Oynithological Observations and Reflections in Shetlar.d. 159 



the liill-side, enclosing a sheep-peirk. Some old posts that once 

 helped in the scheme, are lying about, and whilst some of the 

 Crows perch on the ones still supporting the wires, others go 

 to these, and I can see some pieces broken oil by them. One 

 flies, with a piece, on to one of the upright posts, and there 

 commences to hack at it, but he is constantly overbalanced by 

 the wind, and has to drop to the ground. Almost immediately 

 he flies up again, and so persevering is he, that, having watched 

 him about a dozen times, I begin to count, and, from this 

 point, he is blown off and flies up again, thirteen times more, 

 the last time onto the next post. I then walk up and examine 

 the wood. It is soft and rotten, but all I can find in it are 

 some very small maggots and the eggs of some insects, appar- 

 ently. The Crows, it would seem, find these worth the trouble 

 of getting — or did they eat the soft wood ? 



The Crow who first gave the start, and flew, stood last — not 

 first — of the band, going by the direction in which all their 

 heads were turned. He followed — did not lead — the flight, 

 and soon got mixed up in it. He was no leader, in my opinion — - 

 I have seen no evidence of leadership in birds — but his sudden 

 resolve to fly to the post seemed to communicate itself, in- 

 stantaneously, to the rest. I counted twenty-one Crows at 

 the posts. 



As I came back over the hills, a Raven, on his silent wings 

 of darkness, was ghding, widely, over the landscape. He 

 never flapped them once, and never croaked, but passed hke 

 a shadow of night, upon the air, from hill-top to hill-top, over 

 desolate places, with a lightness to which his sable plumage 

 gave a weird, contrasting effect. Evidently he was scanning 

 all beneath him for any windfall of offal or prey, and he looked 

 now most impressive, seeming to brood on the landscape, to 

 which, by his presence, a deeper gloom was imparted — for 

 it was darkening, now, on barren moor and silent, lonely hill. 

 There was no apparent effort, the air seemed to buoy him, as 

 if he were but one black feather of himself, and so he gloomed 

 and glided on, not seeming now to regard me, though generally 

 hurrying away, with croaking note, the moment I come into 

 view. But I had an impression of being silently taken in, 

 by his downward glance, with every other detail, and grimly 

 reckoned with. The Eagle himself could hardly have been 

 more master of the air than this grim black bird,* and majesty 

 was his, too, of a sort, not that of Jove indeed, but of Pluto's 

 gloomy brow. This Raven was alone, but it is much more usual 

 to see them in pairs. As in the spring, they often sit on some 



* So, indeed, I thought then, having only once, long ago, and not very 

 advantageously, seen Eagles, except in miserable cages. I do not endorse 

 it now, since going to Iceland ; in fact, it seems nonsense, but one should 

 let one's impressions remain, 



1»18 May 1 



