88 GAME rRESERVERS AND BIRD PRESERVERS. 



escape them, and we Lave the raven, et hoc 

 genus omne^ to thank if grouse are five shil- 

 lings a brace instead of two shillings a brace in 

 our markets, and if thousands of square miles 

 in Scotland still afibrd neither sport nor rental 

 to their owners. Yet so little is practical 

 natural history really understood that plenty 

 of people are agitating even now to make 

 creatures of this sort more numerous. 



To do the raven justice, however, we must 

 own we have no braver bird, for he will single- 

 handed attack the eagle, and hunt him clean 

 out of the country. One day in April, when 

 watching for falcons near the top of a lofty 

 mountain, w^e heard sounds that reminded us of 

 the screams of an African baboon. An eagle 

 had come too near to a raven's nest, and the male 

 was driving him away. However high the eagle 

 ascended the raven was always above him, and 

 kept dashing down on his back, no doubt giving 

 him most unpleasant digs with his sharp bill, the 

 eagle resenting each attack by uttering the most 



