RAVEN. 167 



The Moor of Venice says: 



" It comes o'er my memory, 

 As doth the Raven o'er the infected house, 

 Boding to all."* 



The last quotation alludes to the supposed habit of this bird's 

 flying over those houses which contain the sick, whose dissolu- 

 tion is at hand, and thereby announced. Thus Marlowe, in the 

 Jew of Malta, as cited by Malone: 



" The sad presaging Raven tolls 



The sick man's passport in her hollow beak, 



And in the shadow of the silent night 



Doth shake contagion from her sable wing." 



But it is the province of philosophy to dispel those illusions 

 which bewilder the mind, by pointing out the simple truths 

 which Nature has been at no pains to conceal, but which the 

 folly of mankind has shrouded in all the obscurity of mystery. 



The Raven is a general inhabitant of the United States, but 

 is more common in the interior. On the lakes, and particularly 

 in the neighbourhood of the Falls of the river Niagara, they 

 are numerous; and it is a remarkable fact, that where they so 

 abound, the Common Crow, C. corone, seldom makes its ap- 

 pearance; being intimidated, it is conjectured, by the superior 

 size and strength of the former, or by an antipathy which the 

 two species manifest towards each other. This I had an oppor- 

 tunity of observing myself, in a journey during the months of 

 August and September, along the lakes Erie and Ontario. The 

 Ravens were seen every day, prowling about in search of the 

 dead fish, which the waves are continually casting ashore, and 

 which afford them an abundance of a favourite food; but I did 

 not see or hear a single Crow within several miles of the lakes; 

 and but very few through the whole of the Gennesee country. 



The food of this species is dead animal matter of all kinds, 



* Othello, act iv, scene 1. 



