124 DAWS AND CROWS 



of a raven hovering over the flock is a sign that a 

 sheep is sick and will probably die. The effluvium of 

 the sick animal, which is not unlike that of a dead 

 animal, has attracted the bird. A number of daws 

 have been observed hovering over the water at one 

 spot and returning day after day to repeat the action, 

 although nothing to attract them appeared on the 

 surface; but after several days it was discovered 

 that the body of a drowned animal in a semi-decom- 

 posed state was lying at the bottom at that place. 

 The smell from the water had attracted them. The 

 very old and universal idea that the raven is a bird 

 of ill omen and will hover over the house before the 

 death of an inmate is, I believe, founded on a common 

 habit of the bird. A sick man in the house will attract 

 him as readily as a sick sheep in the fold out on the 

 moor. And it is the same with the carrion crow. 



I have the following remarkable case from a friend, 

 a well-known literary man. He was down with 

 typhoid fever, sick unto death, as the doctor and 

 his people imagined, and when at the worst the 

 house where he was lying was haunted for a whole 

 day by a pair of carrion crows from a neighbouring 

 pine-wood, where they were accustomed to breed. 

 These crows had never shown themselves at or near 

 the house before, but on that day they were con- 

 stantly flying round and hovering over the house and 

 alighting on the roof, uttering their raucous cries and 

 apparently in a great state of excitement. 



The people of the house were terribly upset about 

 the way the birds went on: they are a people very 



