RAVEN. 147 
The ferocious wife of Macbeth, on being advised of the ap- 
proach of Duncan, whose death she had conspired, thus ex- 
claims— 
The raven himself is hoarse 
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 
Under my battlements.* 

The Moor of Venice says— 

It comes o’er my memory, 
As doth the raven o’er the infected house, 
Boding to all. + 
The last quotation alludes to the supposed habit of this 
bird’s flying over those houses which contain the sick, whose 
dissolution is at hand, and thereby announced. Thus Marlowe 
in the “ Jew of Malta,” as cited by Malone— 

The sad presaging raven tolls 
The sick man’s passport in her hollow beak ; 
And, in the shadow of the silent night, 
Doth shake contagion from her sable wing. 
But it is the province of philosophy to dispel these illusions 
which bewilder the mind, by pointing out the simple truths 
which Nature has been at no pains to coneeal, but which the 
folly of mankind has shrouded in all the obscurity of mystery. 
The raven is a general inhabitant of the United States, but 
is more common in the interior. On the lakes, and particu- 
larly in the neighbourhood of the Falls of the Niagara river, 
they are numerous; and it is a remarkable fact, that where 
they so abound, the common crow (C. corone) seldom makes 
its appearance ; being intimidated, it is conjectured, by the 
superior size and strength of the former, or by an antipathy 
which the two species manifest towards each other. This I 
had an opportunity of observing myself, in a journey during 
the months of August and September along the Lakes Hrie 
and Ontario. The ravens were seen every day prowling 
* Macbeth, act i. scene 5. t Othello, act. iv. scene 1. 
