THE HOODED CROW 
were fairly constant sometimes there were 
only three, there were never more than six. It 
depended chiefly upon the straight shooting of 
James Driscoll, who shot a crow at sight when 
he could come within range ; and moreover 
there were sometimes defections from the ranks 
when the kill was unusually meagre, for then 
one or other of the band deserted in order to 
join some other wandering party. 
Every night at dusk all the crows in the 
countryside mustered in the fir-tree grove at 
Kilcool. All were lean and pinched with 
hunger, and many had travelled fifty or sixty 
miles during the day, but they came as blithely 
as ever for the evening flight. Fionog-liat was 
leader more often than not. With his band 
flapping close behind him he led the way 
across the wood, all wheeling and doubling at 
his signal as a flock of starlings doubles to 
evade the hawk. They flew silently for the 
most part, but in the gathering dusk more and 
more crows joined them, some solitary birds, 
some in couples or in larger gangs until there 
were a dozen or more, all turning and twisting 
like giant bats in a wild aerial dance. They 
flew close to the tops of the trees, and so near 
to one another that the feathers of any one of 
them were ruffled by the draught from his 
neighbours' wings. Sometimes, as he led the 
H 113 
