Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 May 1891 — Ravens in Alaska. [ARTICLE]

Ravens in Alaska.

The Alaska raven is a fine-looking bird, as large as a turkey, and, upon closer acquaintance, a real handsome fellow, says the San Francisco Chronicle. His coat is indeed black, but of a black glossier and richer than silk and softer than velvet, while in a semishade the feathers are tinged with that peculiar color so often seen on wellpreserved blue-black bronze. It is very funny to see those birds holding, as it were, a conclave. Ten or a dozen alight on the ground and walk to the meeting place with a stately, erect step, their every movement cool and assured. Then an old bird steps gravely into the middle, and the meeting begins with a series of guttural and harsh croaks, which gradually swell in volume until the entire lot of birds have joined in the debate. AloDg comes a dog, and for him they scatter, resuming their positions when he passes, until the meeting again terminates, and then fly off to the beach and hills. These birds are seldom killed, unless it be by some sailor in pure wantoriness. If vou examine the bills of these ravens, the peculiar construction is remarkable. They are a combination of chisel, scissors, dagger, and gimlet. The bill forms an important factor in the raven’s existence, for he has to dig on the beach for clams, bore the hard shell by repeated chopping, and again in cure mischief he will tear and break anything that his bright and unerring eye lights upon. The natives from Tukatat Bay, through the network of islands as far as British Columbia, have an ancient legend that the raven was the bird that brought light from'darkness when the world was created. On this account they venerate it, and the totem of the raven is regarded as denoting the most illustrious descended family. Two days before Eyraud was guillotined he sent for a surgeon and asked all about how it felt to have a fellow’s head sliced off, and how many seconds he would live after the ax descended. When told that he would lose all cos* sciousness in five seconds he timed them on a watch and expressed' himself as satisfied.