IN QUEST OF EAVENS 61 



It would be too long a story to set down 

 all the answers I received from the many 

 persons whom I questioned here and there 

 in my daily peregrinations. One man was 

 sorry he had not heard of me sooner. A cow 

 had been killed by lightning somewhere on 

 the mountains, a week or two before. That 

 would have been my opportunity. Ravens 

 are sure to be on hand at such a time. But 

 it was too late now, as they never touch flesh 

 after it has begun to spoil. Another man, a 

 German, living some miles out of the village, 

 said, " Well, in my country we call them 

 ravens, but here they call them crows." 

 They were a nuisance ; he had to kill them. 

 He knew smaller black birds, in flocks, but 

 no larger ones. He and the apothecary 

 who now and then laughed good-humoredly 

 at my continued failure, as I stopped to pass 

 the time of day with him, or to ask him 

 about the way to some waterfall were, as 

 well as I remember, the only witnesses for 

 the negative; so that the question was no 

 longer as to the presence of the birds, but as 

 to the degree of their commonness and the 

 probability of my seeing them. It would 

 be too much to say that the whole town was 



