RAVEN. 147 



may mention tliat on December 2nd, 1837, I saw in Cam- 

 iDridge Market five young Ravens, quite in a callow state, 

 which had been taken within a few miles of that town, the 

 only instance in which I have known the young of any bird 

 to have been met with in this country, at that time of year, in 

 an undomesticated state. 



It still breeds every season on the cliffs, and formerly did 

 so in Burton Park and at Parham. Mr. Knox, O. R. 

 (p. 150), states that they also bred in Petworth Park, 

 but had been missing for many years, till, to his surprise, 

 when riding one day in 1843, in the park, he heard the 

 unmistakable croak of a Raven, and perceived it dashing 

 among a flock of Jackdaws, which it succeeded in driving 

 from the precincts of its nest. This he found placed in a 

 fork near the top of one of the highest trees in a clump of 

 beech. The holes in the trunks were occupied by a colony 

 of Jackdaws. In the following year this clump of beech 

 was deserted for one of fir, and there Mr. Knox again found 

 them breeding. After this, the nest was robbed by a boy, 

 but the young birds were fortunately discovered and restored 

 to the nest, when the parents again took to and reared them. 



The late Bishop Wilberforce, in his review of Mr. Knox^s 

 O. R., in the ' Quarterly Review" for September 1849, vol. 

 Ixxxv. pp. 489, 490, makes this observation : — "In the spring 

 of the year the Ravens returned to their old nest, and re- 

 paired and occupied it according to their wont ; incubation 

 had already begun, when a violent spring storm actually 

 beat the mother from her nest, and scattered the eggs upon 

 the ground. After a few days the Ravens began to repair 

 the damage of the storm, and, abandoning the unfortunate 

 tree, they constructed upon another their new nest. 

 A second storm, almost as soon as the nest was completed, 

 again marred their work, and actually tore the nest itself 

 from the tree. For a few days the Ravens were missing • 



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