How to Tell Wild Animals: Summary, Stanza Explanation, Theme, and Poetic Devices (Class 10 English)

Complete summary, stanza-wise explanation, theme, poetic devices, and word meanings of How to Tell Wild Animals Summary by Carolyn Wells for Class 10 CBSE. is a witty and humorous poem written by Carolyn Wells, included in the Class 10 CBSE English textbook First Flight (Chapter 3). The poem takes a playful approach to identifying dangerous wild animals by describing the terrifying encounters you would have with each one. Rather than offering safe identification tips, the poet describes situations where the animal is already attacking you. This is the entire source of the poem’s dark, comic genius.

This article gives you a complete stanza-by-stanza summary and explanation, the full list of poetic devices with examples from the poem, the central theme, difficult word meanings, and a literary analysis that goes deeper than what most study guides cover. Whether you are preparing for your board exam or simply want to understand this poem fully, everything you need is right here.

About the Poet: Carolyn Wells

Carolyn Wells (1862-1942) was an American author, humorist, and poet, best known for her wit and playful use of the English language. She wrote over 170 books across genres including detective fiction, humour, and poetry. Wells had a gift for turning everyday subjects into comic observations, and How to Tell Wild Animals is one of the finest examples of her light verse. Her humour is never cruel; it is warm, self-aware, and designed to make the reader smile while also making them think.

The poem was not originally written for a school audience. It belongs to the tradition of nonsense verse, a respected literary genre that uses absurdity and exaggeration to deliver observations with a straight face. Understanding this context makes the poem far more enjoyable and analytically rich.

Quick Reference: Poem at a Glance

Category	Details
Poem Title	How to Tell Wild Animals
Poet	Carolyn Wells
Book	First Flight (Class 10 CBSE English)
Chapter	Chapter 3 (Poem)
Number of Stanzas	6 stanzas
Rhyme Scheme	ABABCC (with minor variations)
Tone	Humorous, ironic, satirical, light-hearted
Genre	Humorous / Nonsense verse
Central Theme	Humorous identification of wild animals through dangerous encounters
Animals Covered	Asian Lion, Bengal Tiger, Leopard, Bear, Crocodile, Hyena, Chameleon

The Full Poem: How to Tell Wild Animals

Read the full poem before going through the explanation. This helps you understand the rhythm and the comic tone.

• If ever you should go by chance
• To jungles in the east;
• And if there should to you advance
• A large and tawny beast,
• If he roars at you as you’re dyin’
• You’ll know it is the Asian Lion.
• Or if some time when roaming round,
• A noble wild beast greets you,
• With black stripes on a yellow ground,
• Just notice if he eats you.
• This simple rule may help you learn
• The Bengal Tiger to discern.
• If strolling forth, a beast you view,
• Whose hide with spots is peppered,
• As soon as he has lept on you,
• You’ll know it is the Leopard.
• ‘Twill do no good to roar with pain,
• He’ll only lep and lep again.
• If when you’re walking round your yard
• You meet a creature there,
• Who hugs you very, very hard,
• Be sure it is a Bear.
• If you have any doubts, I guess
• He’ll give you just one more caress.
• Though to distinguish beasts of prey
• A novice might nonplus,
• The Crocodile you always may
• Tell from the Hyena thus:
• Hyenas come with merry smiles;
• But if they weep, they’re Crocodiles.
• The true Chameleon is small,
• A lizard sort of thing;
• He hasn’t any ears at all,
• And not a single wing.
• If there is nothing on the tree,
• ‘Tis the chameleon you see.

By Carolyn Wells

Stanza-by-Stanza Summary and Explanation

Each stanza focuses on one or two animals. The explanation below covers the literal meaning, the hidden humour, and the key observations a student needs for their exam.

Stanza 1: The Asian Lion

Poem lines:

• If ever you should go by chance / To jungles in the east;
• And if there should to you advance / A large and tawny beast,
• If he roars at you as you’re dyin’ / You’ll know it is the Asian Lion.

Explanation:

The poet opens with a piece of travel advice. If you happen to wander into a jungle in the east and a large, yellowish-brown animal charges at you and roars while you are already dying of fear, congratulations: you have just met an Asian Lion. The humour here lies in the timing of the identification. By the time you know what it is, it is already too late. The poet uses the word ‘tawny’ to describe the lion’s golden-brown coat. The contraction ‘dyin’ (dying) is a deliberate informal touch that adds to the playful tone.

Key observation:

The Asian Lion is native to the Gir Forest in Gujarat, India. In the poem, the east refers to Asia broadly. The lion is described by its roar and its colour, both genuine identifying features used in a completely dangerous context.

