oaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements."--(_Macbeth._)

"It comes o'er my memory
As doth the raven o'er the infected house,
Boding to all."--(_Othello._)

"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."
(_Jew of Malta._)

"Is it not ominous in all countries where crows
and ravens croak upon trees?"--(_Hudibras._)

"The boding raven on her cottage sat,
And with hoarse croakings warned us of our fate."
(_The Dirge._)

"In Cornwall," writes Mr. Hunt, in his work on popular beliefs, etc., of
the West of England, "it is believed that the croaking of a raven over
the house bodes evil to some of the family. The following incident,
given to me by a really intelligent man, illustrates the feeling:

"'One day our family were much annoyed by the continual croaking of a
raven over the house. Some of us believed it to be a token; others
derided the idea. But one good lady, our next-door neighbour, said:

"'"Just mark the day, and see if something does not come of it."

"'The day and hour were carefully noted. Months passed away, and
unbelievers were loud in their boastings and enquiries after the token.
The fifth month arrived, and with it a black-edged letter from
Australia, announcing the death of one of the members of the family in
that country. On comparing the dates of the death and the raven's croak,
they were found to have occurred on the same day.'"

In an old number of _Notes and Queries_ a correspondent relates that in
Somersetshire the appearance of a single jackdaw is regarded as a sure
prognostication of evil. He goes on to add that the men employed in the
quarries in the Avon Gorge, Clifton, Bristol, had more than once noticed
a jackdaw perched on the chain that spanned the river, prior to some
catastrophe among them.

Dead magpies were once hung over the doorways of haunted houses to keep
away ghosts; it being almost universally believed that all phantasms
shared the same dread of this bird. Ghosts of magpies themselves are,
however, far from uncommon; on Dartmoor and Exmoor, for example, I have
seen several of them, generally in the immediate vicinity of bogs or
deep holes.

Witches were much attached to this bird, and were said to often assume
its shape after death.

"Magpies," says Mr. William Jones, in his _Credulities, Past and