FABLES. 



THE VAIN JACK-DAW. 



A certain Jack-Daw was so proud and ambitious, 

 that, not contented to live within his own sphere, 

 he picked up the feathers which fell from the Pea- 

 cocks, stuck them in among his own, and very 

 confidently introduced himself into an assembly of 

 those beautiful birds. They soon found him out, 

 stripped him of his borrowed plumes, and falling 

 upon him with their sharp bills, punished him as 

 his presumption deserved. Upon this, full of grief 

 and affliction, he returned to his old companions, 

 and would have lived with them again ; but they, 

 knowing his late life and conversation, industri- 

 ously avoided him, and refused to admit him into 

 their company; and one of them, at the same time, 

 gave him this serious reproof: If, friend, you could 

 have been contented with our station, and had 



