rfo BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



manor house where there was a tame Raven, he was then about twenty years 

 old, and full of all sorts of mischief and iniquity, but being a great favourite 

 and a good talker he had pretty much his own way. I remember him well, for 

 on one occasion he took a small slice out of my leg, ut mos fuit, and retired to 

 the top of the spout to digest it, amidst my yells and the threats of the whole 

 party. Happening to be near the place twenty-five years afterwards, I ventured 

 to ask for my old friend, and to my surprise out he came with the same side- 

 long hop, the same malicious twinkle in his eye, and looking more sleek and 

 diabolical than ever. I only heard of his death last autumn. He took a similar 

 liberty with a large dog that he did with my leg, and got a nip in return that 

 killed him. He must have been fifty years old when he died, and was one of 

 the finest birds I have ever seen." 



Lord Lilford's account of his Ravens is very entertaining, especially that of 

 his bird Sankey : " He would take any opportunity that presented itself of 

 testing the consistency of the lower garments or shoe-leather of an unwary male 

 of our species ; but we seldom heard of his attacking a woman. At any strange 

 dog, large or small, he ' went in,' and after bestowing a hearty dig on his 

 hinder parts, used to retire to some coign of vantage and mock his foe, with an 

 often-repeated ' bow-wow,' uttered in a complacent and sympathetic tone, which 

 must have been peculiarly aggravating to the injured one." 



" Any superfluous food was generally hidden away for future consumption, 

 and the hiding-places often quaintly chosen ; e.g. we once saw the Raven care- 

 fully part the long feathers on the back of one of our Emus, insert a small fish 

 from his pouch, rearrange the feathers, and hop off with the air of haviug done 

 a very clever thing." 



As regards the possibility of this species breeding in confinement, I may 

 quote the following note given to me by Mr. J. H. Harting for my " Handbook 

 of British Oology" : In March, 1864, a pair of tame Ravens which had the run 

 of a garden belonging to Mr. Winterbottom, of Cheltenham, built a nest in a 

 box in a shed about six feet from the ground. The nest was built of sticks, old 

 fern-leaves, and the stalks of dead wall-flowers, and was lined with dead leaves 

 and tufts of grass. On March 4th two eggs were found in the nest, and the 

 following day a third was laid ; but the hen bird did not sit well, perhaps 

 because too much disturbed by visitors, and the eggs were not hatched. 



Lord Lilford's last pair of Ravens, which, however, had considerable liberty, 

 reared four young ones, all of which were living in 1894. 



Mr. J. H. Comyns, of Lyvenden, S. Devon, forwarded to me a full account of 

 a Raven and Buzzard taken by him in 1896 from nests in trees: "The Raven 



