his own."

"And St. Paul belongs to me," said Cloctaw, the jackdaw.

"Well, now," said the owl, raising his voice and overpowering the husky
Cloctaw, "about these various properties little or no dispute can take
place; the son succeeds to the father, and the nephew to the uncle.
Occasional litigation, of course, occurs, which I have often had the
pleasure of conducting to an amicable and satisfactory termination. But,
upon the whole, there is very little difficulty; and the principle of
inheritance is accepted by all. Your approval, indeed, has just been
signified in the most unanimous manner. But what shall we see if the
example set by the palace spreads among society? The ash at the present
moment is owned by the wood-pigeon; were the wood-pigeon's heir to marry
the missel-thrush's heiress, just imagine the conflicting claims which
would arise.

"The family would be divided amongst itself; all the relations upon the
paternal side, and the relations upon the maternal side would join the
contest, and peace would be utterly at an end. And so in all other
instances. The crow would no longer have a fee-simple of the oak, the
jackdaw of the steeple, the rook of the elm, the fox of the burrow, or I
of my pollard. We might even see the rook claiming the----But I will not
follow the illustration further, lest I be charged with descending to
personalities. I will only add, in conclusion, that if this ill-fated
union takes place, we must look forward to seeing every home broken up,
our private settlements, our laws of hereditary succession set upon one
side, our property divided among a miscellaneous horde of people, who
will not know their own grandfathers, and our most cherished sentiments
cast to the winds of heaven." With which words the owl concluded, and
was greeted with marks of approval from all parts of the circle.

"We are all very much indebted to the owl," said the fox, "for putting
the true aspect of the case so clearly before us. His learned
discourse--not more learned than lucid--has convinced us all of the
extreme inexpediency of this alliance."

"If this course is persisted in," said the crow, "it can only end, in my
opinion, in a way disastrous to the state. The king cannot decline to
listen to our representations, if we are united."

"Haw!" said the rook; "I'm not so sure of that. Kapchack likes his own
way."

"Kapchack is very self-willed," said the hawk. "It is almost our turn to
have our way once no