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.' The same 

 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 \x\\\ 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 gre^t 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 enoiigh 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 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 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 



