134 BIRD WATCHING 



off at the accustomed place on the cliffs. It was 

 when I saw her like this, and when the glasses 

 isolated her from the general of rock and sea, that 

 this raven seemed to assume her true size and dignity, 

 and to become really a raven. When she flew it 

 was different. Her sable pinions beating against the 

 face of the precipice added no effect to it, but she 

 was instantly dwarfed and dwindled, and became as 

 nothing, a mere insignificant black speck, against its 

 huge frowning grandeur. 



Though, really, their plumage is all of gleaming, 

 purply blues, at a little distance, and when they fly, 

 ravens look a dead ugly black, which is also the 

 case with rooks, who are almost equally handsome 

 when seen closely. Their flight is peculiar, and 

 though it strikes the imagination, yet it cannot be 

 called at all grand or majestic in the ordinary sense 

 of those words. The wings, which are broad, short, 

 and rounded or at any rate present that appearance 

 to the eye move with regular, quick little beats, or, 

 when not flapped, are held out very straightly and 

 rigidly. When thus extended, they are on a level 

 with or, perhaps, a little below the line of the back, 

 and from this, in beating, they only deviate down- 

 wards, and do not rise above it, or very triflingly so, 

 giving them a very flat appearance. A curious curve 

 is to be remarked in the anterior part of the spread 

 wing, at first backwards towards the tail, and then 

 again forwards towards the head. All the primary 

 quills seem to partake of this shape, and they are also 

 very noticeably disjoined one from another, so that 

 the interspace, even whilst the wing is beaten, looks 

 almost as wide as the quill by which I mean the 



