(_b_) There are, however, among these fables of Greek descent a number which betray the greatest poverty of invention and execution, being mere pegs on which to hang the instructive moral, so that the contents, whether they refer to gods or animals, have merely a formal significance. Yet even these are far enough removed from the modern tendency of doing violence to the animal world as we find it in Nature. An example of this tendency is that fable of Pfeffel about a marmot which collected provisions in autumn, an act of foresight which another marmot neglected, and so was brought to the condition of beggary and starvation. Or there is that other of the fox, the bloodhound, and the lynx, of whom it is narrated that they presented themselves before Jupiter, together with the talents which exclusively belonged to them of cunning, keen scent, and clear sight, and requested that these gifts should be equally divided between them; the fable goes on that they obtained such consent under these rather surprising terms: "The fox gets a blow on the forehead, the bloodhound is good for no more hunting, the Argus Lynx receives a cataract." That a marmot should cease to make provision for its wants, or that the three animals above mentioned should ever incidentally meet with, or be naturally capable of receiving, a proportionate division of their respective gifts is contrary to all reason and consequently meaningless. A better fable than those above cited is that of the ant and the grasshopper, or that other of the deer with the beautiful horns and the slender legs. Conformably to the tenor of fables of this kind we have grown, as a rule, accustomed to accept the moral of the fable as that which is of first importance, and to regard the narrative as _merely_ an external form, and consequently an event entirely _composed_ with a view to expound that moral. Embodiments of this sort, however, more particularly when the occurrence described is wholly at variance with the natural character of specific animals, are in the highest degree insipid, attempts at invention which mean less than nothing. The real ingenuity of a fable consists exclusively in this that it is able to impart to that which already exists in determinate form a further and more universal significance than that which is immediately presented.