Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/256

228 but, in spite of the loud admonitory croaking of the parent birds, who hovered over them in the air, and evinced every sign of anxiety and uneasiness, they allowed the observer to approach within a short distance, before they finally took flight and followed their conductors to a neighbouring hill.

In Petworth Park, in a clump of unusually tall old beech trees, whose trunks have been denuded by time of all their lower branches, the raven occasionally breeds. I was not aware of this fact until early last March, when, as I was riding in the neighbourhood of these trees, my attention was arrested by the never-to-be-mistaken croak of a raven, and the loud chattering of a flock of jackdaws.

I soon perceived that these were the peculiar objects of his hatred and hostility; for after dashing into the midst of them, and performing several rapid evolutions in the air round about them, he succeeded in effectually driving them to a considerable distance from his nest. During this manoeuvre, the great size of the raven became more apparent than when viewed alone, and his power of flight was advantageously contrasted with that of his smaller congener. The latter, indeed, appeared to bear precisely the same relation to him in point of size, that starlings do to rooks when seen in company with each other.

This raven's nest was placed in a fork on the very summit of one of the highest of these trees, while the hollow trunks of many of them (almost all the trees being internally decayed) were tenanted by a numerous colony of jackdaws. Some of the apertures through which they entered were so near the ground as to enable me to reach them when on horseback, while others were situated at a much greater height. These conducted to the chambers in which the nests were placed, and which were generally far removed from the external orifice by which the birds entered their tower-like habitation.

On thrusting an elastic rod upwards into some of these passages, I found it impossible to arrive at the further extremity of the apartment, while a few cavities of smaller dimensions were within reach of my hand, and contained nests constructed of short dry sticks, some of which were in a yet unfinished state, while in others one or two eggs had been deposited.

The next day I returned to the place, provided with a spy-glass, for the purpose of observation. On my arrival I found that the ravens were absent, and that the jackdaws, availing themselves of this, had congregated in considerable numbers, and were as busily employed about their habitations as a hive of bees; some carrying materials for the completion of their yet unfinished nests, others conveying food to