176 THE RAVEN. 



except in shifting a little with the seasons as the sup- 

 ply of food varies, but never quitting the same district; 

 and yet there is no country in ^vhich the raven is not 

 found native. The margin of the desert, of the jungle, 

 or of the forest, in the hottest climates, — the heights 

 of alternate cliff and copse in temperate climates, or the 

 rocks and heaths, and even the lichen-clad margins 

 of the inhabited earth near the poles, are all equally 

 the abodes of the raven ; and let the sun blaze, the 

 wind blovr, the rain pelt, or the snow drive, with 

 ever so much intensity, his dusky wing or firmly set 

 foot is in its element, and the wreck of the rest of 

 nature is to him the season of plenty. 



The raven is thus an exceedingly typical bird ; and 

 from the numerous and varied habits, and structures 

 in accordance with those habits, which are combined 

 in him, he is what may be called a sort of central 

 type, in which the characters of many other races 

 may be found, though rudimental, or at least partially 

 concealing each other. Those characters are also 

 chiefly combined in the bill of the raven ; though in 

 his feet he approaches the vultures, and in his wings 

 partially the low-flying hawks. 



In tracing the gradation from the raven through 

 the analogous races, we find that the bill gets less 

 and less powerful in those characters in which it most 

 resembles those of the vultures, namely, its adaptation 

 for tugging and tearing the flesh of animals from the 

 bones. But the raven is also a preyer. He rarely, 

 though sometimes, hawks on the wing, and when he 

 does so, he strikes with the bill, not with the claws ; 

 but he preys much on the ground, on young birds, 

 the smaller mammalia, and even the larger ones 

 when disease or casualty brings them within his 

 reach. 



