96 THE RAVEN 



preservation, to be on good terms with those who, 

 if they are so minded, can do him most harm. So, 

 too, a pair of ravens watched by Professor A. 

 Newton, from year to year, at their inland breeding- 

 place in Norfolk, carefully abstained from molesting 

 the sheep and lambs and game which abounded 

 within their sight, and lived almost entirely upon 

 the moles whose burrows were further away. 



In moorland districts, where food is scarce, the 

 ravens will attack without scruple a newly-born 

 lamb or even a sheep that has been "cast." His 

 method is always the same, and has been noticed to 

 be so from the earliest times. He goes straight at 

 the eye, which one blow of his powerful beak will 

 destroy. " The eye that mocketh at his father, and 

 despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the 

 valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall 

 eat it." Cornicum oculos configere, " to dig out the 

 eyes of the ravens," was a proverbial expression 

 used by Cicero, equivalent to our proverb " the biter 

 bit." Another English proverb, true enough as a 

 general statement of fact in Natural History, tells us 

 that " hawks don't pick out hawks' een " ; but Mr 

 Ralph Bankes of Kingston Lacy, in Dorset, a great 

 protector of ravens, was the eye-witness, like Cain 

 in the Koran, of a curious exception to the rule, 



