With apologies to Hilaire Belloc
It was a beautiful day today, and we spent most of it gawping at animals in the Cotswold Wildlife Park. The giant anteater made a rare appearance, and the wolves put on a display of howling. Last time one visitor asked seriously why the ostrich put up with its enclosure and didn’t just fly off, but this time they were mostly well-behaved.
↓ Transcript
I draw the white rhinoceros
with colours dull and grimy --
for if I used some brighter tones
his hide would be too shiny.
with colours dull and grimy --
for if I used some brighter tones
his hide would be too shiny.
Nice! Did you know that our appellation “white” is a misunderstanding of the Boers’ Dutch language “weidt” meaning “wide” for its wide mouth?
Thanks!
Yes, in fact my wife was brought up in South Africa and had to learn Afrikaans at school, so we’re pretty clued up on the African fauna and its various nomenclature. So much so that when we saw Indian elephants at a nearby zoo she declared that “those aren’t elephants!”