1. The Cow
The cow is a split hoofed domestic mammal.
Their main food is grass and vegetation.
The Indian cow is a small animal, with a hump on its back. The English or American cows are big animals.
An American cow gives many times more milk than an Indian cow.
The cow is a very useful animal. It gives us milk. Milk is perfect food drink.
Milk is very useful for babies and children live mostly on milk. Milk is necessary for grown-up people too.
From milk we make butter and cheese. Taking out cream we make butter from the milk. Butter is a very good food. Boiling butter till all the water in it is removed turns it to ghee. Both butter makes ghee and ghee is used in most Indian dishes.
Cheese, too, is a wholesome food, and it is nice to taste. So we get three kinds of good food from the cow milk, butter and cheese.
Cow dung is very good natural manure. It can be used to make gas for domestic use also. The leather of the cow is used for making shoes, bags and other leather articles.
2. The Horse.
Horses were at first wild animals.
They lived in herds, moving about in search of pasture. They are vegetarians. But men have tamed them for thousands of years.
Horses are used for riding, and for drawing carts and carriages and for farming.
Before the days of trains and motorcars, people used horses for riding and making long journeys.
The horse is useful to us because of its strength, its speed and its cleverness. The horse is very strong. It can trot and gallop for a long way.
It can go very fast. And it is clever. It can be trained to know what is wanted of it.
The horse is indeed a noble creature. It is willing and obedient. A good master comes to love his horse. And a good horse loves its master.
Next to the dog, the horse is the friend of man.
3. The Donkey.
The poor donkey is often badly treated. Asses main food once again is grass straw and vegetations.
People think it is a stupid animal. When we want to call a man a fool, we say he is a donkey or an ass. Yet the donkey is not as stupid as it looks.
It is as clever as a dog or a horse. It does all the work we want from it.
Donkeys are useful animals. They are used mostly for carrying loads. You see donkeys carrying earth, bricks, pots and pans.
These things are carried in baskets on the donkey's back. In some countries, like Egypt and Persia, the donkey used to be honored. Chiefs and sheikhs rode on white Asses. The donkey is very patient.
It takes bad treatment very quietly. But it is obstinate. It does not make much fuss, but it quietly tries to go its own way.
4. The Dog.
Dogs are very useful and friendly animals. A dogs staple food is meat and milk but they are known to live on vegetarian food too.
They can be trained to do many kinds of useful work.
Some make good watchdogs.
In cold countries dogs are trained to drag sledges over the snow. Dogs are used in hunting, like foxhounds, greyhounds and deerhounds.
The famous St. Bernard dogs are taught to search for and save travelers lost in the snow on the Alps.
The cleverest kind of dog is the sheep dog. A good sheepdog can look after a flock of sheep almost as well as the shepherd. There are many kinds of dogs. Most of them are useful for something.
The dog is known as the best friend of man. Dogs learn to love their masters. They will follow them everywhere. They often defend their masters at the cost of their own lives. Some dogs have even died of grief at the death of their masters. It is dangerous to touch a unfriendly dog.
5. The Cat.
People keep cats as pets. Cats are pretty animals, covered with soft fur.
They are of different colors. Some are black, some white, some gray, some brown. Kittens, or young cats, are very playful. They will play for hours with little balls, fallen leaves, or bits of string.
Cats are very good at catching and eating rats and mice. Like their big cousins, lions and tigers, cats can see in the dark.
They hunt for mice at night. Except for getting rid of mice cats do not serve any useful purpose. Cats have been tamed for thousands of years.
They were kept as pets in ancient Egypt. Cats are very different from dogs. Dogs love persons, but cats love places. A dog will follow his master anywhere. But a cat loves the comfort of the house, and stays at home.
6. The Rat
Rats are four-footed mammals that have claws as their hands and feet. Rats and mice are cousins.
Rats live in towns and villages or wherever they can find lots of food. Their main food is grain or foods cooked from grains.
They hide in holes and drains in the daytime. They come out at night to look for food.
