In nearly all parts of Great Britain these birds are found, they were formerly more abundant than they are at present, gamekeepers and others having long waged war against them, on account of their real or supposed propensity to destroy the young hares, partridges, pheasants, etc.
In the northern and western parts of Scotland, and in some of the Scottish Isles they are numerous. They make large nests composed of sticks, cemented together with mud, and lined with roots, wool, fur, and such other soft materials as come most readily to hand, or we should rather say, to beak and claw; they are said sometimes to rob the sheep's backs. Their building-places are cliffs and precipices, church towers, caves and rocky fissures, and the clefts between the forked branches of tall trees. The eggs are from four to six in number, of a pale olive green, more or less blotched and spotted with greenish brown and grey. They are early builders, sometimes commencing in January; the eggs, says Mr. Morris, have been taken in the middle of February. Incubation lasts twenty days; both male and female sit on the eggs, in defence of which and their young, they will fight desperately, driving off the hawks, and even eagles and vultures.
The Raven is known to live to a great age, often when in a domesticated state, seeing out two or three generations of a family; it is one of those birds which possess the power of imitating the human voice, and many anecdotes are told of its proficiency in this respect. It is a very sagacious bird, indeed so cunning that it has been thought by ignorant persons, to know more than it ought, and to be in league with witches and other "uncanny" people. Constantly do we find its cry alluded to by both ancient and modern poets, as ominous of death.
"The Raven is a dreaded bird,
The stoutest quail when his voice is heard,
For when, 'tis said, his dismal cry
Rends thrice the tranquil azure sky,
'Tis the token,
Surely spoken,
That ravenous death is hovering nigh."