444 THE RAVEN. 



unless by some means of invitation. A score, even a hundred, 

 may be seen croaking, tearing, and gobbling it, some at the 

 head, others digging into the abdomen, dragging out and 

 running away with the intestines, some hauling one way, some 

 another, for several feet, croaking, squabbling, and evidently 

 enjoying their assembled feast. Of all birds, Noah should have 

 known better than to have sent the raven from his ark 

 expecting it ever to return when there were so many carcases of 

 all kinds floating on that strange deluge of rain which could 

 drown a wicked world — all except cetaceans, crabs, and fish, for 

 water could not drown them — nor flood the sea. Like the 

 vulture, it was thought scent led the raven to its feast, but I 

 think it is its keen eye and sagacity. The one nearest spies the 

 " sick-fallen beast," and as it flies towards it its peculiarity of 

 flight — like a girl shaking her skirt of invitation — leads the 

 next to follow, and so on, like the fiery cross of old, till all in 

 the district are invited to the welcome feast. In calm weather 

 it soars at a great height — no doubt looking for prey, else why 

 so high ? It cannot be for pleasure — it gets enough of flying — ■ 

 and Nature has an object in all her actions, as a man, wishing a 

 better view, climbs a tower or a hill for a more extensive range. 

 Philosophic Wordsworth says — 



" Nature fails not to provide 

 Impulse and utterance — the whispering air 

 Lends inspirations from the shadowy heights 

 And blind recesses of the cavern'd rocks 

 One voice — the solitary raven flying 

 Athwart the concave of the dark blue dome, 

 Unseen, perchance above all power of sight." 



And in his Address to the Pet Lamb, the little girl says — 



"Here thou need'st not dread the raven in the sky, 

 Night and day thou'rt safe — our cottage is hard by." 



If unmolested, it breeds in the same spot year after year. 

 When once paired, it is for life ; yet, strange, when one is 

 killed, how soon the other finds a mate. It is common in the 

 Orkney and Shetland Isles, and not uncommon in the north of 

 Scotland. When staying in the little town of Brora, near 

 Golspie, in April 1883, one day, walking round Loch Brora, on 

 passing Carrol Rock, a huge mountain rock 1,500 feet high, the 

 gamekeeper told me that eight or nine roosted on it nightly, 

 along with a pair of peregrine falcons, their deadly enemies, 

 which had their nest, with eggs, in one of the ledges ; but the 



