112 BIRDS AND MAN 



While watching this magnificent display it 

 troubled me to think that this pair of ravens 

 would probably not long survive to be an 

 ornament to the coast. Their nest, it has been 

 stated, is regularly robbed, but I had been in- 

 formed that in the summer of 1894 a third bird 

 appeared, and it was then conjectured that the 

 pair had succeeded in rearing one of their young. 

 About a month later a raven was picked up 

 dead on the coast by a boatman, — killed, it was 

 believed, by his fellow -ravens, — and since then 

 two birds only have been seen. There are only 

 two more pairs of ravens on the Somersetshire 

 coast, and, as one of these has made no attempt 

 to breed of late, we may take it that the raven 

 population of this county, where the species was 

 formerly common, has now been reduced to 

 two pairs. 



Anxious to find out if there was any desire 

 in the place to preserve the birds I had been 

 observing, I made many inquiries in the neigh- 

 bourhood, and was told that the landlord cared 

 nothing about them, and that the tenant's only 

 desire was to see the last of them. The tenant 

 kept a large number of sheep, and always feared. 



