all the food.

"Why did you come so late?" said the monkey when the turtle came
up panting.

"Because I am so hungry that I cannot walk fast," answered the
turtle. "Will you give me some food?" he continued.

"There is no more," replied the monkey. "You brought very little. I
ate all there was, and I am still hungry."

As the turtle had no breath to waste, he continued on the road. While
they were on their way, they met a hunter. The monkey saw the hunter
and climbed a tree, but the man caught the turtle and took it home
with him. The monkey laughed at his friend's misfortune. But the
hunter was kind to the turtle: he tied it near a banana-tree, and
gave it food every hour.

One day the monkey happened to pass near the house of the hunter. When
he saw that his friend was tied fast, he sneered at him; but after
he had remained there a few hours, and had seen how the turtle was
fed every hour, he envied the turtle's situation. So when night came,
and the hunter was asleep, the monkey went up to the turtle, and said,
"Let me be in your place."

"No, I like this place," answered the turtle.

The monkey, however, kept urging and begging the turtle, so that
finally the turtle yielded. Then the monkey set the turtle free,
and tied himself to the tree. The turtle went off happy; and the
monkey was so pleased, that he could hardly sleep during the night
for thinking of the food the hunter would give him in the morning.

Early the next morning the hunter woke and looked out of his window. He
caught sight of the monkey, and thought that the animal was stealing
his bananas. So he took his gun and shot him dead. Thus the turtle
became free, and the monkey was killed.

MORAL: Do not be selfish.

Notes.

The story of these two opponents, the monkey and the turtle, is
widespread in the Philippines. In the introduction to a collection
of Bagobo tales which includes a version of this fable, Laura Watson
Benedict says (JAFL 26 [1913] : 14), "The story of 'The Monkey and
the Turtle' is clearly modified from a Spanish source." In this note
I hope to show not only that the story is native in the sense that
it must have existed in the Islands from pre-Spanish times, but also
that the Bagobo version represents a connecting link between the
other Philippine forms and the original source of the whole cycle,
a Buddhistic Jataka. Merely from the number of Philippine versions
already collected, it seems reasonable to suspect that