In Batman “upon Bartholome his book, ‘De proprietatibus Rerum,’ folio, 1582,” we find the following passage bearing upon the question:—“The raven is called Corvus of Corax. It is said that ravens birdes (i.e., young ravens) be fed with deaw of heaven all the time that they have no black feathers by benefite of age.” (Lib. xii. c. 10.)
Izaak Walton, in his “Compleat Angler,” speaking of fish without mouths, which “are nourished and take breath by the porousness of their gills, man knows not how,” observes that “this may be believed if we consider that when the raven hath hatched her eggs, she takes no further care, but leaves her young ones to the care of the God of nature, who is said in the Psalms (Psal. cxlvii. 9) ‘to feed the young ravens that call upon him.’ And they be kept alive, and fed by a dew or worms that breed in their nests; or some other ways that we mortals know not.”
Shakespeare, no doubt, had the words of the Psalmist in his mind when he wrote—
“And He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age!”
As You Like It, Act ii. Sc. 3.
RAVENS’ FEATHERS.
We read in the First Book of Kings, xvii. 4, that when the prophet Elijah fled from the tyranny of King Ahab, and concealed himself by the brook Cherith, God commanded the ravens to feed him there. The remembrance of this passage may have been in our poet’s mind when he penned the following lines in the Winter’s Tale. Antigonus, ordered by Leontes to expose the infant Perdita to death, says, with a touch of pity:—
“Come on, poor babe: