To such repasts they are guided more by scent than by sight, for though they not unfrequently ascend to a great height in the air, they do not then appear to be on the look-out for food. This duty is performed more conveniently and with greater success by beating over the ground at a low elevation. In these expeditions they do not confine themselves to carrion, but prey indiscriminately on all animals which they are quick enough to capture and strong enough to master. Hares, rabbits, rats, mice, lizards, game of various kinds, eggs, and the larger insects, all of these enter into their diet, and, wanting these, they resort to the sea-shore for refuse fish, or ransack dunghills in villages, before the inhabitants are astir, for garbage of all sorts. Pliny even relates that in a certain district of Asia Minor they were trained to hawk for game like the noble Falcons. Few of these qualifications tend to endear them to mankind; and as they are dreaded by shepherds on account of their being perhaps more than suspected of making away with sickly lambs when occasion offers, and of plundering poultry yards, Ravens are become, in populous districts, almost unknown birds. I have only seen them myself on the rocky sea-shore of Devon and Cornwall, in the wilds of Dartmoor, and the Highlands of Scotland. There was for many successive years a nest built on a ledge of granite near the Bishop Rock, in Cornwall, a huge mass of sticks, and what appeared to be grass, inaccessible from below, but commanded by a venturous climber from above. Where it still continues to breed inland, it places its nest, constructed of sticks and lined with the wool and fur of its victims, either on an inaccessible rock, or near the summit of a lofty tree, the ill-omened 'Raven-tree' of romances. In the north of Scotland, in the Orkneys and Hebrides, where it is still abundant, it builds its nest in cliffs which it judges to be inaccessible, both inland and on the sea-shore, showing no marked preference for either. Two pairs never frequent the same locality, nor is any other bird of prey permitted to establish itself in their vicinity. Even the Eagle treats the Raven with respect, and leaves it to its solitude, not so much from fear of its prowess, as worn out by its pertinacious resistance of all dangerous intruders. Hence, in some districts, shepherds encourage Ravens, because they serve as a repellent to Eagles; while in others, where Eagles are of unusual occurrence, they allow them to build their nests undisturbed, but when the young are almost fledged, destroy them by throwing stones at them from above. Nevertheless the original pair continues to haunt the same locality for an indefinite term of years, and it is not a little singular that if one of them be killed, the survivor will find a mate in an incredibly short space of time.