150 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
sational cackle, which at any time presents a great 
contrast to the Rook's grave and responsible 
caw. 
RAVEN. 
{Corvus corax.) 
Corbie, Corbie Crow, names also applied to the 
next bird. — Though it has many human enemies, 
and has been driven in the last half century out 
of many of its ancient haunts, the Raven is 
happily in no immediate danger of extermination 
in Great Britain. Woods as well as crags and 
mountains were formerly its natural strongholds, 
but at the present day it has probably been driven 
from all its inland haunts of thirty or forty years 
ago in the woods of Essex, the conspicuous tree- 
clumps on the downs of Wiltshire and Sussex, and 
such similar localities in the more lowland parts of 
the country. But it still maintains itself along 
the loftiest sea-cliffs of the South and West, from 
Kent to Cornwall, as well as in Wales, Ireland, and 
Scotland, while as an inland bird it may be seen 
almost at any time with a little luck and patience 
on the Pennine heights and the mountains of Wales 
and the Lake District. As everyone knows who 
has kept it as a pet, it is a bird of wonderful 
cleverness, and it has a stark piratical soul which, 
