THE RAVEN 157 
Dr. John Grayling of Sittingbourne had a tame Jackdaw in his garden. This 
bird was particularly fond of hazel-nuts, and would catch every one that was 
thrown at him; but if you took two or three nuts with about the same number 
of pebbles in your hand, and flung them at the bird, one after the other as rapidly 
as possible, he caught every nut, and evaded every stone, without fail: his 
manner of avoiding a missile made you look small, for he never moved farther 
than was necessary, sometimes merely lowering his head, or taking a step to right 
or left. When one considers how marvellously powerful a bird’s vision must be 
to enable it, in a second, to distinguish between a nut and a similarly-coloured 
pebble, leading it instantaneously to decide whether to catch or avoid it; it seems 
preposterous to imagine that it can ever hesitate as to the nature of a leaf-like 
insect, however well it may seem to be disguised to our less discriminating sight : 
indeed I am fully convinced that if a dozen leaf-like insects (recently killed to 
prevent their showing movement) and an equal number of similar crumpled leaves 
were flung on the floor of an aviary containing insectivorous birds of any kind, it 
would not be long before all the insects had been selected and devoured. 
As the Jackdaw is almost omnivorous, there is never any difficulty in feeding 
it in captivity: but the bird is less entertaining in a flight-cage than when (with 
one wing clipped) it is allowed the run of the place. 
Family—COR VIDE. 
THE RAVEN. 
Corvus corax, LINN. 
ISTRIBUTED throughout Europe from the limit of land in the north to 
the Mediterranean in the south and throughout northern Asia to the 
Himalayas; whilst in America it extends across the continent from the Pacific 
to Greenland and southwards to Guatemala and possibly Honduras, though to 
the east of the Mississippi it is somewhat rare and local. 
Vou, m1. 2c 
