Here we have a fact in natural history accounted for, but accounted
for in such a peculiar way as shows that the races among which they
are current must have derived them from some common tradition. The
mode by which the tail is lost is different indeed; but the manner in
which the common ground-work is suited in one case to the cold of the
North, and the way in which fish are commonly caught at holes in the
ice as they rise to breathe; and in the other to Africa and her
pitfalls for wild beasts, is only another proof of the oldness of the
tradition, and that it is not merely a copy.

Take another instance. Every one knows the story in the Arabian
Nights, where the man who knows the speech of beasts laughs at
something said by an ox to an ass. His wife wants to know why he
laughs, and persists, though he tells her it will cost him his life
if he tells her. As he doubts what to do, he hears the cock say to
the house-dog 'Our master is not wise; I have fifty hens who obey me;
if he followed my advice, he'd just take a good stick, shut up his
wife in a room with him, and give her a good cudgelling.' The same
story is told in Straparola [10] with so many variations as to show
it is no copy; it is also told in a Servian popular tale, with
variations of its own; and now here we find it in Bornou, as told by
Koelle.

There was a servant of God who had one wife and one horse; but his
wife was one-eyed, and they lived in their house. Now this servant
of God understood the language of the beasts of the forest when
they spoke, and of the birds of the air when they talked as they
flew by. This servant of God also understood the cry of the hyaena
when it arose at night in the forest, and came to the houses and
cried near them; so, likewise, when his horse was hungry and