Once on a time there was a daw, who was so vain that he must needs leave his old friends (the jacks), and go quite out of his sphere to pass for a jay. So he stuck the bright plumes that fell from those gay birds on his own back, that he might look like them. But they soon found him out, took off his plumes, fell on him with their sharp bills, and made him smart for his pride. Full of shame, he hung down his head, and once more went to flock with those of his own tribe, but they knew his vain ways too well, and told him they did not now choose to own him; and one of them said, “If you had been true to your own friends, you would not have had such hard cuts from those whom you have just left, nor would you have had to bear the slights which we now feel we must put on you.” THE HART AND THE VINE. Some men sought out a hart for the chase, when one made a rush out of the wood, and hid from them in the shade of a thick vine, so that they quite lost sight of him. It was the best hide and seek that could be, and so thought the stag, but he hid not for sport, but for dear life. There he lay, still as a mouse. In a short time he took heart to browse on the leaves of the vine, which hung so green and fresh just at his nose. He saw no harm in one more crop, and then one more, till he quite lost sight of what he had come there for. More than this, he so shook the tree when he took a bite, that he drew the eyes of the men to the spot, and as the vine was now too thin of leaves to hide him, they shot at him, and he fell down dead. Where the hedge is thin, men will see through it. THE OWLS AND THE WREN. [Illustration] Two owls sat on the branch of a tree. “How strange is it,” said one of them, “that in the old days of Greece, men best knew our worth, for owls were then thought to be the type of all that is wise.” “Not so,” said the wren, who heard them, “and if you were less vain, you would know well that in those days men wore owls on their shields to show that they should not judge by mere looks. If they did, they would take an owl to be a wise bird; for, though he has but a small wit, he has a large head.” THE LEAP AT RHODES.