RAVEN VERSUS OSPREY. 109 



■while the osprey fought in perfect silence. The combat finally 

 resulted in a drawn battle, the belligerents separating as if by 

 mutual consent, and slowly winging their flight in opposite direc- 

 tions. The probability is that the raven's pugnacity was excited 

 on this occasion (March 1863) by the osprey 's cruising about, 

 however unwittingly, in the vicinity of the precipice in a cleft of 

 which the female raven was at the time brooding on her nest. At 

 such a time the raven will boldly attack the passing eagle, and 

 harass and annoy it until the eagle, pestered and teased by the 

 assault, rather than in any way alarmed, with great good nature 

 evacuates the territory which the raven claims as its own. The 

 raven has from the earliest ages been accounted a bird of evil omen, 

 and an object of superstitious dread and awe, and allusions to the 

 bird in this connection are to be met with in the literature of most 

 countries, the raven being as cosmopolitan as man himself. Its 

 croak, so disagreeable, and dismal, and hoarse, and startling ; its 

 colour, a funereal black ; its habitat, the lonely and demon-haunted 

 mountain peaks, giddy precipices, and dreary solitudes ; its lamb- 

 slaying and carrion-eating propensities ; its shy and suspicious 

 manner, as if he knew that he had done evil and was apprehensive 

 of weU-merited punishment — aU combine to render him in the first 

 instance a noticeable and remarkable bird, and one sure to be 

 selected for frequent reference in the days of bird divination, a 

 superstition of which traces may probably be found in the early 

 history of every country, and thus it would readily be raised to the 

 " bad eminence " of a bird of evilest omen — 



" The hateful messenger of heavy things, 

 Of death and dolour telling." 



The Moor of Venice says — 



" It comes o'er my memory, 

 As doth the raven o'er the infected house, 

 Boding to all." 



