166 BIRDS AND MAN 



ravens, also that if the country people in England 

 ever had any knowledge of King Arthur they have 

 long forgotten it. Nevertheless this particular 

 superstition still exists. I have met with it in various 

 places, and found an instance of it only the other day 

 in the Midlands, where the raven no longer breeds. 

 Near Broadway, in Worcestershire, there is a farm 

 called " Kite's Nest," where a pair of ravens bred 

 annually up to about twenty- eight or thirty years 

 ago, when the young were taken and the nest pulled 

 down by three young men from the village : to this 

 day it is related by some of the old people that the 

 three young men all shortly came to bad ends. Near 

 Broadway an old farmer told me that since the birds 

 had been driven away from " Kite's Nest " he had 

 not seen a raven in that part of the country until one 

 made its appearance on his farm about four years 

 ago. He was out one day with his gun, cautiously 

 approaching a rabbit warren, when the bird suddenly 

 got up from the mouth of a burrow, and coming 

 straight to him, hovered for some seconds above his 

 head, not more than thirty yards from him. " It 

 looked as if he wanted to be shot at," said the 

 old man, " but he's no bird to be shot at by I. 

 'Twould be bad for I to hurt a raven, and no 

 mistake." 



