Howlers

Hastings Standard, Volume VIII, Issue 3054, 30 June 1903, Page 3

Howlers

Schoolboy " howlers'' are always j amusing—even the manufactured j ones, which, it is to be feared, predominate among those that find publicity. The following, garnered by a London Board School master are, however, genuine selections from examination answers. Writing on the nature of gases one precocious i"2-year-old averred that j •'An oxygen lias eight sides." And in answer to a natural history query, a sweet young thing of 13, informed a chuckling examiner that " a cuckoo is a bird which does not laj* it 3 own eggs," and that a mosquito is a child of black and white parents," while another ventured to describe a blizzard as "the inside of a fowl. 1 ' A geographical student of tender years described the equator as "a rnenagery lion running round the world through Africa, and "a meridian" as "the place where they keep the time." Other gems which may be cited are as follows : -"The inhabitants of Paris are called Parishes"; "Isaak Walton was such a good fisherman that he was culled the Judicious Hooker."