the Raven or Crow kind, a genus of birds of the order of picae. See ORNITHOLOGY.

Corvus (Hares), in Astronomy, a constellation of the southern hemisphere, whose stars in Ptolemy's catalogue are seven; in Tycho's the same number, and in the Britannic catalogue nine.

Roman antiquity, a military engine, or rather gallery, moveable at pleasure by means of pulleys, and chiefly used to cover the men in boarding the enemy's ships. The construction of the corvus was this: On the prow of their vessels was erected a round piece of timber, of about a foot and a half in diameter, and about twelve feet in length, upon the top of which was fixed a block or pulley. Round this piece of timber there was laid a stage or platform of boards four feet in breadth and about eighteen feet in length, which was well framed and fastened with iron. The entrance was lengthwise, and it moved about on the above-mentioned upright piece of timber, as on a spindle, and could be hoisted up within six feet of the top. Round this was a sort of parapet, about the height of the knee, which was defended with upright bars of iron sharpened at the end; and towards the top there was a ring, by the help of which and a pulley or tackle the engine was raised or lowered at pleasure. With this moveable gallery they boarded the enemy's vessels when they did not oppose broadside to broadside, sometimes by their bows and sometimes by their sterns, as occasion served. When they had grappled the enemy with these iron spikes, if the vessels happened to swing broadside to broadside, they then entered from all parts; but in case they attacked them by the bow, they entered two and two under cover of this machine, the foremost defending the foreparts, and those who followed the flanks, keeping the boss of their bucklers level with the top of the parapet.