64 CORVIDJI. 



When taken young, and reared from the nest, it becomes 

 familiar and even playful, and in the stable is of utility in 

 checking the increase of vermin, seldom permitting a rat to 

 escape, but unfortunately extends the same equivocal pa- 

 tronage to early poultry, or a young kitten or puppy. 



Possessing great aptitude and unequalled powers of obser- 

 vation, the thousand anecdotes of their sagacity and prudence 

 would require a more extended area than the limits of our 

 space afford. 



Coming down to us from remote antiquity, at a period 

 nearly coeval with man, the history of the raven commences 

 and is handed down with the legends and traditions of every 

 age and of every country. In Genesis we find Noah send- 

 ing forth a raven to ascertain if the waters had abated, and, 

 not returning, it was consequently reckoned an unclean bird 

 by the Mosaic law : and yet we find the raven appointed by 

 heaven to succour the hidden Elijah by the brook of Cherith. 

 And again, Solomon, in his Canticle of Canticles, describing 

 the Messiah, says, " His head is as the finest gold; his locks 

 as branches of palm trees, black as a raven." 



The Chaldeans, in their favourite pursuit of augury, drew 

 omens from the appearance of the raven ; and subsequently 

 the Romans dedicated it to Apollo, as the god of divination, 

 noting every particular relating to it with superstitious awe. 

 Strange it is, then, with so many admirers, to see Mahomet 

 infringing on the holiness of the route to Mecca by allowing 

 his believers to destroy it, the only bird, except the kite, 

 to which that liberty was accorded.* 



Perhaps it may have been in detestation of the raven which 

 initiated Cain to the disposal of his brother's body, of which 

 we have the following version in the Koran : "And God sent 

 a raven which scratched the earth to show him (Cain) how 

 he should hide the shame of his brother. For he (Cain) not 

 knowing where to conceal it, it stank horribly. And God sent 

 a raven, who killed another raven in his presence, and then 

 dug a pit with his beak and claws, and buried him therein." 



Thus, after having reflected the shadow of his wing alike 

 over the Bible and the Koran, we next find the form of the 

 raven transferred to the banners of the piratical sea-kings of 

 Norway, and every Saga of their Skalds replete with allu- 

 sions to this black and gloomy emblem, which, from its ill- 

 omened appearance so often upon our own shores, does not 

 surprise us at the interest it had demanded from the bards 

 and poets of the day. 



* Sale's Koran. 



