268 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE.

offices, roosting in a tree in the shrubbery. Here, however,
they were soon discovered by their unnatural parents, who
for a long time used to come at early dawn and pounce
upon them with fierce cries.” In this case it was the step-
mother and not the mother that treated the young ravens so
unkindly, and the father may be charitably credited with
acting under the influence of his second wife. That the
Raven drives its young out of its nest as soon as they are
able to provide for themselves is true, but why they should
pursue them after they have become independent is not clear.
This habit of the ravens, as Mr. Morris points out, may be
referred to in the following quotations: “He giveth to the
beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry” (Psalm
CXLVI. 9). “Who provideth for the raven his food? when
his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat”
Gob XxXVIII. 41).
The Tame The Raven may be easily tamed, and in pri-
Raven. vate life is always an amusement, if sometimes
an annoyance. Like all birds which are capable of imitating
sounds and which learn words and phrases it will often
“speak its lines,” with startling appropriateness as to time
and place. Captain Brown tells a good story of a Raven
which belonged to a gentleman who resided on the borders
of the New Forest in Hampshire. On one occasion a
traveller who was passing through the forest was startled
by the frequent repetition of the words: “Fair play, gentle-
men! fair play! for God’s sake, gentlemen, fair play!” and
upon tracing the source of the sound discovered the tame
raven defending himself from the attacks of two of his own
species. It is needless to say that the traveller rescued the
“centleman” from the two “ruffians” who molested him.
Captain Brown also tells of a tame raven who was an
expert rat-catcher and whose method was to place a meat
bone in front of a rat hole and to stand on a ledge above
the hole, pouncing on the rat as soon as he emerged from