FAVOURITE FABLES. 133

FABLE XV Et.

THE FOX, THE RAVEN, AND THE DOVE.

A Fox, who was half-starved with hunger, stretched
himself all along upon the ground, and lay as if he were
dead, that he might entice the harmless birds to come within
his reach, and then leap of a sudden upon them, and make
them his prey; but it happened that a Raven, who was
hovering near him, observed that he fetched his breath; and,
by consequence, found it to be only a trick in him to catch
the birds. She, therefore, instantly gave them notice of it;
and forewarned them, as they valued their own lives, not to
come within reach of the Fox, who only feigned himself to
be dead.

The Fox, finding his plot to be discovered, was obliged
to go away hungry; but soon bethought himself of another
invention: which was, to go and kennel himself in a hollow
tree, upon which a Dove had her nest, and was breeding up
her young ones. Having done this, he called to her, that,
unless she would throw down to him sometimes one of her
eggs, and sometimes one of her young ones, he would climb
up the tree, take away all her eggs, kill both her and her
young, and break her nest to pieces.

The harmless Dove, thinking of two ills to choose the