160 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 
manor house where there was a tame Raven, he was then about twenty years 
old, and full of all sorts of mischief and iniquity, but being a great favourite 
and a good talker he had pretty much his own way. I remember him well, for 
on one occasion he took a small slice out of my leg, ut mos fuit, and retired to 
the top of the spout to digest it, amidst my yells and the threats of the whole 
party. Happening to be near the place twenty-five years afterwards, I ventured 
to ask for my old friend, and to my surprise out he came with the same side- 
long hop, the same malicious twinkle in his eye, and looking more sleek and 
diabolical than ever. I only heard of his death last autumn. He took a similar 
liberty with a large dog that he did with my leg, and got a nip in return that 
killed him. He must have been fifty years old when he died, and was one of 
the finest birds I have ever seen.” 
Lord Lilford’s account of his Ravens is very entertaining, especially that of 
his bird Sankey:—‘‘He would take any opportunity that presented itself of 
testing the consistency of the lower garments or shoe-leather of an unwary male 
of our species; but we seldom heard of his attacking a woman. At any strange 
dog, large or small, he ‘went in,’ and after bestowing a hearty dig on his 
hinder parts, used to retire to some coign of vantage and mock his foe, with an 
often-repeated ‘bow-wow,’ uttered in a complacent and sympathetic tone, which 
must have been peculiarly aggravating to the injured one.” 
“Any superfluous food was generally hidden away for future consumption, 
and the hiding-places often quaintly chosen; e.g. we once saw the Raven care- 
fully part the long feathers on the back of one of our Emus, insert a small fish 
from his pouch, rearrange the feathers, and hop off with the air of having done 
a very clever thing.” 
As regards the possibility of this species breeding in confinement, I may 
quote the following note given to me by Mr. J. E. Harting for my ‘‘ Handbook 
of British Oology”’ :—In March, 1864, a pair of tame Ravens which had the run 
of a garden belonging to Mr. Winterbottom, of Cheltenham, built a nest in a 
box in a shed about six feet from the ground. The nest was built of sticks, old 
fern-leaves, and the stalks of dead wall-flowers, and was lined with dead leaves 
and tufts of grass. On March 4th two eggs were found in the nest, and the 
following day a third was laid; but the hen bird did not sit well, perhaps 
because too much disturbed by visitors, and the eggs were not hatched. 
Lord Lilford’s last pair of Ravens, which, however, had considerable liberty, 
reared four young ones, all of which were living in 1894. 
Mr. J. H. Comyns, of Lyvenden, S. Devon, forwarded to me a full account of 
a Raven and Buzzard taken by him in 1896 from nests in trees:—‘‘ The Raven 
