FABLES. 



345 



THE HUSBANDMAN AND THE STORK. 



A Husbandman having placed nets in his fields 

 to catch the Rooks and the Geese, which came to 

 feed upon the new-sown corn, found among his 

 prisoners a single Stork, who happened to be in 

 their company. The Stork pleaded hard for his 

 life, and among other arguments, alleged that he 

 was neither Goose nor Crow, but a poor harmless 

 Stork, whose attachment to mankind, and his 

 services to them in picking up noxious creatures, 

 as well as fulfilling his duties to his aged 

 parents, he trusted, were well known. All this 

 may be true, says the Husbandman, for what 

 I know; but as I have taken you in company 

 with thieves, and in the same crime, you must 

 also share the same fate with them. 



VOL. IV. 2 Y 



