OUR PETS. 67 



The poor ponies, even in the most inclement weather, 

 never know the luxury of a sheltering roof, and during 

 the long winter seldom get any food but the scanty 

 pickings of a barren common, varied with an occasional 

 breakfast of seaweed. Consequently, they become very 

 lean and weak in spring ; and after lying down on the 

 cold, damp ground, which they never do in winter, they 

 often get so stiff as to be unable to rise without assist- 

 ance. They are then said to be "in lifting." This 

 is the cruel Raven's opportunity. In the cold gray 

 dawn of the morning, he spies his victim making 

 unavailing efforts to rise, swoops down upon him, and 

 with a fierce dab of his powerful bill destroys one eye; 

 a second thrust, and the pony is blinded ; and in a few 

 hours his carcass affords a rich repast to his murderer 

 and a score of his kind. No wonder, then, that this 

 " bird of ill omen " is persecuted and slaughtered without 

 mercy, and that sometimes a price is set upon his head. 

 But in spite of gun and poison, the wary and sagacious 

 Eavens are still all too numerous. They build their 

 nests in the loftiest and most inaccessible precipices, 

 which generally defy the most expert and daring crags- 

 men to scale, and it is therefore not always easy to 

 get a young Eaven for a pet ; and the universal detes- 

 tation in which they are held perhaps helps to make 

 them be regarded as not particularly desirable ones. 



