226 PROTECTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



identified as those of the Raven.. .The numerous bones found amongst 

 the Roman remains would almost point to its having lived there in a semi- 

 domestic state." 



And the excavations of the following year showed that "The 

 Raven and the Crow, especially the former, seem to have 

 been very plentiful, and gave the largest number of identifi- 

 able bones." A commentator has surmised that the abund- 

 ance of the Ravens at Calleva may have been due to 

 the fact that they were hung in cages at the entrance to the 

 houses, as the Magpie was in Rome, to keep guard against 

 intruders and to salute those who were invited to a villa. 

 But such surmises are unnecessary: the numbers of their 

 remains, the analogies of the municipal laws of Berwick and 

 of the bird frequenters of the streets of Leith and London, 

 make it perfectly plain that the Ravens and Crows were en- 

 couraged and protected in the Roman settlements on account 

 of their value as disposers of garbage. 



The result of such protection was that for many centuries 

 "the birds obscene that croak and jar," which now, in 

 numbers miserable, are banished to the wildest crags, were 

 not only common throughout the land, but were the constant 

 companions of the traffic of the streets even in our largest 

 and busiest seaports and towns. Strange, wild times when 

 the Sparrow scavengers of modern thoroughfares were re- 

 placed in numbers and in assurance by Rooks, Carrion 

 Crows and Ravens ! 



It is not necessary to suppose, however, that these Raven 

 hordes built and nested in the near neighbourhood of the 

 towns they frequented, for it is well known that they, in 

 common with all birds of carrion, gather from afar to the 

 feast. Macgillivray instances such a congregation on the 

 Island of Pabbay in the Outer Hebrides, when as many 

 as two hundred Ravens gathered over a stranded herd of. 

 Grampuses or "Killer" Whales; and Dr B. N. Peach tells 

 me that on a similar occasion, when five "Killers" came 

 ashore in Weisdale Voe on the mainland of Shetland, he 

 witnessed the congregation of a flock of Ravens of which he 

 estimated the number at five hundred, many of which, in his 

 opinion, had gathered from the outlying islands. 



