“That tolls The sick man’s passport in her hollow beak, And in the shadow of the silent night Doth shake contagion from her sable wings.” The whole field of literature teems with references of the same ominous character. It will suffice to add but one more illustration, where Gay, in “The Dirge,” notices the evil presage in the lines— “The boding raven on her cottage sat, And with hoarse croakings warned us of our fate.” The raven is sometimes called the devil’s bird. It is believed that it was originally white, but that it was changed to black for its disobedience. What this disobedience was appears to be a very moot point. The old Greeks believed that Apollo once sent it to a fountain to fetch water, and the bird on arrival found a fig-tree with very nearly ripe fruit, and determined to wait until they were quite so. As this was a matter of some few days, it became necessary to invent some plausible explanation of the delay, so he took a water-snake out of the fountain and brought it in the pitcher to the god, and explained that this creature had drunk the reservoir dry. Apollo, declining to accept this explanation, turned the disobedient raven black, condemned it to be always plagued with thirst, and changed its once melodious voice into the monstrous croak[93] that it has ever since been uttering as token of its punishment. Mediæval writers do not accept this story at all, but declare that the real reason that the raven exchanged its snow-white plumage for the sable garb was the consequence of its disobedience when, instead of returning to the ark to Noah, it stayed to feed on the bodies of the drowned.[94] It will be seen that in each case disobedience was the offence, and appetite the occasion thereof. It is rather startling after this to read in the quaint pages of Legh that “the Rauen delighteth so much in her owne bewty that when her birds are hatched she will giue them no meate vntill she see whether they will bee of her owne colour or no.” Guillim, another writer, like Legh, on matters heraldic, entirely supports this statement, declaring that “it hath bene an ancient received opinion, and the same also grounded vpon the warrant of the Holy Scriptures that such is the property of the Raven, that from the time his young ones are hatched or disclosed, untill he seeth what colour they will be of, he never careth of them nor ministereth any food unto them, therefore it is thought that they are in the meane space nourished with the heavenly dew. And so muche also doth the kingly prophet, David, affirme, ‘which giveth fodder unto the catell and feedeth the young Ravens that call upon him.’ The Raven is of colour blacke, and when he perceiveth his young ones to be pennefeathered and black like himself, then doth he labour by all means to foster and cherish them from thence forward.”