258 



the hnppy homes of many of their neighbors — co- 

 dwellers in the mountain wilds — I cannot confirm 

 from personal observations in the field in recent years 

 or since Ravens have become very much less numer- 

 ous. 



IlELIABLE INFORMANTS. 



The statements, however, come from sources which 

 I deem thoroughly trustworthy. They are here re- 

 corded, substantially as given to me by aged inform- 

 ants, men, whose vocations of hunting, trapping, wO'od 

 chopping or bark peeling compelled them to live al- 

 most continually, the year 'round, in dense forests and 

 other wild, uninhabited places. These places, how- 

 ever, were ideal localities for a careful observer to 

 learn the life histories of wild animals which the Wise 

 Maker designed should find suitable abodes in dark 

 sylvan shades or along the banks of the cool, health- 

 ful waters of mountain streams, and by rocky and 

 mountainous pathways, vestiges of which still remain 

 in many regions of the Keystone Commonwealth, as 

 if to remind us of the bloody struggles that our an- 

 cestors; a century or two ago, were so often forced to 

 engage in with the Indians who made these "trails." 



ARE ENEMIES OF SMALL BIRDS. 



From the fact that I have often observed different 

 kinds of small birds, which build their summer homes 

 in regions selected by the croaking Raven for his 

 abiding place at all seasons of the year, always show 

 great concern whenever a solitary Raven, or worse 

 still a pair of them, came near their nest of young, it 

 is siafe to infer that the solicitude they manifested 

 was due to a knowledge obtained, perhaps, by bitter 



