THE HAVEN. 
Brown, black, or roan horses might halt outside and welcome, 
but so sure as one of the detested colour drew up and appeared 
at the water-trough, Peg was on the alert. She would perch 
on the edge of the trough and abuse the poor animal in the 
very choicest Billingsgate, or utter “ gee, whoa ! ” in exact imi- 
tation of a carter, and start it off. I should have thought all 
this was done for pure fun and love of mischief, but for an 
incident related to me by the landlord, and which at once 
proved that the bird was actuated by sheer malice. It hap- 
pened one day that Peg was particularly curious respecting a 
tobacco-box belonging to a sailor who was drinking ale in the 
parlour. Presently the sailor took a “ quid ” from the box and 
put it in his mouth. Peg watched the operation with great 
attention, and observing that the sailor relished the disgusting 
mouthful, as soon as his back was turned she darted at the 
box and swallowed its contents at a gulp. The consequence 
was that for the remainder of that day and the next she was 
very ill indeed. A few days after an unlucky white horse, 
attached to a hay cart, arrived at the house in question, and 
was drawn up to the trough to drink, and the raven instantly 
began her persecution. The white horse, however, had met Peg 
several times before, and had learnt to treat her impudence 
with indifference. Finding abuse and assault of no avail, Peg 
turned into the house, and finding some men smoking in the 
tap-room, she caught up a paper of tobacco from the table, flew 
to the edge of the trough with it, and deliberately dropped it 
into the horse’s nose-bag. 
It was great fun to see the way in which the raven in ques- 
tion would treat any strange dog that happened to be loitering 
near her master’s premises. She would skip close up to him, 
and for a few moments appear to take not the least notice, 
then, when close to his ear would suddenly shout, in her loud 
harsh voice, “Halloa! whose dog are you?” and before the 
bewildered cur could recover from its surprise, follow up the 
inquiry with a great demonstration of rage and loud shouts of 
“ hi ! ho ! go home ! ” and never failed of sending the poor 
beast flying up the street at a frantic rate. 
Again, ravens have been known to exhibit great affection 
towards dogs ; to share their kennels ; and bring them all the 
bones and scraps they could procure. In justice to the raven, 
I cannot do less than record an instance of sympathy and soli- 
citude manifested by this much maligned bird to a dog, and 
which has been kindly supplied by a correspondent. 
