Excerpt from Two Addresses: Some Extinct Pennsylvania Birds, And, Observations on Wild Animals: Delivered Before the Audubon Society, and the Boys' Science Class, of Williamsport, Penna., High School, Longfellow's Birthday, February 27, 1923

Recently' the newspapers Of Central Pennsylvania were en riched by a widely copied article by that brilliant young exponent of Conservation, jfherbert Walker, of Altoona, telling Of his observations Of a pair Of Ravens which make their home in some of the wilder-recesses of romantic Poe Valley, in Centre County, a very appropriate place for Ravens to frequent, for Edgar Allan Poe is said to have gone there at one time to seek a legacy from some, well - to - do relatives for whom the valley was named. W' hen Mr. Walker asked your speaker his Opinion Of the merits of the article in question he replied that it was the finest outdoor article that he had read for a year, if only itt did not have the effect Of sending a group of professional egg collectors into po-e Valley to disturb the ravens. Though the raven cannot today be classed as one of the extinct Pennsylvania birds, it is so rare that the great majority of persons living in the State have never seen one and probably many here this afternoon did not know Of their exist ence-and that they nest on the Raven's - burg and in several locali ties within a dozen miles of vv-illiamspor-t. The raven is protected by law as it is a valuable insect destroyer and scavenger, and use ful to the hunters as ou-many occasions when deer which have been shot and got away and died later have been located by the Eircling of the sable birds. Never plentiful, they might still be with us in fair numbers were it not that there is a brisk demand for their eggs by collectors and the professional egg hunters have trailed them to their secluded nests on high cliffs, and pillaged them unmercifully. One individual, formerly Of the State Col l-ege faculty, deserves the credit, or rather the discredit, of having done more than any other agency to exterminate the raven in Pennsylvania. In an issue Of an ornithological mag azine, he openly stated that he had visited a raven's nest two or three times in one season, every year for eight years, taking eggseverv time. Until the parent birds. Wearie and (llslolii' ed aban doued the countrv. The raven. So immortalized bv.

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