The Clever Fox　聪明的狐狸

One summer's day on the banks of the river Tweed,in Scotland,a fox sat watching a brood of wild ducks feeding in the river.Presently a branch of a fir tree floated in their midst,which caused them to rise in the air,and after circling round for some time,they again settled down on their feeding ground.At short intervals this was repeated,the branch floating from the same direction,until the ducks took no further notice of it than allowing it to pass by.Mr.Reynard noticed this;so he got a larger branch than the others,and crouching down among the leaves,got afloat,and coming to the ducks,who took no notice of the branch,he seized two of the ducks,and then allowed himself to be floated to the other side,where,we suppose,he had a repast.

有一年夏天，一只狐狸蹲在苏格兰崔德河的河岸上，看着一群野鸥在河里觅食。很快，河上飘过来一根杉树枝，吓得野鸥立刻飞了起来，盘旋了一会儿之后，它们又落下来觅食。由于树枝不断地从相同的方向漂来，这一幕时隔不久就要重演一次。直到后来，野鸥不再理会这些树枝，任由它们漂过。狐狸先生将这一切看在眼里。于是，它找了一根大树枝，趴了上去，用树叶遮住自己，下了水，漂到已经对树枝毫不在意的野鸥跟前，逮到了两只野鸥，然后又顺水漂到了河对岸。在那里，它一定是美美地吃了一顿。