108 BIRDS AND MAN 



of ravens that had their nest on a ledge of rock 

 some distance below. Big and solemn, and 

 solemn and big, they certainly were, and 

 although inferior in this respect to eagle, 

 pelican, bustard, crane, vulture, heron, stork, 

 and many another feathered notable, to see 

 them was at the same time a pleasure and a 

 rehef. It also occurred to me at the time that, 

 alone on a desert island, I should be better oif 

 with ravens than wagtails for companions ; and 

 this for an excellent reason. The wagtail is 

 no doubt a very lively, pretty, engaging creature 

 — so for that matter is the house fly — but 

 between ourselves and the small birds there 

 exists, psychologically, a vast gulf. Birds, says 

 Matthew Arnold, live beside us, but unknown, 

 and try how we wUl we can find no passage 

 from our souls to theirs. But to Arnold — in 

 the poem to which I have alluded at all events 

 — a bird simply meant a caged canary ; he was 

 not thinking of the larger, more mammal-Uke, 

 and therefore more human -like, mind of the 

 raven, and, it may be added, of the crows 

 generally. 



The pair I spent so long a time in watching 



