A Husbandman having placed nets in his fields to catch the Rooks and
the Geese, which came to feed upon the new-sown corn, found among his
prisoners a single Stork, who happened to be in their company. The
Stork pleaded hard for his life, and among other arguments, alleged
that he was neither Goose nor Crow, but a poor harmless Stork, whose
attachment to mankind, and his services to them in picking up noxious
creatures, as well as fulfilling his duties to his aged parents, he
trusted, were well known. All this may be true, says the Husbandman,
for what I know; but as I have taken you in company with thieves, and
in the same crime, you must also share the same fate with them.