THE RAVEN. 161 



was perfectly, I may say aggressively, tame within a week, but the Buzzard 

 remained obdurate for fully three times as long, his timidity and suspicion being 

 truly exasperating." " As soon as my bird was full-grown, I tried the 

 experiment of turning him in with ' Grip ' the Raven (who is confined in a 

 disused stable on account of his depredations in the neighbours' gardens). As I 

 anticipated, Grip instantly dashed at the intruder with murderous intent, but 

 what followed was a surprise to me. The Buzzard, after flying two or three 

 times round the stable, hotly pursued by Grip, suddenly alighted on the floor 

 and confronted him with every feather bristling. The valour of the sable bird of 

 Odin was evidently tempered with a wholesome caution ; he stopped too, with 

 ruffled head held low down and open beak, panting like a hound, whereupon the 

 Buzzard to his astonishment and consternation sprang at him. He instantly beat 

 a headlong retreat, and the victor, after pursuing him for a short time from 

 perch to perch, rested on his laurels. For a fortnight after this, the Buzzard 

 was master of the situation, and the Raven got nothing in the shape of meat to 

 eat unless I was there to give it to him. The Buzzard would stoop at him and 

 snatch his food out of his very beak, as he unearthed it from his various hiding- 

 places. Grip now changed his tactics, and took to sneaking up behind and 

 furtively tweaking the Buzzard's wings or tail, and strange to say, a persistent 

 course of these harrassing attacks has now utterly destroyed the Buzzard's spirit, 

 evidently too superficial to stand at all a severe test, and reduced him from a 

 really noble-looking bird to a woe-begone wretch, denuded of both tail-feathers 

 and primaries. Hitherto I have kept the birds together in the hope that the 

 Buzzard might recover his lost courage, but I have now arranged to separate 

 them, as I am afraid of the Buzzard being permanently injured." The remainder 

 of Mr. Comyns' notes are more in accordance with general experience, and there- 

 fore of less interest. 



Mr. Frohawk saw seven examples of this species at the mouth of the Avon 

 (S. Devon) at the end of September 1895 ; they all kept together and may 

 perhaps have been the old and young of the same family. 



