Some Cranes made their feeding grounds on a field which had been newly sown with wheat.

For a long time the Farmer, brandishing an empty sling, chased the Cranes away by scaring them. When the birds found that the sling was only swung in the air, they stopped taking any notice of it and would not move.

The Farmer, on seeing this, filled his sling with stones, and killed a great number of Cranes. The remaining birds at once forsook his fields, crying to each other,

“It is time for us to be off: for this man is no longer content to scare us, but begins to show us in earnest what he can do.”

Moral: If words suffice not, blows must follow.