CORVUS CORAX. 443 



■grass, wool, and feathers ; is comfortable, and, like all connected 

 with the ill-omened raven, made for utility. It is usually built 

 on high inaccessible cliffs, both inland and by the seashore, 

 sometimes on trees, but generally on a ledge overhung by the 

 rock, as Wordsworth says, on 



" An area level as the lake, and spread 

 Under a rock too steep for man to tread, 

 Where, sheltered from the north and bleak north-west, 

 Aloft, the raven hangs a visible nest, 

 Fearless of all assaults that would her brood molest." 



In his " Excursion" with what rapture he exclaims — 



" Oh ! when I have hung 

 Above the raven's nest by knots of grass 

 And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock. 

 But ill-sustained, and almost (so it seemed) 

 Suspended by the blast that blew amain, 

 Shouldering the naked crag — oh ! at that time, 

 While on the perilous ridge I hung alone, 

 With what strange utterances did the loud, dry wind 

 Blow through ray ear ! The sky seemed not a sky 

 Of earth ; and with what motion moved the clouds !" 



And how graphically, yet how simply, he paints " The Silent 

 Tarn in Helvellyn" — 



" There sometimes does a leaping fish 



Send through the tarn a lonely cheer ; 

 The crags repeat the raven's croak 

 In symphony austere'"' 



In defence of its nest it will attack the eagle if near it, and 

 when it has driven him away, has a peculiar habit of tumbling 

 on its back in the air (as you may have seen rooks do) to show its 

 satisfaction ; but sometimes they breed in the same vicinity, as 

 I have found the nests of the kestrel and the carrion crow on 

 the same tree. It sometimes breeds within 30 yards of those of 

 the cormorant, guillemot, and rock pigeon ; nor does it carry off 

 their eggs or young — strange inconsistency. It knows that man 

 with a gun is its worst enemy, for, if out of his range, it will 

 share with the shepherd's dog or the eagle, and seems to enjoy 

 company over its meals, which led Linnaeus to call it 

 " Gonvialis " — met for the purpose of feasting, still proverbial 

 in the Hebrides and Highlands, where it is named biadhtach, 

 in Gaelic, ravening — met for the very purpose of guzzling and 

 making merry. To bear this out, when a large carcase is found 

 (like the whales alluded to), it is singular where so many of 

 these solitary birds come from, where none were seen before, 



