106 ALLEGED DESERTION OF YOUNG. 



giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which 

 cry." (Psalm cxlvii. 9.) And again, in Job, " Who pro- 

 videthfor the raven his food? When his young ones cry 

 unto God, they wander for lack of meat!' (Job xxxviii. 41.) 

 In Batman " upon Bartholome his book, ' De proprieta- 

 tibus Rerum,' folio, 1582," we find the following passage 

 bearing upon the question : — " The raven is called Corvus 

 of Corax. It is said that ravens birdes {i.e., young ravens) 

 be fed with deaw of heaven all the time that they have 

 no black feathers by benefite of age." (Lib. xii. c. 10.) 



Izaak Walton, in his " Compleat Angler," speaking of 

 fish without mouths, which "are nourished and take 

 breath by the porousness of their gills, man knows not 

 how," observes that " this may be believed if we con- 

 sider that when the raven hath hatched her eggs, she 

 takes no further care, but leaves her young ones to the 

 care of the God of nature, who is said in the Psalms 

 (Psal. cxlvii. 9) ' to feed the young ravens that call upon 

 him.' And they be kept alive, and fed by a dew or 

 worms that breed in their nests ; or some other ways that 

 we mortals know not." 



Shakespeare, no doubt, had the words of the Psalmist in 

 his mind when he wrote — 



" And He that doth the ravens feed, 

 Yea, providently caters for the sparrow, 

 Be comfort to my age ! " 



As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 3. 



