176 THE BOOK OF BIRDS 



forests of Central Hungary during snow and storm, on 

 the barren peak of the Santi Deka mountain near Corfu, 

 and among tlie precipices of the Dalmatian hills." 



Much more might be said about the haunts and the 

 habits of this intensely interesting bird. But let me, 

 rather, close this chapter with a story of how two 

 adventurous schoolboys overcame the difficulties that 

 almost always beset the raider of a Raven's nest, and how 

 they stormed the fortress. 



The teller of the story, Mr. R. Bosworth Smith, who 

 was also the chief actor in it, was then a boy at Milton 

 Abbas School, Blandford. He had heard that in a lonely 

 wood on the open down, some six miles from Blandford, 

 there was an ancient Raven's nest. Many attempts had 

 been made to reach it, but the tree chosen was too thick 

 to climb, and for forty feet up no boughs projected. 



" It was the 24th February, and the snow lay thick on 

 the ground. When school was over at noon, I applied for 

 leave to go to Badbury Rings, as the place was named." 

 Leave was reluctantly granted, and, with another boy to 

 assist him, the expedition was fixed up. 



"We bought a hammer and a packet of the largest 

 nails we could get, some sixty in number and some ten 

 inches long, and we set out. But what with the weight 

 of the nails and the hammer, and the depth of the snow, 

 and our losing our way for a time, we did not arrive till 

 half-past three o'clock. As we approached, we heard to 

 our delight the croak of the Ravens, and saw them 

 soaring above the clump or wheeling round it in pursuit 

 of one another." 



Making sure of the right tree, Smith began the work 

 of scaling the lofty trunk, hammer in hand. Every nail 

 he drove in had in turn to furnish foothold and support 



