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More "Catcher" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sped, Content amid the wavy plumes to lie, And through the woven branches overhead Watch the white, ever-wandering clouds go by, And soaring birds make their dissolving bed Far in the azure depths of summer sky, Or nearer that small huntsman of the air, The fly-catcher, dart nimbly from ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... latitude 19 degrees 48 minutes South, and longitude 120 degrees 36 minutes East, promising a view of the interior, we went to visit it. There was less surf on the beach than we expected, and we landed without much difficulty. Our old friend, the black and white red-bill, or oyster-catcher, was in readiness to greet us, accompanied by a few families of sanderlings, two or three batches of grey plovers, and a couple of small curlews. Crossing the beach, a line of reddish sandstone cliffs, twelve feet in height, ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... river; the necessity of removing to a new site; an epidemic of disease; the rites of formally consulting the omens, or otherwise communicating with and propitiating the gods; the operations of the soul-catcher. The more important of these incidents will be described in later chapters. Here we need only give a brief account of the way in which some of them affect the daily round of ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... thrush-catcher arrived at his lodgings in the country—that he has had his footpath cleared by the aid of a labourer, and that he is off for his first day's sport. He is provided with a basket, one compartment of which holds his twigs bent or straight, another his ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... '96—Ross and Steve McClave—Harry and George Lathrope—Jarvis Geer and Marshall Geer who played with me on teams at both school and college—Billy Bannard and Horace Bannard—Fred Kafer and Dana Kafer, the first named being also the very best amateur catcher I have ever seen. Fred Kafer, by the way, furnished an interesting anachronism in that while he was one of the ablest mathematicians of his time in college he found it wellnigh impossible to remember his football signals! Let us not forget, too, Bal Ballin, who was ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... played earnestly and seriously. At the end of the third inning, with the score standing five to four in favor of the sophomores, a radical change was made. The batter was blindfolded and compelled to stand upon an upturned barrel, which was substituted for the home plate. The pitcher and catcher were each also to stand upon a barrel and the pitcher was ordered to throw the ball with his left hand. Naturally it was impossible for the batter to hit the ball, since he was blindfolded, and when three strikes had been called he tore the bandage from his eyes and upon ...
— Winning His "W" - A Story of Freshman Year at College • Everett Titsworth Tomlinson
... then, just at its highest pitch, the note breaks suddenly at a right angle; clear and clean as if cut with a diamond; then softly and sweetly down the scale once more. Along the shore, too, there is life; guillemot, oyster-catcher, tern are busy there; the wagtail is out in search of food, advancing in little spurts, trim and pert with its pointed beak and swift little flick of a tail; after a while it flies up to perch on a fence and sing with the rest. But when the sun ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... ten minutes to win her smiles and make you a declared favorite. What is it you have about you, old fellow, which wins on every one? It makes one believe in the old fable of the rat-catcher." ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... Jealousy The Fruitfulness of the Locust Lamenting the Absence of a Cherished Friend Celebrating the Goodness of the Descendants of King Wan The Virtuous Manners of the Young Women Praise of a Rabbit-Catcher The Song of the Plantain-Gatherers The Affection of the ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... interesting; of offering an end; of throwing passion into hate by fixing it on an object; of of amusing the hunter by the sight of his living prey; giving the watcher the hope of the smoking and boiling blood about to flow; of amusing the bird-catcher by the credulity of the uselessly-winged lark; of being a victim, unknowingly reared for murder by a master-mind—all this exquisite and horrible service, of which the person rendering it is unconscious, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... O calme, dishonourable, vile submission: Alla stucatho carries it away. Tybalt, you Rat-catcher, will you walke? Tib. What wouldst thou haue with me? Mer. Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine liues, that I meane to make bold withall, and as you shall vse me hereafter dry beate the rest of ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... sights, such as the scenes at Norman Cross, a station or prison where some six thousand French prisoners were immured. And vividly impressed on my memory is my intercourse with an extraordinary old man, a snake-catcher, who thrilled me with the recitals of his experiences. He declared that the vipers had a king, a terrible creature, which he had encountered, and from which he had managed to escape. After telling me that strange story of the king of the vipers, he gave me ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... say, that has the oil of Rhodium for them; for they follow and fawn on him, like rats on the rat catcher—of all sorts and sizes, he has 'em. They say, he sets them over and after one another; and has lations of them that he lets out on the craturs' cabins, to larn how many grains of salt every man takes with his little prates, and bring information if ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... Plonny, slowly, "I wouldn't give the job of dog-catcher to a man you couldn't trust to ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... that it is illogical that a ground stroke behind the diamond should be a no-ball, and yet, should that ball be in the air and caught, the striker should be out. I thought it an odd example of lenience to allow the batsman as many strokes behind the catcher as he chanced to make. But the more baseball I see the more it enchants me as a spectacle, and these early ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... route, and the men vanished into one of the tiny carriages. Special arrangements had been made in honor of Schoverling and the doctor, however, and as the weather was fine they were to travel on a wide seat fastened across the cow-catcher, which held four with comfort. The boys took their places with some misgivings, but found ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... must first decide which one of you is to be the Bird-catcher; the other players then each choose the name of a bird, but no one must choose the owl, as it is forbidden. All the players then sit in a circle with their hands on their knees, except the Bird-catcher, who stands in the center, and ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... replied the hostess, really deeply interested in the "fly catcher." "I have always wanted to see one ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... "Daddy Longlegs," the Shanghai rooster, crowed louder than ever, with one eye on the poor jaded bird, and said: "What a contemptible little thing you are, to be sure!" Gander White, Esq., the portly barn-yard alderman, hissed at him, and even Duck Waddler, the tadpole catcher, ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... amusements of his life can be traced in his Short Studies. But he had not been reared in a literary atmosphere. He had been brought up among horses and dogs, with grooms and keepers, on the moors and the sea. He describes it himself as "the old wild scratch way, when the keeper was the rabbit-catcher, and sporting was enjoyed more for the adventure than for the bag." He never lost his love of sport, and he gave his own son the same training he had himself. Even in his last illness he liked the young man to go out shooting, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... in her earlier works. The rustic hermit and philosopher, Patience, and Marcasse the rat-catcher, in Mauprat, are note-worthy examples. In 1844 had appeared Jeanne, with its graceful dedication to Francoise Meillant, the unlettered peasant-girl who may have suggested the work she could not read—one of a family of rural proprietors, spoken of by Madame Sand in ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... "What, are you a catcher at words?" said I. "I thought that catching at words had been confined to the pothouse farmers and village ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... quarter of a mile away, and they knew that this belonged to Bandeliah, the revered king of the Crumbos, who had evidently smelled rum far inland. With him they were enabled to hold discourse, partly by signs, and partly by means of an old and highly polished negro, who had been the rat-catcher at the factory now consumed; and the conclusion, or perhaps the confusion, arrived at from signs, grunts, grins, nods, waggings of fingers and twistings of toes, translated grandiloquently into broken English, was not far from being to ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... strawberries, blackberries, wild grapes and the berries of the Virginia creeper—sometimes also seen busily scooping out a big hole on the rosy side of a tempting apple in the orchard. Some observers say the catbird eats the eggs of the fly-catcher and other birds, but this must be ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... that "In presence of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, while the philosophers were making elaborate dissertations on the danger of the poison of vipers, taken inwardly, a viper catcher, who happened to be present, requested that a quantity of it might be put into a vessel; and then, with the utmost confidence, and to the astonishment of the whole company, he drank it off. Everyone expected ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... this afternoon, just as your crowd is, Captain Morgan," O. K. was saying. "I would have been with them, only yesterday I happened to hurt a finger a bit, for you see I'm the catcher of our nine, and it was thought best for me to lay off a few days so ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... stature, not too high nor too low, and had somewhat an aquiline