RAVENS IN SOMERSET 171 



neighbourhood of Wells at least three pairs of ravens 

 bred annually down to about twenty years ago — 

 one pair in the tower on Glastonbury Tor, one on the 

 Ebor rocks, and one at Wookey Hole, two miles from 

 the town. 



But Somerset is no richer in memories of " last 

 ravens " than most English counties. A selection 

 of the most interesting of such memories of ravens 

 expelled from their ancestral breeding-places during 

 the last half-century would fill a volume. In con- 

 clusion I will give one of the raven stories I picked up 

 in Somerset. It was related to me by Dr Livett, 

 who has been the parish doctor in Wells for over sixty 

 years, and was able to boast, before retiring in 1898, 

 that he was the oldest parish doctor in the kingdom. 

 About the year 1841 he was sent for to attend a 

 cottage woman at Priddy — a desolate little village 

 high up in the Mendips, four or five miles from Wells. 

 He had to remain some hours at the cottage, and 

 about midnight he was with the other members of 

 the family in the living-room, when a loud tapping 

 was heard on the glazed window. As no one in the 

 room moved, and the tapping continued at intervals, 

 he asked why some one did not open the door. They 

 replied that it was only the ravens, and went on to 

 tell him that a pair of these birds roosted every night 



