THE STORY OF THE RAVEN 43 



but when hungry, sitting humped up with muffled 

 feathers, he is the picture of misery. Long frost drives 

 him to tidal rivers and muddy creeks, where he joins 

 other members of his tribe, carrion and hooded 

 crows, picking up dead fish and what he may. 



One old-time keeper found out that ravens, in spite 

 of all that was said against them, were really his good 

 friends. In his preserves at Burton Park a pair 

 of ravens, seventy or eighty years ago, bred every 

 spring, and while they were in residence they would 

 allow no hawk, weasel, or indeed any winged or four- 

 footed kind of vermin, to approach the wood where 

 stood their nest-trees. Pheasants and hares abounded, 

 but the model ravens never touched them or their 

 young, foraging at a distance for food, chiefly the flesh 

 of dead animals or of live rats, occasionally when hard 

 pressed taking young rabbits from downland warrens. 



Nothing can escape the hungry raven's eye, no 

 leveret, mouse, or scrap of food. Hunting a rat, he 

 will swoop down like a hawk, but before he comes 

 down to feed on carrion he circles cautiously overhead 

 to make sure there is no danger to himself. On 

 alighting he advances slowly to his meal, his head on 

 one side, looking about him before he begins his feast, 

 then savagely pecking, looking round again in a 

 startled way after each morsel. If undisturbed, he 

 will clean his beak and preen his feathers after feeding, 

 before mounting into the air. 



The raven is one of the first birds to begin nesting. 

 In January he visits his old haunt, and in February or 

 March the eggs are laid four or five eggs, rough, pear- 

 shaped, bluish green, spotted and blotched with 

 greenish brown. The nest is a bulky structure, 

 perhaps two or three feet across, and a foot thick, of 

 dry sticks and clay, small twigs, heather, or pieces of 



