268 THE RAVEN. 
bourhood ; and as they approached the eastern hill, 
which forms one side of this valley, I could hear 
their hoarse and hollow croaking long before I could 
see the birds themselves. 
How different are the habits of the rooks, with 
regard to their place of incubation! You may 
plunder their nest annually, and annually they will 
return to it, and perform their incubation in it. So 
will the starling, and the jackdaw. But the carrion 
crow abandons her nest for ever, after the breeding 
season ; no matter whether it has been plundered 
or not. It may here be remarked, that the rook, 
‘the starling, and the jackdaw, are always gregarious ; 
the raven and the carrion crow solitary birds most 
parts of the year. ? 
Some few years after the ravens had been plun- 
dered by the cobbler, either the same couple, or a 
stranger pair, built their nest in an oak of moderate 
size, within a few yards of an ornamental sheet of 
water, and about two miles distant from the wood 
to which they had resorted in better times. The 
gentleman’s gamekeeper, like all others of that san- 
guinary set, was on the look-out ; and on seeing the 
nest, he fancied that he had discovered a den of 
thieves, who had settled there to pilfer poultry, and 
to worry his master’s hares and pheasants by the 
dozen. The poor female was shot down dead to the 
ground; but, fortunately, the male escaped assas- 
sination. He tarried for a day or two in the envi- 
rons, and then deserted us for ever. From the day 
of his disappearance, I have never seen or heard 
a wild raven in this part of the country ; and times 
