Indeed, the West liked the Eastern stories of beasts so well that it borrowed not a few without any acknowledgment. We all know that the Welsh dog, Gellert, whose grave is shown to this day, had a near relative in the mungoose of a Chinese Buddhist story which exists in a collection dating from the fifth century. The same motive reappears in the _Panchatantra_, a Sanscrit collection to which is assigned a slightly later date. These are the earliest traces of it that have come to light, but its subsequent wanderings are endless. The theme does not vary much; a faithful animal saves a child from imminent peril: it is seen with marks of blood or signs of a struggle upon it, and on the supposition that it has killed or hurt the child, it is killed before the truth is discovered. The animal varies according to the locality, and amongst the other points of interest in this world-legend is that of reminding us of the universal diffusion of pet animals. We learn, too, which was the characteristically household animal with the people who re-tell the story: in Syria, Greece, Spain, as in Wales, and also (rather to our surprise) among the Jews, we hear of a dog. The weasel tribe prevails in India and China, the cat in Persia. Probably in India and in China dogs were not often admitted inside the houses; in a Chinese analogous tale, of which I shall speak presently, there is a dog, but the incidents take place on the highway. The mungoose was the traditional pet of India because its enmity to snakes must have gained for it admittance into dwelling-places from very early times, and wherever man lives in domesticity with any animal that he does not look upon as food, he cannot save himself from becoming attached to it only a little less than he is attached to the human members of his household. To this rule there are no exceptions.