NORTHERN RAVEN. 
I2I 
has been generally despised and feared by the superstitious 
even more than the nocturnal Owl, though he prowls abroad in 
open day. He may be considered as holding a relation to the 
birds of prey, feeding not only on carrion, but occasionally 
seizing on weakly lambs, young hares or rabbits, and seems 
indeed to give a preference to animal food ; but at the same 
time, he is able to live on all kinds of fruits and grain, as well 
as insects, earth-worms, even dead fish, and in addition to all, 
is particularly fond of eggs, so that no animal seems more truly 
omnivorous than the Raven. 
If we take into consideration his indiscriminating voracity, 
sombre livery, discordant, croaking cry, with his ignoble, wild, 
and funereal aspect, we need not be surprised that in times of 
ignorance and error he should have been so generally regarded 
as an object of disgust and fear. He stood pre-eminent in the 
list of sinister birds, or those whose only premonition was the 
announcing of misfortunes ; and, strange to tell, there are many 
people yet in Europe, even in this enlightened age, who trem- 
ble and become uneasy at the sound of his harmless croaking. 
According to Adair, the Southern aborigines also invoke the 
Raven for those who are sick, mimicking his voice ; and the 
natives of the Missouri, assuming black as their emblem of 
war, decorate themselves on those occasions with the plumes 
of this dark bird. But all the knowledge of the future, or in- 
terest in destiny, possessed by the Raven, like that of other 
inhabitants of the air, is bounded by an instinctive feeling of 
the changes which are about to happen in the atmosphere, and 
which he has the faculty of announcing by certain cries and 
actions produced by these external impressions. In the south- 
ern provinces of Sweden, as Linnaeus remarks, when the sky is 
serene the Raven flies very high and utters a hollow sound, 
like the word dong, which is heard to a great distance. Some- 
times he has been seen in the midst of a thunder-storm with 
the electric fire streaming from the extremity of his bill, — a 
natural though extraordinary phenomenon, sufficient to terrify 
the superstitious and to stamp the harmless subject of it with 
the imaginary traits and attributes of a demon. 
