The Animal Kingdom

This page provides extracts from authentic, unconsciously humorous answers to school exam questions and essays, gathered from a compilation by Viking Press published under the pseudonym of Alexander Abingdon in 1952. The selected extracts, edited and rearranged, are reproduced for readers in countries where the book is in the public domain, which, to the best of our knowledge, includes Australia (because more than 50 years have passed since the book's publication and because the so-called anonymous rule applies). For other countries, please check your local copyright laws.

Note: The views expressed in some of these howlers do not represent the views of this website!

If you want to understand animals, you should think of the Eskimos. They are very fond, indeed, of their reindeer. In fact, they love their reindeer sometimes more than their wives. But then, they are very useful to them.

Three fur-bearing animals are baboon, raccoon, and buffoon

An example of animal breeding is the farmer who mated a bull that gave a great deal of milk with a bull with good meat

One of the byproducts of cattle-raising is calves

By self-pollination a farmer may get a flock of long-haired sheep

A good milk cow can be told by her rudder

Herrings go about the sea in shawls

The dodo is a bird that is nearly decent now

If you cannot give a dog a good home, give it a painless death. A dog will never forget what you do for them.

Geese is a low heavy bird which is most meat and feathers. Geese can't sing much on account of the dampness of the water. He ain't got no between-his-toes and he's got a little balloon in his stummick to keep him from sinking. Some geese when they are big has curls on their tails and is called ganders. Ganders don't have to sit and hatch, but just eat and loaf around and go swimming. If I were a goose I'd rather be a gander.

A marsupial is an animal with a pouch in its stomach into which it retires when hard pressed

The kick from an ostrich has several times proved quite fatal to a man, and incidents have been recorded where men have died as a result of a kick