THE CARRION CROW. 307 



Chateaubriand introduces it at the latter place, in his description 

 of sunrise, as seen from the Acropolis.* 



Mr. Waterton, in his Essays on Natural History, gives a 

 highly interesting account of the raven, but, to his great grief, this 

 bird has not for many years been seen about Walton Hall. Sir 

 Win. Jardine, with an accurately observant eye, points out (in his 

 British Birds) the favourite haunts of the raven. Mr. Macgillivray 

 treats very fully of its habits, and gives much desirable informa- 

 tion (vol. i.); as Audubon likewise does, from personal observation 

 in America. The raven is honoured with a place in those de- 

 lightful articles of Blackwood's Magazine for 1826, entitled 'A 

 Glauce over Selby's Ornithology/ in which the keen observer of 

 the habits of birds is evident, through the wit and imagination 

 investing the whole matter. 



THE CARRION CROW. 



Corvus cor one, Linn. 



Though inhabiting this island, is much less common 

 than in England. 



It is not equally diffused over Great Britain, being, as we are 

 informed, " very uncommon in the northern and middle parts of 

 Scotland, but in the southern division of that country and in 

 England, much more numerous than the raven or the hooded 

 crow."t When on a visit at Jardine. Hall, Dumfries- shire, in 

 October, 1845, I particularly remarked, that the carrion crow took 

 the place which the hooded or grey crow occupies in the north of 

 Ireland : — at Rammerscales, in the same neighbourhood, not less 

 than a dozen were seen congregated one evening at roosting time. 

 For its comparative rarity in Ireland, I cannot account. The 

 want of old trees at the present time might be imagined one 

 reason, but their scarcity cannot be the cause, as it appears from 

 the following extract, that at a period when there was much old 

 wood in the country, the bird was believed not to be found here. 



* Itineraire dc Paris a Jerusalem. f Macgillivray, vol. i. p. 519. 



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