Opossum
pretends that the bee-hive is a bell which coyote is to ring when
he hears the sky-rockets. In a New-Mexican Spanish story (JAFL 27 :
134-135) fox tells coyote that the bee-hive is his school humming.

5.

Parker's Sinhalese story "The Elephant-Fool" (3 : 100-111, No. 203)
tells of a man who borrowed another's elephant; but the beast died
before it could be returned. The borrower offers payment or another
animal, but the owner will accept nothing but his own elephant
alive. Through the cleverness of his wife, the borrower is able to
make the obdurate man break a water-pot, and in turn demands his
very water-pot back unbroken. Unable to do anything else, the owner
of the elephant says that the two debts cancel each other, and goes
away. Parker notes that in another Sinhalese form of this story both
persons institute law-suits. He also cites a Chinese variant (p. 111).

6.

Page 51, line 41. For bibliography of Grimm, No. 183, see
Bolte-Polivka, 3 : 333-335.

Parker (2 : 247-268, No. 137) gives a Sinhalese story, with three
variants, which is definitely connected with our tales, and confirms my
belief that the "False-Proofs" cycle is native to southern India. In
Parker's main story the false proofs are five,--ass (voice), two
winnowing-trays (ears), two bundles of creepers (testicles?), a tom-tom
(eye), and two elephant tusks (teeth). In variant b the false proofs
are drum (roar), deer-hide rope (hair), pair of elephant tusks (teeth).

For another Sinhalese story of how a man and his wife "bluffed"
a terrible Yaka hiding under the bed to kill him, see Parker, 1 :
148-149 (No. 17).

7.

Page 62. Analogous to the task cited from Jataka, No. 546, is one
of the problems in the Liberian story "Impossible vs. Impossible"
(JAFL 32 : 413). Problem: Make a mat from rice-grains. Solution:
Old rice-mat demanded as pattern.--For making rope out of husks,
and analogous tasks, see Bolte-Polivka, 2 : 513.

Page 62 (3). In Parker, No. 79, a king requires a man to put a hundred
gourd-fruits in a hundred small-mouthed vessels. His clever daughter
grows them there. Parker cites a story from Swynnerton's Indian Night's
Entertainment, in which a clever girl sends melons in jars to a prince
and requires him to remove the melons without injuring them or the
jars. This problem is identical with one on our p. 58 (16-17).

In still another Sinhalese story a foolish king requires a Panditaya,
under penalty of death, to teac