Rats destroy large amounts of grain and all kinds of food every year. They also chew at anything from wood, plastics clothes.
Rats can carry the plague flea that gives people plague. The only way to keep plague away is to kill the rats.
Men are always at war with rats. There are different ways of catching and killing rats. They can be caught in traps. Poisoning rats is a dangerous way of killing them.
Cats and dogs are good rat eaters. Rats are found everywhere in the world, even in ships at sea.
Some say they first came from China.
7. The Monkey.
A monkey is like a man (humanoid) in shape. It has a tail, two legs and two hands.
It walks using its hands and legs or on its legs only. Monkeys mostly live in trees.
They climb trees easily with their four hands and legs. They live most of the time up in the trees.
They can jump from one tree to another. In this way they can travel for miles in the forest over the trees. They sleep at night high up in the trees.
Monkeys feed on nuts, berries and fruits. They often steal fruits from orchards.
Monkeys are very curious. When they notice anything new, they want to know all about it. So they can easily be caught in traps.
Monkeys are great mimics. They like to copy what they see men do. Tame monkeys can be taught to do funny tricks. One kind of monkey is called an ape.
So the word "ape" means to copy or mimic.
8. The Elephant.
The elephant is the largest of all land animals.
It is a strange animal to look at. It has thick legs, huge sides and back, large ears, small eyes, a short tail, and great white tusks. Its long nose , or trunk, is the strangest thing about it. It uses its trunk like a hand.
It picks things up with its trunk, and puts them into its mouth. It sucks up water with its trunk, and squirts it into its mouth for drinking.
Elephants are very strong. And they are very clever. Tame elephants are very useful.
They are trained to draw heavy loads. They are taught to carry logs of wood on their tusks, and pile them up in perfect order.
They are also used in hunting tigers in the jungle. In old days they were used in battle.
Indian Rajas used to ride on elephants in state processions.
9. The Camel.
The camel is a big animal. There are two kinds. One has two humps on its back; it is called the Bactrian camel. The other has one hump; it is called the Arabian camel.
The camel is known as the ship of the desert. We use them to go across deserts.
Camels have a split lip and can feed on a plant that has thorns and cacti (thorny plants found in deserts).
Camels can go a long time with very little food or drink.
How can they do this?
They carry stores of water in their stomachs, and much fat in their humps. A fasting camel feeds on the fat in its hump. The camel is also very strong, and can go on day after day without getting tired. So it can make long journeys over the hot, dry sandy deserts.
It is a fine sight to see a line of camels marching in a caravan. They hold their heads up proudly, and tread steadily on.
10. The Tiger.
The tiger is a savage and meat-eating (Carnivorous) animal. It looks like an overgrown cat. It is a large, strong and fine-looking animal. Its hair is yellow, marked with black stripes. There are white tigers too.
It has a long tail, round head and thick padded feet. It has sharp claws and strong teeth. The tiger is an Indian animal. There are many in the jungles of Bengal.
Like cats, tigers hunt at night. They kill big animals, like deer, cows, sheep and goats. They also attack men. Some become man-eaters. They normally avoid humans.
Farmers fear tigers. They come at night and carry away their sheep and cows. So villagers are glad when hunters kill tigers for sport. One way of hunting tigers is on elephants. The elephants carry the hunters through the dense jungles. The tiger are now endangered species.
11. The Lion.
The lion is called the King of Beasts.
He looks like a king. He has a dark yellow mane on his neck, and he holds his head up proudly. The lioness has no mane. The lion stands for courage.
We say a brave man is like a lion, or has the heart of a lion. But the lion is not really very brave.
He will fight when attacked. But he will not attack a man. He will get away if he can. The lion is a big cat. He hunts at night. He can see in the dark.
Lions kill and eat big animals, like wild deer. Farmers in Africa fear them, for they steal their cows and sheep.
Once there were many lions in India but now there are only a few in the Gir forest of Saurashtra. Lions are largely found in the forests of Africa.
