A MAGICIAN once passed through a grove in the forest where a great many brown birds fluttered from tree to tree and filled the air with songs. For a long time he sat and listened, enraptured by their beautiful melodies, but in the end he became very jealous, for he himself could not sing.
At last he felt that he must by some means or other possess the voices of these singing birds, so he called them all together and said:
“It grieves me that the gods have given you all such poor, ugly brown feathers.