262 CORVIDiE. 



and characteristic croak of a wanderer, which then may be 

 descried speeding its way or circling high in air as much in 

 quest of a safe lodging as of food. 



These birds breed earlier in the year than any other wild 

 British species. If all has gone well with them, and the 

 season be mild, they will begin the repair of their accus- 

 tomed nest about the middle of January, and a couple of 

 weeks after the eggs will have been laid ; but generally all 

 this happens a month later. When the nest is built in a 

 tree, one that, from its height, form or branchless stem, 

 presents a difficult access to marauders is usually chosen, 

 and a stout crotch commonly supports the structure, which 

 as years go by becomes a huge mass of sticks. But by far 

 the greater number of Ravens frequent the sea-coast, and 

 there some convenient ledge or cranny of the cliff, protected 

 by its elevation or by an overhanging crag, supplies a site. 

 In all cases however, the outworks being of sticks or some 

 vegetable substitute, the lining is of soft animal material — 

 sheep's wool, rabbits' fur and, in parks, the shed winter coat 

 of deer. The eggs are from four to six in number, of a 

 bluish-green colour varying in depth of shade, and more or 

 less splashed, blotched and streaked, or sometimes speckled 

 and spotted, with dark olive-brown which often deepens to 

 black, besides blotches of greyish-purple. Some eggs, how- 

 ever, have scarcely any other markings than a few streaks or 

 smears of light olive-brown.* They ordinarily measure from 

 2*16 to 1*55 by from 1'39 to 1'28 in. ; but a dwarf egg may 

 not exceed 1*52 by 1*12 in. Incubation lasts some twenty days, 

 during which time the male not only feeds his mate as she 

 sits and occasionlly takes her place on the eggs, but repels 

 by repeated attacks almost every bird, from an Eagle to a 



* An extraordinary variation is shewn by a nestful of four eggs sent from 

 Unst in 1854 by Mr. J. Smith of that island. The ground-colour of these 

 specimens is a warm, creamy white ; and the markings, which are quite normal 

 in size and shape, consist of the greyish -purple blotches often seen, with specks, 

 spots and blotches of deep reddish clove-brown, so as closely to resemble the eggs 

 commonly laid by the South-African Comma capensis or by the birds of the genus 

 Porphyria. A similar aberration of colouring will have to be mentioned in 

 treating of the larger Gulls. 



