ii6 OUR RARER BIRDS 



with the season, and in winter he is often hard pressed for 

 food. He lives on almost everything eatable. Weakly lambs 

 and fawns are attacked and killed, small birds and animals 

 are taken, and the eggs of game and poultry are carried off. 

 Carrion of every description forms a welcome repast to the 

 Eaven ; he also eats grain and fruit ; and I have sometimes 

 seen him on the pastures and fallow land searching with 

 Hooded Crows for worms and grubs. A stranded fish on the 

 seashore is a prize for the possession of which he often dis- 

 putes with the large Gulls or even the White-tailed Eagles ; 

 and on St. Kilda I have seen him quite close to the cottages 

 picking up refuse of all kinds. 



The Eaven is not a very noisy bird, and his usual note is 

 a hoarse croak, which he utters when alarmed or excited. In 

 the mating season he often varies this dismal croak by utter- 

 ing a few notes more musical in character ; whilst in captivity 

 he is capable of learning a variety of sounds, imitating to a 

 nicety the voices of tame birds and domestic animals. The 

 Eaven is easily tamed, and makes a lively and amusing pet, 

 full of droll ways and cunning antics. 



The Eaven is an early breeder — one of the first birds to 

 see about nesting duties, often beginning them before the 

 snow is off the ground. IN'ow that he is almost banished from 

 the woodland districts, he generally makes his nest on some 

 inaccessible precipice, either amongst the glens and mountains 

 of the inland wilds or on the coast above the sea. I have 

 seen his nest in both localities, but he breeds most frequently 

 on a sea cliff. Eavens pair for life. Tor years and years the 

 same nest is occupied, being added to and strengthened or 

 repaired each season, so that in time it often becomes a very 

 large and bulky structure, many of the sticks with which it 

 is built being white with age. One very large nest wliich I 

 examined was built on a cliff about fifty yards high, which 

 sloped considerably from the base over a stretch of rocky 



