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HOW TO PLAY CARD GAME ANIMALS

Number of Players: 3 or more. The best game is for 5 or 6 players.

The Deal: 1 card at a time until the entire deck has been dealt out. It makes no difference if the cards don't come out even.

Object: To win all of the cards.

The Play: Each player takes the name of an animal, such as pig, kangaroo, rhinoceros, hippopotamus.

When everybody fully understands which player represents which animal, the play begins. The player at the dealer's left turns up a card and then each player in turn turns up a card. As in Snap, the action takes place when a card that has just been turned up matches some other card that is face up on somebody's pile.

The players who own the two matching cards must each call out the animal that the other represents. The one who says the other's animal name 3 times first, wins both piles.

For example, suppose 3 boys have adopted the names, Goat, Pig, and Elephant. The 1st turns up a Queen, the next turns up a 10, and the 3rd turns up a Queen. The 1st and the 3rd go into action, but the 2nd must keep silent. The 1st boy shouts, "Elephant, Elephant, Elephant!" and the 3rd boy shouts "Goat, Goat, Goat!" Both piles are won by the boy who finishes first.

Play continues in this way, until one player has all of the cards.

Skillful Play: When some other player is about to turn up a card, make sure that you have firmly fixed in your mind the card that is at the top of your turned-up pile. Then you will be ready to call out the other person's animal if he matches your card.

When it is your own turn to turn up a card, make sure that you have looked at each of the other turned-up cards so that you can instantly spot it if you match one of them. Nine-tenths of the skill in this game consists in being alert.

As you may have noticed, it takes longer to say "Elephant, Elephant, Elephant," than it does to say "Goat, Goat, Goat." For this reason, it always pays to give yourself a long animal name rather than a short animal name. The longer it takes an opponent to say your animal name three times, the better for you.

Good names to use in this game are: hippopotamus, rhinoceros, elephant, mountain lion, boa constrictor, and so forth. One boy, after reading about some of the ancient skeletons that had been dug up, tried to call himself Pithecanthropus erectus, but we didn't let him get away with it.

BARNYARD

This is the same game as Animals, except that the players take barnyard animals and go by the noises made by these animals instead of by the names of the animals themselves. For example, if the first player takes Cow, he is called "Moo-Moo-Moo" rather than "Cow, Cow, Cow." Similarly, a player who took the name of Duck would be called "Quack-Quack-Quack," and a player who took Cat would be called "Meow-Meow-Meow," and so on.

Related terms include poker card game and lord of the rings trading card game.