The the mountain-range about two miles away to 

 Children our left 



"Dye see that . . . thae falling birds ?" 



" Yes," I answered, noticing a singular occa- 

 sional fall in the general steady flight, as though 

 the suddenly wheeling bird had been shot : 

 " and what o' that, John ? " 



" It's just this : when ye see craws fly in' 

 steady like that an' then yince in a while 

 drapping oot like yon, ye may tak' it as 

 meanin' there's heavy rain no that great way 

 aff : onyways, when ye see the like when thae 

 black deils are fleein' straight for the hills, ye 

 maun feel sure frae the double sign that ye'll 

 hae a good chance o' being drookit afore twa- 

 three hours." 



One question led to another, and I heard 

 much crow and corbie lore from John Logan, 

 some of it already familiar to me and some 

 new to me or vaguely half -known as the 

 legend that the corbies or ravens, and with 

 them all the crow-kind, were originally white, 

 but at the time of the Deluge were turned 

 sooty -black because the head of the clan, 

 when sent out by Noah from the Ark, did 

 not return, but stayed to feed on the bodies 

 of the drowned. " So the blackness of death 

 was put on them, as my old mother has it in 

 her own Gaelic." 



244 



