RAVEN. 185 



" As these birds breed very early in the spring, the young 

 are generally fledged about the latter end of March, or the 

 beginning of April. After that time they are not to be 

 found in the vicinity of their nests ; but, accompanied by 

 their young ones, the old birds seek an open country without 

 trees or human habitations, where, secure from sudden sur- 

 prise, they superintend their education in the art of flying. 



" A pair of Ravens, with two or three young ones, have fre- 

 quently been observed thus engaged, at this time of the 

 year, on the South Downs, near the Devil's Dyke. On one 

 occasion, the latter, when apparently fatigued by their early 

 lesson, alighted on the ground, and did not then exhibit that 

 wary dread of man which might have been expected ; but, in 

 spite of the loud admonitory croaking of the parent birds, who 

 hovered over them in the air, and evinced every sign of 

 anxiety and uneasiness, they allowed the observer to approach 

 within a short distance, before they finally took their flight 

 and followed their conductors to a neighbouring' hill. 



" In Petworth Park, in a clump of unusually tall old beech 

 trees, whose trunks have been denuded by time of all their 

 lower branches, the Raven occasionally breeds. I was not 

 aware of this fact until early last March, when, as I was 

 riding in the neighbourhood of these trees, my attention was 

 arrested by the never-to-be-mistaken croak of a Raven, and 

 the loud chattering of a flock of Jackdaws. 



" I soon perceived that these were the peculiar objects of his 

 hatred and hostility ; for, after dashing into the midst of them, 

 and performing several rapid evolutions in the air round 

 about them, he succeeded in effectually driving them to a 

 considerable distance from the nest. During this manoeuvre, 

 the great size of the Raven became more apparent than when 

 viewed alone, and his power of flight was advantageously con- 

 trasted with that of his smaller congener. The latter, indeed, 

 appeared to bear precisely the same relation to him in point 



