Northern Observations of Inland Birds 185 



The raven is not given to tgg stealing to the same 

 extent as the other two ; it depends almost entirely upon 

 scavenging, and egg stealing being the foremost crime of 

 the crow family, the omission is a very important one 

 from the raven's crime sheet. At the same time it cannot 

 be denied that these daring and powerful birds are an 

 unholy terror to any creature that has encountered 

 misfortune, be it sheep, deer, or game bird. A wounded 

 deer can sometimes be located by watching the movements 

 of the ravens, and I have seen them systematically 

 quartering the moor for wounded grouse after a drive. 



In the valley of the Dibb in Yorkshire, I came across 

 the egg larder of a carrion crow. At this point water 

 was continually oozing over the stream bank, so that 

 when one walked the moisture squelched up in pools, 

 which filled one's footprints, and the turf for several 

 yards around was strewn with tgg shells. Most of the 

 eggs were those of the cushat, which nested abundantly 

 in the vicinity, though there were also the eggs of golden 

 plover, lapwing, and the common sandpiper. It is said 

 that crows impale the egg and drain its contents while 

 flying, a habit which the rook also shares. Fishing on 

 the Wharfe one day I noticed something floating to earth, 

 though there was nothing in the sky to account for it. 

 Going up I was surprised to find that the object was the 

 empty shell of a cushat egg, and as I was in the direct 

 pathway of a colony of rooks, which were just then 

 sauntering homewards, I concluded that the shell had 

 been dropped by one of these birds. Carrion and hooded 

 crows generally take stolen eggs to the bank of a loch or 

 stream to devour them, it being, evidently, desirable 

 to swill down the sticky contents of the egg with liberal 

 doses of water. 



Immediately a brood of young ravens are awing the 

 whole family may sometimes be seen acrobating in the 



