A Fox one day tried to drink at a well when he caught his feet on a stone and fell into the water. It was not so deep as to drown him, yet the poor Fox could not get out. Soon a Goat came that way. He, too, thought he would drink, but then he saw the Fox in the well, so he said, "Is the water good?" "Oh, yes," said the Fox, "it is very good and nice, and there is a lot of it." In sprang the Goat, and at once the Fox sprang on to his back, and thence out of the well. "Ah, my friend!" said he, as he stood safe on the brink, "if your brains had been as large as your beard, you would have seen where you meant to jump to!" and then the sly Fox ran off and left the poor Goat in the well. _Look before you leap._ THE TWO FROGS Two Frogs were neighbors. The one inhabited a deep pond, far removed from public view; the other lived in a gully containing little water, and traversed by a country road. He that lived in the pond warned his friend, and entreated him to change his residence and come and live with him, saying that he could enjoy greater safety from danger and more abundant food. The other refused, saying that he felt it so very hard to remove from a place to which he had become accustomed. A few days afterward a heavy wagon passed through the gully, and crushed him to death under its wheels. _A wilful man will have his way to his own hurt._ THE DOG IN THE MANGER A cross Dog lay in a manger full of hay; and when the Ox came near to eat his own food, the rude and ill-bred cur at once began to snarl and bite at him. "What a selfish Beast thou art!" said the Ox; "thou canst not eat the hay thyself, nor wilt thou look on while others feed." _Do not be selfish._ THE STAG AT THE POOL One hot day, a Stag, who came down from the hills to quench his thirst at a pool of clear water, saw his form in the stream. "Ah!" said he, "what fine horns these are--with what grace do they rise above my head! I wish that all the parts of my body were as good as they. But sometimes I quite blush at these poor, thin, weak legs of mine." While he thought thus, all at once the cries of the huntsman and the bay of the hounds were heard. Away flew the Stag, and by the aid of these same thin, weak legs he soon outran the hunt. At last he found himself in a wood, and he had the bad luck to catch his fine horns in the branch of a tree, where he was held till the hounds came up and caught him. He now saw how foolish he had been in thinking so ill of his legs which would have brought him safely away, and in being so vain of those horns which had caused his ruin. _The useful is better than the beautiful._ THE WAR-HORSE AND THE ASS