g seen
their methods; and I think men placed in the same circumstances could
not have acted much better. It may appear to you, as though we were
telling you mere idle tales to raise a laugh. Well, it may be very
amusing to hear and talk about them, but it is still more amusing to
watch the tricks of animals and insects, and our old men are fond of
quoting the actions of animals to teach us, while we are children, what
we ought to do. Indeed, there is scarcely a saying but what is founded
upon something that an animal was seen to do at one time or another.

"Now the story that I am about to relate, is a very old one in Uganda.
I heard it when a child, and from the fact that a Terrapin was said to
be so cunning, I have never liked to ill-treat a Terrapin, and every
time I see one, the story comes to my mind in all its freshness."

A Terrapin and a Crane were one time travelling together very sociably.
They began their conversation by the Terrapin asking:

"How is your family to-day, Miss Crane?"

"Oh, very well. Mamma, who is getting old, complains now and then,
that's all."

"But do you know that it strikes me that she is very fat?" said
Terrapin. "Now a thought has just entered my head, which I beg to
propose to you. My mother, too, is ailing, and I am rather tired of
hearing her complaints day after day; but she is exceedingly lean and
tough, though there is plenty of her. I wonder what you will say to my
plan? We are both hungry. So let us go and kill your mother, and eat
her; and to-morrow, you will come to me, and we will kill my mother. We
thus shall be supplied with meat for some days."

Replied the Crane, "I like the idea greatly, and agree to it. Let us go
about it at once, for hunger is an exacting mistress, and the days of
fasting are more frequent than those of fulness."

The matricides turned upon their tracks, and, arriving at the house of
Mrs Crane, the two cruel creatures seized upon Mamma Crane, and put her
to death. They then plucked her clean, and placed her body in the
stew-pot, and both Terrapin and Crane feasted.

Terrapin then crawled home, leaving Crane to sleep, and the process of
digestion. But, alas! Crane soon became very ill. Whether some qualms
of conscience disturbed digestion or not, I cannot say, but she passed a
troublesome night, and for several days afterwards she did not stir from
her house.

Terrapin, on reaching the house of its mamma, which was in the hollo