nose, made like the handle of a razor. He was at that time five and thirty years old or thereabouts, fine to gild like a leaden dagger—for he was a notable cheater and coney-catcher—he was a very gallant and proper man of his person, only that he was a little lecherous, and naturally subject to a kind of disease which at that time they called lack of money—it is an incomparable ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... said Paul Dangerfield, with his head erect, 'I bear Mr. Lowe no ill-will. He is, you'll excuse me, a thief-catcher by nature. He can't help it. He thinks he works from duty, public spirit, and other fine influences; I know it is simply from an irrepressible instinct. I do assure you, I never yet bore any man the least ill-will. I've had to remove two or three, ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Rule is to be refused till all the prophets of evil are refuted, Ireland must go without Home Rule for ever. "If the sky fall, we shall catch larks." But he would be a foolish bird-catcher who waited for that contingency. And not less foolish is the statesman who sits still till every conceivable objection to his policy has been mathematically refuted in advance, and every wild prediction falsified ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... locomotive whistle, trumpeted loudly and then, lowering his head, charged the oncoming train. The impact was tremendous. Such was the impetus of the great pachyderm that the engine was partially derailed, the front of the smoke-box shattered as far as the tubes, the cow-catcher was crushed into a shapeless piece of iron, and other damages of minor importance were sustained. The train was going thirty-four miles per hour, and the engine alone weighed between forty and ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... aside, even though he was taking chances of being seen by the umpire in doing the trick. He failed to touch it, however, and, the next instant, Woods gathered it up with one hand, taking it as he ran directly from first base. Smithers was between him and the plate, and he could not see the catcher. He did not hesitate a fraction of a second, he did not even pause to straighten up, but, in a stooping position, he swung his arm low and sent the ball whistling to first. Spectators afterward declared that at no time was that ball more than two feet above the ground. It went ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... geese, the herons, mud-hens, sandpipers, and curlews are marsh and shore birds that feed and wade in the shallow salt water, and nest on the banks or, like the heron, in trees near the bay. The heron is a frog-catcher, and he will stand very still on his long legs and patiently wait till the frog, thinking him gone, swims near. Then one dart of the long bill captures froggy, and the heron waits for another. You know the red-head, green mallard, canvas-back, and small teal ducks, no ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... he dissented from the Court when they held the Pennsylvania act to be invalid. And without relying on any principle, without any discussion of, or the slightest allusion to, any authorities or the great fundamental questions involved in that issue, he coolly depicted the inconveniences the slave-catcher might be subject to in States where there was but one District Judge, and how essentially he would be aided by the State legislation; and pointed out to his brethren those "consequences" which they did "not contemplate" and to which they "did not suppose the opinion ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... except Atta-Culla-Culla, are less than six feet in height "without their moccasins." Squatted as they are gravely around the council-fire, they present a most picturesque appearance. Among them are the Bread-Slave-Catcher, noted for his exploits in stealing negroes; the Tennassee Warrior, prince of the town of that name; Noon-Day, a wide-awake brave; Bloody Fellow, whose subsequent exploits will show the appropriateness of his name; Old Tassell, a wise and reasonably just old man, afterward Archimagus; and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... new car and the trip to California was to come from. Perhaps that was where the fifteen hundred dollars had come from, too. But she had paid it back. She had just barely shaken the bird-catcher's lime from her wings. She shivered and ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... into the details of explanation with the greatest animation. He showed all the attitudes of pitcher and catcher and batter in the real game, and gave a dramatic description of a wonderful "hot ball" he had seen caught on the glorious occasion on which he had witnessed a match in company with Mr. Hobbs. His vigorous, graceful little body, his eager gestures, his simple ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... had sent her that hundred dollars, he had heard nothing from Mercedes. The Bowdoins did not tell him how her husband had sunk to be a slave-catcher; for they knew how miserly old Jamie had become, and supposed that his salary all went to her. While Jamie could take care of her, it mattered little what the worthless husband did, save the pain of Jamie's knowing it. And of course they did not know that Jamie could no longer ...
