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GENUS 13. CORVUS. CROW.

SPECIES 1. C. CORAX.

RAVEN.

[Plate LXXV.-Fig. 3.]

GMEL. Syst. 1, p. 364.—Ind. Orn. p. 150.-Le Corbeau, BRISS. 2,

p.

8, et var.-BUFF. Ois. 3, p. 13. Pl. enl. 495.-TEMM. Man. d' Orn. p. 107.—Raven, LATH. Gen. Syn. 1, p. 367. Id. sup. p. 74. PENN. Brit. Zool. No. 74. Arct. Zool. No. 134.-SHAW, Gen. Zool. 7, p. 341.-BEWICK, I, p. 100.--Low, Fauna Orcadensis, p. 45.--PEALE'S Museum, No. 175.

A KNOWLEDGE of this celebrated bird has been handed down to us from the earliest ages; and its history is almost coeval with that of man. In the best and most ancient of all books, we learn, that at the end of forty days, after the great flood had covered the earth, Noah, wishing to ascertain whether or not the waters had abated, sent forth a raven, which did not return into the ark.* This is the first notice that is taken of this species. Though the Raven was declared unclean by the law of Moses, yet we are informed, that when the prophet Elijah provoked the enmity of Ahab, by prophesying against him, and hid himself by the brook Cherith, the Ravens were appointed by Heaven to bring him his daily food. The colour of the Raven gave rise to a similitude in one of the most beautiful of eclogues, which has been perpetuated in all subsequent ages, and which is not less pleasing for being trite or proverbial. The favourite of the royal lover of Jerusalem, in the enthusiasm of affection, thus describes the object of her adoration, in reply to the following question:

Genesis, viii, 7.

1 Kings, xvii, 5, 6.

"What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women?" "6. "My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a Raven."*

The above mentioned circumstances taken into consideration, one should suppose that the lot of the subject of this chapter would have been of a different complexion from what history and tradition inform us is the fact. But in every country, we are told, the Raven is considered an ominous bird, whose croakings foretel approaching evil; and many a crooked beldam has given interpretation to these oracles, of a nature to infuse terror into a whole community. Hence this ill-fated bird, immemorially, has been the innocent subject of vulgar obloquy and detestation.

Augury, or the art of foretelling future events by the flight, cries, or motions of birds, descended from the Chaldeans to the Greeks, thence to the Etrurians, and from them it was transmitted to the Romans. The crafty legislators of these celebrated nations, from a deep knowledge of human nature, made superstition a principal feature of their religious ceremonies; well knowing that it required a more than ordinary policy to govern a multitude, ever liable to the fatal influences of passion; and

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†That the science of augury is very ancient, we learn from the Hebrew lawgiver, who prohibits it, as well as every other kind of divination. Deut. chap. xviii. The Romans derived their knowledge of augury chiefly from the Tuscans or Etrurians, who practised it in the earliest times. This art was known in Italy before the time of Romulus, since that prince did not commence the building of Rome till he had taken the auguries. The successors of Romulus, from a conviction of the usefulness of the science, and at the same time not to render it contemptible, by becoming too familiar, employed the most skilful augurs from Etruria, to introduce the practice of it into their religious ceremonies. And by a decree of the senate, some of the youth of the best families in Rome were annually sent into Tuscany, to be instructed in this art. Vide Ciceron. de Divin. Also Calmet, and the abbé Banier.

who, without some timely restraints, would burst forth like a torrent, whose course is marked by wide-spreading desolation. Hence, to the purposes of polity the Raven was made subservient; and the Romans having consecrated it to Apollo, as to the god of divination, its flight was observed with the greatest solemnity; and its tones and inflections of voice were noted with a precision, which intimated a belief in its infallible prescience.

But the ancients have not been the only people infected with this species of superstition; the moderns, even though favoured with the light of Christianity, have exhibited as much folly, through the impious curiosity of prying into futurity, as the Romans themselves. It is true that modern nations have not instituted their sacred colleges or sacerdotal orders, for the purposes of divination; but in all countries there have been selfconstituted augurs, whose interpretations of omens have been received with religious respect by the credulous multitude. Even at this moment, in some parts of the world, if a Raven alight on a village church, the whole fraternity is in an uproar; and Heaven is importuned, in all the ardour of devotion, to avert the impending calamity.

