236 THE BIRDS OF YORKSHIRE. 



At Walton Hall, the residence of Charles Waterton, the 

 Raven bred in the park, where the last one was destroyed in 

 1813, and the last nesting bird in the Aire valley was killed in 

 Trowler's Gill in 1837 I near Selby a pair, taken from a nest 

 in Bishop's Wood, were kept alive for many years. Other 

 breeding situations were in the upper part of Nidderdale ; 

 Hackfall ; Raven's Gill near Pateley, the last nesting bird 

 being shot by old Jack Sinclair, a celebrated Pateley character, 

 who died in 1898, aged ninety-two ; Gordale Scar ; and Eave- 

 stone near Ripon, where a nest was destroyed " some years 

 ago " (Ingleby, MS., 1902). In Lower Nidderdale, in 1860, the 

 late John Harrison of Wilstrop trapped a wild bird and had it 

 for some time ; it afterwards left, found a mate, and brought 

 off young in a fir tree in Allerton Park ; but there, as at other 

 of its old haunts, stragglers only are now seen at long intervals. 

 So far as recent information can be relied upon, the only 

 district in this Riding where it occasionally succeeds in nesting 

 is on the wild fells of the north-west, the exact whereabouts 

 of which it would be unwise to indicate ; there a few survive 

 and would breed if allowed to remain unmolested, but collectors 

 are on the qui vive to secure the eggs as soon as laid, while 

 keepers and shepherds combine to destroy the parent birds, 

 which, like Ishmael of old, have every man's hand against 

 them, and the wonder is that any contrive to escape. 



Coming now to the North Riding, the history of the Raven 

 is almost a memory of the past, though formerly there were 

 numerous places which could claim it as a regular breeder ; 

 one of these was the Mausoleum at Castle Howard, where a 

 pair occupied a conspicuous position up to the year 1856 ; 

 in the Helmsley and Riveaulx district up to 1860 it bred 

 on White Mare Cliff and Peake's Scar, and also in an ash tree 

 in Gowerdale ; other sites were at Roulston Scar, Hood Hill, 

 and in Bilsdale ; at Danby it was extirpated in Atkinson's 

 time (" Moorland Parish," p. 329), but in Newton Dale near 

 Pickering there was always a brood, till about 1875, in a crag 

 known as Raven's Cliff. In Cleveland, until so recently as 

 1866, a pair nested near Guisborough, sometimes in Cass Rock, 

 and at others on Highcliff near the Raven's Well (now called 