— Pirate Gold • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... her of my night at the Scollays' and my plan for trapping the spies. My self-respect as a criminal catcher was distinctly soothed to hear her hearty ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... the empty bottle, he dashed it against the woodwork of the sofa and broke it to pieces. "Who was he?" he went on, in increasing rage; "a chaffering jack-pudding. I have made him what he is, the noodle. If I whistle, he dances; he is only the decoy, I am the bird-catcher." Here Hippus tried to whistle a tune, and to execute a few steps. Again the cold sweat rained from his brow, and, taking out his handkerchief, he dried his face, and carefully replaced the rag in his pocket. "He does not return," he suddenly cried; ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... Ahdick, n. a rein-deer Ahjedahmoo, n. a red squirrel Ahsahnahgoo, n. a black squirrel Ahgwegoos, n. a chip-monk Ahkuckoojeesh, n. a ground-hog Ahdoomahkoomasheeh, n. a monkey, which signifies louse catcher or hunter Ahnemoosh, n. a dog Aasebun, n. a raccoon Aayabegoo, n. an ant Aayanee, n. opossum Ahzhahwahmaig, n. a salmon Ahshegun, n. rock-bass Ahgwahdahsheh, n. sun-fish Ahwahsesee, n. cat-fish Ahmahkahkee, n. a toad Ahgoonaqua, ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... aid of all the books in the library, old Dunn, the rat-catcher of Arranakilty, a man profoundly versed in the habits of rodents and birds, Larry the groom, and sundry others of low estate but high intelligence in ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... croolty to animiles to drag a young feller like me along, too. I've got his number. Just you wait, Cele! Remember, Mr. Stone, he played spook-catcher to Miss Ames. That means ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... the suspicious looking stranger concerning his business in Philadelphia; and he, being ashamed to acknowledge himself a slave-catcher, returned very evasive and unsatisfactory answers. He was accordingly committed to prison, to answer at the next court of Sessions. It was customary to examine prisoners before they were locked up, and take whatever ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and Elijah Sells, superintendent of Indian affairs for the southern superintendency, and the Cherokee Nation of Indians; represented by its delegates, James McDaniel, Smith Christie, White Catcher, L.H. Benge, J.B. Jones, and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... persuasive instrument, upon which he played with a somewhat specious but effective art. He did not try to make you forget his ugliness; he flaunted it in your face and made it part of the charm of his speech. Shutting your eyes, you would have trailed after this rat-catcher's pipes at least to the walls of Hamelin. Beyond that you would have had to be more childish to follow. But let him play his own tune to the words set down, so that if all is too dull, the art of ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... the price of the room, and you gather the price is doubled if you do not leave the toilet as you find it. Beside the bed, and to be lit at night by a handy switch over the pillow, is a little clock, its face flush with the wall [no dust-catcher]. ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... to decay, which produces snakes and scorpions. I sent for the hawee (snake-catcher) who caught a snake, but who can't conjure the scorpions out of their holes. One of my fat turkeys has just fallen a victim, and I am in constant fear for little Bob, only he is always in Omar's arms. I think I described ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... were pretty excited when they wrote the above, and with excellent reason. Apparently this apparition appears fairly often. A number of townfolk have seen it. I don't know what you can do, unless your ingenuity can produce a super spook catcher, but you will enjoy tackling this problem. It is worthy of your best effort. Mrs. Miller and I heartily endorse ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... men out on my own lines, then," laughed the coach. Calling to one of the juniors to stand behind him as catcher, ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock
... they set exactly right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite; Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds. Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critics some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... he cried; "I am a devil of a catcher," and, feeling the air cautiously, he moved forward like a bear about to hug. He caught no one. Christian and Greta whisked under his arms and left him grasping at the air. Mrs. Decie slipped past with astonishing agility. Mr. Treffry, smoking his cigar, and barricaded in a corner, jeered: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... belike, that I catched not yon man, Mistress Benden's brother, a-coming to see her. Why, the loon's full o' wiles—never comes at after sunrise. It'd take an eel to catch him. And I'm not his thief-catcher, neither. I works hard enough without that. Old Dick may catch his eels his self if he ...
