--- title: Myths and cartoons put right: Tom and Jerry, elephants and mice, ostriches and more — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Myths and cartoons put right: Tom and Jerry, elephants and mice, ostriches and more», a lesson of the biology course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: Cartoons and old sayings are full of animals doing things real animals never do: an el --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/) / Myths and cartoons put right: Tom and… # Myths and cartoons put right: Tom and Jerry, elephants and mice, ostriches and more Lesson 191 of the biology course of Mova's primary school: 17 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/0/) — Cartoons and old sayings are full of animals doing things real animals never do: an elephant leaps onto a chair at the sight of a mouse, an ostrich hides its head in the sand, a snake hypnotises a rabbit with its stare. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/2/) — Think of a game of whispers at school: the first child says something true, and by the end of the line it has turned into nonsense. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/3/) — Animal myths travel the same way, from storytellers to cartoon makers. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/4/) — To put a myth right, ask what the animal really sees, eats, hears or needs, and look for the true thing hiding inside the story. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/6/) — Real cats do hunt mice, but many well-fed house cats are lazy hunters, and some are even scared of rats. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/7/) — Cats hunt by waiting, creeping and pouncing, not by long wild chases like Tom's; farm cats can catch many mice in a year. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/8/) — There is no good evidence that elephants are especially afraid of mice; they can be startled by any small thing that suddenly moves near their feet. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/9/) — Ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand; to hide they lie flat with their necks along the ground, and they also turn their eggs in the nest with their beaks. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/10/) — Bulls see red poorly and charge at a matador's cape (the cloth a bullfighter waves) because it moves, whatever its colour. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/11/) — Goldfish can remember things for months; they have been trained to push levers, swim through mazes and come to one corner at feeding time. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/12/) — Porcupines cannot shoot their quills; the quills come off easily when touched and stick into the attacker, and lions and leopards are sometimes badly hurt by them. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/13/) — Bears break into bees' nests mostly for the grubs, which are full of fat and protein; most bears eat mainly plants, berries and nuts. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/14/) — Most birds have a poor sense of smell and will not abandon a chick because a person touched it; a fledgling (a young bird just learning to fly) on the ground usually has its parents nearby and is best left alone. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/15/) — Cutting an earthworm in half does not make two worms; sometimes the front part regrows a tail, but the back part usually dies, while some flatworms can regrow from many small pieces. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/16/) — Wolves do not howl at the moon; they lift their noses so the howl travels further, to call the pack and warn other packs away. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/17/) — Foxes are clever, but crows, ravens and parrots solve puzzles that need several steps; cartoon personalities are made up. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/191-myths-and-cartoons-put-right/18/) — Snakes cannot hypnotise animals; they have no eyelids, so they stare without blinking, and a snake charmer's snake follows the moving pipe, not the music, because snakes cannot hear tunes in the air the way we do. - ← previous: [Strange discoveries: living fossils, hidden apes and animals found in drawers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/190-strange-discoveries-living-fossils-hidden-apes-and-animals-found-in-drawers/) - next →: [Dogs: from wolves to hundreds of breeds](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/192-dogs-from-wolves-to-hundreds-of-breeds/) - ↑ back to [Biology](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/)