"True," replied the leopard, who was engaged in the hopeless endeavour to change his spots; "since we have mutually plundered one another's hunting grounds of everything edible, there remains no grievance to quarrel about. You are a good fellow; let us embrace!"
They did so with the utmost heartiness; which being observed by a contiguous monkey, that animal got up a tree, where he delivered himself of the wisdom following:
"There is nothing so touching as these expressions of mutual regard between animals who are vulgarly believed to hate one another. They render the brief intervals of peace almost endurable to both parties. But the difficulty is, there are so many excellent reasons why these relatives should live in peace, that they won't have time to state them all before the next fight."
CII.
A woodpecker, who had bored a multitude of holes in the body of a dead tree, was asked by a robin to explain their purpose.
"As yet, in the infancy of science," replied the woodpecker, "I am quite unable to do so. Some naturalists affirm that I hide acorns in these pits; others maintain that I get worms out of them. I endeavoured for some time to reconcile the two theories; but the worms ate my acorns, and then would not come out. Since then, I have left science to work out its own problems, while I work out the holes. I hope the final decision may be in some way advantageous to me; for at my nest I have a number of prepared holes which I can hammer into some suitable tree at a moment's notice. Perhaps I could insert a few into the scientific head."
"No-o-o," said the robin, reflectively, "I should think not. A prepared hole is an idea; I don't think it could get in."
MORAL.-It might be driven in with a steam-hammer.
CIII.
"Are you going to this great hop?" inquired a spruce cricket of a labouring beetle.
"No," replied he, sadly, "I've got to attend this great ball."
"Blest if I know the difference," drawled a more offensive insect, with his head in an empty silk hat; "and I've been in society all my life. But why was I not invited to either hop or ball?"
He is now invited to the latter.
CIV.
"Too bad, too bad," said a young Abyssinian to a yawning hippopotamus.
"What is 'too bad?'" inquired the quadruped. "What is the matter with you?"
"Oh, I never complain," was the reply; "I was only thinking of the niggard economy of Nature in building a great big beast like you and not giving him any mouth."
"H'm, h'm! it was still worse," mused the beast, "to construct a great wit like you and give him no seasonable occasion for the display of his cleverness."
A moment later there were a cracking of bitten bones, a great gush of animal fluids, the vanishing of two black feet-in short, the fatal poisoning of an indiscreet hippopotamus.
The rubbing of a bit of lemon about the beaker's brim is the finishing-touch to a whiskey punch. Much misery may be thus averted.
CV.
A salmon vainly attempted to leap up a cascade. After trying a few thousand times, he grew so fatigued that he began to leap less and think more. Suddenly an obvious method of surmounting the difficulty presented itself to the salmonic intelligence.
"Strange," he soliloquized, as well as he could in the water,-"very strange I did not think of it before! I'll go above the fall and leap downwards."
So he went out on the bank, walked round to the upper side of the fall, and found he could leap over quite easily. Ever afterwards when he went up-stream in the spring to be caught, he adopted this plan. He has been heard to remark that the price of salmon might be brought down to a merely nominal figure, if so many would not wear themselves out before getting up to where there is good fishing.
CVI.
"The son of a jackass," shrieked a haughty mare to a mule who had offended her by expressing an opinion, "should cultivate the simple grace of intellectual humility."
"It is true," was the meek reply, "I cannot boast an illustrious ancestry; but at least I shall never be called upon to blush for my posterity. Yonder mule colt is as proper a son-"
"Yonder mule colt?" interrupted the mare, with a look of ineffable contempt for her auditor; "that is my colt!"
"The consort of a jackass and the mother of mules," retorted he, quietly, "should cultivate the simple thingamy of intellectual whatsitsname."
The mare muttered something about having some shopping to do, threw on her harness, and went out to call a cab.
CVII.
"Hi! hi!" squeaked a pig, running after a hen who had just left her nest; "I say, mum, you dropped this 'ere. It looks wal'able; which I fetched it along!" And splitting his long face, he laid a warm egg at her feet.
"You meddlesome bacon!" cackled the ungrateful bird; "if you don't take that orb directly back, I 'll sit on you till I hatch you out of your saddle-cover!"
MORAL.-Virtue is its only reward.
CVIII.
A rustic, preparing to devour an apple, was addressed by a brace of crafty and covetous birds:
"Nice apple that," said one, critically examining it. "I don't wish to disparage it-wouldn't say a word against that vegetable for all the world. But I never can look upon an apple of that variety without thinking of my poisoned nestling! Ah! so plump, and rosy, and-rotten!"
"Just so," said the other. "And you remember my good father, who perished in that orchard. Strange that so fair a skin should cover so vile a heart!"
Just then another fowl came flying up.
"I came in, all haste," said he, "to warn you about that fruit. My late lamented wife ate some off the same tree. Alas! how comely to the eye, and how essentially noxious!"
"I am very grateful," the young man said; "but I am unable to comprehend how the sight of this pretty piece of painted confectionery should incite you all to slander your dead relations."
Whereat there was confusion in the demeanour of that feathered trio.
CIX.
"The Millennium is come," said a lion to a lamb. "Suppose you come out of that fold, and let us lie down together, as it has been foretold we should."
"Been to dinner to-day?" inquired the lamb.
"Not a bite of anything since breakfast," was the reply, "except a few lean swine, a saddle or two, and some old harness."
"I distrust a Millennium," continued the lamb, thoughtfully, "which consists solely in our lying down together. My notion of that happy time is that it is a period in which pork and leather are not articles of diet, but in which every respectable lion shall have as much mutton as he can consume. However, you may go over to yonder sunny hill and lie down until I come."
It is singular how a feeling of security tends to develop cunning. If that lamb had been out upon the open plain he would have readily fallen into the snare-and it was studded very thickly with teeth.
CX.
"I say, you!" bawled a fat ox in a stall to a lusty young ass who was braying outside; "the like of that is not in good taste!"
"In whose good taste, my adipose censor?" inquired the ass, not too respectfully.
"Why-h'm-ah! I mean it does not suit me. You ought to bellow."
"May I inquire how it happens to be any of your business whether I bellow or bray, or do both-or neither?"