

BIRDS 159 



and others for 21 young Ravens, £0, 3s. 6d.' There is an 

 entry in 1755, 'For 10 young Ravens and 1 old Raven — 

 £0, 2s. 0d/ Again, in 1756, 'For 2 old Ravens, 8d., and for 

 14 young Ravens, 2s. 4d. — £0, 3s. 0s.' Thirty-two Ravens, 

 young and old, were paid for in Crosthwaite parish in 1791. 

 Ravens were nothing accounted of in Kendal parish so long as 

 Brocks and Foxes were plentiful. One entry stands alone in 1 7 6 6 : 

 'Paide to Isabel Hurdson for A Ravin head, £00s. 00s. 02d.' 

 But after 1704 many rewards were paid for Ravens in this 

 parish. 



A curious story about Ravens was once noted by the late 

 Dr. A. C. Gibson, regarding Kernal Crag, a huge mass of solid 

 rock, with a fall of broken precipice, on the side of Coniston 

 Old Man : ' On this crag, probably for ages, a pair of ravens 

 have annually had their nest, and though their young have 

 again and again been destroyed by the shepherds, they always 

 return to this favourite spot ; and frequently when one of the 

 parents has been shot in the brooding season, the survivor has 

 immediately been provided with another helpmate. ... It 

 happened, a year or two since, that both the parent birds were 

 shot whilst the nest was full of unfledged young, and their 

 duties were immediately undertaken by a couple of strange 

 ravens, who attended assiduously to the wants of the orphan 

 brood, until they were fit to forage for themselves.' x If the 

 facts are correctly related only two explanations seem possible. 

 Either the birds shot were two visitors, which the shepherds 

 shot in mistake for the breeding birds, and the latter escaped ; 

 or the second couple may have been a pair which, having just 

 lost their own young, felt moved by that natural affection which 

 the Greeks defined as aTop^rj, to relieve the hunger of the 

 brood left helpless by the loss of their natural protectors. 



The foregoing notes refer to the Lake mountains, i.e. to the 

 central and western portions of Lakeland, which have always 

 constituted the chief stronghold of the Ravens : Dr. Parker of 

 Gosforth wrote only a decade ago, * This fine bird is still com- 

 monly to be seen and heard upon the Fells/ adding, ' the nest 

 is placed on the ledges of rocky cliffs and precipices, generally 

 1 The Old Man, or Ravings and Ramblings round Coniston, p. 101. 



