_Remarks_.--M. Cosquin has pointed out (_Contes de Lorraine_, p. xi. _seq._) that the incident of the rat's-tail-up-nose to recover the ring from the stomach of an ogress, is found among Arabs, Albanians, Bretons, and Russians. It is impossible to imagine that incident--occurring in the same series of incidents--to have been invented more than once, and if that part of the story has been borrowed from India, there is no reason why the whole of it should not have arisen in India, and have been spread to the West. The English variant was derived from an English Gipsy, and suggests the possibility that for this particular story the medium of transmission has been the Gipsies. This contains the incident of the loss of the ring by the faithful animal, which again could not have been independently invented.

XIII. THE TALKATIVE TORTOISE.

_Source_.---The _Kacchapa Jataka_, Fausboll, No. 215; also in his _Five Jatakas_, pp. 16, 41, tr. Rhys-Davids, pp. viii-x.

_Parallels_.--It occurs also in the Bidpai literature, in nearly all its multitudinous offshoots. See Benfey, _Einleitung_, S 84; also my _Bidpai_, E, 4 _a_; and North's text, pp. 170-5, where it is the taunts of the other birds that cause the catastrophe: "O here is a brave sight, looke, here is a goodly ieast, what bugge haue we here," said some. "See, see, she hangeth by the throte, and therefor she speaketh not," saide others; "and the beast flieth not like a beast;" so she opened her mouth and "pashte hir all to pieces."

_Remarks_.-I have reproduced in my edition the original illustration of the first English Bidpai, itself derived from the Italian block. A replica of it here may serve to show that it could be used equally well to illustrate the Pali original as its English great- great-great-great-great-great grand-child.

XIV. LAC OF RUPEES.

_Source_.--Knowles, _Folk-Tales of Kashmir_, pp. 32-41. I have reduced the pieces of advice to three, and curtailed somewhat.

_Parallels_.--See _Celtic Fairy Tales_, No. xxii., _"Tale of Ivan,"_ from the old Cornish, now extinct, and notes _ibid._ Mr. Clouston points out (_Pop. Tales_, ii. 319) that it occurs in Buddhist literature, in "Buddaghoshas Parables," as "The Story of Kulla Pauthaka."

_Remarks_.--It is indeed curious to find the story better told in Cornwall than in the land of its birth, but there can be little doubt that the Buddhist version is the earliest and original form of the story. The piece of advice was originally a charm, in which a youth was to say to himself, "Why are you busy? Why are you busy?" He does so when thieves are about, and so saves the king's treasures, of which he gets an appropriate share. It would perhaps be as well if many of us should say to ourselves "_Ghatesa, ghatesa, kim karana?_"

XV. THE GOLD-GIVING SERPENT.

_Source_.--_Pantschatantra_, III. v., tr. Benfey, ii. 244-7.