NORTHERN RAVEN 185 



available cliff sites; and the eggs of each female run true to form each 

 year. These are not, of course, positive proofs of his theory, but they 

 are at least suggestive. He says of the courtship: 



The pair return to the cliff together usually the first week in February, at 

 first only for a short visit each day, and later several visits. A heavy storm at 

 tliis time usimlly delays these visits for several days. At this time I have seen 

 them go to the nesting ledge, the female usually alighting on the ledge and the 

 male on a dead stub nearby and spend ten or fifteen minutes there. At this time 

 they often soar together high up in the air with wing tips touching, the male 

 always slightly above the female. At times he will give a wonderful display of 

 his prowess on the wing, either dropping like a meteor for several hundred 

 feet and fairly hissing through the air in the manner of the male Duck Hawk, or 

 tumbling like a pigeon over and over. During this period also, I have found 

 them perched together high up in an old dead tree caressing each other with 

 bills touching. 



Nesting. — In the far north, beyond the tree limit, ravens have to nest 

 on the cliffs, usually near the coast, and often on the same cliffs vv^ith 

 gyrfalcons. But where suitable trees are to be found, they often nest in 

 them. MacFarlane (1891) found this species abundant at Fort Ander- 

 son and on the lower Lockhart and Anderson Rivers. "All but one of 

 the eight recorded nests were situated on tall pines, and composed of 

 dry willow sticks and twigs and thickly lined with either deer hair or 

 dry mosses, grasses, and more or less hair from various animals." 

 Major Bendire (1895) says: "While nesting sites on cliffs are generally 

 resorted to along the seashore, in the interior of Alaska on the Yukon 

 River, as well as on the numerous streams in British North America 

 flowing into the Arctic Ocean, they resort to some extent to trees, prob- 

 ably on account of the absence of the cliffs. Mr. James Lockhart found 

 a nest in a cleft of a poplar tree, 20 feet from the ground, at Fort Yukon, 

 Alaska, on May 29, 1862. ♦ ♦ * Their nests resemble those of the Ameri- 

 can Raven in construction. Near the seashore they are usually lined 

 with dry grasses, mosses, and seaweed, while hair of the musk ox and 

 moose is often used when procurable in the interior." 



In the Magdalen Islands I saw three nests, quite inaccessible with any 

 means at our disposal, on high rocky promontories facing the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence. In northern Ungava, Lucien M. Turner (MS.) found 

 the ravens nesting on cliffs near the seashore and about the mouths 

 of rivers. 



The northern raven breeds regularly on the wooded islands on the 

 coast of Maine, where I have seen several nests in the vicinity of Penob- 

 scot and Jerico Bays. On June 10, 1899, I visited Bradbury Island in 

 Penobscot Bay for the purpose of investigating a breeding colony of 

 great blue herons. This is a high island, with steep rocky sides and open 



