64 THE RAVEN 
Apart from all traditional belief, the Raven derives its ill-omened 
character as a herald of death from the rapidity with which it dis- 
cerns, in the vicinity of its haunts, the carcase of any dead animal. 
In the coldest winter days, at Hudson’s Bay, when every kind of 
effluvium is greatly checked if not arrested by frost, buffaloes and 
other beasts have been killed when not one of these birds was to 
be seen ; but in a few hours scores of them have been found col- 
lected about the spot to pick up the blood and offal. ‘In Ravens’, 
says a writer in the Zoologist,‘ the senses of smell and sight are 
remarkably acute and powerful. Perched usually on some tall 
cliff that commands a wide survey, these faculties are in constant 
and rapid exercises, and all the movements of the bird are regulated 
in accordance with the information thus procured. The smell of 
death is so grateful to them that they utter a loud croak of satisfac- 
tion instantly on perceiving it. In passing any sheep, if a tainted 
smell is perceptible, they cry vehemently. From this propensity 
in the Raven to announce his satisfaction in the smell of death has 
probably arisen the common notion that he is aware of its approach 
among the human race, and foretells it by his croakings.” Thesame 
observant author, as quoted by Macgillivray, says again: ‘ Their 
sight and smell are very acute, for when they are searching the 
wastes for provision, they hover over them at a great height ; 
and yet a sheep will not be dead many minutes before they will 
find it. Nay, if a morbid smell transpire from any in the flock, they 
will watch it for days till it die.’ 
To such repasts they are guided more by scent than by sight, 
for though they not unfrequently ascend to a great height in the 
air, they do not then appear to be on the look-out for food. This 
duty is performed more conveniently and with greater success by 
beating over the ground at a low elevation. In these expeditions 
they do not confine themselves 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 vari- 
ous 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 allsorts. 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 man- 
kind; 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 poultry yards, Ravens 
are become, in populous 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 Bishop Rock, in Cornwall, a huge mass of sticks, and 
