116 



RAVEN. 



The Moor of Venice says : 



It comes o^er my memory, 

 As doth the Raven o'cv 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 those illusions 

 which bewilder the mind, by pointing out the simple truths which 

 Nature has been at no pains to conceal, 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 particularly in 

 the neighborhood of the Falls of the Niagara river, they are nume- 

 rous ; 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 to- 

 wards each other. This I had an opportunity of observing myself, 

 in a journey during the months of August and September, along 

 the lakes Erie and Ontario. The Ravens were seen every day, 

 prowling about in search of the dead fish which the waves are 



* Othello, act iv, scene 1. 



