said, "how could you have any
food if I never went away from our home?"

The mother quail was very sad, and she would have been still more
sorrowful if she had known what was happening to her little son far away
in the owl's nest. The cruel owl had pulled and pulled on the quail's
bill and legs, till they were so long that his mother would not have
known him.

One night the mole came to the quail and said, "Your little son is in
the owl's nest."

"How do you know?" asked the quail.

"I cannot see very well," answered the mole, "but I heard him call, and
I know that he is there."

"How shall I get him away from the owl?" the quail asked the mole.

"The owl crept up to your home in the dark," said the mole, "but you
must go to her nest at sunrise when the light shines in her eyes and she
cannot see you."

At sunrise the quail crept up to the owl's nest and carried away her
dear little son to his old home. As the light grew brighter, she saw
what had happened to him. His bill and his legs were so long that he
did not look like her son.

"He is not like our brother," said the other little quails.

"That is because the cruel owl that carried him away has pulled his bill
and his legs," answered the mother sorrowfully. "You must be very good
to him."

But the other little quails were not good to him. They laughed at him,
and the quail with the long bill and legs was never again merry and glad
with them. Before long he ran away and hid among the great reeds that
stand in the water and on the shores of the pond.

"I will not be called quail," he said to himself, "for quails never have
long bills and legs. I will have a new name, and it shall be snipe. I
like the sound of that name."

So it was that the bird whose name was once quail came to be called
snipe. His children live among the reeds of the pond, and they, too, are
called snipes.

WHY THE SERPENT SHEDS HIS SKIN.

The serpent is the grandfather of the owl, and once upon a time if the
owl needed help, she would say, "My grandfather will come and help me,"
but now he never comes to her. This story tells why.

When the owl carried away the little quail, she went to the serpent and
said, "Grandfather, you will not tell the quail that I have her son,
will you?"

"No," answered the serpent, "I will keep your secret. I will not whisper
it to any one." So when the mother quail asked all the animals, "Can you
tell me who has carried away my little son?