NCERT Solutions for Class 4th The World Around Us Chapter 3 Footprints near the Pond — Activity 2
Book page 43 Updated on2026-09-19
Q1.
Look at the footprints and guess the name of the animals that you think must have come to the pond to drink water.The three sets of footprints pressed into the mud beside the pond.
Answer
1 — a tiger. 2 — a deer. 3 — a bird.
Here is how each shape leads to that guess.
Set 1: a big soft pad with four round toe marks above it, and no claw marks. Cats pull their claws in while walking, so a tiger leaves a clean, round paw mark like this.
Set 2: small pointed prints. Deer walk on hard hooves, not on soft pads, so their marks are narrow and pointed.
Set 3: three thin toes spread out like a star. Only a bird leaves such thin lines. Egrets and cranes walk at the edge of a pond, and the book shows them flying above this very page.
Why they all came here: Every animal needs water. A pond in the forest is the one place where all of them meet, so the mud around it keeps the marks of many different animals.
Tip: The book asks you to guess, so a sensible answer is accepted. For set 1 you may also write “a leopard”, and for set 2 “a gaur” or “a rabbit”, if you can say why.
Q2.
Observe and draw the footprint of any animal in the space given here.The empty box printed in the book, for you to draw the footprint in.
Answer
This drawing has to be your own. Follow these steps.
Look for wet ground — near a tap, after rain, at a pond edge or in a field.
Wait quietly for a dog, a cat, a hen, a goat, a cow or a crow to walk across it.
Sit beside the mark. Do not step on it.
Count the toes first. Then see whether there is one big pad below them.
Draw the outline in your notebook, and write the animal’s name below it.
Sample answer: Three footprints that are easy to find near a home.
Three common footprints you can look for and draw.
What the drawing teaches: No two kinds of feet make the same mark. That is why a footprint alone is enough to tell us which animal passed by.