CORVUS CORAX. 439 



The Raven. 

 Corvus Corax. [Linn.) 



"And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting 

 On the bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door, 

 And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon that is dreaming, 



And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor ; 

 And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor 



Shall be lifted — ' Nevermore !' " — Edgar Poe {from the Persian). 



This is not only the largest of the genus but one of the most 

 sagacious of our native birds. To prove its general adaptation, 

 it is found in every quarter of the globe, braving the ice and 

 snow of Greenland as well as it bears the heat of the torrid 

 zone — like a winged type of man himself, a feathered Stanley 

 — cutting his way through the dark forests of Central 

 Africa ; or a Dr Nansen, sailing and sledging in search of a 

 north-west Polar Sea. But as my task is to describe the birds 

 about St Andrews, I must limit my range to the two Lomond 

 Hills of Fife, the only place I know where it breeds in it ; 

 although, as Lady Macbeth says, 



" The raven himself is hoarse 

 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 

 Under my battlements." 



There might have been one on Falkland Palace near by, sleeping 

 in the "Howe o' Fife," when the young Duke of Rothesay was 

 dragged to be starved to death in its dungeon — as the raven, like 

 the kite, was once common. 



In cursing the birth of Richard III. Henry VI. says — 



" The owl shrieked at thy birth, an evil sign ; 

 The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time ; 

 Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down trees ; 



The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top ; 

 And chattering 'pies in dismal discord sung." 



Proving that ravens as well as kites frequented chimneys in 

 Shakespeare's time ; also, when Leontes, in " The Winter's 

 Tale," orders Antigonus to take the new-born babe to some 

 desert, he exclaims — 



" I swear to do this, though a present death 

 Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe, 

 Some powerful spirit instruct the kites and ravens 

 To be thy nurses.'" 



