" RAVENS."
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."1 Sts,—As a supplement to your correspondent's very interesting letter on " Ravens" in East Anglia in your issue of May 20th, may I be allowed to put on record the presence of this bird in the South-Eastern Counties in recent years? That the raven has bred in this district recently Is unlikely, although a resident, who knows the bird in the West, has made the claim to me of the presence of a pair in the breeding season in a large remote wood. During the War (1917) I myself had the opportunity of watching in the late summer and autumn, August to December, a flock of four young (?) ravens on e remote part of the Sussex Downs. I saw these birds on many occasions and watched them, often under favourable circum- stances. And I may say I am very familiar with similar, often larger, flocks of young birds in Wales and the North. I may suggest that such a flock had possibly crossed the Channel from the Normandy or Brittany coast. It is unlikely that they had come from the West by August. I had no evidence that they remained to breed in the following spring, though suitable cliff and forest sites abound. Such other rare birds as the buzzard, the Montagu harrier, and even hen-harrier, wander over these Downs and stay for considerable periods. There can be little doubt that they and the raven would soon again estab- lish themselves as breeding species if only they were free from the danger of being destroyed because they are unusual where the common destructive wood-pigeon is unmolested. If keepers, with the knowledge of him of Burton Park, who, as Knox records (Ornithological Rambles in Sussex), had discovered ravens were "his friends," existed to-day this fine bird might once more grace the sky of the Downs.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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