8 
in the autumn, and built their nests there 
the succeeding year. 
It is no very difficult task to account for 
this apparent antipathy. For the Raven 
as is well known, will scarcely suffer any 
bird whatever, to come within a quarter of 
a rpile of its nest, being very fierce and 
determined in defending it. Besides 
which, it will seize the young Rooks from 
their nests, to feed its own offspring, of 
which fact, E. Lambert, Esq. in a letter 
to the Linnseau society, says " he was an 
eye-witness to, at Mr. Seymers ; and that 
there was no peace in the rookery night 
nor day, till one of the old Ravens was 
killed and the nest destroyed. What this 
gentleman says in the same letter, may 
perhaps be adduced in proof of the longe- 
vity of the Raven. " A Raven has built 
in a large beech tree of mine, time out of 
mind, I can trace it back above an hun- 
dred years." Though it may here be 
proper to remark, that a simple succession 
of nests in the same spot, is by no means 
to be implicitly relied on, as an argument 
of the age of Birds, because it can never 
