122 SINGING BIRDS. 



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In ancient times, when divination made a part of religion, 



the Raven, though a bad prophet, was yet a very interesting 

 bird ; for the passion for prying into future events, even the 

 most dark and sorrowful, is an original propensity of human 

 nature. Accordingly, all the actions of this sombre bird, all 

 the circumstances of its flight, and all the different intonations 

 of its discordant voice, of which no less than sixty-four were 

 remarked, had each of them an appropriate signification ; and 

 there were never wanting impostors to procure this pretended 

 intelligence, nor people simple enough to credit it. Some 

 even went so far as to impose upon themselves, by devouring 

 the heart and entrails of the disgusting Raven, in the strange 

 hope of thus appropriating its supposed gift of prophecy. 



The Raven indeed not only possesses a great many natural 

 inflections of voice corresponding to its various feelings, but it 

 has also a talent for imitating the cries of other animals, and 

 even mimicking language. According to Buffon, colas is a 

 word which he pronounces with peculiar facility. Connecting 

 circumstances with his wants, Scaliger heard one, which when 

 hungry, learnt very distinctly to call upon Conrad the cook. 

 The first of these words bears a great resemblance to one of 

 the ordinary cries of this species, koiuallah, koiuallah. Besides 

 possessing in some measure the faculty of imitating human 

 speech, they are at times capable of manifesting a durable 

 attachment to their keeper, and become familiar about the 

 house. 



The sense of smell, or rather that of sight, is very acute in 

 the Raven, so that he discerns the carrion, on which he often 

 feeds, at a great distance. Thucydides even attributes to him 

 the sagacity of avoiding to feed on animals which had died of 

 the plague. Pliny relates a singular piece of ingenuity em- 

 ployed by this bird to quench his thirst : he had observed 

 water near the bottom of a narrow-necked vase, to obtain 

 which, he is said to have thrown in pebbles, one at a time, 

 until the pile elevated the water within his reach. Nor does 

 this trait, singular as it is, appear to be much more sagacious 

 than that of carrying up nuts and shell-fish into the air, and 



