By the Rev. A. C. Smith. 



97 



years since it used to build annually at Erlestoke and Roundway 

 Parks, indeed a pair very lately returned to their old haunt at the 

 latter place, but were scared away : Mr. B. Hay ward tells me that 

 for twenty years they built in a clump on the hill above Lavington; 

 but are never seen there now : we may still however meet with 

 them on the downs, where they love to pass the day in solitary 

 grandeur, far removed from the interference of man ; and there are 

 some favoured breeding places yet in the County, to which they 

 still annually return, and where they rear their young in safety, 

 as in an elm at Draycot Park, in a Scotch fir at Spye Park, and a 

 few other chosen spots where they are guarded from molestation : 

 and indeed a Raven tree is no mean ornament to a park, and speaks 

 of a wide domain and large timber, and an ancient family, for the 

 Raven is an aristocratic bird, and cannot brook a confined property 

 or trees of young growth : would that its predilections were more 

 humoured and a secure retreat allowed it by the larger proprietors 

 in our County. The time has I trust gone by in England when 

 the poor Raven was regarded as a bird of ill omen, and its croak 

 dreaded as a sure sign portending some coming evil, and yet not 

 long ago, such was the absurd superstition regarding this much 

 maligned species, as we may see from various passages of Shakspeare 

 as well as other authors of that and even a later date : in old time 

 and in heathen countries we all know how anxiously its every note 

 was listened to and its every action studied by the soothsayer ; for 

 as Yirgil sang, 



" Saepe sinistra cava, praedixit ab ilice cornix." 

 And it was consecrated to Apollo as a foreteller of things to come ; 

 but it may not be so generally known that at this day not only do 

 the North American Indians honour it as unearthly, and invest it 

 with extraordinary knowledge and power, and place its skin on the 

 heads of their officiating priests as a distinguishing mark of their 

 office, but even in Christian Scandinavia and especially in Iceland, 

 all which countries are some centuries behind the rest of Europe 

 in civilization, it is regarded with like fear, so much so as to have 

 gained for itself the sobriquet of the " bird of Odin," whose satel- 

 lite it is supposed to be. I forbear to touch on the Raven in con- 



VOL. VII. — NO. XIX. H 