— All's Well - Alice's Victory • Emily Sarah Holt
... both, but he never flinched. He struck the cow-catcher head-on and tried to lift it sky-high. The speed and weight of the engine sent him rolling over and over off the track, and the shock of the blow came backward along the train in thunderclaps as each car felt the check. The engineer whistled ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... glove, that big catcher's mitt that Marmaduke always wanted—do you 'spouse that's ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... man an injustice; our dove has followed the lure of a dove-catcher who will not allow me to have her, and who is now billing and cooing with her in his own nest. I am cheated, but I can scarcely be angry with the Roman, for his claim was of older ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the catcher, and a good one at that, everybody seemed to believe. He, too, could take his part in a "swat-fest" when a rally was needed to pull the Scranton boys out of a bad hole. Thad had always been a close chum of the captain of the ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... Geoffrey stood with a foot on one of the rails and every sense intent, until the first engine's cow-catcher was almost upon him. Then he leaped for his life and stood half-blinded amid whirling ballast and a rushing wind, as, veiled in thick dust, the great box cars clanged by. He was savage with dismay, for it seemed that the engineer had not seen his signal; then his heart bounded, ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... mother's electric vacuum cleaner this morning before I started to school. I saw how easily the motor-driven fan sucked in everything in sight. I held the nozzle near a fly on the window pane and zipp—p-p, in went Mr. Fly. I thought right away that a big vacuum cleaner would make a fine moth catcher if we could only get near enough to the moths. And I even figured out a plan for a large one which wouldn't cost very much and could be made mostly of wood. But I knew it was foolish 'cause we couldn't get near ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... to life, it is true, but to the consciousness of some dreadful suffering. I meanwhile walked up and down the path behind the house, weeping, and doubting my success. I only wished to give up this part of the bird-catcher which I had so rashly assumed. Madame Gobain, who came down and found me with my face wet with tears, hastily went up again ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... taken his M.A., an ensign of infantry in his first uniform, a clerk in Somerset House, and a Manchester man who had been visiting a Whig Lord,—and returned third-class, with a tinker, a sailor just returned from Africa, a bird-catcher with his load, and a gentleman in velveteens, rather greasy, who seemed, probably on a private mission, to have visited the misdemeanour wards of all the prisons in England and Scotland; we preferred the return trip, that is to say, vulgar and amusing ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... before concluding his bargain with the girl, whose butter he was determined to have even if he must pay her own price for it. Like the Reeve in the Canterbury Tales, who "ever rode the hinderest of the rout," being such a rogue and such a rogue-catcher that he could not bear anybody behind his back, Bruce, when about the business that his soul loved, eschewed the presence ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... in a little cloth jacket which covered her arms; Miss Essie wrapped about her a plaid travelling shawl of the Squire's. Mrs. Stoutenburgh deferred her disguising till she should need it, being in the first place to be the catcher, not the caught. Mr. Linden on his part chose to rely on his own resources for safety, but two or three of the boys tied on shawls and scarfs—soon discarded ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... fingers; on the contrary, Mr Slam, though practically defiant, was remarkably civil, not to say obsequious, in his demeanour when he came into contact with the gentry. By profession he was a rat-catcher, and he had an intimate knowledge of the habits and frailties of all the small predatory animals of Great Britain, and knew well how to lure them to their destruction. In a game-preserving community such talents ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... about. She and Olly were out all day, and nearly every afternoon nurse lifted the tea-table through the low nursery window on to the lawn, and let them have their tea out of doors among the flowers and trees and twittering birds. They had found out a fly-catcher's nest in the ivy above the front door, and every evening the two children used to fetch out their father to watch the parent birds catching flies and carrying them to the hungry little ones, whom they could just hear chirping up above the ivy. Olly was wild to get the gardener's ...
— Milly and Olly • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... but certain of the courtiers, who had envied the count the glory gained by his former achievements, continued to magnify, among themselves his present imprudence; and we are told by Fray Antonio Agapida that they sneeringly gave the worthy cavalier the appellation of count de Cabra the king-catcher. ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... in the box and was putting some swift ones over the plate. As yet he did not have perfect control of the horsehide, and as a consequence it occasionally went over the catcher's head. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... I am no rat-catcher; But if you need a poison, here is that Will pepper both your dogs, and rats, and cats: Nay, spare your purse: I give this in good will; And, as it proves, I pray you send to me, And let me know. Would ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... contrivance was placed in sufficiently close proximity to a low wall so that one of the catchers might conveniently sit on the wall and keep the water spouting with a continuous pressure of his foot, while the other catcher manipulated a tin pail with telling effect. Having filled the barrel which rode on the two wagon wheels, we turned it with some difficulty and started it down the street with the tin pail on top; the man in the shafts leaning back with all his might ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... upon the platform, the great yellow cat that belonged to the agent dozed complacently, her paws tucked under her body. Three flat cars, loaded with bright-painted farming machines, were on the siding above the station, while, on the switch below, a huge freight engine that lacked its cow-catcher sat back upon its monstrous driving-wheels, motionless, solid, drawing long breaths that were punctuated by the subdued sound of its steam-pump clicking at ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... was with his flock on the down and found himself near another shepherd, also with his sheep, one he knew very well, a quiet but knowing old man named Joseph Gathergood. He was known to be a skilful rabbit-catcher, and Caleb thought he would go over to him and tell him about how he was being tricked by the two Gaarges and ask him what to ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... sugested that we work together, as I felt sure William was after my father's blue prints and so on, which were in the Dispach Case in the safe at night. He said he was not a Spy-catcher, but if I caught William at any nonsense I might let him know, and if he put a padlock on the outside of his door and mother saw it and raised a fuss, I could stand up ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... starlings, and many other birds. A long list of four- footed beasts is also included in the definition of "vermine," and rates ranging from a shilling for a fox to a halfpenny for a mole were established. [Footnote: Lambarde, Office of Distributers, etc., 92.] The mole-catcher was a regular employe of some parishes. [Footnote: Hist. MSS. Commission, Report III., ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... Lady," and Willy's head was a forest of paper horns, skilfully twisted. Hugh had just gone triumphantly through the whole list, "a sneezing elephant, a punch in the head, a rag, a tatter, a good report, a bad report, a cracked saucepan, a fuzzy tree-toad, a rat-catcher, a well-greaved ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... himself and said: "The would-be catcher is caught. I thought Viola Martin would duck him if anybody could. Tell me about these smile-proof bachelors. When once they are struck, they fall all to pieces ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... many curious things among the ruins, and are, it should be said to their credit, particularly punctilious about leaving them alone. One man picked up a baseball catcher's mask under a great pile of machinery, and the decorated front of the balcony circle of the Opera House was found with the chairs still immediately about its semi-circle, a quarter of a mile ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... sanctified bigot, who looks in holy horror on this printed pasteboard, as though it were the legitimate offspring of the Devil and Dr. Faustus, plays his own pious game at winning souls, and risks—charity. The griping money-catcher, who shudders at the thought of losing gold in spendthrift play, takes his own close and cunning game at winning wealth, and risks—esteem. The ambitious aspirant, who scorns such empty things as cards, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... I am at present about will consist, if I live to finish it, of a series of Rembrandt pictures, interspersed here and there with a Claude. I shall tell the world of my parentage, my early thoughts and habits, how I become a sap-engro, or viper-catcher: my wanderings with the regiment in England, Scotland, and Ireland, in which last place my jockey habits first commenced: then a great deal about Norwich, Billy Taylor, Thurtell, etc.: how I took to study and became a lav-engro. What do you think of this for a bill of fare? I am ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... comes, I do think, the mole-catcher himself; let us hear what he has to say. "Good morning, Mr. Mole-catcher; have you been setting any more traps to-day? I suppose those unfortunate fellows gibbeted on yonder thorn were caught by you." "Well, yeez, sir," he replied, "I reckons as they were; I have stopped ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... shore is remarkably representative—from unicellular Protozoa to birds like the oyster-catcher and mammals like the seals. Almost all the great groups of animals have apparently served an apprenticeship in the shore-haunt, and since lessons learned for millions of years sink in and become organically ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... the last night but one thou didst go to the house of Nicol Hendry, who is no common catcher of thieves, but a spy of nations whose business is with the great ones of the earth. Tell me: whom did thy business with ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... belonging to this class of birds, are few. I have observed the black and white creeping warbler, the Kentucky warbler, the worm-eating warbler, the redstart, and the gnat-catcher, breeding near ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... gentleman might possess—poetry was by no means his proper avocation; "and indeed," concluded the critic, "from his fondness for flowers and for birds, I would venture to suggest that a florist or a bird-catcher is a much more suitable calling for him ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... her father to add a word of explanation, if not of defence. (Pause.) When she was fifteen, Maria fell into the hands of a