Stanza 2: The Bengal Tiger

Poem lines:

• Or if some time when roaming round, / A noble wild beast greets you,
• With black stripes on a yellow ground, / Just notice if he eats you.
• This simple rule may help you learn / The Bengal Tiger to discern.

Explanation:

The Bengal Tiger is described as ‘noble’, a word that contrasts sharply with the terrifying action of eating the observer. The tiger has black stripes on a yellow background, which is an accurate description of its coat. The poet says that if this creature starts eating you, you can be fairly certain it is a Bengal Tiger. The word ‘discern’ means to recognise or identify. The phrase ‘Just notice if he eats you’ is the comic peak of this stanza, presenting the act of being devoured as a casual observation exercise.

Key observation:

The Bengal Tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) is found mainly in India and Bangladesh. The Sundarbans mangrove delta is one of its most famous habitats. The poem’s description of black stripes on a yellow background is biologically accurate, even if the method of identification is absurdly impractical.

Stanza 3: The Leopard

Poem lines:

• If strolling forth, a beast you view, / Whose hide with spots is peppered,
• As soon as he has lept on you, / You’ll know it is the Leopard.
• ‘Twill do no good to roar with pain, / He’ll only lep and lep again.

Explanation:

The Leopard is identified by its spotted coat. The word ‘peppered’ is used to describe the small, scattered spots that cover the animal’s skin, as though someone has sprinkled pepper on it. The poet says that when the leopard jumps on you, you will know what it is. And if you cry out in pain, it will not stop: it will jump on you again. The word ‘lept’ is an archaic past tense of ‘leapt’ (jumped), used here for the rhyme. The poet repeats ‘lep and lep again’ to emphasise the relentless nature of the leopard’s attack, which adds to the dark humour.

Key observation:

Unlike the lion and tiger, who are described in the context of jungles, the leopard stanza places the encounter in a more general outdoor setting, broadening the poem’s comic geography. The poet uses onomatopoeia-adjacent sound in ‘lep’ to create a rhythmic, bouncing effect that mirrors the leopard’s movement.

Stanza 4: The Bear

Poem lines:

• If when you’re walking round your yard / You meet a creature there,
• Who hugs you very, very hard, / Be sure it is a Bear.
• If you have any doubts, I guess / He’ll give you just one more caress.

Explanation:

This stanza brings the danger closer to home. Instead of an exotic jungle, the encounter now takes place in your own yard. The bear ‘hugs you very, very hard’, which is the poet’s way of describing a bear hug, something that in reality would crush and kill you. The word ‘caress’ means a gentle, loving touch, and using it to describe a bear’s bone-crushing grip is a perfect example of the poem’s ironic understatement. The doubling of ‘very, very’ adds a childlike exaggeration that makes the stanza feel simultaneously innocent and menacing.

Key observation:

Bears do use their powerful forelegs to grip prey. The poem takes this genuine animal behaviour and reframes it as an act of affection, which is the source of the joke. The stanza also subtly shifts from exotic danger to domestic danger, making the poem’s world feel more immediate.

Stanza 5: The Crocodile and the Hyena

Poem lines:

• Though to distinguish beasts of prey / A novice might nonplus,
• The Crocodile you always may / Tell from the Hyena thus:
• Hyenas come with merry smiles; / But if they weep, they’re Crocodiles.

Explanation:

This stanza introduces two animals at once and attempts to distinguish between them. The word ‘nonplus’ means to confuse or puzzle someone, so the poet acknowledges that even telling animals apart can be difficult for a beginner. Her solution is this: hyenas smile, and crocodiles cry. This is a reference to two well-known animal behaviours. Hyenas are known for their ‘laughter’, a sound they make that resembles giggling. And ‘crocodile tears’ is a famous phrase meaning false or insincere weeping, because crocodiles appear to cry while eating. The poet uses both references as the identification key, which is simultaneously accurate in cultural reference and completely useless as practical advice.

Key observation:

The phrase ‘crocodile tears’ has been used in English since the 16th century, based on the ancient belief that crocodiles wept while eating their victims. Modern science has confirmed that crocodiles do produce tears, partly due to the physical act of opening their jaws pressing on tear glands. The poem’s reference to this phenomenon is historically and scientifically grounded, even within its comic frame.

Stanza 6: The Chameleon

Poem lines:

• The true Chameleon is small, / A lizard sort of thing;
• He hasn’t any ears at all, / And not a single wing.
• If there is nothing on the tree, / ‘Tis the chameleon you see.

Explanation:

The final stanza is the most absurdist of the six. After five stanzas of death-defying encounters, the poet pivots to the chameleon, a creature that is not dangerous at all. The chameleon is described by what it lacks: no ears, no wings, and no visible presence on a tree. The punchline is that if you look at a tree and see nothing, you are probably looking at a chameleon. This is a reference to the chameleon’s famous ability to camouflage itself by changing colour to match its surroundings. The stanza ends the poem on a note of perfect comic restraint: all that danger and drama, and the last animal you identify is the one you cannot even see.

