[alexonfyre]

Originally Posted by fleet

Koomazaz, your solution does not work. The owl and the bluebird at the right side do add up to 5 but between the owl and bluebird you have the owl taking 1.5 gnomes and the bluebird taking 1. If the owl and bluebird are each attached to the bag of gnomes the weight of that bag would be distributed evenly between the two birds. If we were both carrying something hanging on two strings there is no way that you could take more than half the load. Given this, the way you have it set up the bluebird would be taking a load of 1.25 gnomes putting it over capacity and the owl would have an uneven weight of 1.25 and 1.5 between legs. This is not a valid solution to the problem.

In the actual solution, the owl carried that bag with both legs, and the mallard helps it with one of its legs. If what you said held water then there would be no correct way to carry a five gnome bag, regardless of the combination of birds.