Some people are accustomed to cut what is called the nerve of the tongue, supposing that it would make them better able to articulate sounds; but it seems most probable that this cruel practice is of little use, and, like many others, only a vulgar prejudice, for I have heard ravens speak perfectly well without having the tongue touched.
This bird was very much prized at a time when divination made a part of religion. Its most minute actions, all the motions of its flight, and the different sounds of its voice, were carefully studied; in the latter, people pretending to discover even sixty-four different modulations, besides many shades still more delicate and difficult to determine. This must certainly have required an excessively fine ear, as its croaking is particularly simple. Every alteration, let it be ever so slight, had its particular signification. Impostors were not wanting, who pretended to understand, or dupes who easily believed, these idle fancies. Some have carried their folly to such a pitch as to persuade themselves that by eating the heart and entrails of the raven they would acquire its gift of prophecy.
Habitation.—This species only inhabits the wooded parts of a country; it there builds its nest on the highest trees. Its eggs, from three to five in number, are of a dirty green, streaked with olive brown. If the young ones be taken in order to instruct them, they must be removed on the twelfth day after bursting the shell, when they have only half their feathers. They are fed on meat, snails, worms, and bread soaked in milk; after a little time they will eat bread, meat, and any refuse from the table. In its wild state the raven eats leverets, birds’ eggs, mice, young goslings, chickens, and snails, and even pears, cherries, and other fruit; this shows us that it is rather hurtful as well as useful.
THE CARRION CROW.
Corvus corone, Linnæus; La Corneille, Buffon; Die Schwarze Krähe, Bechstein.
It only differs from the preceding in its size, and in the tail being rounded instead of wedge-shaped. Its whole length is eighteen inches. Its plumage is black, with some tints of violet on the upper part of the body.
Peculiar Qualities.—The carrion crow is one of the commonest birds; in the groves, which it likes best, it congregates in such numbers that twenty nests have been built on the same tree[18]; the eggs are spotted with grey or olive brown on a green ground. The young may be taken from the nest in the month of March, or even earlier if the winter be mild they are treated and fed like the former species. The carrion crow is even more easily tamed, for I have seen old ones, which have been taught to go and come, and others in their wild state, which have regularly fed in the yard going in the spring to breed in the woods, and returning at the beginning of the winter to pass that season in a domestic state. Insects, worms, mice, fruit, and grain form its principal food in its wild state.
Mode of Taking.—The easiest and most usual method is with paper cones, at the bottom of which is put a bit of meat, and bird-lime on the inner edges. It may also be caught with lime twigs placed in the yard, or before the house, on horse dung and among scattered grain.