184 SPRING. 



behind ; and in the case of leverets and young rabbits, 

 (and the raven always prefer young or weakly animals 

 to those that are in vigour and health), one stab upon 

 any part of the head is mortal. It is the same with 

 chickens, dab-chicks, and goslings, to which, when he 

 finds them unguarded, the raven shows no mercy. 



At the season when ewes drop their lambs when 

 the perfect helplessness of the little creatures, the 

 piteous tones of their cries, the fond bleatings of the 

 mothers, and the wonderful powers and flexions in the 

 voice of nature, by which (and though in a flock 

 of hundreds, we can trace no difference of sound, or 

 only have one which we arrive at by philosophizing 

 backwards from the effect as we are apt to do in so 

 many instances) the knowledge of offspring and dam 

 is reciprocal and perfect, almost from the instant they 

 are dropped ; at that season, more especially if the 

 weather be severe and the flock weakly, the raven is 

 sure to be there, and if he find the young too far from 

 the protection of their mothers, or the mothers too 

 weak or lame for affording them protection, his attack 

 is certain destruction. 



The natural voice, especially that between mother 

 and young, which is so remarkable in the case of the 

 ewe and the lamb, and which often defies the power 

 of human discrimination, is among the most singular 

 phenomena in the animal kingdom : like all other phe- 

 nomena which we call instinctive, it ceases with the 

 necessity, but while it lasts it is a law as certain as 

 any of those by which even the lasting phenomena of 

 systems are regulated. As it is anterior to all expe- 

 rience of example in the human subject, it must be 



