218 Birds. 



before it had descended thirty fathoms, struck his talons into it, and 

 bore it safely away from among his angry assailants. 



Nor is this enmity with the corbie confined to the feathered tribes; 

 sundry of our quadrupeds live in constant warfare with the ill-condi- 

 tioned fowl. If you see a corbie hovering and screaming over a linn 

 or athwart the face of a rock, you may be sure that some animal has 

 attracted his attention. Perhaps a fox is basking on a sunny slope ; 

 or the wild cat, cautiously seeking a safe footing whence to spring on 

 some unwary bird that has its nest among the cliffs ; or perhaps the 

 supple weasel, sporting about or examining every cranny to find a safe 

 retreat : — I have seen the corbie vexing each of these. The fox will 

 sometimes stretch up his neck and snap at his assailant, when he has 

 made a sudden dive, but the bird eludes the danger, and continues 

 his persecution as before. 



The corbie, thus feared by some creatures, hated by others, and 

 most especially detested by the shepherd, on account of certain bloody 

 designs against his fleecy charge, whenever driven by hunger to the 

 attack, — makes his nest in the deepest retirement, in solitude the most 

 inaccessible. He selects a leafless, sapless branch of some stunted 

 tree — a mountain birch or service — jutting out from the face of a 

 perpendicular rock, and hanging over an abyss hundreds of fathoms 

 deep, — the bottom often beset with sharp and pointed rocks. It makes 

 one shudder to think of a living creature being precipitated from 

 the top ; yet here the female corbie sits secure, and far more fearless, 

 in far less agitation of spirits, than if her nest were placed in a flowery 

 meadow. The nest is constructed of the decayed stems of heather, 

 skilfully and carefully wattled together with twigs of other trees. A 

 layer of moss is next supplied to fill the interstices, and thus render 

 the mass more compact : this layer is thickest at the bottom, and in 

 places, where the outwork of heather has been made too slight, the 

 inside is partially lined with sprigs of the fly-bent, but principally 

 with wool. Here are deposited the eggs, and here the callow brood 

 are fed and nourished, and kept dry and warm. The eggs are Rve, 

 six, or seven in number, of a bluish colour, blotched with irregular 

 spots of brown. The order in which they are deposited is scarcely 

 ever seen, for it rarely happexis that a human being can approach suf- 

 ficiently near for the purpose. The young corbies, however, are sel- 

 dom permitted to escape; for the shepherd, seeking the spot, perilous 

 though it be, smashes the eggs with stones hurled fi-om above, and 

 batters the nest to pieces. He sometimes postpones his revenge until 

 the young ones, full grown and fat, arc peeping over the brink of the 



