He bids the young man fly in search of food, but while he is gone he reflects that it may be too late when he returns, and to save the mother from the dreadful crime of killing her children, and the little ones from the teeth of their famished mother, he flings himself down the precipice. Hearing the noise, and curious as to what it might mean, the tigress is turned from the thought of killing her young ones, and on looking round she sees the body of the saint and devours it. The most remarkable of all the many Buddhist animal stories is that of the Banyan Deer, which is in the rich collection of old-world lore known as the _Jātaka Book_. The collection is not so much an original Buddhist work as the Buddhist redaction of much older tales. It was made in about the third century B.C. The Banyan Deer story had the additional interest that illustrations of it were discovered among the bas-reliefs of the stupa of Bharhut. I condense the story from the version of it given in Professor T. W. Rhys Davids’ “Buddhist India.” In the king’s park there were two herds of deer, and every day either the king or his cook hunted them for venison. So every day a great many were harassed and wounded for one that was killed. Then the golden-hued Banyan Deer, who was the monarch of one herd, went to the Branch Deer, who was king of the other herd, and proposed an arrangement by which lots were to be cast daily, and one deer on whom the lot fell should go and offer himself to the cook, voluntarily laying his head on the block. In this way there would be no unnecessary suffering and slaughter. [Illustration: _Photo:_ _Griggs._ THE BANYAN DEER. (_From “Stûpa of Bharhut,” by General Cunningham._)]