tortoise pretended that he was stronger than the tapir. He tells
the latter he can drag him into the sea, but the tapir retorts
that he will pull the tortoise into the forest and kill him
besides. The tortoise thereupon gets a vine-stem, ties one end
around the body of the tapir, and goes to the sea, where he ties
the other end to the tail of a whale. He then goes into the wood,
midway between them both, and gives the vine a shake as a signal
for the pulling to begin. The struggle between the whale and
tapir goes on until each thinks the tortoise is the strongest of
animals. Compare this with the story of the terrapin's contest
with the bear, in which Miss Meadows's bed-cord is used instead
of a vine-stem. One of the most characteristic of Uncle Remus's
stories is that in which the rabbit proves to Miss Meadows and
the girls that the fox is his riding-horse. This is almost
identical with a story quoted by Mr. Smith, where the jaguar is
about to marry the deer's daughter. The cotia--a species of
rodent--is also in love with her, and he tells the deer that he
can make a riding-horse of the jaguar.

"Well," says the deer, "if you can make the jaguar carry you, you
shall have my daughter." Thereupon the story proceeds pretty
much as Uncle Remus tells it of the fox and rabbit. The cotia
finally jumps from the jaguar and takes refuge in a hole, where
an owl is set to watch him, but he flings sand in the owl's eyes
and escapes. In another story given by Mr. Smith, the cotia is
very thirsty, and, seeing a man coming with a jar on his head,
lies down in the road in front of him, and repeats this until the
man puts down his jar to go back after all the dead cotias he has
seen. This is almost identical with Uncle Remus's story of how
the rabbit robbed the fox of his game. In a story from Upper