On a summer day, a gentleman was lying under the shelter of some shrubs on the banks of the River Tweed, when he saw a large brood of ducks, which had been made to rise on the wing by the drifting of a fir-branch among them. After circling in the air for a little time, they again settled down on their feeding-ground.

There was a pause for two or three minutes, and then the same thing took place again. A branch drifted down with the stream into the midst of the ducks, and made them take to flight once more. But when they found that the bough had drifted by, and done no harm, they flew down to the water as before.

After four or five boughs had drifted by in this way, the ducks gave no heed to them, and hardly tried to fly out of their way on the stream, even when they were near to being touched.

The gentleman who had been observing all this now watched for the cause of the drifting of the boughs. At length he saw, higher up the bank of the stream, a fox, which, having set the boughs adrift, was watching for the moment when the ducks should cease to be startled by them.

This wise and clever fox at last seemed satisfied that the moment had come. So what did he do but take a larger branch of spruce-fir than any he had yet used, and, spreading himself down on it so as to be almost hidden from sight, set it adrift as he had done the others!

The ducks, now having ceased to fear the boughs, hardly moved till the fox was in the midst of them, when, making rapid snaps right and left, he seized two fine young ducks as his prey, and floated forward in triumph on his raft. The ducks flew off in fright, and did not come back.

That fox must have had a fine dinner that day, I think. The gentleman who saw the trick pitied the poor ducks, but could not help laughing at the fox's cunning.