The _Jatakas_ of Buddha, though religious writings, and teachings by parables, are not without humor. The one about the silly son who killed the mosquito on his father’s bald head with a heavy blow of an ax, has its funny side. Or the old monarch who had reigned 252,000 years and still had 84,000 years more ahead of him, and went into solitary retirement because he discovered a gray hair in his head. Another shrewd fellow made an enormous fortune out of the sale of a dead mouse. Of course, the animals figure largely. There is the tale of the monkeys who watered a garden and then pulled up the plants to see if their roots were wet, and the angry crows who tried to drink up the sea. Riddles, too, must be remembered. Though not many specimens have been preserved, yet we remember Samson’s riddle, so disastrous to the Philistines. “Out of the eater came forth meat; and out of the strong came forth sweetness.” And when his susceptibility to cajolery led him to tell his wife the answer, and she tattled, his comment was the pithy; “If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.” The Sphinx’s riddle is well known. “What animal goes on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three at night?” The answer being: Man, who goes on all-fours in infancy, walks upright in middle life, and adds a staff in old age. An ancient riddle is ascribed to the problematical personality of Homer, though it was doubtless originated before his time,--if he had a time. Homer, the tale goes, met some boys coming home from a fishing trip. On his asking them of their luck, they replied, “What we caught we threw away; what we didn’t catch, we have.” It seems they referred to fleas, not fish, and his inability to guess this so enraged Homer, that he killed himself. And here is a free translation of an ancient Arabian riddle. “The loftiest cedars I can eat, Yet neither paunch nor mouth have I. I storm whene’er you give me meat, Whene’er you give me drink, I die.” The answer is Fire, and as may be seen, the type of riddle is precisely such as are found in the puzzle columns of today’s papers. Riddles are frequently mentioned in Ancient Literature,-- every country or race indulging in them. Josephus tells us that Solomon and Hiram of Tyre were in the habit of exchanging riddles. So we find that a love of fun or playfulness was inherent in our early ancestors, yet it did not reach a height to be called genuine creative humor. But there is always the feeling that if more of the translators themselves possessed more humor, they might find more in the originals. As a rule, translators and antiquarian researchers are so engaged in serious seeking that they would probably pass over humor if they ran across it. When a man is prospecting for iron or coal, he may easily be blind to indications of wells of natural oil.