242 CORVIDiE. 



elevation. In these expeditions they do not confine them- 

 selves to carrion, but prey indiscriminately on all animals 

 which they are quick enough to capture and strong 

 enough to master. Hares, rabbits, rats, mice, lizards, 

 game of various kinds, eggs, and the larger insects, all 

 of these enter into their diet, and, wanting these, they resort 

 to the sea-shore for refuse fish, or ransack dunghills in 

 villages, before the inhabitants are astir, for garbage of all 

 sorts. Pliny even relates that in a certain district of 

 Asia Minor they were trained to hawk for game like the 

 noble Falcons. Few of these qualifications tend to endear 

 them to mankind ; and as they are dreaded by shepherds 

 on account of their being perhaps more than suspected of 

 making away with sickly lambs when occasion offers, and 

 of plundering j)oultry -yards, Ravens are become, in popu- 

 lous districts, almost unknown birds. I have only seen them 

 myself on the rocky sea-shore of Devon and Cornwall, in 

 the wilds of Dartmoor, and the Highlands of Scotland. 

 There was for many successive years a nest built on a ledge 

 of granite near the Bishojj Rock, in Cornwall, a huge mass 

 of sticks and what appeared to be grass, inaccessible from 

 below, but commanded by a venturous climber from above. 

 Where it still continues to breed inland, it places its nest, 

 constructed of sticks and lined with the wool and fur of 

 its victims, either on an inaccessible rock, or near the 

 summit of a lofty tree, the ill-omened "Raven-tree" of 

 romances. In the north of Scotland, in the Orkneys and 

 Hebrides, where it is still abundant, it builds its nest in 

 cliffs which it judges be inaccessible, both inland and on 

 the sea-shore, showing no marked preference for either. Tavo 

 pair never frequent the same locality, nor is any other bird 

 of prey permitted to establish itself in their vicinity. Even 

 the Eagle treats the Raven with respect, and leaves it to its 

 solitude, not so much from fear of its prowess, as worn out 

 by its pertinacious resistance of all dangerous intruders. 

 Hence, in some districts, shepherds encourage Ravens, 