man who seemed to have made it his business to entrap young girls, much as a bird-catcher traps small birds. He was no seducer, in the ordinary sense, for he contented himself with binding her senses and entangling her feelings only to thrust her away and watch how she suffered with torn wings and a broken heart—tortured by the agony of ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... baking between the high walls. In the debtor's confined chamber, Mrs Bangham, charwoman and messenger, who was not a prisoner (though she had been once), but was the popular medium of communication with the outer world, had volunteered her services as fly-catcher and general attendant. The walls and ceiling were blackened with flies. Mrs Bangham, expert in sudden device, with one hand fanned the patient with a cabbage leaf, and with the other set traps of vinegar and sugar in gallipots; at the same time enunciating sentiments of an encouraging and congratulatory ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... informed the Lieutenant that Counsellor Layer must be chained as directed, even if the chains had to be forged expressly for him. Upon which Mr. Lieutenant took a very surly leave of the Great Man, cursing him as he comes down the steps for a Thief-catcher and Tyburn purveyor, and sped him to Newgate, where he borrowed a set of double-irons from the Peachum or Lockit, or whatever the fellow's name it was that kept that Den of Thieves. And even then, when they had gotten the chains to the Tower, none of the warders knew how to put them ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... the kitchen to set the table. "Hungry?" she asked. Then, after a moment: "Isn't Tim your catcher on ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... sagacity, skill and directing ability, the twirler would make a pitiful show of himself. There are pitchers who recognize this fact and have the generosity to acknowledge it; but in most cases, especially with youngsters, no matter how much he may owe to the catcher, the slab-man takes all the credit, and ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... up of three flat cars, two armored cars, and between them the engine, with three cars coupled to the cow-catcher and two ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... cow strays sheepishly on to the track, apparently some 200 yards ahead. The engineer plays a tune with his whistle, and the cow proceeds to trot down the track in front of us. That singularly misnamed appendage, the cow-catcher, strikes her amidships. She is thrown twenty feet in the air, and all that is left of her rolls into the ditch by the side of ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... More, thou hast done more with thy good words than all they could with their weapons: give me thy hand, keep thy promise now for the king's pardon, or, by the Lord, I'll call thee a plain coney-catcher. ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... the Fairy. The Fisherman and the Merman. The Laird O' Co'. Ewen of the Little Head. Jock and his Mother. Saint Columba. The Mermaid Wife. The Fiddler and the Bogle of Bogandoran. Thomas the Rhymer. Fairy Friends. The Seal-Catcher's Adventure. The Fairies of Merlin's Craig. Rory Macgillivray. The Haunted Ships. The Brownie. Mauns' Stane. "Horse and Hattock." Secret Commonwealth. The Fairy Boy of Leith. The Dracae. Lord Tarbat's Relations. ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... Mandy Ann was utterly absorbed in her enchanting task. So quiet she was over it that every now and then a yellow-bird or a fly-catcher would alight upon the edge of the bateau to bounce away again with a startled and indignant twitter. The woodchuck, having eaten his carrot, curled up in the sun and went ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... United States," Lord Ashleigh reminded him, "so your criticism doesn't affect him. By-the-by, Middleton, I heard this morning that you'd been airing your opinions down in the village. You seem to rather fancy yourself as a thief-catcher." ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the river, like an amphibious animal who foresaw occasion for darting in. "He lives up the Kennel Yard at Sut Ogg's, he does. He's the biggest rot-catcher anywhere, he is. I'd sooner, be a rot-catcher nor anything, I would. The moles is nothing to the rots. But Lors! you mun ha' ferrets. Dogs is no good. Why, there's that dog, now!" Bob continued, pointing with an air ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... job on the Sheriff's hands, and the old Fourth of July cannon was loaded with powder and nails and put on the bow of the good ferry-boat Haddon P. Rogers, a posse of about three hundred men with shotguns and army muskets was crowded aboard, and the pirate-catcher got ...
— Philo Gubb Correspondence-School Detective • Ellis Parker Butler
... under a little wall-less roof, apparently an earthern pot of grease and feathers, called Mavunga. This may be the Ovengwa of the "Camma people," a "terrible catcher and eater of men, a vampire of the dead; personal, whilst the Ibamba are indistinct; tall as a tree; wandering through the woods, ever winking; whereas the Greek immortals were known by their motionless eyelids. "Ngolo Wanga" is a man-shaped figure of unpainted wood, kept in the hut. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... the requisite nervous connections are fully established during the brief embryonic existence of each creature. In the case of lower animals it is almost as much so with the few simple actions which make up the creature's mental life. The bird known as the fly-catcher no sooner breaks the egg than it will snap at and catch a fly. This action is not so very simple, but because it is something the bird is always doing, being indeed one out of the very few things that this bird ever does, the nervous connections needful for doing it are all established before birth, ...
