would enjoy greater safety from danger and more
abundant food. The other refused, saying that he felt it so very hard to
leave a place to which he had become accustomed. A few days afterwards a
heavy wagon passed through the gully and crushed him to death under its
wheels.

A willful man will have his way to his own hurt.

The Wolf and the Fox

AT ONE TIME a very large and strong Wolf was born among the wolves, who
exceeded all his fellow-wolves in strength, size, and swiftness, so that
they unanimously decided to call him "Lion." The Wolf, with a lack of
sense proportioned to his enormous size, thought that they gave him this
name in earnest, and, leaving his own race, consorted exclusively with
the lions. An old sly Fox, seeing this, said, "May I never make myself
so ridiculous as you do in your pride and self-conceit; for even though
you have the size of a lion among wolves, in a herd of lions you are
definitely a wolf."

The Walnut-Tree

A WALNUT TREE standing by the roadside bore an abundant crop of fruit.
For the sake of the nuts, the passers-by broke its branches with stones
and sticks. The Walnut-Tree piteously exclaimed, "O wretched me! that
those whom I cheer with my fruit should repay me with these painful
requitals!"

The Gnat and the Lion

A GNAT came and said to a Lion, "I do not in the least fear you, nor are
you stronger than I am. For in what does your strength consist? You
can scratch with your claws and bite with your teeth an a woman in her
quarrels. I repeat that I am altogether more powerful than you; and if
you doubt it, let us fight and see who will conquer." The Gnat, having
sounded his horn, fastened himself upon the Lion and stung him on the
nostrils and the parts of the face devoid of hair. While trying to crush
him, the Lion tore himself with his claws, until he punished himself
severely. The Gnat thus prevailed over the Lion, and, buzzing about in
a song of triumph, flew away. But shortly afterwards he became entangled
in the meshes of a cobweb and was eaten by a spider. He greatly lamented
his fate, saying, "Woe is me! that I, who can wage war successfully
with the hugest beasts, should perish myself from this spider, the most
inconsiderable of insects!"

The Monkey and the Dolphin

A SAILOR, bound on a long voyage, took with him a Monkey to amuse him
while on shipboard. As he sailed off the coast of Greece, a violent
tempest arose in which the ship was