THE RAVEN'S NEST 85 



nest, the ravens soared near, giving only the hoarse 

 "Crrruck. " They have also a soft love-note, which 

 cannot be heard fifty yards away and sounds some- 

 thing like the syllables " Ga-gl-gl-gli. " As they 

 soared near us, their plumage shone like black glass, 

 and we could see the long tapered feathers of the neck 

 swell whenever either of them croaked. They had a 

 peculiar trick of gliding side by side and suddenly 

 touching wings, overlapping each other for an in- 

 stant. While we watched them, a red-shouldered 

 hawk unwarily approached the Gap. In an instant, 

 the male raven was upon him, and there was a sharp 

 fight. The Buteo was not to be driven away easily, 

 and made brave play with beak and talons; but he 

 never had a chance. The raven glided round and 

 round him with wonderful speed and smoothness, 

 driving in blow after blow with his heavy, punishing 

 beak, until the hawk was glad to escape. 



For long and long I watched the dark, wise mys- 

 terious birds circle through the blue sky. As I sat 

 in their eyrie, I could look far, far across the forests 

 and the ranges of hills, to where the ploughed fields 

 began. Perhaps that poet whose heart-strings were a 

 lute had looked from that same raven-cliff before he 

 went back to die among the tame folk, and wished 

 that he could stay in wild-folk land where he 

 belonged. 



