420 SYSTEM OF KENNEL AND 



staff of keepers and watchers cannot do the same 

 thing, without having recourse to steel traps and 

 poison ? If game -preserving continues to increase 

 as it has for the last few years, all these beautiful 

 birds, although birds of prey, will soon disappear 

 entirely from the British Isles, as the bustard has from 

 the Wiltshire downs, when the spread of cultivation 

 extended over that once magnificent prairie of our 

 country. Kites and ravens travel miles and miles 

 away from their nesting-places in search of food, and 

 the latter more frequently subsist on carrion than 

 young game, feathered or furred ; and as to their 

 killing old game, credat Judeus apj^ella. The raven is 

 not fitted by nature to pursue and catch game. He 

 is too unwieldy and clumsy a bird for this purpose ; 

 but, gifted with extraordinary keenness of scent, he 

 is seen winging his way to some distant spot where 

 lies the carcase of some animal mouldering to decay ; 

 or, if within reach of the sea-shore, thither does 

 instinct direct him in search of fish left on the sands 

 by the receding tide. We have been accustomed to 

 ravens from childhood, these birds having been pro- 

 tected almost with religious care by our ancestors 

 for many generations, their nest in the old king oak 

 containing at least a cartload of sticks and other 

 building materials. There they have been permitted 

 to live unmolested and bring up their young, which, 

 when able to provide for themselves, took their 

 flight to some more distant woods, one pair of birds 

 only ever remaining with us. 



The buzzard and dun kite also found a home and 

 protection in our coverts ; and as for rooks, every 



