THE GREY CROW 97 



1000 to 2000 feet above sea -level. By March they have 

 returned to their nesting sites among the hills. 



Tlie call of the Hoodie is a sound which, in the stillness 

 of the forest j is heard at a great distance, especially during 

 the quiet of the evening, when there is a great silence over 

 the woods and glens of the hills. An hour or so after the 

 sunset of an autumn night I was making my way down a 

 mountain glen. The frost was already holding the ground, 

 and was hardening the newly-fallen snow, which lay where 

 the sun had failed to reach it during the short hours of his 

 appearance. The afterglow in the west was throwing out 

 in bold relief the bleak plateau of Monadh Mor, and the 

 rocks of Carn a'Mhaim seemed blacker by reason of the 

 snow which covered the heather-clad slopes. It was 

 from these rocks there now were thrown out curious deep 

 barking cries, cries which one might imagine might proceed 

 from a restless spirit roving the hills. Or could it be that 

 a stag had fallen from the rocks, and had injured himself 

 to the death ? The call notes were quite unlike anything 

 I had ever before heard, and it was with a feeling almost 

 of incredulity that I discovered from a nearer approach 

 that they came from an old Hoodie who had taken up 

 his station for the night on those dark rocks. In the great 

 deer forest where this incident occurred the Hoodie is 

 permitted to live out his life in quietness : here the fox, 

 the magpie, even the sanguinary stoat and weasel are 

 spared, and the balance of nature is left undisturbed. 

 But from this forest the Grey Crows spread out into the 

 land north, south, east, and west. Here they are at first 

 unsuspecting, not knowing that every man's hand must 

 be against them, but even the most constantly-practised 

 wariness does not save them from an untimely end. 



When a Grey Crow's nest has been robbed; and yet 

 the owners have escaped, they wander far and wide over 

 the moors, searching for the eggs or the young chicks 



G 



