THE RAVEN
“Their black plumage and similarity of shape make us mistake all sorts
of birds for crows. Let us begin with one of these, the raven. This
bird is of good size, being about as large as our domestic rooster, and
it has a hoarse cry, uttered slowly,—craa, craa, craa. It is the raven
that has won such a reputation with children from that famous fable
about the raven and the fox.”
“Yes, I know,” Emile hastened to interpose; “you mean the one that
begins, ‘Master Raven, perched on a tree, held a piece of cheese in his
beak.’ Where do you suppose he got that cheese?”
“History remains silent on that important question, but my opinion
would be that he stole it from some window-sill where the farmer’s wife
had put out some newly made cheese to dry in a little wicker basket.”
“The fox says good morning to Mr. Raven, and praises his plumage,”
continued Emile; “and he goes on: ‘How trig and trim you are, how
handsome you look to me!’ And so on and so forth. How could the raven
help having a swelled head after such flattery?”
“That fox was certainly a cunning rogue. To make sure that the bird
will listen, instead of beginning with flattery that might have aroused
his intended victim’s suspicions (for the bird was not altogether
lacking in common sense), he began by praising what is really not
without merit. On a near view the raven is seen to be not by any means
of a dead black; it shows glints of purple and blue on the back, and a
flickering greenish tinge on the stomach, the total effect being that
of some highly polished metal. At the first flattering words you may be
sure the raven cast a complacent glance at its costume and, seeing it
brilliant with blue, purple, and green, found it quite as rich as the
fox declared it to be. So now the bird was well prepared—ready for the
fulsome flattery that was to follow. The fox would have it believe the
offensive odor clinging to it from eating so much carrion to be the
aroma of musk, and its hoarse croaking to be melodious warbling. But
just there was the difficulty, to make it croak and thus open its
mouth, which held the cheese.”
“And if that voice of thine
Can match thy plumage fine,
Thou art the very phenix of all the woods around,”
quoted Emile.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Uncle Paul. “Do you see how the sly rascal is
making headway? He would have the raven believe itself a singer,
mistake its raucous craa, craa for the note of the nightingale. Had he
begun with any such extravagant compliment, he would have defeated his
own ends; but he very cleverly led up to this supreme flattery and, to
pique the raven’s foolish vanity still further, gave a doubtful tone to
his admiration. ‘I know,’ was what he seemed to the bird to say, ‘that
your voice is widely celebrated; but what I am not so sure of is
whether it matches your splendid plumage, whether you can really sing
in a manner worthy of so magnificent a costume. I must hear you, and if
your vocal performance equals your outward appearance, then you will
indeed prove yourself to be the paragon of birds, the very phenix of
these forests.’ ‘Ah, you doubt it?’ said the raven to itself; ‘well,
then, listen to this operatic trill: craa, craa, craa.’”
Emile again took up the fable:
“And so to prove it could
Its boastfulness make good,
It opened wide its beak and thus let fall the cheese,
Which Master Fox did seize——”
“Not so fast!” his uncle interrupted him. “Master Fox could not have
gone on talking with the cheese in his mouth; he could not have pointed
the moral in that neat little lesson with which the fable ends. I can
see him putting his paw on the prize while he licks his chops and looks
tauntingly at the shamefaced bird. ‘My good sir,’ he says, ‘let me call
your attention to the fact that you are a conceited nincompoop.’”
“He doesn’t call the bird Mr. Raven any more, now that he’s got hold of
the cheese,” Emile observed.
“No; to call him that was all very well in the beginning; it flattered
the bird. But now the fox makes fun of his dupe and calls him ‘my good
sir’ in a tone of patronizing condolence. To express pity for those we
have cajoled and deceived—is not that the very perfection of roguery?
There we have, most assuredly, a fox that will make his way in the
world. Read in La Fontaine, the incomparable story-teller, the
abominable tricks Master Reynard plays later on the goat, the wolf, and
many others; or, better, wait a while and we will read them together
next winter before the open fire. For the present we will leave the
raven of the fable and try to learn something about the real raven’s
manner of living.
“Ravens do not flock together as crows do, but live alone or in pairs
on rocky heights and in the tallest trees. The society or even the near
neighborhood of its fellows is unbearable to a raven. With angry
peckings it drives away from its chosen district any of its kind that
may try to establish themselves there, even though they may have been
born in the same nest. If the intruder is merely a bird of passage, it
is conducted with menacing demonstrations to the frontiers of the
domain and is jealously watched until it disappears in the distance.
Crows, social creatures, are treated in the same way. The raven asks to
be left alone, quite alone, on its bare rock, and woe to the
ill-advised intruder that disturbs its solitude! It builds its nest in
the topmost branches of a solitary tree or, still more to its liking,
in some fissure that offers itself in the perpendicular face of a rocky
precipice. The nest is made of sticks and roots on the outside, and of
moss, hair, rags, and fine grasses within.”
“I should like to know,” said Jules, “what ravens’ eggs are like.”
“Birds’ eggs are usually remarkable for their beauty, both in shape and
in color; and for this reason, if for no other, they merit our
attention. But it is no idle or merely ornamental accomplishment to be
able to distinguish one from another, to know whether any given egg
belongs to a useful species that should be respected or to a harmful
species that should not be allowed to breed in the vicinity of our
fields and gardens. With this end in view I have already told you the
characteristic marks of the eggs of our principal birds of prey, some
of which eggs should be destroyed without any consideration, while
others should be protected. As this is a matter that interests you, I
will continue in the same way and will describe the eggs of those birds
that we are still to talk about.
“Know, then, that ravens’ eggs are much more beautifully colored than
might be expected from the somber plumage of the bird. They are bluish
green, with brown spots. This background of bluish green, sometimes
lighter and sometimes darker, occurs again, together with the brown
spots, in the eggs of crows, magpies, jays, blackbirds, thrushes, and
fieldfares, birds that resemble one another closely in their bodily
structure, despite their marked differences in size, plumage, and
habits. The eggs of certain blackbirds and fieldfares are of a
magnificent sky-blue color.
“The raven is an omnivorous creature: fruit, larvæ, insects, sprouting
grain, flesh, whether in a fresh condition or otherwise, all suit it
equally well; but its favorite fare is carrion, which it knows how to
find a long way off, guided by sight and smell. Wherever there is a
dead animal, there the raven makes its appearance and contends for the
loathsome quarry with dogs. The habit of gorging itself with this
infected food gives it a repulsive odor. For lack of dead prey—the sort
most acceptable to its tastes, its great appetite, and its
cowardice—the raven hunts such live prey as young hares and young
rabbits, and other small and destructive rodents. It pilfers from
birds’ nests both eggs and new-born birds, a succulent banquet for its
young; and it even has the boldness to carry off little chickens from
poultry-yards. Without offering the slightest plea in its favor, I
leave the raven to the hatred it has always incurred by reason of its
funereal plumage, its forbidding aspect, its sinister croaking,
repulsive odor, filthy greed, and savage disposition.”