NORTHERN OCEAN. 405 
and lay from two to four eggs. They are never 
fat, and their flefh is eaten only by the Indians. 
Ravens of a moft beautiful glofly black, richly Ravens. 
tinged with purple and violet colour, are the 
conftant inhabitants of Hud{fon’s Bay; but are fo 
far inferior in fize to the Englifh Raven, that 
they are ufually called Crows. ‘They build their 
nefts in lofty pine.trees, and generally lay four 
fpeckled eges; they bring forth their young fo 
early as the latter end of May, or the beginning 
of June. In Summer many of them frequent the 
barren grounds, feveral hundred miles from any 
woods; probably invited there by the multitudes 
of deer and mufk-oxen that are killed by the 
Northern Indians during that feafon, merely for 
their kins, and who leave their flefh to rot, or 
be devoured by beafts or birds of prey. At thofe 
times they are very fat, and the flefh of the young 
ones iis delicately white, and good eating. But 
in ‘Winter they are, through neceflity, obliged to 
feed on a black mofs that grows on the pine-trees, 
alfo on deer’s dung, and excrements of other 
animals. It istrue, they kill fome mice, which 
they find in the furface of the fnow, and catch ma- 
ny wounded partridges and hares; in fome parts 
of the country they are a great nuifance to the 
hunter, by eating the game that is either caught 
in {nares or traps. “With all this affiftance, they 
are in general fo poor during the fevere cold in 
Winter, as to excite wonder how they poflibly 
can exilt. 
Their 
