The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1904-10-03
RAVEN A
CLEVER BIRD
Has But One Wife for
Life and is Up to All
Kinds OF Tricks.

for augura1 science or chicanery; but
there are quite enough varieties-his
croak, his bark, his grunt, his chuckle-
to attract the ear and call for close at
tention," says Nineteenth Century.
There is no bird whose movements are
so varied and so graceful, especially
when the nest is preparing and the
cares of motherhood have not yet be-
gun. They will toy with one another in
mid-air, and often tumble down a
fathom or two. as if shot, or turn right
over on their backs in sheer merriment.
When the wind is high, the tempest
loving ravens shoot high up in the air
like a rocket or towering partridge to
their wings, drop, in a series of rapid
jerks or plunges, which they can check
at pleasure, down to the ground. The
male bird, while his mate is sitting,
keeps anxious watch over her, and
croaks savagely when any one appro-
aches. or sallies forth in eager tourna-
rnent against any rock, or crow, or
hawk or larger bird of prey which in
trudes on his domains. If you can
manage TO evade his watchful eye and
enter the woods unobserved, you can
sometimes lie down quite still in sight
of the nest and see all that is going on.
You will see him perch on the very top
of an adjoining fir tree or whet mis-
beak, as he is fond of doing, against
one of it's branches, or fiercely tear off
others and drop them below. You will
here him utter a low, gurgling note of
conjugal endearment, which will some
times lure his mate from her charge,
and then, after little coze and talk
togther. you will see him, unlike many
husbands, relieve her, for the time, of
her responsibilities and take his own
turn upon the nest.
1.-The raven always pairs for life, and
the strength of affection, the fidelity,
the dignity, which this implies seem to
me to raise him infinitely, as it does the
owls above birds which congregate in
f1ocks. and so ALLURE family ties and
duties through a great part of the year.
Still more does he rise above birds
which choose a new mate with each
new love season, or which, like the
daintily stepping cock pheasant or the
wanton mallard, are polygamous by
nature and common with a lordly crow,
or cluck or quack, now one and now
another of their humble looking wives
or drudges to. their presence.
"a few words about the raven as
pet. No bird, 1 think, is his equal in
this capacity, whether we look at his
intense sociabiiity, his queer secretive-
ness, his powers of mimicry or his in
exhaustible store of fun and mischief
You have never got to the bottom of
him. He is always learning something
fresh. No bird has more elaborate
development of the vocal organs, and
no bird, not even a parrot, makes more
use of them. He will catch up any
sound which takes his fancy, from his
own name, Ralph, or Grip, or Jacob,
to a short sentence, and the latter he
will practice, with only a few flashes of
silence by the hour together. His
voice is so human that it has often been
mistaken for a mans. Anecdotes about
him abound. Here is a sample or two
of them:
''One raven, kept near the guardhouse
at Chatham, managed more than once
to turn out the guard, who thought
they were summoned by the sentinel
on duty Another, the favorite of
regiment of which used to hear much
when L was young. would walk demure-
ly on to the parade ground, take his
place by the side of the commanding Of
ficer, and in defiance of military dis
cipline, repeat, with appropriate intona-
lions, each word of command. The
stable yard of a country nm in the Olden
time, brewers yard in more recent
times, formed an excellent school for
scandal for pet raven, who would not
only learn to initiate all the sounds
made by all the animals or birds which
frequented the spot. but would pick up
stable language OF brewing language
with a somewhat Objectionable facility.
One raven, kept at the Elephant and
Castle, When that famous hosiery was
the resourt of four-horse coaches rather
than omnibuses, would take his place
in an outward bound coach, the observ-
ed of all observers, by the side of
coachman who had won his heart. and
return in homeward bound coach
which he met on the road by the side
of another favorite jehu.
Another raven, kept at the Old Bear
Inn at Hungerford struck up a close
friendship with a Newfoundland dog.
When the dog broke his leg the raven
waited on him constantly, catered for
him, forgetting for the time his own
greediness. and rarely. if ever left his
side. One night, when the dog was by
accident shut within the stable alone,
Ralph succeeded in pecking hole
through the door all but large enough
to admit his body. Another, kept in a
yard in which & big basket sparrow trap
was sometimes set. watched narrowly
the process from his favorite corner,
and managed. when the trap fell, to
lift it up. hoping to get at the sparrows
within. They. of course, escaped be-
fore ne could drop the trap. But. taught
by experience he opened cOnlmunica-