NOTES ON THE RAVEN IN ESSEX. 221
some days, and was seen to take three poisoned eggs one day, and
next morning was looking for more ! Quite a number of poisoned
eggs were consumed on the other side of the river—Norpitts and
Raypitts, Canewdon—as the neighbourhood was well aroused by this
raven visitation. The birds carefully avoided all traps. Whether
the poison destroyed the young birds I know not, but evidently it
had no effect on the old ones. These destructive and bloodthirsty
habits were probably developed from the event of one or two dead
horses being left, in 1888, on the adjacent Bridge Marsh island
(quite uncultivated) to bury themselves.
I used to know (for three years, 1872-4) of two nests within a
quarter of a mile of one another, in some tall hedgerow elms, near
the Devil's Steps, Thundersley. The ravens probably nested there
long previously, and continued to do so at least up to 1880. In 1879
the young ones from one of these nests were sent to me by my
brother-in-law, Mr. James Wallis, of Jarvis Hall, in mistake for a
brood of carrion crows, which I wanted for Mr. Henry Laver. We
only kept them a few days, but my wife thought that the young
"crows" ate quite enough during that time ! This locality is now
deserted. Mr. James Farrow, bailiff at Kent's Hill, South Benfleet,
in answer to my inquiries respecting them, wrote (April 9th, 1889)
that he could not ascertain where the ravens were then building, and
that the branches they used to put their nests on had been cut off,
which probably led them to desert the spot. One of the pairs may
have removed to the Hole, or Pines Nest Farm, between S. Ben-
fleet Brickfield (now disused) and Hadleigh Castle. The members
had an opportunity of seeing Mr. Foster's eggs from this last-
mentioned nest at the Southend meeting on July 12th last.
Within the last twenty years I have heard of nests in this neigh-
bourhood at Nipsell's and Clarke's Farm, Mayland; Stansgate
Grove ; Brick House, Mundon Hall and White House, Mundon ;
Iltney, Mundon (in Upper Fence, stubbed five years ago); Gold-
hanger Decoy (once). I have two "Raven trees" on my own lands,
one on Northey, the other at the bottom of Jingle Hills, between
Jenkyn's Farm and Hazeleigh Hall. I should be only too pleased
to welcome back the old tenants, or their descendants.
Mr. Gurney says, quite truly, that the Raven in Essex is already
trembling on the very verge of extinction; and this note will tell
something of what is happening to them in the last days of their
persecution.