Key observation:

The chameleon’s inclusion is deliberate. It acts as a structural release valve after the intense stanzas before it. The poet shifts from describing animals by what they do to you, to describing an animal by what it does not look like and cannot be seen. This is the cleverest identification challenge in the poem, and also the least life-threatening.

Difficult Word Meanings and Vocabulary

These are the key words from the poem with their meanings, as required for CBSE Class 10 board exam preparation.

Word / Phrase	Meaning
Tawny	Yellowish-brown in colour; the natural colour of a lion’s coat
Dyin’	An informal contraction of ‘dying’, used here for rhyme and comic effect
Noble	Grand, majestic, impressive; used to describe the Bengal Tiger
Discern	To recognise or identify something clearly
Peppered	Covered with many small spots, like specks of pepper
Lept / Lep	An archaic past tense of ‘leapt’ (jumped); used here for rhyme
‘Twill	A contraction of ‘it will’
Caress	A gentle, loving touch; used ironically here to describe a bear’s crushing grip
Novice	A beginner; someone with little experience
Nonplus	To confuse or puzzle; to leave someone at a loss
Beasts of prey	Animals that hunt and kill other animals for food; predators
Crocodile tears	False or insincere weeping; based on the belief that crocodiles cry while eating prey
Merry	Cheerful and lively; happy
‘Tis	An archaic contraction of ‘it is’

Animals in the Poem: Features and Identification Clues

Animal	Identifying Feature	Poet’s Humorous Clue
Asian Lion	Large, tawny (yellowish-brown) coat	It roars at you while you are dying of fear
Bengal Tiger	Black stripes on a yellow coat	It eats you; notice while being devoured
Leopard	Hide covered with pepper-like spots	It leaps on you and does not stop
Bear	Strong grip, powerful forelegs	It hugs you very hard; a bear hug that kills
Hyena	Laughs or smiles	If it smiles, it is a Hyena
Crocodile	Appears to weep while eating	If it weeps, it is a Crocodile
Chameleon	Camouflages on trees; no ears, no wings	If you see nothing on the tree, that is the Chameleon

Central Theme of the Poem

The poem operates on two levels simultaneously, and understanding both is essential for a strong exam answer.

On the surface level:

The poem offers ‘tips’ for identifying wild animals. Each tip involves a dangerous, often fatal, encounter with the animal in question. The humour comes from the gap between what the reader expects, which is safe, practical advice, and what they receive, which is the description of being mauled, eaten, or crushed.

On the deeper level:

The poem is a satire on the human tendency to classify and categorise nature from a position of assumed safety. The poet turns that assumption upside down. In the real natural world, wild animals do not wait to be identified. They act. By placing the moment of identification at the point of attack, Wells reminds the reader that human knowledge and animal behaviour do not cooperate with each other.

Additional thematic layers:

• The poem celebrates the beauty and uniqueness of wild animals by describing their genuine physical features, even within the joke.
• It uses irony as a tool to educate while entertaining, a technique that makes difficult content more accessible for young readers.
• The inclusion of the harmless Chameleon at the end provides a tonal shift that emphasises the arbitrary nature of the ‘identification’ exercise throughout the poem.
• The poem also works as an indirect commentary on wildlife and the human habit of observing animals from books rather than from real, respectful experience.

Poetic Devices: Complete Analysis

This section covers every major literary device used in the poem, with exact examples. This is the section most study guides handle poorly: they list devices without showing where they appear in the poem. Each device below is shown with the specific line it comes from.

