EAVENS. 505 



children quarrelling with great violence ; at other times it would 

 imitate the crowing of a cock, the mewing of a cat, the barking 

 of a dog, or the sound produced by a rattle for frightening away 

 birds from a wheat-field ; then a silence would ensue ; but soon 

 after the crying of a child of two years of age would be mimicked ; 

 ' Jacob ! Jacob ! ' its own name, probably it would then call, 

 repeating the cry at first in a grave tone, then with shriller intona- 

 tion and more vociferously ; again another silence ; but after a 

 pause, a man seems to knock at the gate ; if it is opened, enter 

 Jacob, who runs about the room, and finally mounts on the table. 

 Unfortunately, Jacob was a thief — and that was not his least 

 fault ; spoons, knives, forks, even plates, disappeared, with meat, 

 bread, salt, pieces of money — especially if new ; he carried off 

 everything, and hid all in some secret hole or corner. A 

 washerwoman of the neighbourhood was accustomed to dry her 

 linen near our window, fixing the clothes on the line with 

 pins ; the bird would labour with a perseverance truly wonderful 

 to detach these, the woman chasing him off with bitter male- 

 dictions about her fallen linen ; but he would only fly over into 

 his own garden for safety, where he would indulge in a few 

 malicious croakings. One day I discovered, under some old 

 timber, Jacob's hiding-place. It was full of needles, pins, and all 

 manner of glittering objects." 



Mr. Charles Dickens was partial to keeping Ravens in his youth, 

 and has related some of his experiences in the preface to " Barnaby 

 Rudge." He had two great originals. "The first was in the bloom 

 of his youth, when he was discovered in a humble retreat in London 

 and given to me. He hiid from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says 

 of Anne Page, ' good gifts,' which he improved by study and atten- 

 tion in a most extraordinary manner. He slept in a stable — 

 generally on horseback — and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by 

 his preternatural sagacity that he has been known, by the mere 

 superiority of his genius, to walk off unmolested with the dog's 

 dinner from before his face. He was increasing in intelligence 

 and precocity when, in an evil hour, his stable was newly painted. 

 He observed the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of 

 their pigments, and immediately burned to possess some of them. 

 On their going to dinner, he ate up all they left behind, consisting 



