An Eagle that had young ones, looking for something to feed them
with, happened to spy a Fox’s Cub that lay basking itself abroad in
the sun: she made a stoop, and trussed it immediately; but before she
had carried it quite off, the old Fox coming home, implored her, with
tears, to spare her Cub, and pity the distress of a poor fond mother,
who would think no affliction so great as that of losing her child.
The Eagle, whose nest was high in an old hollow tree, thought herself
secure from all projects of revenge, and so bore away the Cub to her
young ones, without shewing any regard to the supplications of the Fox.
But that subtle creature, highly incensed at this outrageous barbarity,
ran to an altar, where some country people had been sacrificing a kid
in the open fields, and catching up a fire-brand in her mouth, made
towards the tree where the Eagle’s nest was, with a resolution of
revenge. She had scarcely reached its root, when the Eagle, terrified
with the approaching ruin of herself and family, begged of the Fox to
desist, and, with much submission, returned her the Cub safe and sound.