The crow and the pitcher - wikipedia The crow and the pitcher The Crow and the Pitcher, illustrated by Milo Winter in 1919 Wikisource has original text related to this article : The Crow and the Pitcher The Crow and the Pitcher is one of Aesop 's Fables, numbered 390 in the Perry Index. It relates ancient observation of corvid behaviour that recent scientific studies have confirmed is goal - directed and indicative of causal knowledge rather than simply being due to instrumental conditioning. Contents 1 The fable and its moral 2 The fable in science 3 References 4 External links The fable and its moral The fable is made the subject of a poem by the first century CE Greek Poet Bianor, was included in the 2nd century fable collection of pseudo-Dositheus and later appears in the 4th -- 5th - century Latin verse collection by Avianus. The history of this fable in antiquity and the Middle Ages is tracked in A.E. Wright 's Hie lert uns der meister : Latin Commentary and the Germany Fable. The story concerns a thirsty crow that comes upon a pitcher with water at the bottom, beyond the reach of its beak. After failing to push it over, the bird drops in pebbles one by one until the water rises to the top of the pitcher, allowing it to drink. In his telling, Avianus follows it with a moral that emphasises the virtue of ingenuity : `` This fable shows us that thoughtfulness is superior to brute strength. '' Other tellers of the story stress the crow 's persistence. In Francis Barlow 's edition the proverb ' Necessity is the mother of invention ' is applied to the story while an early 20th - century retelling quotes the proverb ' Where there 's a will, there 's a way '. Artistic use of the fable may go back to Roman times, since one of the mosaics that has survived is thought to have the story of the crow and the pitcher as its subject. Modern equivalents have included English tiles from the 18th and 19th centuries and an American mural by Justin C. Gruelle ( 1889 - 1978 ), created for a Connecticut school. These and the illustrations in books of fables had little scope for invention. The greatest diversity is in the type of vessel involved and over the centuries these have varied from a humble clay pot to elaborate Greek pitchers. The fable in science The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder is the earliest to attest that the story reflects the behaviour of real - life corvids. In August 2009, a study published in Current Biology revealed that rooks, a relative of crows, do just the same as the crow in the fable when presented with a similar situation. The ethologist Nicola Clayton, also taking the fable as a starting point, found that other corvids are capable of the thinking demonstrated there. Eurasian jays were able to drop stones into a pitcher of water to make the water level rise. Further research established that the birds understood that the pitcher must contain liquid rather than a solid for the trick to work, and that the objects dropped in must sink rather than float. New Caledonian crows perform similarly, but Western scrub - jays appear to fail. The findings have advanced knowledge of bird intelligence ; the Eurasian jay had not been scientifically observed to use tools either in the wild or in captivity before. The research also indicated that physical cognition evolved earlier in the corvid family than previously thought as the not closely related crows and ravens were already known to score highly on intelligence tests, with certain species topping the avian IQ scale and tool use is well - documented. Such tool use has been observed in great apes as well and the researchers were quoted as drawing a parallel between their findings and the fable. References Jump up ^ The Greek Anthology, trans. W.R. Paton, New York 1916, poem 272, p. 145 Jump up ^ Ben Edwin Perry ( 1965 ). Babrius and Phaedrus. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press. pp. 493 -- 494, no. 390. ISBN 0 - 674 - 99480 - 9. Jump up ^ Avianus 27 ( Latin, English ). Retrieved on 2007 - 07 - 19. Jump up ^ `` '' Hie lert uns der meister '' : Latin commentary and the German fable, 1350 - 1500 ``. onread.com. Jump up ^ http://mythfolklore.net/aesopica/barlow/39.htm Jump up ^ J.H. Stickney, Aesop 's Fables : a version for young readers, Boston 1915, text available online Jump up ^ `` Stock Photos, Royalty - Free Images and Vectors - Shutterstock ''. shutterstock.com. Jump up ^ `` The Crow and the Pitcher ''. vam.ac.uk. Jump up ^ `` Tile ''. vam.ac.uk. Jump up ^ There is a photograph of this taken in 1936 in the collection of Connecticut State Library Jump up ^ `` Flickr - Photo Sharing ! ''. Flickr - Photo Sharing !. Jump up ^ Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Jump up ^ `` Rooks Use Stones to Raise the Water Level to Reach a Floating Worm ''. Current Biology. 19 : 1410 -- 1414. doi : 10.1016 / j. cub. 2009.07. 033. Jump up ^ Clayton, Nicola. `` Cognition in birds ( transcript ) ''. Science Show. ABC Radio National. Retrieved 15 December 2011. Jump up ^ Cheke, Lucy G. ; Bird, Christopher D. ; Clayton, Nicola S. ( 19 January 2011 ). `` Tool - use and instrumental learning in the Eurasian jay ( Garrulus glandarius ) ''. Animal Cognition. 