by a chorus of wailing lamentation. In consequence, he will remove our sorrow." With this purpose they sought Garuda.
Now Garuda had just been summoned by blessèd Vishnu to take part in an impending battle between gods and demons. At just this moment the birds reported to their master, the king of the birds, what sorrow in the separation of loved ones had been wrought by the ocean when he seized the chicks. "O bird divine," they said, "while you gleam in royal radiance, we must live on what little is won by the labor of our bills. Because of our weak necessity of eating, the ocean has, in overbearing manner, carried away our young. Now there is a saying:
The poor are in peculiar need
Of being secret when they feed:
The lion killed the ram who could
Not check his appetite for food."
"How was that?" asked Garuda. And an old bird told the story of
THE LION AND THE RAM
In a part of a forest was a ram, separated from his flock. In the armor of his great fleece and horns, he roamed the wood, a tough customer.
Now one day a lion in that forest, who had a retinue of all kinds of animals, encountered him. At this unprecedented sight, since the wool so bristled in every direction as to conceal the body, the lion's
