[Illustration: THE HAWK AND THE FARMER.]
A Hawk, pursuing a Pigeon over a corn-field with great eagerness and
force, threw himself into a net which a husbandman had planted there to
take the Crows; who being employed not far off, and seeing the Hawk
fluttering in the net, came and took him: but, just as he was going to
kill him, the Hawk besought him to let him go, assuring him that he was
only following a Pigeon, and neither intended nor had done any harm to
him. To whom the Farmer replied--'And what harm had the poor Pigeon done
to you?' Upon which he wrung his head off immediately.