and, seeing flesh roasting over the fire, thought their watchman had killed the hare, and left their share of the flesh for them.

After they had feasted heartily, the hare shouted, "Look behind that tree," and then bolted.

Behind the tree they found the mangled remains of their comrade.

The hare from his great wisdom soon became the umpire to whose decision all the disputes of the forest were referred. Among many famous decisions of his is that of the case of the tiger and the boar.

THE TIGER AND THE BOAR.

A tiger and a wild boar were brought up as fosterbrethren, and pledged themselves to an eternal friendship. The boar became very fat as he reached maturity, and the tiger's mouth watered. every time he looked at his friend's fat sides, and he began to seek an excuse for eating him.

One morning the tiger went, with much feigned sadness, to the boar, and told him he had been disturbed by bad dreams, and told his friend, “I dreamed that I ate you, and your fat sides tasted deliciously."

"Well, what of that?" said the boar.

"The trouble is," replied the tiger, "we tigers

have an ancestral custom which compels us to make true any dream we have, and so, however reluctant to break our friendship, I must eat you."

The boar refused to be bound by any tiger's custom, and after great dispute they agreed to refer the matter to the nearest king, and set out for his court. When they reached the palace, the tiger told the boar to go right in, and he would follow soon. The boar took his seat in the audience chamber, but the tiger secured a private meeting with the king, and offered him a bribe of a hind quarter of the boar to decide in his favour.

Crowds assembled to see the strange spectacle of a lawsuit between two wild animals. The sight of the boar's fat sides made the mouths of the king and queen and nobles water till the floor was bedewed with saliva. The bribe, so tempting, of course, caused the case to be prejudged. The tiger pleaded the sanctity of ancestral customs, and with plentiful tears bewailed his sad fate in being compelled to eat so valued a friend.

The boar pleaded the inviolability of the ties which bound them together. The boar pleaded in vain, for his fatness showed so temptingly the bribe the tiger had offered that the case went against him. When the decision was made, the boar

demanded seven days in which to dispose of his property and make provision for his family, and was released, after taking a solemn oath to return for death on that day week. While sadly visiting his old haunts, the boar met the hare, and was asked why he looked so sorrowful. The boar replied by telling of the sad fate that awaited him. "When? In such an insignificant case as this hire me as your lawyer," said the hare.

The boar, of course, retained the hare as his legal adviser, and on the appointed day the two went to court together.

The boar claimed the right to bring farther pleas in his case, as he was now represented by proper legal counsel. The hare panted and pretended to be completely out of breath, and said he must have a nap to rest him before he could do full justice in so important a case. A mat was spread for him, and the hare pretended to drop asleep, while the king and queen and nobility looked with watering mouths at the fat sides of the boar.

At last the hare sprang up, and, clasping his hands in ecstasy, he exclaimed, "What a glorious. dream I have had! I dreamed that I eloped with the queen, and how I did enjoy her embraces. hares have an ancestral custom that we must make

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good every dream we have, so I must elope with the queen."

With that he seized the queen's hand, and began dragging her away.

The king saw he must reverse his previous decision in the case of tiger and boar, or have his favourite queen ravished before his eyes, so he hastily decided against the sanctity of ancestral customs, and freed the boar.

THE TIGER AND THE MAN.

A poor toungya cultivator left his breakfast every morning in his hut in the toungya, and a tiger came and stole it every day. The man in his anger set a trap of huge logs so arranged as to fall on any animal which touched the bait. The tiger was caught and badly crushed by the logs, but was still alive. When the man came in on hearing the roars, the tiger pleaded hard for his life. He admitted the daily theft, but urged that theft was not a capital crime, and that he had been so severely punished already by the fall of the trap that he ought in justice to be released from the trap.

The man refused, saying he feared the tiger would eat him if released. The tiger swore most

solemnly never to attempt revenge, and was released.

As soon as he was out of the trap he seized the man, and was about to devour him. The man pleaded the sanctity of the oath just taken. The tiger told him necessity knew no law, and that, crippled as he was, he could no longer catch game for his daily food, but must eat the man or starve.

The hare happened to be passing, and the case was referred to him for decision.

The hare, with a wise look, said, "I can't understand this matter clearly. Now, you both act out just what each did."

The man told where he hid his breakfast every day, and showed how he set the trap. The hare said he could not understand the trap, and made the man set it to show how it was done. The tiger was then ordered to show what he did, and accordingly entered the trap, but walked round gingerly, carefully avoiding the spring of the trap.

"I don't see that anything happened to you that you can justly complain of," said the hare. "How could you have received these terrible bruises?'

The tiger edged nearer and nearer, till at last he touched the spring, and the trap fell again.