344 STORY OF AN OWL. 



This proceeding of Mother Wasp reminds us of the trick 

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

 Chat-huant," which, according to an appended note, is no fa- 

 ble 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. With a foresight 

 reaching further still, even to the length of what .we exclu- 

 sively 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, admitting his fable to be fable but in name : 



"Puis, qu'un Cartesien s'obstine 

 A traiter ce hibou de montre et de machine ! 

 Quelle lui pouvoit dormer 

 Le conseil de tronquer un peuple mis en mue ? 

 Si ce n'est pas la raisonner 

 La raison m'est chose inconnue." 



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 me/veilleuse et presque 

 ineroyable, est ve'ritablement arrivee." Author's note. 



