



Produced by Louise Davies, Sam W. and the Online Distributed
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Transcriber's Note

Illustration captions in {brackets} have been added by the
transcriber, with reference to the list of illustrations, for the
convenience of the reader.




                      THE
               ANIMAL STORY BOOK

                   EDITED BY
                  ANDREW LANG


  _WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS BY H. J. FORD_


       [Illustration: {TWO ORAN OTANS}]


           LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
     FOURTH AVENUE & 30TH STREET, NEW YORK
      LONDON, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS
                     1914


              _Copyright, 1896,_
           By Longmans, Green, & Co.

            _All rights reserved._

        First Edition, September, 1896.
    Reprinted, November, 1896, July, 1899,
          June, 1904, February, 1909,
               September, 1914.




    THE FAIRY BOOK SERIES

    Edited by Andrew Lang

    _New and Cheaper Issue_


    EACH VOLUME, $1.00 NET


    THE BLUE FAIRY BOOK. With 138 Illustrations.

    THE RED FAIRY BOOK. With 100 Illustrations.

    THE GREEN FAIRY BOOK. With 101 Illustrations.

    THE GREY FAIRY BOOK. With 65 Illustrations.

    THE YELLOW FAIRY BOOK. With 104 Illustrations.

    THE PINK FAIRY BOOK. With 67 Illustrations.

    THE BLUE POETRY BOOK. With 100 Illustrations.

    THE TRUE STORY BOOK. With 66 Illustrations.

    THE RED TRUE STORY BOOK. With 100 Illustrations.

    THE ANIMAL STORY BOOK. With 67 Illustrations.

    THE RED BOOK OF ANIMAL STORIES. With 65 Illustrations.

    THE ARABIAN NIGHTS ENTERTAINMENTS. With 66 Illustrations.

    THE VIOLET FAIRY BOOK. With 8  Plates and 54 other
      Illustrations.

    THE CRIMSON FAIRY BOOK. With 8  Plates and 43 other
      Illustrations.

    THE BROWN FAIRY BOOK. With 8  Plates and 42 other
      Illustrations.

    THE OLIVE FAIRY BOOK. With 8  Plates and 43 other
      Illustrations.

    THE ORANGE FAIRY BOOK. With 8  Plates and 50 other
      Illustrations.

    THE BOOK OF ROMANCE. With 8  Plates and 44 other
      Illustrations.

    THE RED ROMANCE BOOK. With 8  Plates and 44 other
      Illustrations.

    THE BOOK OF PRINCES AND PRINCESSES. By Mrs. Lang. With 8
       Plates and 43 other Illustrations.

    THE RED BOOK OF HEROES. By Mrs. Lang. With 8  Plates
      and 40 other Illustrations.

    THE LILAC FAIRY BOOK. With 6  Plates and 46 other
      Illustrations.

    THE ALL SORTS OF STORIES BOOK. By Mrs. Lang. With 5 
      Plates and 43 other Illustrations.

    THE BOOK OF SAINTS AND HEROES. By Mrs. Lang. With 12 
      Plates and 18 other Illustrations.

    THE STRANGE STORY BOOK. By Mrs. Lang. With Portrait of Andrew
      Lang, 12  Plates and 18 other Illustrations.


    LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO., NEW YORK




  [Illustration: ANDROCLES IN THE ARENA]




    _To_

    _MASTER FREDERICK LONGMAN_


    This year our Book for Christmas varies,
    Deals not with History nor Fairies
      (I can't help thinking, children, you
      Prefer a book which is _not_ true).
    We leave these intellectual feasts,
    To talk of Fishes, Birds, and Beasts.
      These--though his aim is hardly steady--
      These are, I think, a theme for Freddy!
    Trout, though he is not up to fly,
    He soon will catch--as well as I!
      So, Freddy, take this artless rhyme,
      And be a Sportsman in your time!




_PREFACE_


Children who have read our Fairy Books may have noticed that there are
not so very many fairies in the stories after all. The most common
characters are birds, beasts, and fishes, who talk and act like
Christians. The reason of this is that the first people who told the
stories were not very clever, or, if they were clever, they had never
been taught to read and write, or to distinguish between Vegetable,
Animal