THE RAVEN. 125 



ture and temperature like ours is peculiarly favorable 

 for the production of insect food, which would in some 

 seasons be particularly injurious, were we not visited 

 by such numbers of active little friends to consume it. 

 The raven (corvus corax) does not build with us. A 

 pair indeed attempted to raise a brood in our wych-elm ; 

 but they love retirement and quiet, and were soon 

 scared away, and made no second trial. Ravens visit 

 us, however, frequently, and always during the lambing 

 season, watching for any weak and deserted creature, 

 which, when perceived, is instantly deprived of its eyes ; 

 but they make no long stay in our pastures. They 

 abide nowhere in fact, but move from place to place, 

 where food may chance to be found. Should an animal 

 die, or a limb of fresh carrion be on the hooks in the 

 tree, the hoarse croak of the raven is sure immediately 

 to be heard, calling his congeners to the banquet. We 

 see it daily in its progress of inspection, or high in the 

 air on a transit to other regions, hastening, we conjec- 

 ture, to some distant prey. With the exception of the 

 snipe, no bird seems more universally spread over the 

 surface of our globe than the raven, inhabiting every 

 zone, the hot, the temperate, the severe feeding upon, 

 and removing noxious substances from the earth, of 

 which it obtains intimation by means of a faculty we 

 have little conception of. Sight it cannot be ; and we 

 know not of any fetor escaping from an animal pre- 

 vious to putrescence, so subtile as to call these scaven- 

 gers of nature from the extremity of one county to that 

 of another ; for it is manifest, from the height which 

 they preserve in their flight, and the haste they are 

 making, that their departure has been from some far 

 distant station, having a remote and urgent object in 

 contemplation. 



In England the raven does not seem to abound ; but 

 it is most common on the shores of harbors, or near 

 great rivers, where animal substances are more fre- 

 quently to be met with than in inland places. In 

 Greenland, and Iceland, where putrescent fishy sub- 

 stances abound, they appear to be almost domesticated. 

 Horace calls the raven " annosa tormx /" and in a tame 

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