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snow. Their teeth are more like those of dogs
than anything else, and they live well in water.
There is another region in that place where eighteen different
kinds of people live. There are birds there that are
full of delights, whose feathers shine at night like flames.
Parrots, green and shining like
peacocks, are born there, hardly larger
than a bluejay. It is said of them that those
having five toes on each foot are kindly, while those
having three toes are mean. It has a tail more than
a foot long and a curved beak, and its tongue
is large and forked. The person who can get one when
it is young can teach it to speak to people within
two years. There is another bird in this country
called a pelican, which is all gray.
When it leaves its chicks and then returns to feed
them, as is necessary, it thinks that they
have all died, so it jabs its beak into its chest
so much that blood flows out, with which it
resuscitates its chicks. In Armenia there is a kind