RAVEN. 



65 



but are considered to pair for life. It has been observed that 

 if any accident happens to either of the birds, the survivor 

 quickly obtains another mate ; and should both birds be 

 killed, the same locality, from some unknown cause of attrac- 

 tion, is almost certain to be occupied by another pair. 



The nest is generally placed in the fork of a branch, and 

 is formed on the outside of sticks, with a lining of wool and 

 hair ; the eggs are four or five in number, two inches in 

 length by one inch four lines in breadth, of a pale green 

 ground colour, spotted and speckled with darker greenish 

 brown. Incubation with the Raven lasts twenty days, dur- 

 ing which the male feeds the female as she sits upon the 

 nest, and occasionally takes her place upon the eggs ; the 

 wants of the young are supplied for a time by the parents 

 with great tenderness and assiduity ; but they afterwards 

 drive them from their own haunts when they are able to pro- 

 vide for themselves. 



Though possessed of great power as well as courage, the 

 old birds make no defence against any attempt, by men or 

 boys, to rob their nest ; but against the attack of other birds, 

 and even very large ones, they defend their eggs or young 

 with great boldness and perseverance. Gilbert White, of 

 Selborne, relates that his brother, the Rev. John White, a 

 very exact observer, had remarked, that a pair of Ravens 

 nesting in the rock of Gibraltar, would suffer no Vulture or 

 Eagle to rest near their station, but would drive them from 

 the hill with amazing fury. On the rocky parts of our own 

 coast these birds make their nests very high up in crevices 

 among the most precipitous and least accessible places. 

 They are observed in different parts of Ireland, in the He- 

 brides, Orkney, and Shetland. 



Southward in Europe, this bird is found from Gibraltar 

 along the northern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. In the 

 Alpine countries of central Europe, it inhabits the wooded 



VOL. II. F 



