220
NOTES ON THE RAVEN IN ESSEX.
seven years from one nest, and it is fair to suppose that very few
have been taken off by their parents, although the second brood had
only lately been found out. This certainly was attempting to rear a
family under serious difficulties, and speaks well for the indomitable
perseverance of the Raven as a breeder, and also shows its strong
attachment to locality.1 These young ones were not taken for sale
purposes, although some of them made, and all could have been dis-
posed of at, more than Mr. Abel Chapman states ("Bird Life of the
Borders," pp. 19-20). He says, "There are only a few spots re-
maining along the Borders where these fine birds are allowed to
nest." And in a note, he adds, "With young Ravens at half-a-
guinea apiece, and the insatiable—aye, insane—greed of 'collectors'
for British killed specimens, it is wiser to omit names. If 'natu-
ralists' must all have collections, why cannot they be satisfied with
the beautiful specimens which are so easily procurable from northern
or eastern Europe, instead of hastening the extirpation of this, and
other scarce indigenous birds, by placing a high premium on their
heads ?"
I once had a young Osey bird which was allowed its liberty, and
became very tame; it was passionately attached to me, and fre-
quently flew over more than one field to accompany me home.
When I was indoors it hardly ever left the window-sill of the room I
was in, and frequently called me up in the morning a little too early.
It was a great grief to me to lose him, on the night of the flood
(August 1st and 2nd), but not so to some other members of the
household—it was perhaps a relief.
The Fambridge ravens were probably nesting somewhere on the
Crouch river, but they had a rough time of it, and I cannot hear that
the nest was found. In 1888, Mr. William Laver had at least £10
worth of damage done to his ewes and lambs by ravens on Blue
House Farm, North Fambridge, and when Walter King (the shep-
herd) found them about again this spring (probably the same birds,
as their presence was announced by a sheep being found dead with
its eyes picked out), he dressed himself in the sheep skin, and "laid
up" against some strawed hurdles on the marsh; two mornings he
had a shot at one of the ravens, and, as he supposed, wounded it
severely the second time. It, or another, however, returned after
1 In Dr. Brehm's "Bird Life" (Eng. trans., p. 730) we read, in his excellent monograph of the
Raven, "If the nest is disturbed previous to the eggs being laid, the Raven never builds a
second one that year, neither does it attempt to raise a second brood if the first one comes to
grief"