Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/255

Rh depth of about a quarter of an inch, by which he supposed it collected small marine insects and worms, while it continued to work the bill all the time, precisely in the manner of a duck.

"At a late period he saw a flock of five avocets at Pagham harbour, about six miles from Chichester. They were particularly tame; on discharging his gun two were killed and one wounded: the survivors however did not attempt to fly away, until he had advanced to pick up the dead birds. He had previously for some time observed their mode of feeding, and noticed the same ploughing of the sand, as in the spoonbill, but with this difference, that the avocet ploughed with the convexity of the bill.

"Two of these avocets are now in the Chichester Museum; the third (the wounded one) was purchased by Mr. Tuffnell of Mundham, who placed it in his garden, where it lived for a short time, and was at last killed by a cat. Here the same action was observed of ploughing or mowing from right to left along the surface of the grass, or rather brushing it from side to side."

The wood-cut at page 225, will give a tolerably correct idea of the attitude of the bird when in the act of procuring its food.

Raven.—The raven, although still to be found breeding in some parts of the county favorable to its nidification, is much less numerous as a species, and more partially distributed here than in former years. This in some measure is to be attributed to the gradual disappearance from our woods and parks of most of the tall old trees in which they loved to build, and partly to the absence of that superstitious veneration with which this bird is still regarded in the North of England.

A pair of ravens used to build until very lately in the ruins of Bramber Castle, near Steyning; but continued persecution has, I understand, effectually banished them from that neighbourhood.

As these birds breed very early in the spring, the young are generally fledged about the latter end of March or the beginning of April. After that time they are not to be found in the vicinity of their nests, but, accompanied by their young ones, the old birds seek an open country without trees or human habitations, where, secure from sudden surprise, they superintend their education in the art of flying.

A pair of ravens with two or three young ones have frequently been observed thus engaged, at this time of the year, on the South Downs, near the Devil's Dyke. On one occasion, the latter, when apparently fatigued by their early lesson, alighted on the ground, and did not then exhibit that wary dread of man which might have been expected, {[sc}