Having finished the small fishes, a Crab was omitted outside. The Pond Heron came and asked the Crab, “What, friend, are you here alone for?”
The Crab said, “Anē! Friend, the small fishes of this tank went to the quarters where they went. I alone remain.”
Then the Pond Heron said, “Friend, shall I take you also to the river, and put you down in it?” The Crab said “Hā.”
Afterwards the Pond Heron, holding the Crab with his bill, took it and settled on the tree on which he ate the small fishes. While he was there the Crab asked, “What, friend, have you delayed here for?”
Then the Pond Heron said, “It is here that I ate also the few small fishes that stayed in the tank. It is here I shall eat you also.”
Afterwards the Crab, having stiffened his claws a little, seized the neck of the Pond Heron. Then the Pond Heron with his bill tightened his hold of the Crab. Thus, in that way holding each other, both of them died, and fell on the ground below the tree.
Tom-tom Beater. North-western Province.
The Jātaka story No. 38 (vol. i, p. 96), about a Crane and a Crab, nearly agrees with the second of these tales, but the ending is like that of the first one, the Crab killing the Crane. It is also much more artificial and developed in the conversations.
It is possible that the story related by the Durayā may represent a very early form of the tale, or perhaps the original one. If the story were derived from the Jātaka tale, it is very improbable that in a country where ponds are more numerous than in any other, we should find the pool of the Jātaka, to which the fishes were to be taken, displaced in two of these by a river.