"I am a little bit on the destroy myself," said the Hen, tranquilly swallowing one of the little reptiles; "and it is not an act of folly to provide oneself with the delicacies of the season." A Seasonable Joke A Spendthrift, seeing a single swallow, pawned his cloak, thinking that Summer was at hand. It was. The Lion and the Thorn A Lion roaming through the forest, got a thorn in his foot, and, meeting a Shepherd, asked him to remove it. The Shepherd did so, and the Lion, having just surfeited himself on another shepherd, went away without harming him. Some time afterward the Shepherd was condemned on a false accusation to be cast to the lions in the amphitheatre. When they were about to devour him, one of them said: "This is the man who removed the thorn from my foot." Hearing this, the others honourably abstained, and the claimant ate the Shepherd all himself. The Fawn and the Buck A Fawn said to its father: "You are larger, stronger, and more active than a dog, and you have sharp horns. Why do you run away when you hear one barking?" "Because, my child," replied the Buck, "my temper is so uncertain that if I permit one of those noisy creatures to come into my presence I am likely to forget myself and do him an injury." The Kite, the Pigeons, and the Hawk Some Pigeons exposed to the attacks of a Kite asked a Hawk to defend them. He consented, and being admitted into the cote waited for the Kite, whom he fell upon and devoured. When he was so surfeited that he could scarcely move, the grateful Pigeons scratched out his eyes. The Wolf and the Babe A Famishing Wolf, passing the door of a cottage in the forest, heard a Mother say to her babe: "Be quiet, or I will throw you out of the window, and the wolves will get you." So he waited all day below the window, growing more hungry all the time. But at night the Old Man, having returned from the village club, threw out both Mother and Child. The Wolf and the Ostrich A Wolf, who in devouring a man had choked himself with a bunch of keys, asked an ostrich to put her head down his throat and pull them out, which she did. "I suppose," said the Wolf, "you expect payment for that service." "A kind act," replied the Ostrich, "is its own reward; I have eaten the keys." The Herdsman and the Lion A Herdsman who had lost a bullock entreated the gods to bring him the thief, and vowed he would sacrifice a goat to them. Just then a Lion, his jaws dripping with bullock's blood, approached the Herdsman. "I thank you, good deities," said the Herdsman, continuing his prayer, "for showing me the thief. And now if you will take him away, I will stand another goat." The Man and the Viper A Man finding a frozen Viper put it into his bosom. "The coldness of the human heart," he said, with a grin, "will keep the creature in his present condition until I can reach home and revive him on the coals."