Professor Rankine evidently took Æsop's illustration of 'The Bow Unbent' to heart, when, relaxing his severer studies, he occupied occasional hours in composing 'Songs and Fables.' The three following pieces are examples of his work as a fabulist, and of his skill in interpreting the meaning of popular signs: '_The Magpie and Stump._--A magpie was in the habit of depositing articles which he pilfered in the hollow stump of a tree. "I grieve less," the stump was heard to say, "at the misfortune of losing my branches and leaves, than at the disgrace of being made a receptacle for stolen goods." Moral: _Infamy is harder to bear than adverse fortune_.' '_The Green Man._--A green man, wandering through the Highlands of Scotland, discovered, in a sequestered valley, a still, with which certain unprincipled individuals were engaged in the illicit manufacture of aqua-vitæ. Being, as we have stated, a green man, he was easily persuaded by those unprincipled individuals to expend a considerable sum in the purchase of the intoxicating produce of their still, and to drink so much of it that he speedily became insensible. On awaking next morning, with an empty purse and an aching head, he thought, with sorrow and shame, what a green man he had been. Moral: _He who follows the advice of unprincipled individuals is a green man indeed_.' '_The Bull and Mouth._--A native of the Sister Isle having opened his mouth during a convivial entertainment, out flew a bull, whereupon some of the company manifested alarm. "Calm your fears," said the sagacious host; "verbal bulls have no horns." Moral: _Harmless blunders are subjects of amusement rather than of consternation_.' The following curious 'Birth Story,' from the collection of Indian Fables by Mr. P. V. Ramaswami Raju, is an ironical commentary on the doctrine of transmigration, in which the followers of Buddha implicitly believe: 'One day a king in the far East was seated in the hall of justice. A thief was brought before him; he inquired into his case, and said he should receive one hundred lashes with a cat-o'-nine-tails. Instantly he recollected an old Eastern saying, "What we do to others in this birth, they will do to us in the next," and said to his minister, "I have a great mind to let this thief go quietly, for he is sure to give me these one hundred lashes in the next birth." "Sire," replied the minister, "I know the saying you refer to is perfectly true, but you must understand you are simply returning to the thief in this birth what he gave you in the last." The king was perfectly pleased with this reply, says the story, and gave his minister a rich present.' This selection of fables may be suitably concluded by two which, though not original, we have not met with in print. The first is entitled _The Nightingale, the Cuckoo and the Ass_:[71]