy membranes. Everyone was surprised and decided to take it back to the production team for the old people to identify. The old hunters and old breeders of the production team looked at it and immediately recognized that it was a flying squirrel, commonly known as a flying squirrel, not a bird. It is also called "Flying Tiger". Living in the crevices and caves on the cliffs, when you think of hunting in the woods, you jump from the cliffs, open the membrane between the front and back limbs, and glide into the trees. If it wants to return to the nest of the cliff, it will climb to the top of the tree again, jump up, open the membrane between the front and back legs, and glide to the cliff again. In which direction it wants to fly, the head will face up in which direction, and the flat tail will act like a rudder, which plays a role in adjusting the direction. That's why people call it "flying squirrels", that is, flying rats.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="04" > ★ "Five Techniques of the Weasel", which is thought-provoking</h1>
Flying squirrel seeds, visible flesh membranes between the front and back limbs. This figure is copyrighted by the Internet.
The old hunter in the production team smoked a cigarette bag and swallowed the dry smoke and said to us in a serious voice, this flying squirrel is lazy, you see birds, beasts, and even its kind of squirrels, chipmunks, etc. all know to make a nest before winter comes, but it never makes a nest, that is, it lives in a stone crack, a stone cave. Whenever the night after the little cold festival, when the cold is really unbearable, it will be called "long-winded". As soon as the sun came out during the day, it found a leeward place to curl up, squinted its eyes, and slept lazily again.
This flying squirrel does not look inconspicuous, but has a lot of skills - it can dig holes, but it is not deep, it is not as good as squirrels, chipmunks and rats; it can fly, but it cannot flap its wings like a bird, so it does not fly high and does not fly fast; it can climb trees, but it does not climb high and cannot climb fast, there is no squirrel's skill; it can run, but it can run slowly, and it cannot catch up with the speed of squirrels; it can swim, it is not far away, it is not fast; it can punch holes, but it cannot be deep, and even its own body cannot be hidden. In short, it's in every way but loose!
I suddenly remembered the sentence "Xunzi Persuasion" that I had read in junior high school, "The snake flies without feet, and the squirrel is poor with five skills", and it turns out that this flying squirrel is a squirrel! "The squirrel is poor in five skills" means that although the squirrel has many skills, it is not exquisite in everything - "can fly but cannot go to the house, can not be poor wood, can swim can not cross the valley, can not hide in the burrow, can not walk before the person." clear. Li Yu "Nai Ho Tian, Haunting": "A poor weasel, the end of the five skills." ——It seems that this flying squirrel's ability to "loosen everything in every way" has been famous since ancient times.
Baidu Encyclopedia said: The weasel, also known as the flying squirrel or flying tiger, is a collective name for a species of a family under the scaly-tailed squirrel family, called the squirrel family. There are 34 species in 13 genera and 16 species in China, of which 3 species are specially produced in China: the compound-toothed shrew, the groove-toothed shrew and the low-foaming flying squirrel. Most of this animal species is found in tropical and subtropical forests in southeastern Asia. It seems that the squirrels we caught while chopping wood in the Changbai Mountains belong to the minority of "a few in the temperate and cold temperate forests of northern Eurasia and North America."
You see, this strange animal, the cold trumpet bird, has become an interesting story and thought-provoking with the "little cold" festival of the lunar calendar.