The poets have taken advantage of this weakness of human nature, and in their hands the Raven is a fit instrument of terror. Shakspeare puts the following malediction into the mouth of his Caliban:

"As wicked dew, as ere my mother brush'd,
With Raven's feather, from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both!"*

The ferocious wife of Macbeth, on being advised of the approach of Duncan, whose death she had conspired, thus exclaims:

"The Raven himself is hoarse,

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements!"

Tempest, act i, scene 2.

† Act i, scene 5.

The Moor of Venice says:

"It comes o'er my memory,

As doth the Raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all."

The last quotation alludes to the supposed habit of this bird's flying over those houses which contain the sick, whose dissolution is at hand, and thereby announced. Thus Marlowe, in the Jew of Malta, as cited by Malone:

"The sad presaging Raven tolls

The sick man's passport in her hollow beak,

And in the shadow of the silent night

Doth shake contagion from her sable wing."

But it is the province of philosophy to dispel those illusions which bewilder the mind, by pointing out the simple truths which Nature has been at no pains to conceal, but which the folly of mankind has shrouded in all the obscurity of mystery.

The Raven is a general inhabitant of the United States, but is more common in the interior. On the lakes, and particularly in the neighbourhood of the Falls of the river Niagara, they are numerous; and it is a remarkable fact, that where they so abound, the Common Crow, C. corone, seldom makes its appearance; being intimidated, it is conjectured, by the superior size and strength of the former, or by an antipathy which the two species manifest towards each other. This I had an opportunity of observing myself, in a journey during the months of August and September, along the lakes Erie and Ontario. The Ravens were seen every day, prowling about in search of the dead fish, which the waves are continually casting ashore, and which afford them an abundance of a favourite food; but I did not see or hear a single Crow within several miles of the lakes; and but very few through the whole of the Gennesee country. The food of this species is dead animal matter of all kinds,

* Othello, act iv, scene 1.

not excepting the most putrid carrion, which it devours in common with the Vultures; worms, grubs, reptiles and shell-fish, the last of which, in the manner of the Crow, it drops from a considerable height in the air, on the rocks, in order to break the shells; it is fond of birds' eggs, and is often observed sneaking around the farm-house, in search of the eggs of the domestic poultry, which it sucks with eagerness; it is likewise charged with destroying young ducks and chickens, and lambs which have been yeaned in a sickly state. The Raven, it is said, follows the hunters of deer, for the purpose of falling heir to the offal;* and the huntsmen are obliged to cover their game, when it is left in the woods, with their hunting frocks, to protect it from this thievish connoisseur, who, if he have an opportunity, will attack the region of the kidneys, and mangle the saddle without ceremony.

Buffon says that "the Raven plucks out the eyes of Buffaloes, and then, fixing on the back, it tears off the flesh deliberately; and what renders the ferocity more detestable, it is not incited by the cravings of hunger, but by the appetite for carnage; for it can subsist on fruits, seed of all kinds, and indeed may be considered as an omnivorous animal." This is mere fable, and of a piece with many other absurdities of the same agreeable, but fanciful author.

This species is found almost all over the habitable globe. We trace it in the north from Norway to Greenland, and hear of it in Kamtschatka. It is common every where in Russia and Siberia, except within the Arctic circle;t and all through EuKolben enumerates the Raven among the birds of the Cape of Good Hope; De Grandpré represents it as numerous in Bengal, where they are said to be protected for their usefulness;§ and the unfortunate La Pérouse saw them at Baie de

rope.

'This is the case in those parts of the United States where the deer are hunted without dogs: where these are employed, they are generally rewarded with the offal.

† Latham.

Medley's Kolben, vol. ii, p. 136.

Voy. in the Indian Ocean, p. 148.

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