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him. He heard no sound save the moan of the night wind in the larches, and, edging cautiously away, I left him preening his glossy plumes as though nothing had happened. Within a week his mate arrived, and they have haunted the place ever since, nesting each spring in some adjacent woods, where the sound of their voices has become a prominent feature of the country-side.

It might be worth while to remark that the woodpigeons whose favourite roosting-place was invaded upon that first night have now forsaken the neighbourhood entirely. Indeed, I will go so far as to assert that, to the best of my belief, since the coming of the ravens not a pigeon has nested or even roosted within a quarter of a mile of the spot. This may be mere coincidence, none the less, ravens must be anything save desirable neighbours from a feathered householder's point of view. It is not so much their amiable habit of carrying away the contents of any one else's nest to feed their own young that other birds have cause to dread, though the latter is a weighty consideration no doubt. It is rather their insane jealousy of anything else upon wings that makes their presence so particularly unpleasant for all concerned. In the case of the Skaigh eyrie, which I have under constant observation, scarcely a day passes during the nesting season without some one getting into trouble. That a pair of ravens will put an eagle to flight is well known, and, as far as these particular birds are concerned, all comers fare alike. Affairs with crows or magpies are of almost hourly occurrence, but I have never yet been able to witness a passage of arms between them and a heron, for a simple reason that herons, though common in the neighbourhood, studiously avoid that valley. Perhaps they are wise. The most comical episode I have seen as yet was the chase of a kestrel, which by its exceeding nimbleness and aptitude at dodging made light of pursuers and pursuit.

Far more interesting, however, was a difference of opinion between the owners of the eyrie and two buzzards, which I had the good fortune to witness when crossing the hill one quiet April afternoon. Where the raven occurs nowadays the buzzard may also be found as a rule, the conditions which have tended to

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preserve the one species proving equally beneficial to the other. It is not unusual to see four or five of the big hawks circling over some high tor. I was not surprised, therefore, upon this occasion to observe a pair passing overhead. They were bound for some woods a couple of miles away where they usually breed, and nothing would have happened, had they not-unfortunately for themselves-diverged somewhat from their ordinary course, and sailed straight over the raventree.

I anticipated some entertainment then, and was not disappointed. There was an angry ka-ka-ka-ka from somewhere near the nest, and a second later both blackamoors burst up to do battle. The buzzards at first did not appear to take their antagonists very seriously. Accustomed doubtless to attacks from crows, they began to mount in a slow incline, mewing a little but otherwise undisturbed, having perfect confidence in their own ability to maintain a higher level. Such tactics might have answered well enough against crows, but to evade Corvus Corax and his mate more definite action was necessary. The buzzard, 'noblest of aeronauts' as he has justly been described, has at least one formidable rival in the matter of rapid ascent, and with that rival the birds in question had now to deal. Within a few moments the ravens were level with them, and then began as wonderful a soaring competition as the most ardent bird-lover could desire to see. Round and round in a superb spiral swept the buzzards, much perturbed now, but graceful and still-winged as ever, while in close attendance, less elegant yet displaying marvellous powers of evolution, there wheeled and hurtled the two grim ravens, certainly not losing in the race, and directing their joint attack against either of the hawks as opportunity served. Their tactics were the same that crows and ravens always adopt in such cases. While one engaged the buzzard's attention, the other would endeavour to mount above it with obvious but futile intent, for invariably a quick swerve followed by a single flap of the buoyant wings would lift the big hawk well out of harm's way. And so they rose, up and away into the blue, until the unaided eye could no longer follow their gyrations. How the affair ended I

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ficial cannot say, but, when I returned by the same path an e of hour later, the ravens were again on duty.

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But, formidable as he is, the lordly Corax does not es always have things his own way. Two or more carrion crows will not infrequently unite to put him to flight, while rooks and doubtless gulls at times find it necessary to take combined action against the tyrant. Again, upon the sea-shore he has at least one enemy for whom he entertains a very wholesome respect, that being none other than the somewhat uninteresting and particularly wharmless-looking oyster-catcher. Between these two birds there appears to exist a confirmed hostility-there is probably cause for it upon the oyster-catcher's sideand, by a curious inconsistency common among birds and beasts, even as a fox retires from the comparatively insignificant ferret, or the most courageous hawk from the seemingly inoffensive missel-thrush, so the indomitable raven goes quietly about his business elsewhere when an oyster-catcher appears on the scene.

