THE RAVEN.
(Corvus córax.)
The Raven is fully one third larger than the crow. Its plumage is black, with a blue or green lustre. Tail wedge-shaped; beak large and slightly curved; the breast feathers pointed. It builds its nest in woods, on the tops of high trees; selecting most cunningly such trees as cannot be climbed. The clutch consists of four to six light green eggs with dark speckles.
It flies well, and can hover in circles, and is a cunning, shy bird, always ready for plunder—but a splendid creature. It is really sad that it should allow itself to be led away to the paths of dishonesty by the sight of shining objects. It attacks everything from earth-worms to hares, plunders and steals nests, takes eggs and fledgelings, and also feeds on carrion. According to popular superstition, it first pecks out the eyes of its prey. The proverb says:—One crow does not peck out the eyes of another.
Another proverb allegorically expresses the fact that the young brood are black:—It may be freely translated as follows:—
“That ravens bear not doves ’tis known,
And grapes on thorn-trees ne’er have grown.”
The Raven lives to a great age; it becomes tame in confinement, and can be easily taught. It even learns to speak, and can pronounce words clearly. It is the jester among the animals in the farm-yard. It sometimes happens that the black colouring matter is wanting in the plumage of the raven, and the bird is then white. This, however, occurs very rarely—so that when people wish to explain that a certain thing is quite exceptional, they speak of it as a white raven.
The coat-of-arms of the renowned Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus, bears a raven with a golden ring in its beak. There were more Ravens in those old troublous days, of long, wild trains of warriors and robbers, when slaughtered men and fallen cattle remained unburied by the wayside, and when the gallows stood in the open field, as a sign and a warning to men,—than there are now, in our days of milder methods.
The Raven is not altogether common with us.
Don Quixote says that King Arthur did not die but was changed by witchcraft into a raven, and that some day he will put on his own shape again and claim his old rights. And so no Englishman—he says—has ever been known to kill a raven, for fear he should kill King Arthur. The Raven, it seems, has continued to build every year since 1856 either at Badbury Rings—Mount Badon, where King Arthur defeated the West Saxons, or else, so the late Mr. Bosworth Smith told us, “in the adjoining park of Kingston Lacy, where they are safe under the protection of Mr. Ralph Bankes.”
The necromancers of old are said to detect sixty-five intonations of the Raven’s voice; he certainly croaks and barks and chuckles, but it has some pleasanter, more musical notes early in the year in the courting season, and the great solemn looking bird becomes quite playful and even graceful in his movements when his mate and he are about to make their nest. He performs evolutions in the air and turns somersaults most gleefully. The pair play together and tumble down as if shot, and turn over on their backs. Then whilst his mate is sitting he keeps careful watch over her and utters savage croaks if any footstep approaches. He will fight any large bird of prey that dares to approach his nesting place. A faithful creature, he pairs for life and, says one of his lovers “you will hear him utter a low gurgling note of conjugal endearment which will sometimes lure his mate from her charge; and then after a little coze and talk together, you will see him, unlike many husbands, relieve her for the time of her responsibilities, and take his own turn on the nest.”