RAVEN. 203 



considered as holding a relation to the birds of prey, feed- 

 ing not only on carrion, but, occasionally seizing on 

 weakly Iambs, young hares, or rabbits, and seems indeed 

 to give a preference to animal food ; but, at the. same time, 

 he is able to live on all kinds of fruits and grain, as well 

 as insects, earth-worms, even dead fish, and in addition 

 to all, is particularly fond of eggs, so that no animal 

 seems more truly omnivorous than the Raven, 



If we take into consideration his indiscriminating 

 voracity, sombre livery, discordant croaking cry, with 

 his ignoble, wild, and funereal aspect, we need not 

 be surprised, that in times of ignorance and error, he 

 should have been so generally regarded as an object of 

 disgust and fear. He stood preeminent in the list of 

 sinister birds, or those whose only premonition was the 

 announcing of misfortunes ; and, strange to tell, there are 

 many people yet in Europe, even in this enlightened age, 

 who tremble and become uneasy at the sound of his 

 harmless croaking. According to Adair, the southern 

 aborigines also invoke the Raven for those who are sick, 

 mimicking his voice ; and the natives of the Missouri, as- 

 suming black as their emblem of war, decorate them- 

 selves, on those occasions, with the plumes of this dark 

 bird. But all the knowledge of the future, or interest in 

 destiny, possessed by the Raven, like that of other inhab- 

 itants of the air, is bounded by an instinctive feeling of 

 the changes which are about to happen in the atmosphere, 

 and which he has the faculty of announcing by certain 

 cries and actions produced by these external impressions. 

 In the southern provinces of Sweden, as Linnaeus re- 

 marks, when the sky is serene, the Raven flies very high, 

 and utters a hollow sound, like the word clong, which is 

 heard to a great distance. Sometimes he has been seen 

 in the midst of a thunder storm, with the electric fire 



