THE RAVEN’S NEST 85 
nest, the ravens soared near, giving only the hoarse 
“Crrruck.”’ They have also a soft love-note, which 
cannot be heard fifty yards away and sounds some- 
thing like the syllables ‘“‘Ga-gl-gl-gli.”” As they 
soared near us, their plumage shone like black glass, 
and we could see the long tapered feathers of the neck 
swell whenever either of them croaked. They had a 
peculiar trick of gliding side by side and suddenly 
touching wings, overlapping each other for an in- 
stant. While we watched them, a red-shouldered 
hawk unwarily approached the Gap. In an instant, 
the male raven was upon him, and there was a sharp 
fight. The Buteo was not to be driven away easily, 
and made brave play with beak and talons; but he 
never had a chance. The raven glided round and 
round him with wonderful speed and smoothness, 
driving in blow after blow with his heavy, punishing 
beak, until the hawk was glad to escape. 
For long and long I watched the dark, wise mys- 
terious birds circle through the blue sky. As I sat 
in their eyrie, I could look far, far across the forests 
and the ranges of hills, to where the ploughed fields 
began. Perhaps that poet whose heart-strings were a 
lute had looked from that same raven-cliff before he 
went back to die among the tame folk, and wished 
that he could stay in wild-folk land where he 
belonged. 
