THE HOODED CROW 
and his works traps, guns and poisoned baits 
must be avoided. Therefore although the 
temptation was so strong that several times he 
flew down to the food, yet he always overcame 
it, and returned to his perch without tasting. 
In three minutes the young crows had devoured 
all that they could find, and then, calling loudly, 
the three birds flew slowly away. . . . He 
who had eaten most fully of the poisoned 
paunch succumbed first. Before he had flown 
a hundred yards, he whirled earthwards with 
his wings set rigid a dead bundle of feathers. 
Fionog-liat swooped after him, as the deep 
heather swallowed him up, then rose distrust- 
fully, for there was something uncanny about 
the way he fell. 
The second bird flew on unsteadily for some 
twenty perches distance, then slanted down to 
the mountain-side with the call choked in his 
throat. He stood for a minute or two with 
heaving wings and gaping bill, and then the 
subtle poison did its work swiftly. 
Fionog-liat found himself alone. He flew 
round, calling to his band as he called them in 
the woods at daybreak to summon them to a 
foray ; but there was no reply but the melan- 
choly pipe of the golden plover, and nothing 
stirred on the hill. Suddenly he swooped down 
to the crag. A sickness more awful than that 
i 129 
