70 THE RAVEN 



in the plumage of the raven, and the bird is then white. 

 This, however, occurs very rarely so that when people 

 wish to explain that a certain thing is quite exceptional, 

 they speak of it as a white raven. 



The coat-of-arms of the renowned Hungarian King 

 Matthias Corvinus, bears a raven with a golden ring in 

 its beak. There were more Ravens in those old troub- 

 lous days, of long, wild trains of warriors and robbers, 

 when slaughtered men and fallen cattle remained un- 

 buried by the wayside, and when the gallows stood in 

 the open field, as a sign and a warning to men, than 

 there are now, in our days of milder methods. 



The Raven is not altogether common with us. 



Don Quixote says that King Arthur did not die but 

 was changed by witchcraft into a raven, and that some 

 day he will put on his own shape again and claim his old 

 rights. And so no Englishman he says has ever been 

 known to kill a raven, for fear he should kill King 

 Arthur. The Raven, it seems, has continued to build 

 every year since 1856 either at Badbury Rings Mount 

 Badon, where King Arthur defeated the West Saxons, 

 or else, so the late Mr. Bosworth Smith told us, " in the 

 adjoining park of Kingston Lacy, where they are safe 

 under the protection of Mr. Ralph Bankes." 



The necromancers of old are said to detect sixty-five 

 intonations of the Raven's voice; he certainly croaks 

 and barks and chuckles, but it has some pleasanter, 

 more musical notes early in the year in the courting 

 season, and the great solemn looking bird becomes quite 

 playful and even graceful in his movements when his 

 mate and he are about to make their nest. He performs 

 evolutions in the air and turns somersaults most glee- 



