68 CORVID.E. 



The whole length of a male bird twenty-six inches. The 

 wing from the carpal joint to the end, seventeen inches and 

 one quarter : the first feather four inches shorter than the 

 second ; the second one inch shorter than the third ; the 

 fourth a little longer than the third, and the longest in the 

 wing : the primaries are narrow and pointed, the tertials 

 broad and rounded. The tail in form rather more than 

 rounded, or slightly angular, the pair of feathers in the 

 middle being the longest. 



The female is smaller than the male ; and her plumage, as 

 also that of young birds before their first moult, has less me- 

 tallic lustre. 



The various qualities and powers of voice exhibited by 

 birds in general, and the diversity of structure found to exist 

 in the windpipes or tracheae of different species in some par- 

 ticular families, have justly excited the attention and remarks 

 of several writers. Descriptions and illustrations of the pecu- 

 liarities of these parts in some of those species most remark- 

 able for their deviation from the common form will be found 

 in the fourth, twelfth, fifteenth, and sixteenth volumes of the 

 Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. 



Among British Birds, the power of imitating the sounds 

 of the human voice is possessed in the greatest perfection by 

 the Raven, the Magpie, the Jay, and the Starling. In proof 

 of this power in the Raven, many anecdotes might be re- 

 peated : the two following, derived from unquestionable au- 

 thorities, are perhaps less known than many others : — " Ra- 

 vens have been taught to articulate short sentences as dis- 

 tinctly as any Parrot. One, belonging to Mr. Henslow, of 

 St. Alban's, speaks so distinctly that, when we first heard it, 

 we were actually deceived in thinking it was a human voice : 

 and there is another at Chatham which has made equal pro- 

 ficiency ; for, living within the vicinity of a guard-house, it 

 has more than once turned out the guard, who thought they 



