GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OP MYTHS. 357 



and tried to choke liim, and burnt his tail over the fire, and 

 since then the rat has had a hairless tail, and his eyes are as 

 if they had been squeezed out of his head. But he begged to 

 be heard, and told them that it was not their business to till 

 the ground, for the rings and gloves and the india-rubber 

 ball, the instruments of the princely game, were hidden in their 

 grandmother's house, and so forth. ^ 



The curious mythic art of Tail-fishing only forms a part of 

 the stories how the Bear, the Wolf, and the Hyasna came to 

 lose their tails in Europe and Afi"ica. But this particular idea, 

 taken by itself, has a wide geographical range both in the 

 Old and New Worlds. A story current in India, apparently 

 among the Tamil population of the South, is told by the Rev. 

 J. Roberts, who says, speaking of the jackal, " this animal is 

 very much like the fox of England in his habits and appearance. 

 I have been told, that they often catch the crab by putting 

 their tail into its hole, which the creature immediately seizes, 

 in hope of food : the jackal then drags it out and devours it.'' ^ 



In North America, the bearer of the story is the racoon. 

 " Lawson relates, that those which formerly lived on the salt 

 waters in Carolina, fed on oysters, which they nimbly snatched 

 when the shell opened ; but that sometimes the paw was 

 caught, and held till the return of the tide, in which the ani- 

 mal, though it swims well, was sometimes drowned. His art 

 in catching crabs is still more extraordinary. Standing on the 

 borders of the waters where this shell-fish aboim^ds, he keeps 

 the end of his tail floating on the surface, which the crab seizes, 

 and he then leaps forward with his prey, and destroys it in a 

 very artful manner."^ In South America, the art is given to 

 two other very cunning creatures, the monkey and the jaguar. 

 I have been informed by one of the English explorers in British 

 Guiana, that it is a current story there, that the monkey catches 

 fish by letting them take hold of the end of his tail, Southey, 

 quoting from a manuscript description of the district flooded 

 by the River Paraguay, called the Lago Xarayes, says " when 



' Brasseur, ' Popol-Vuh,' pp. 118-25. 



^ Eoberts, ' Oriental Illuslrations,' p. 172. 



3 D. B. Warden, Account of U. S. ; Edinburgh, 1819, vol. i. p. 199. 



