How to Tell Wild Animals — RBSE Class 10 English (First Flight · Poem)
Want to know if the beast in front of you is a lion or a tiger? Carolyn Wells has helpful advice — but her "tips" for identifying wild animals will get you eaten first. This is a humorous nonsense poem whose comedy comes precisely from the absurd, deadly ways it suggests you "tell" one dangerous animal from another.
1. The poem in brief — the comic 'guide'
Each stanza gives a ridiculous way to identify a wild animal, always after it is already too late:
- Asian Lion: a large, tawny beast that roars at you as he charges — as he does, you'll be "dying," so you'll know it's a lion.
- Bengal Tiger: a "noble" wild beast that greets you with black stripes on a yellow ground — if he eats you, that's the tiger.
- Leopard: covered in spots; when he leaps on you, it does no good to roar in pain — he will just keep on leaping.
- Bear: if a creature hugs you very hard, it's a bear — you'll recognise his tight, deadly embrace.
- Hyena: you can tell the hyena because it comes with a laugh (hyenas "laugh"); the crocodile "weeps" (sheds crocodile tears) as it eats you.
- Chameleon: a lizard-like creature with no ears and no wings; if you see nothing on a tree, it may be a chameleon sitting there (it changes colour and blends in).
2. The humour and irony
The whole poem is a joke built on irony: every "method" of identification requires you to be attacked, eaten or killed by the animal first. The advice is useless for staying safe — you learn what the animal is only by becoming its victim. The nonsense, exaggeration and playful tone make it funny, not frightening.
3. Central idea
The poem is light-hearted nonsense verse meant purely to amuse. Its "central idea" is comic: it mocks the very idea of a neat identification guide by making each clue absurdly dangerous. It reminds us that poetry can also be fun and playful, not always serious.
4. Poetic devices
- Humour / nonsense verse: the poem's whole purpose.
- Rhyme scheme: aabb (rhyming couplets/quatrains) in each stanza.
- Poetic licence / coined spellings: playful, deliberately "wrong" spellings for rhyme and comic effect (e.g. "lept" / "lep," "hyaena," "you'll be dyin'").
- Alliteration: e.g. "great and growling."
- Irony: the clues only work after the animal attacks you.
- Imagery: vivid animal pictures (stripes, spots, the bear's hug, the "laughing" hyena, the "weeping" crocodile).
5. Closing thought
"How to Tell Wild Animals" is proof that poetry can simply be delightful. Carolyn Wells takes a would-be "nature guide" and turns it into comedy by ensuring every identification tip is fatal — the reader laughs at the absurd logic. Behind the fun lies gentle wordplay and irony, and a light reminder not to take everything (including poems, or dubious "guides") too seriously.
For the RBSE board, remember the animals and their comic 'clues' (lion charges roaring, tiger's stripes, leopard's spots and leaping, bear's hug, hyena's laugh, crocodile's tears, chameleon's camouflage), the humour and irony (you're identified only after being attacked), and the devices (rhyme, nonsense/poetic licence, alliteration). Humour/tone and extract questions are common.
