RAVENS. 
183 
is eternal warfare ; and no wonder, for they will venture to 
attack the very nests, and carry off the unfledged Rooks as food 
for their own young : and those who are partial to rookeries 
have found it necessary to shoot the Ravens and destroy 
their nests, as the only effectual means of keeping peace 
amongst the Rooks. Rut notwithstanding the Raven’s 
superior courage, he does not always succeed; for not only 
Rooks, hut Carrion Crows will sometimes put them to flight. 
A person once heard an uncommon chattering and clamour 
proceeding from a tree, and going near to learn the cause, 
observed no less than three Ravens successively issue from 
the tree, followed by a single crow, which pursued and drove 
them fairly off. 
Generally speaking, they are solitary birds, the same pair 
only remaining together ; but occasionally this is not the 
case, particularly in the northern parts of Europe, where 
they are more abundant, and are often seen in greater num- 
bers. Thus, in the month of June, 1832, a party leaving 
the Bay of Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands, north of Scot- 
land, counted twenty-four of these birds passing over their 
heads flying towards the north ; they were very near to each 
other, and followed in the same way as Rooks usually do in 
returning to their rookery; and about a week afterwards 
twenty-six were observed by the same party flying to the 
southward. There is reason, however, to believe, that these 
assemblages of Ravens ought not to be admitted as proofs of 
their being, under any circumstances or seasons of the year, 
really gregarious ; that is, naturally disposed to associate in 
flocks, but is rather to be attributed to the attraction of dis- 
tant food, which, if beyond the reach of vision, they can 
by some unknown faculty discover at great distances. It 
can scarcely be by scent, for in those northern regions, when 
all is calm and quiet, and the severity of frost rapidly de- 
stroys all the effluvia of dead matter, still troops of Ravens, 
within an incredibly short time after the slaughter of an 
animal, will be seen advancing from all points to this common 
centre of attraction, like the Yultures of which we have before 
spoken, though at the time not a single bird was to be seen 
