THE RAVEN 63 



to rocks, towers, and hollow trees, it sometimes places its nest in 

 chimneys or in rabbit-burrows, but never, or in the rarest instances, 

 among the open boughs of a tree. It lays from four to six eggs, 

 and feeds its young on worms and insects, which it brings home in 

 the pouch formed by the loose skin at the base of its beak. When 

 domesticated, its droll trickeries and capability of imitating the 

 human voice and other sounds are well known. By turns affection- 

 ate, quarrelsome, impudent, confiding, it is always inquisitive, 

 destructive, and given to purloining ; so that however popular at 

 first as a pet, it usually terminates its career by some unregretted 

 accident, or is consigned to captivity in a wicker cage. 



THE RAVEN 



CORVUS CORAX 



Plumage black with purple reflections ; tail rounded, black, extending two 

 inches beyond the closed wings ; beak strong, black as well as the feet : 

 iris with two circles, the inner grey, the outer ash-brown. Length twenty- 

 five inches : width four feet. Eggs dirty green, spotted and speckled 

 with brown. 



The Raven, the largest of the Corvidae, and possessing in an emin- 

 ent degree all the characteristics of its tribe except sociability, is 

 the bird which beyond all others has been regarded with feelings 

 of awe by the superstitious in all ages. In both instances in which 

 specific mention of it occurs in Holy Writ, it is singled out from 

 among other birds as gifted with a mysterious intelligence. Sent 

 forth by Noah when the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat, 

 it perhaps found a congenial home among the lonely crags strewed 

 with the carcases of drowned animals, and by failing to return, 

 announced to the patriarch that a portion of the earth, though not one 

 fit for his immediate habitation, was uncovered by the waters. At 

 a subsequent period, honoured with the mission of supplying the 

 persecuted prophet with food, it was taught to suppress its voracious 

 instinct by the God who gave it. The Raven figures prominentl}' 

 in most heathen mythologies, and is almost everywhere regarded 

 with awe by the ignorant even at the present time. In Scandinavian 

 mythology it was an important actor ; and all readers of Shake- 

 speare must be familiar with passages which prove it to have been 

 regarded as a bird of dire omen. 



The sad presaging Raven tolls 

 The sick man's passport in her hollow beak, 

 And in the shadow of the silent night 

 Doth shake contagion from her sable wing. 



Marlowe. 



In the judgment of others, its friendly mission to the Tishbite 

 invested it with a sanctity which preserved it from molestation. 



