NOTES AND QUERIES. 191 



[We have little doubt that these birds came up the Thames from the 

 mouth of the river, for about that date we had reports of several large 

 11 Sea Swallows " being observed between Chertsey and Laleham. The 

 species not being identified, we supposed them to be Common Terns. — Ed.] 



The Raven on Sheep Farms. — Mr. Salter, writing of the Raven in 

 Mid-Wales, remarks (p. 139) : — " There is a general impression amongst 

 the farmers that the Raven will tamper with a sheep when in difficulties, 

 and that its misdeeds at lambing- time are of the blackest description." 

 This impression seems to be shared by ornithologists, for Mr. Howard 

 Saunders refers to the Raven's "depredations among lambs, weakly ewes, 

 and game," as an established fact ('Manual of Brit. Birds,' p. 232); and 

 Prof. Newton, though lending the weight of his own personal experience to 

 the contrary opinion, nevertheless endorses the view that in the wilder and 

 mountainous parts of Britain " considerable loss is inflicted by the Raven 

 on the owners of sheep " (' Yarrell's Brit. Birds,' ed. 4, vol. ii. p. 260 ; and 

 1 Diet. Birds,' p. 737, note). Without prejudice to the result of observa- 

 tions in other parts of Britain, I venture to express my firm belief that on 

 hill-farms in the Highlands of Scotland our Raven is simply a scavenger, 

 inflicting on sheep-owners no loss of any kind whatever. Practical work in 

 a pastoral district, where Ravens have bred from immemorial time, has con- 

 vinced me (1) that neither Crow nor Raven will approach a living sheep or 

 lamb unless the animal be in art iculo mortis ; (2) that neither Crow nor 

 Raven, albeit they pick out the eyes, will commence to tear a carcase till 

 the animal has been dead for hours, sometimes for days ; (3) that neither 

 Crow nor Raven will meddle with a lambing ewe, even in the rare event of 

 difficult parturition, it being their constant habit to wait on death. I class 

 the birds together here because in practice one cannot distinguish their work, 

 and I put the Crow first because, in comparison with the larger bird, I have 

 found it bold, bloodthirsty, and persistent. For nine years past a pair of 

 Ravens have made their head-quarters, and reared an annual brood, in the 

 rocky escarpment of a green hill-face which rises abruptly above my house, 

 and is heavily stocked with black-faced ewes. Other pairs breed in the 

 wilder country to the north. Much of my own ground can be " spied " 

 from the windows of the house, but I have traversed the whole of it at all 

 times and seasons, and especially at lambing-time, when the Raven's alleged 

 misdeeds are said to reach a climax of iniquity. Of such misdeeds 1 have 

 found no trace. I have never seen a living sheep or lamb with a vacant 

 orbit, except in a single case when the dying animal just breathed ; I have 

 never detected a sign of visceral disruption on a warm carcase, nor surprised 

 the birds at work on anything but carrion ; and I have known a lambing 

 ewe labour heavily for a couple of hours quite unmolested, though the 

 expectant Crows were tearing at the placental membrane a moment after 

 the passing shepherd had relieved and removed the ewe. In the spring of 