14 ( 3 ) : 441 -- 455. doi : 10.1007 / s10071 - 011 - 0379 - 4. Retrieved 15 December 2011. Jump up ^ Logan CJ, Jelbert SA, Breen AJ, Gray RD, Taylor AH ( 2014 ). `` Modifications to the Aesop 's Fable Paradigm Change New Caledonian Crow Performances ''. PLoS ONE. 9 : e103049. PMC 4108369. PMID 25055009. doi : 10.1371 / journal. pone. 0103049. Jump up ^ Jelbert SA, Taylor AH, Cheke LG, Clayton NS, Gray RD ( 2014 ). `` Using the Aesop 's Fable Paradigm to Investigate Causal Understanding of Water Displacement by New Caledonian Crows ''. PLoS ONE. 9 : e92895. PMC 3966847. PMID 24671252. doi : 10.1371 / journal. pone. 0092895. Retrieved 27 February 2016. Jump up ^ Taylor, A.H., Elliffe, D.M., Hunt, G.R., Emery, N.J., Clayton, N.S., & Gray, R.D., PLoS ONE, 6 ( 12 ), e26887. ( 2011 ). `` New Caledonian crows learn the functional properties of novel tool types ''. PLoS ONE. 6 : e26887. PMC 3237408. PMID 22194779. doi : 10.1371 / journal. pone. 0026887. Retrieved 27 February 2016. CS1 maint : Multiple names : authors list ( link ) Jump up ^ Logan, C.J., Harvey, B.D., Schlinger, B.A., & Rensel, M. ( 2016 ). `` Western scrub - jays do not appear to attend to functionality in Aesop 's Fable experiments ''. PeerJ. 4 : e1707. doi : 10.7717 / peerj. 1707. Retrieved 27 February 2016. CS1 maint : Multiple names : authors list ( link ) Jump up ^ Rincon, Paul ( 2005 - 02 - 22 ). `` Science / Nature Crows and jays top bird IQ scale ''. BBC News. Retrieved 2011 - 11 - 12. Jump up ^ Shettleworth, Sara J. ( 2010 ). Cognition, Evolution, and Behavior. Oxford University Press. pp. 3 -- 4. ISBN 978 - 0 - 19 - 531984 - 2. Jump up ^ Charles Q. Choi ( July 11, 2007 ). `` Clever Apes Recreate an Aesop Fable ''. LiveScience. Retrieved 2007 - 07 - 19. External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to The Crow and the Pitcher. 15th - 20th - century illustrations from books YouTube clip from `` Inside the Animal Mind '' ( BBC Two Program ) showing a crow solving a puzzle in order to get food. Aesop Aesop 's Fables The Ant and the Grasshopper The Ass and his Masters The Ass and the Pig The Ass Carrying an Image The Ass in the Lion 's Skin The Astrologer who Fell into a Well The Bear and the Travelers The Belly and the Members The Bird - catcher and the Blackbird The Bird in Borrowed Feathers The Boy Who Cried Wolf The Cat and the Mice The Cock and the Jewel The Cock, the Dog and the Fox The Crow and the Pitcher The Crow and the Snake The Deer without a Heart The Dog and Its Reflection The Dog and the Wolf The Dove and the Ant The Farmer and the Stork The Farmer and the Viper The Fir and the Bramble The Fisherman and the Little Fish The Fowler and the Snake The Fox and the Crow The Fox and the Grapes The Fox and the Mask The Fox and the Sick Lion The Fox and the Stork The Fox and the Weasel The Fox and the Woodman The Frog and the Ox The Frogs Who Desired a King The Goat and the Vine The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs The Honest Woodcutter The Horse and the Donkey The Lion and the Fox The Lion and the Mouse The Lion, the Bear and the Fox The Man with two Mistresses The Mischievous Dog The Miser and his Gold The Mountain in Labour The Mouse and the Oyster The North Wind and the Sun The Oak and the Reed The Old Man and Death The Old Woman and the Doctor The Rose and the Amaranth The Satyr and the Traveller The Sick Kite The Snake and the Crab The Snake in the Thorn Bush The Tortoise and the Hare Town Mouse and Country Mouse The Travellers and the Plane Tree The Trees and the Bramble The Two Pots The Walnut Tree Washing the Ethiopian white The Wolf and the Crane The Wolf and the Lamb The Woodcutter and the Trees The Young Man and the Swallow Apocryphal An ass eating thistles The Bear and the Gardener Belling the cat ( also known as The Mice in Council ) The Blindman and the Lame The Boy and the Filberts Chanticleer and the Fox The Dog in the Manger The drowned woman and her husband The Elm and the Vine The Fox and the Cat The Gourd and the Palm - tree The Hawk and the Nightingale Jumping from the frying pan into the fire The milkmaid and her pail The miller, his son and the donkey The Monkey and the Cat The Priest and the Wolf The Scorpion and the Frog The Shepherd and the Lion Still waters run deep The Wolf in Sheep 's Clothing Related Jataka tales Panchatantra Perry Index The labyrinth of Versailles The Lion 's Share Aesop 's Fables ( album ) Screen adaptations Aesop 's Film Fables The Grasshopper and the Ants Print adaptations Ysopet The Morall Fabillis of Esope the Phrygian `` The Cock and the Jasp '' `` The Taill of how this forsaid Tod maid his Confessioun to Freir Wolf Waitskaith '' `` The Taill of Schir Chanticleir and the Foxe '' `` The Taill of the Uponlandis Mous and the Burges Mous '' La Fontaine 's Fables Translators Demetrius of Phalerum Phaedrus Babrius Avianus Dositheus Magister Alexander Neckam Adémar de Chabannes Odo of Cheriton John Lydgate Kawanabe Kyōsai Laurentius Abstemius Roger L'Estrange Gabriele Faerno Hieronymus Osius Marie de France Robert Henryson Jean de La Fontaine Ivan Krylov Nicolas Trigault Zhang Geng Robert Thom Zhou Zuoren portal : Novels Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Crow_and_the_Pitcher&oldid=806903005 '' Categories : Aesop 's Fables Greek Anthology Fictional crows Hidden categories : CS1 maint : Multiple names : authors list Commons category template with no category set Commons category without a link on Wikidata Talk Contents About Wikipedia Bân - lâm - gú 日本 語 ਪੰਜਾਬੀ Simple English Edit links This page was last edited on 24 October 2017, at 21 : 18. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike License ; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia ® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. About Wikipedia

Question: when was the crow and the pitcher written
Answer: the first century CE