"Aye, aye," barked a fox; "he interferes in the same base manner with my privileges, though I visit his hen-roost in the night that I may not disturb him."
"Agreed," hissed a rattle-snake, "for he wont let me bite him, though he knows it is my nature, and kills me according to scripture" and thereupon he rattled his tail, curled himself in spiral volumes, and darted his tongue at me in a most fearful manner."
"Agreed," said a great fat spider, who sat in his net, surrounded by the dead bodies of half a dozen insects—"agreed, for the bloody-minded savage takes delight in destroying the fruits of my honest labors, on all occasions."
"By all means," buzzed a great blue-bottle-fly," for he will not let me tickle his nose of a hot summer day, though he must see with half an eye, that it gives me infinite satisfaction."
"Kill him," cried a little ant, who ran fuming and fretting about at a furious rate, "kill him without mercy, for he don't mind treading me into a million of atoms, a bit more than you do killing a fly," addressing himself to the spider.
"The less you say about that the better," whispered the spider.
"Odds fish!" exclaimed a beautiful trout, that I should like very much to have caught, popping his head out of the brook, "odds fish! kill the monster by all means—hook him, I say, for he entices me with worms, and devours me to gratify his insatiable appetite."
"To be sure," said a worm, "kill him as he sleeps, and I'll eat him afterwards; for though I am acknowledged on all hands to be his brother, he impales me alive on a hook, only for his amusement."
"I consent," cooed the dove, "for he has deprived me of my beloved mate, and made me a disconsolate widow." Upon which she began to moan so piteously, that the whole assembly deeply sympathized in her forlorn condition.
"He has committed a million of murders," cried the spider.
"He drowns all my kittens," mewed the cat.
"He tramples upon me without mercy," whispered the toad, "only because I'm no beauty."
"He is a treacherous cunning villain," barked the fox.
"He has no more bowels than a wolf," screamed the hawk.
"He is a bloody tyrant," croaked the eagle.
