162 THE RAVEN 



he was, for some years, well acquainted with a fine 

 raven, which was the property of a shoemaker at 

 March, a town in Cambridgeshire. It had the free 

 run of the streets, and could hold its own, and more 

 than its own, against all the cats and dogs he met. 

 When the children were leaving their various schools 

 in the town, if he saw a batch of girls coming towards 

 him, who, as their gentler nature prompted them, were 

 in the habit of treating him well, he would make 

 straight for the pump and wait for them to give 

 him a shower bath, which he received with every 

 demonstration of delight. If, on the other hand, 

 he saw a group of boys coming, who, after the 

 manner of their kind, would throw stones at, or 

 otherwise molest him, he would invariably make 

 for a particular window-sill, and mutely dare them 

 to throw a stone at him and so break the window. 

 He had evidently got to know, somehow or other, 

 that a window was a place of safety, even in the 

 sight of street boys. A tame raven, in ancient 

 Rome, must have gone through a similar process of 

 reasoning or what is akin to it, when, in a time of 

 great heat and drought, being unable to reach the 

 water in a small tank or basin placed near a tomb, 

 for birds to drink from just as the Muslims, in 

 North Africa and other Eastern countries, place 



