dren is traced to the
otter himself.

Another Far-Eastern story from Laos (French Indo-China), entitled
"Right and Might" (Fleeson, 27), is worth notice:--

A deer, frightened by the noise of an owl and a cricket, flees through
the forest and into a stream, where it crushes a small fish almost to
death. The fish complains to the court; and the deer, owl, cricket,
and fish have a lawsuit. In the trial comes out this evidence: As the
deer fled, he ran into some dry grass, and the seed fell into the eye
of a wild chicken, and the pain caused by the seed made the chicken
fly up against a nest of red ants. Alarmed, the red ants flew out to
do battle, and in their haste bit a mongoose. The mongoose ran into
a vine of wild fruit, and shook several pieces of it on the head of
a hermit, who sat thinking under a tree. The hermit then asked the
fruit why it fell, and the fruit blamed the mongoose; mongoose blamed
ants; ants blamed chicken; chicken blamed seed; seed blamed deer;
deer blamed owl. "O Owl!" asked the hermit, "why didst thou frighten
the deer?" The owl replied, "I called but as I am accustomed to call;
the cricket, too, called." Having heard the evidence, the judge says,
"The cricket must replace the crushed parts of the fish and make it
well," as he, the cricket, called and frightened the deer. Since the
cricket is smaller and weaker than the owl or the deer, he had to
bear the penalty.

TALE 61

THE GREEDY CROW.

Narrated by Agapito O. Gaa, from Taal, Batangas. He heard the story
from an old Tagalog man who is now dead.

One day a crow found a piece of meat on the ground. He picked it
up and flew to the top of a tree. While he was sitting there eating
his meat, a kasaykasay (a small bird) passed by. She was carrying a
dead rat, and was flying very fast. The crow called to her, and said,
"Kasaykasay, where did you get that dead rat that you have?" But the
small bird did not answer: she flew on her way. When the crow saw
that she paid no attention to him, he was very angry; and he called
out, "Kasaykasay, Kasaykasay, stop and give me a piece of that rat,
or I will follow you and take the whole thing for myself!" Still the
small bird paid no attention to him. At last, full of greed and rage,
the crow determined to have the rat by any means. He left the meat he
was eating, and flew after the small creature. Although she was only
a little bird, the Kasaykasay could fly faster than the crow--so he
could