108 BIRDS OF THE WEST OF SCOTLAND. 



and a pied specimen was noticed some time afterwards in Harris 

 by Macgillivray, who introduced it as a separate species at the 

 close of the third volume of his work under the name of Corvus 

 leucophcem a name originally instituted by Vieillot, but since 

 shown to be without distinctive specific characters. These pied 

 birds occur more frequently in Faroe and Iceland than elsewhere, 

 and have been observed of late years in one or two of the Outer 

 Hebrides. The late Mr J. Wolley makes the following reference 

 to this variety in a paper on the birds of the Faroe islands, read 

 at a meeting of the British Association held at Edinburgh in July, 

 1850, and afterwards published in Sir William Jardine's "Con- 

 tributions to Ornithology" for that year: " Of the Raven I saw 

 the black-and-white variety, which has been called a species under 

 the name of C. leucopJi<xus; but two were shown to me alive which 

 came out of the same nest with purely black ones; they were 

 marked irregularly and differently from each other, and had none 

 of the characters of a species." I may here add that 1 lately ex- 

 amined Mr Macgillivray's specimen of the pied raven, which is 

 labelled iu his own handwriting C. leucoplmm, and still preserved 

 in the University Museum, Aberdeen, and that the entire aspect 

 of the bird is opposed to the idea of specific differences, the ap- 

 pearance of the feathers and the light coloured claws and want of 

 symmetry in the white markings proving it to be only a spotted 

 bird which might ultimately have become an albino. It is rather 

 singular that this painstaking naturalist should have allowed him- 

 self in this instance to be deceived. 



In one of the earliest ornithological papers from Macgillivray's 

 pen, the following remarks on the Eaven afford a good insight into 

 the bird's character as a native of the Long Island : " The Raven 

 is astonishingly common in all parts. It roosts and nestles on 

 high rocks on the sea shore, as well as in the interior, and feeds 

 on carrion of all kinds, fish, poultry, eggs, grain, grass, etc. In 

 autumn the ravens become sub-gregarious, when they make great 

 havoc in some places among the barley. At other times they are 

 commonly seen in pairs, excepting for some weeks after bringing 

 their brood abroad, when the whole family fly about together. 

 I have seen one with patches of white in its plumage, and about 

 fifteen years ago an individual entirely white was seen in the 

 island of Pabbay. When grampuses or other large cetaceous 

 animals are stranded, it is astonishing to see the numbers which 



