The Cockerel and the Pearl A cockerel was once strutting up and down the farmyard among the hens when suddenly he spied something shining in the straw. "Ho! ho!" he said, "I’ll have that!" And soon rooted it out from beneath the straw. What did it turn out to be but a pearl that, by some chance, had been lost in the yard! The cockerel was very disappointed. "Pearls may be precious to humans," said Master Cockerel, "but I would rather have a single crumb of bread than a whole bag of pearls - pearls mean nothing to a hungry cockerel." And, the moral is… What is precious to some, is not necessarily precious to others.