536 BRITISH BIRDS. 
small rocks near Dunvegan Head, overlooking the loch. The cliffs them- 
selves were not more than fifty yards high, although the broken ground 
sloped considerably from their base to the water’s edge. The nest was 
some twelve feet from the summit, in the least accessible part of the rocks. 
A little grassy platform was near the nesting-place ; and the nest itself was 
built under an overhanging ledge, quite invisible from above, and only 
partially so from below. The site commanded a grand look-out seawards, 
and was indeed the very place in which one would expect to find a Raven’s 
nest—where these arch-robbers could obtain an uninterrupted view of the 
surrounding district. The nest was a bulky structure, made of a pile of 
sticks, large and small twigs and branches of the heather bleached with 
age, and evidently the accumulation of years. On some of the sticks large 
masses of sheep’s wool hung. ‘The lining was of finer twigs, roots, tufts of 
grass, and a little wool, the whole forming a very rude-looking nest, yet 
most strongly and compactly built, not in any way wedged amongst the 
rocks, but simply built upon the smooth ledge, which was devoid of all 
herbage whatever: The sides of the nest and the rocks were white with 
the droppings of the birds; and in the crevices were numerous castings of 
food refuse.” When built in trees, the Raven’s nest is a bulky struc- 
ture, best described as a huge pile of sticks, and added to each year. 
My friend Harvie-Brown describes a nest of this bird, which was placed in 
a hole in a cliff about thirty feet from the ground, as a “large structure of 
sticks, and inside about two fishing-basketsful of sheep’s wool.’? One of 
the largest trees is selected for the purpose, and one with but few branches, 
as though the birds weresconscious that their safety depended upon the ~ 
inaccessibility of the site selected. 
The following graphic notes on the storming of a Raven’s nest near 
Harls Colne in Essex have been obligingly communicated by Mr. Edmund 
Capper :—“ It was a splendid day in March, warm for the time of year ; 
and we wandered through the preserves, crossed some fields, and entered 
the copse in which we understood the Ravens had built their nest. It 
was just such a spot as one could have fancied a Raven might have selected 
for its home—a well-preserved large copse with densely thick undergrowth, 
together with little patches of open glade in which were a few tall elms 
and other trees. On the afternoon of our visit it was intensely silent : 
the sun was bright in the heavens ; and only the cooing of the Ring-Doves 
and the whirring of the Pheasants and other game served to give evidence 
of animal life in the wood. We silently entered, creeping along the glen 
up into its centre; but so little did we see of the objects of our search 
that we began to fear that we had missed the right plantation, when all at 
once we came to a little clearing in the middle of the copse; and there 
straight before us, on the top of an immense elm, was the Raven’s nest. 
The hen slipped off the moment we emerged from the undergrowth; and 