Poetic Device	Example from the Poem	Explanation
Humour / Comic Irony	‘Just notice if he eats you’	The instruction to calmly observe while being eaten is darkly comic. The gap between the calm tone and the violent action creates irony.
Irony	‘This simple rule may help you learn / The Bengal Tiger to discern’	Calling a rule that involves being eaten ‘simple’ is deeply ironic.
Rhyme Scheme (ABABCC)	Stanza 1: chance/advance, east/beast, dyin’/Lion	Each stanza follows an ABABCC pattern with the last two lines forming a rhyming couplet.
Personification	‘A noble wild beast greets you’	The tiger is given a human quality (greeting someone) to heighten the ironic contrast with its actual behaviour.
Metaphor	‘Whose hide with spots is peppered’	The leopard’s spots are compared to scattered pepper grains, creating a vivid visual image.
Alliteration	‘strolling forth’, ‘lep and lep’	Repetition of initial consonant sounds creates rhythm and a pleasing sound effect.
Repetition	‘He’ll only lep and lep again’, ‘very, very hard’	Repetition emphasises the relentlessness of the attack (leopard) and the crushing force (bear).
Euphemism	‘He’ll give you just one more caress’	A bear’s bone-crushing grip is politely called a ‘caress’ (gentle touch), which underplays the violence for comic effect.
Antithesis	Hyenas smile; Crocodiles weep	Two contrasting behaviours placed side by side to distinguish the animals.
Understatement	‘If you have any doubts, I guess / He’ll give you just one more caress’	Describing a second bear attack as resolving a ‘doubt’ is a classic understatement.
Allusion	‘Crocodile tears’	A reference to the well-known cultural phrase about false weeping. The poet uses this cultural knowledge as an identification tool.
Inversion / Poetic Licence	‘lept’, ‘dyin”, ”Tis’, ”Twill’	Archaic contractions and inverted word orders are used to maintain the rhyme scheme and give the poem an old-fashioned, playful tone.
Absurdism	Entire poem premise	The central joke, that you identify animals by letting them kill you, is a form of literary absurdism.

Rhyme Scheme and Structure

The poem has 6 stanzas, each containing 6 lines. The rhyme scheme across all stanzas follows the pattern ABABCC, where the first and third lines rhyme (A), the second and fourth lines rhyme (B), and the fifth and sixth lines form a rhyming couplet (CC).

Example from Stanza 1:

Line	Text	Rhyme
1	If ever you should go by chance	A (chance)
2	To jungles in the east;	B (east)
3	And if there should to you advance	A (advance)
4	A large and tawny beast,	B (beast)
5	If he roars at you as you’re dyin’	C (dyin’)
6	You’ll know it is the Asian Lion.	C (Lion)

The regular rhyme scheme gives the poem its musical, sing-song quality, which contrasts with the violent content of each stanza. This contrast between pleasant form and dangerous content is itself a device that amplifies the comedy.

Deeper Literary Analysis: What Most Study Guides Miss

The Poem as Satire

Most study notes describe this poem as simply ‘humorous’. That is incomplete. The poem is also a satire on the genre of nature guides and animal encyclopaedias, a genre that was very popular in the Victorian and Edwardian era when Wells was writing. These guides promised to help readers identify and understand wild animals from the safety of a printed page. Wells mocks that promise. Her ‘identification guide’ only works if you are already being attacked, which defeats the purpose entirely. Reading the poem with this context makes the jokes considerably sharper.

The Structural Choice: Why the Chameleon Comes Last

The placement of the Chameleon at the end of the poem is not accidental. Every preceding stanza describes an animal that is physically imposing and actively dangerous. The Chameleon is neither. It is small, harmless, and invisible. By ending with an animal you cannot see, Wells flips the entire structure of the poem. The whole poem is about identification, but the final animal defeats the idea of identification completely. You identify the chameleon by failing to see it. This is the poem’s cleverest and most philosophically interesting moment.

The Role of Ironic Understatement Throughout

Carolyn Wells consistently uses understatement as her primary comic tool. Being roared at while dying is presented as a helpful clue. Being eaten is described as being ‘greeted’. A bear’s crushing grip is a ‘caress’. A second bear attack ‘resolves a doubt’. Each of these moments works because the language is polite and calm while the action it describes is violent and fatal. This technique is called ironic understatement, and Wells uses it with remarkable consistency across all six stanzas.

The Poem and Animal Conservation: A Modern Reading

Reading the poem today, a thoughtful student can also notice that all the animals described are endangered or threatened species. The Asian Lion, Bengal Tiger, and Leopard are all on conservation watch lists. The Crocodile and Hyena face habitat pressures. Even the Chameleon faces threats from deforestation. The poem celebrates these animals through its comic exaggeration, and there is something quietly moving about the fact that Wells treats their ferocity with affection and respect, even in jest.

Frequently Asked Questions

Summary

1. The poem has 6 stanzas, each identifying a wild animal in a humorous way.
2. Animals covered: Asian Lion, Bengal Tiger, Leopard, Bear, Crocodile, Hyena, and Chameleon.
3. The rhyme scheme is ABABCC in every stanza.
4. Key poetic devices: comic irony, understatement, euphemism, personification, alliteration, repetition, antithesis, allusion.
5. The central theme is humorous identification through dangerous encounter, with a satirical layer about human classification of nature.
6. Carolyn Wells uses a calm, instructional tone to describe violent events, which is the primary source of the poem’s humour.
7. The Chameleon stanza at the end is the most structurally clever because it identifies by absence, which subverts the poem’s entire premise.
8. The phrase ‘crocodile tears’ refers to insincere weeping and comes from the belief that crocodiles cry while eating.

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