Robbers of the Air 



decided to try my hand at calling a bunny out for sun 

 picture purposes. No sooner had I spread the legs of 

 my tripod upon the ground, however, than to my 

 consternation out popped three rabbits right in front of 

 me ! Focusing the animals as quickly and quietly as 

 possible I slipped a plate into the camera and exposed 

 it, with the result shown in the illustration. Before 

 I had time to turn my dark slide and get another 

 plate into position the rabbits bolted and were gone. 

 Noticing a tuft of down rise from one of the holes just 

 vacated by one of my furry " sitters " and float away 

 in the wind I crept up and discovered a little owl's wing 

 feather lying at the bottom of the burrow. As there 

 were plenty of these birds in the neighbourhood and 

 very few hollow trees I felt fairly certain I had wit- 

 nessed an ejectment for household purposes. 



The members of the crow family, although in some 

 respects useful scavengers, are all more or less robbers 

 of the air. 



The lordly raven a consumer of carrion is by no 

 means averse to attacking a newly-born lamb, a 

 wounded duck, sickly grouse, young rabbit, 01 other 

 creature its great size and strength persuade it capable 

 of being successfully overpowered. When a pair of 

 these birds discover some human intruder too close to 

 their nest to render it safe to fly home with the food 

 they have brought for their young, they not infre- 

 quently hide it and go away in search of further 

 supplies. The " raven's kiss " is not as some observers 

 have concluded an entirely nuptial display, for a pair of 



47 



