... On one occasion I counted over a thousand of these birds in a field near Lake Urumiah.  So far as my observations went, the raven appears to be more common in northern Iran than it is in the south, but this fact may have been due to migration at the time when I made my notes, or to some accidental cause.  The bird is large in size, with a glossy bill and sleek wings.  I wondered whether the martial bird vāreghna, vārenjina in the Avesta, a feather of whose wing was used by the warrior as an amulet, might possibly be identified with the raven.^{1
    1} Yt. 14. 19-22; 14. 35-40.  I find that this view has the support of the authority of Darab, as cited by Justi, Handbuch der Zendsprache, s.v., and of Tir Andaz and Darmesteter, Le ZA. 2. 566, n. 29 (which Bartholomae, Air. Wb. pp. 1411, 1412, brands as 'falsch').  Geldner, Drei Yasht, p. 65, n. 1, suggests the hawk, 'habicht,' as a possibility.  The Bundahishn, 14. 23, calls the raven varāk (the Modern Persian word for crow, kalāgh, is not be confounded with this), and this is apparently the bird of victory which accompanied King Ardavan according to the Pahlavi Kārnāmē-i Artakhshīr-i Pāpakān, ed. Darab D. P. Sanjana, pp. 16-17, Bombay, 1896, although Darab Sanjana (loc. cit.) calls it an "eagle" (reading lūk), and Peshotanji, Nöldeke, and Antia (the latter, Kārnāmak, p. 16, Bombay, 1900) interpret the Pahlavi word in this passage as "ram" (reading varāk). (Persia Past and Present, Jackson, 1909)