RAVEN. 183 



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-conditioned 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 weasle, 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 asailant, 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. 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 inter- 

 stices, 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 five, six, 



