Loren Eisley was a naturalist and an anthropologist. One day, while making some observations in a small glade, he leaned against a stump and fell asleep. He said he was awakened, “dimly aware of some commotion and outcry in the clearing …
On an extended pine branch sat an enormous raven with a red, squirming nestling in its beak. The sound that awoke me was the outraged cries of the young bird’s parents, who flew helplessly in circles about the clearing. The sleek black monster was indifferent to them. He gulped, whetted his beak on the dead branch a moment and sat still. Suddenly, out of all that area of woodland, a soft sound of complaint began to rise. Into the glade fluttered small birds of half a dozen varieties drawn by the anguished outcries of the nestling’s parents. No one dared to attack the raven. But they cried there in some instinctive common misery. They fluttered as though to point their wings at…
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