XXI.—JAY AND PEACOCK (Ro. ii. 15).
Phædrus, i. 3. Referred to by Horace, Epist. I. iii. 18, and Plautus, Aulul. II. i. Probably Indian, owing to the habitat of the bird and the similarity of the Nacca Jātaka. The parvenu bird varies. Benedict of Oxford, in his Hebrew version, makes it Raven. Most of the English Æsops call it a Jackdaw. Thackeray includes it in the Prologue to The Newcomes. A monograph has been written on this fable by M. Fuchs, 1886 (Dissertation). Our expression, " Borrowed plumes," comes from it.
XXII.—FROG AND OX (Ro. ii. 20).
Phædrus, i. 24. Told by Horace, Sat. II. iii. 314. Cf. Martial, x. 79. Carlyle gives a version in his Miscellanies, ii. 283, from the old German of Boner. Thackeray introduces it in the Prologue to The Newcomes. There is said to be a species of Frog in South America, Ceratophrys, which has a remarkable power of blowing itself out.
XXIII.—ANDROCLES (Ro. iii. 1).
Medieval prose Phædrus. Quoted by Appian, Aulus Gellius, and Seneca. Probably Oriental. Was dropped out of Æsop, but is familiar to us from its inclusion in Day's Sandford and Merton; see also, Painter, Palace of Pleasure, ed. Jacobs, i. 89, 90, where the slave is called Androdus.
XXIV.—BAT, BIRDS, AND BEASTS (Ro. iii. 4).
Medieval prose Phædrus. Quoted by Varro, and in the Pandects, xxi., De evict. I have made use of the Arabic
