A Bird and The Hunter

There was a little bird living in her nest. She was not fully grown-up. As she flew to the branch of a tree, she saw a white caterpillar chewing a leaf.

"It will be nice food for me,” thought the bird on seeing the caterpillar. The moment she was about to catch the insect, the caterpillar smelled some danger. So it curled itself trying to look as tiny as it could. Then it began to persuade the bird not to eat it.

He said, "See, you are now so young, you have a long life to live and you will need plenty of good food. Will you not enjoy more if you have many nice caterpillars like me for your lunch every day?"

The bird said, "Yes! That will be nice!"

Then the caterpillar said, "OK, we have an agreement. Don't eat me now. If you give me some time, I will turn into a butterfly and then lay hundreds of eggs on the tree. Then each egg will hatch into a caterpillar and then each caterpillar will turn into a butterfly. Again each of these butterflies will lay hundreds of more eggs. So in no time this tree will be full of nice caterpillars."

The bird replied, "Very nice, but you know what my mother advice me? She told me, 'It is better to have one caterpillar today than a hundred tomorrow'."

The bird swallowed the caterpillar and flew away in search of more food. After some time the bird was caught in a net. The hunter came to pick it up. The bird tried to persuade the man not to kill her. She started pleading like the caterpillar had done.

The bird said, "Don't kill me now, I am so tiny. Let me grow up. I will be a nice and fleshy bird very soon. I will be a very tasty meal for you."

The hunter replied, "How do I know that I will be able to catch you at all again?"

So saying he put the bird into his bag in which he already had kept other birds caught in the morning.

(Once Upon A Time Vol.1, Dhingra, Delhi - India)