268 
THE RAVEN. 
and as they approaclied the eastern hill, which forms 
one side of this valley, I could hear their hoarse 
and hollow croaking long before I could see the 
birds themselves. 
How different are the habits of the rooks, with 
regard to their place of incubation ! You may 
plunder their nest annually, and annually they will 
return to it, and perform their incubation in it. So 
will the starling and the jackdaw. But the carrion ; 
crow abandons her nest for ever, after the breeding | 
season ; no matter whether it has been plundered ; 
or not. It may here be remarked, that the rook, the 
starling, and the jackdaw, are always gregarious ; : 
the raven and the carrion crow solitary birds most i 
parts of the year. i 
Some few years after the ravens had been plun- 
dered by the cobbler, either the same couple, or a 
stranger pair, built their nest in an oak of moderate ! 
size, within a few yards of an ornamented sheet of ' 
water, and about two miles distant from the wood 
to which they had resorted in better times. The 
gentleman's gamekeeper, like all others of that san- 
guinary set, was on the look-out ; and on seeing the 
nest, he fancied that he had discovered a den of 
thieves, who had settled there to pilfer poultry, and j 
to worry his master's hares and pheasants by the 
dozen. The poor female was shot down dead to the 
ground ; but, fortunately, the male escaped assas- 
sination. He tarried for a day or two in the envi- 
rons, and then deserted us for ever. From the day 
of his disappearance, I have never seen or heard a 
wild raven in this part of the country ; and times i 
