

NEGLECT OF YOUNG? 129 



Providence had not appointed that the scraps of 

 raw meat, dropped round the nest, should engender 

 maggots and worms, which serve to support them, 

 till they are in a condition to rove for food. And 

 thus it is that He ' feedeth the ravens ' ! " 



More quaint, more detailed, and more interesting 

 still is the explanation, given in a very early Egyptian 

 commentary, of the fourth century, on St Luke, and 

 quoted by Mr Swainson, of the supposed hard- 

 heartedness of the raven towards its young : " God 

 heareth the young ravens when they cry unto Him." 

 Why, asks the commentator, is nothing of the kind 

 said of doves, as of any other white or heavenly kind 

 of bird why does the evangelist mention no name 

 amongst birds, except ravens only ? Because, he 

 replies to his own question, the hen-raven, having 

 laid her eggs, and hatched her young, is about to fly 

 away and leave them, on account of their colour ; for 

 when hatched, they are red in appearance. Then 

 the Nourisher of all Creation sends to them a little 

 swarm of insects, putting it by their nest, and thus 

 the little ravens are fed, until the colour of their 

 body is, as it were, dyed, and becomes black. After 

 four days, the old ravens return, and seeing that 

 the bodies of their young have become black, like 



their own, henceforward they take to them and 



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