THE RAVEN. 151 



Thou social, thou noisy, intelligent Bird ! 

 How oft I, delighted, thy cawing have heard !* 



a hoarse croaking noise ; may be taught to speak ; thievish, as 

 indeed are many of the genus ; builds in high trees, or on rocks ; 

 eggs bluish green, spotted with brown ; feeds on carrion, fishes, 

 &c.j long lived ; smell said to be exquisite. The Greenlanders, 

 it is said, eat the flesh, make the skin into garments, and the 

 split feathers into fishing lines. 



The croaking of the Raven is extremely disagreeable ; in the 

 silence and solitude of remote woods it is peculiarly appalling. 

 It was formerly considered extremely ominous. The poets 

 have, of course, seized upon this : Drayton says 



" The greedy Raven that for death doth call f 



Owl. 



And quotes Pliny for his authority. And Shakespeare, 



lc The Raven himself is hoarse 

 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 

 Under my battlements." 



Macbeth, Act i. Scene 5. 



* " I hired 'em at tha cottage door, 



When mornin, in tha spreng, 

 Wak'd vooath in youth an beauty too, 



An birds beginn'd ta zeng. 

 I hired 'em in tha winter-time, 



When, roustin vur awa, 

 Tha visited tha Rookery, 



A whiverin by da." 



See a poem called the Rookery, in my Observations on the 

 Dialects of the West of England, &c. &c. 



