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Almost every animal makes some kind of sound. It may be his language. He barks, moos, clucks, bleats, mews, whinnies, croaks, roars, grunts, cries, snarls, chirps, screeches, crows, hisses, whines, laughs, squeals, cackles, squawks, snorts, bellows,or sings. But the giraffe is said to be the only jungle animal that makes no sound.
In the rivers of the jungle lives a huge fat animal called a hippopotamus. Hippopotamus means a river horse,but he is really more like a huge fat pig. Like a pig, he loves to wallow in mud and water. When he lies asleep with perhaps only his back showing above the water he looks like a large rock or a submarine partly under the water. A magician once sold a secret for turning lead into gold. I will tell you the secret and won’tcharge you anything for it. This is it. “Put the lead in a pot on the fire and stir it for half an hour while you do not once think of the word Hippopotamus.” If you can do that the lead will turn to gold. Do you think you could do that? Then you don’t know how hard it iS to try not to think of Hippopotamus. Here’s another good rule if you want to learn any hard name in geography: try not to think of it for half an hour.
Another big clumsy animal is the Rhinoceros. He would take a prize in any Ugly Show. He has very short legs and one or two horns on his nose, and his skin is so thick that a hunter can’t shoot him except in the stomach, and he can’t shoot him there because his legs are so short his stomach is almost on the ground. When aperson is so dumb that nothing we say seems to have any eftect on him or trouble him. we say he has a hide like a rhinoceros.
