be possible for them to do so. In most cases everything necessary for sanitation or convenience could be effected afterwards by the parent birds, but this would not be the case with ravens and cormorants, or with other such carnivorous or fish-eating species. Perhaps, therefore, the power which I speak of may stand in joint relation to the diet and habits of the bird, and the kind of nest which it builds.
I made many attempts to witness the feeding of these young ravens by their parents, but owing to there being no kind of cover from which I could watch, and no means of erecting a proper shelter, I was unable to do so. I did what I could by means of pieces of turf, and a plaid or waterproof stretched over them, but this was not sufficient to allay the suspicions of the old birds, who had always seen me as I came up, and from my first appearance over the brow of the hill flew around croaking and croaking, awaiting impatiently the moment of my departure. It would have been difficult not to sympathise with them, not to feel like an intruding vulgarian amidst that lonely wildness. For my part, I never tried not to, but yielded at once to the feeling, and retired each time with the humiliating reflection that the scene would be the better without me. Yet it seems strange that in any scene of natural beauty or grandeur, the one figure—should it happen to be there—that has the capacity to feel it is just the one that puts it out. Scott, for instance—though he were Scott—would not have improved any Highland bit, and Shakespeare's Cliff would hardly have looked the better for the presence even of Shakespeare himself.
