One by one they gathered beneath the sweeping boughs of the beech, although some arrived so swiftly after another that it was if they had arrived in pairs, or triads. To an untrained eye, it would be impossible to distinguish one from the other, in their smooth and velvety black. From within the group, the differences were distinct: a light mark across a breast, the glitter of an eye, the downward turn of a mouth. Slowly, steadily, the group grew. While they waited for the final members to arrive, they shifted their weight from right legs to lefts, preened for their women and for their men, cocked their heads and cawed harshly at tall tales. Only when the ground underneath the beech, and the beech itself, was swathed in an impenetrable and lustrous black did the murder take flight - and hundreds of crows to took to the sky.