344 STORY OF AN OWL. 



This proceeding of Mother Wasp reminds us of the trick 

 of Maitre Hibou, in La Fontaine's Table of ' Les Souris et le 

 Chat-huant/ which, according to an appended note, is no fable 

 at all, only a fabulized fact.* The story, familiar probably to 

 many of our readers, runs briefly thus : " An owl had made 

 his palace in the hollow of an old fir-tree. The tree was felled, 

 and in its cavity what should be discovered but a brood of 

 mice as fat as butter, but without a single foot left amongst 

 them ? The bird of wisdom had discovered, it would seem, 

 that little quadrupeds could manage to give the slip occasion- 

 ally to winged bipeds, and had therefore employed his beak to 

 annihilate the trotters of the furry brood. AVith a foresight 

 reaching further still, even to the length of what we exclusively 

 call human, he had there fattened them on pilfered grain, to 

 keep them in good condition for consumption at leisure and at 

 pleasure. Hereon exclaims our poet, as well he may, admit- 

 ting his fable to be fable but in name :- 



" Puis, qu'im Cartesien s'obstine 

 A t raiter re hibou de montrc et de machine ! 

 Quellc lui pouvoit dormer 

 Le coiiseil de tronquer un peuple mis en mue ? 

 Si ce n'est pas la raisonner 

 La raison m'est chose incormue." 



It is not so much to draw a parallel as to point out a differ- 

 ence between the owl, as mutilator of his mice, and the wasp, 



* " Ceci n'est point une fable ; et la chose, quoique uierveilleuse et presque 

 incroyable, est veritablemeiit arrivee." Author's note. 



