Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/244

216 ture of his beak and talons indicate his carnivorous nature; and we find in the days of falconry he was trained to that sport: but he does not seem to have recourse to rapine and murder unless irritated, or hard pressed by hunger, for he prefers carrion just entering on a putrid state to a victim recently slain. He is known throughout the old continent, from the Arctic seas to the Cape of Good Hope; and in America, from Hudson's Bay to Mexico. He is seen in the remotest isles of the polar seas, and within the torrid zone; and is the only fowl whose character remains unchanged by the extremes of heat and cold. He constantly traverses the mountain regions; and, breathing a pure atmosphere, he lives to a great age, and is able to make the most laborious flights from one country to another.

The corbie is well known to the shepherd on all the hilly tracts of Scotland. His common cry is croak, but when in a state of excitement he utters another sound, which, if I could manage to express by letters, I should spell thus—whii-ur: this is repeated with great rapidity, a strong accent being laid on the two iis, and the ur or last syllable seeming to proceed from a collapsing of the throat after its distension in pronouncing the first. With this cry he very commonly intermixes another, something like clung, uttered very much as by a human voice, only a little wilder in the sound. The ravens are excited to these cries when the shepherd or his dog seems likely to discover a carcass on which they have been rioting and feasting.

In ravens, the senses of sight and smell are remarkably acute and powerful. Perched usually on some tall cliff that commands a wide survey, these faculties are in constant and rapid exercise, and all the movements of the bird are regulated in accordance with the information thus procured. The smell of death is so grateful to them, that they utter a loud croak of satisfaction instantly on perceiving it. In