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There are times, too, when a rival claimant for the lordship of an ocean cliff arrives in the shape of the fierce and arrogant peregrine, who has no fear of pickaxe beaks and will not tolerate impudence from any one. Unlike the easy-going buzzard, the falcon is ready enough to join issue with the black bully, and in such a case the chances of battle are all against the raven, particularly if he presumes to act single-handed. A description of such an encounter, which was sent to me not long ago, reads as follows:

'I had seen no ravens since I went up Pen-y-fan to the Brecon Beacons in 1912, where there was a colony of seven, and very fine birds they were. They looked larger than those which I saw two or three times a week at Beer. They were generally with the jackdaws on the edge of the cliff, close to the Coastguard Station, and above the rock called Hookem Down, where they nested on an outstanding crag. One day I heard the well-known croak behind me, and there was one of my friends in full combat with a peregrine just above the cliff. The falcon had him down in about two seconds, and, mounting some forty feet, hovered over him for a few minutes, daring him to come up again, after which he sailed leisurely away.'

The raven, as stated in another part of the letter, was found to be dead.

Vol. 248.-No. 492.

The stock story of Gilbert White's raven who re-da mained upon her nest while the tree was actually felled, and perished in the final crash, must strike any one who knows the bird as strangely unraven-like. One cannot but think that some little elucidating circumstances has inadvertently been omitted. It is often so with tales of the kind, particularly when the narrator was not him. self a witness of the incident. However that may be, the brooding raven of to-day behaves in a very different manner. At all times wary and grimly observant, nothing can exceed her vigilance when upon the nest even as elsewhere, and, far from sitting tight until the tree is chopped down, she is off and away before an intruder is as much as in sight. No matter how guardedly one approaches the eyrie, whether creeping like an Indian through bushes or under cover of darkness, it is nearly impossible to surprise either the brooding bird or her equally watchful mate. It is always the same story. Up to a certain point one appears to be getting on very well. Half an hour of laborious creeping and stalking brings one within perhaps fifty yards of the nest. Its dark bulk is visible through the tree-tops. All seems quiet. There is no apparent reason for supposing that one's approach has been detected, until suddenly, high overhead, there sounds the challenging voice, and one realises that both birds are there, sweeping round and round on tireless wings, having dropped, as it seems, from the clouds rather than risen from the tree-tops. They have sensed-for they could not have seen-the danger while it was still far away, and, sliding silently off, the one from her nest, the other from his perch near by, have circled the hill, and, at a safe height, swept back to denounce the intruder.

So much for the ravens of cold reality, wild, wary, and self-preserving. Very little of the romantic Gilbert White spirit about them, one thinks. But wait! One advances slowly, and openly now, in the direction of the nest, and instantly there comes a startling change, a glimpse of another and very different side of the raven's character. The agitation of the big birds increases. The warning or protesting croak becomes an angry barking cry, with a note of menace in it as well as distress, and lower and lower they come, swooping in

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wh rapid and ever-narrowing circles over the tree-tops. lly They no longer display the slightest fear for themselves. One Their one anxiety is for the safety of that nest, or, me rather, its precious contents, and one wonders what ance would happen were one disposed to undertake the tal hazardous climb, and actually inspect or handle the not three mottled sea-green eggs. Probably nothing, for they are but birds after all, and rarely, outside storydiffe books, can a bird bring itself to attack a human being. But another thought a somewhat disturbing one-crosses the the observer's mind. What if the keeper stood in one's place, his sole interest the destruction of these courageous, for but admittedly mischievous birds, or the yokel, positively unable to resist the temptation to discharge his gun at so easy a target? Little wonder that the raven, shy, shrewd, and gun-wise as he is, has become nearly extinct in Old England.

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The home of a pair of ravens can scarcely hope to remain undiscovered, thanks mainly to the publicity given to it by the owners themselves. In this respect they display an unaccountable lack of discrimination, and, not content with protesting when the nest is actually in danger, must needs thrust themselves into notice by challenging any one who passes within a quarter of a mile of the place. It is fortunate that another and more protective instinct induces them almost invariably to choose an inaccessible building site. Upon an ocean cliff, or among the high mountains the nest is usually placed on some projecting shelf or buttress, which entirely screens the structure from below, and cannot be reached without the aid of ropes and proper appliances. The rocky cliffs, however, represent the final refuge rather than the chosen home of these birds. For choice they are branch-builders, and when, as occasionally happens, a stunted yew or fir secures a foothold in some crevice on the sheer face of the cliff, the raven, like the eagle, is tolerably safe to make his nest among the windbitten boughs. In the case of inland eyries, my own observation has led me to suspect that the raven-tree,' about which old writers had so much to say, is something of a poetical myth. As far as I have been able to observe, a nest is used but once as a rule, though another may be built in the same tree the following year, or for two or

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