— The Meaning of Infancy • John Fiske
... might have made this noted bandit prisoner if we had only known!" exclaimed Lawrence, who seemed more distressed at missing the chance of becoming an amateur thief-catcher than at misdirected charity. "But do you really think the fellow was ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... clause in relation to persons held to service or labor, must have been removed by the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Prigg versus The State of Pennsylvania. By that decision, any Southern slave-catcher is empowered to seize and convey to the South, without hindrance or molestation on the part of the State, and without any legal process duly obtained and served, any person or persons, irrespective ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... he shook a fist as large as a catcher's glove. "Don't you lie to me!" he bullied. "Do you know who I am? Do you know who ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... well know the bland emollient saponaceous qualities both of sack and silver, yet if any great man would say to me, 'I make you Rat-catcher to his Majesty, with a salary of L300 a-year and two butts of the best Malaga; and though it has been usual to catch a mouse or two, for form's sake, in public once a year, yet to you, sir, we shall ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Cerberus, the other nabbed bodily and thrown into the Styx. In consequence of this they obtain damages from the city. The city then decides to bring suit against the state. The bench consists of Apollyon himself and Judge Blackstone; Coke appears for the city, Catiline for the state. The first dog-catcher, called to testify, and asked whether he is familiar with dogs, replies in the affirmative, adding that he had never got quite so intimate with one as he got ...
— Cerberus, The Dog of Hades - The History of an Idea • Maurice Bloomfield
... the three Court-ladies began Their trial of who judged best In esteeming the love of a man: Who preferred with most reason was thereby confessed Boy-Cupid's exemplary catcher and cager; An Abbe crossed legs to ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... do think, the mole-catcher himself; let us hear what he has to say. "Good morning, Mr. Mole-catcher; have you been setting any more traps to-day? I suppose those unfortunate fellows gibbeted on yonder thorn were caught by you." "Well, yeez, sir," he replied, "I reckons as they were; I have stopped their play, ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... must maintain that every one of the variations that have rendered possible the changes produced by man, have been determined at the right time and place by the Creator. Every race produced by the florist or breeder, the dog or the pigeon fancier, the rat-catcher, the sporting man, or the slave-hunter, must have been provided for by varieties occurring when wanted; and as these variations were never withheld, it would prove that the sanction of an all-wise and all powerful Being has been given to that which the highest human ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... Scotland's many famous names. Considering the noble hospitality and manly character of Nathan Johnson, I have felt that he, better than I, illustrated the virtues of the great Scottish chief. Sure I am, that had any slave-catcher entered his domicile, with a view to molest any one of his household, he would have shown himself like him of the ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... waiting to receive my message," replied Harvey. "The signal keeps on going through the ether until it strikes that other antenna. Then it climbs along it until it reaches the receiving set and registers the same kind of dot or dash as the one I made at this end. It's like the pitcher and catcher of a baseball battery. One pitches the ball and the other receives the same ball. At one instant it's in the pitcher's hand and the next it has traveled the space between the two and is resting in the catcher's hand. ...
— The Radio Boys at the Sending Station - Making Good in the Wireless Room • Allen Chapman
... hour or more Mandy Ann was utterly absorbed in her enchanting task. So quiet she was over it that every now and then a yellow-bird or a fly-catcher would alight upon the edge of the bateau to bounce away again with a startled and indignant twitter. The woodchuck, having eaten his carrot, curled up in the ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... wanted to go anywhere badly enough to crowd ourselves under the cow-catcher, or upon the trucks, but there were those who did. We didn't want to see the parade badly enough to stand on the street corner for hours; but you worked your way through college, and we have both ...
— The Master-Knot of Human Fate • Ellis Meredith
... Clarence, was tried in several situations, but failed in them all. At last he was made a postman, but was found drunk one evening with all his letters scattered about him, and, of course, lost his situation. He then took up the employment of rat-catcher, for which, perhaps, he was better qualified than any other. His stock-in-trade consisted of some ferrets and an old terrier dog, and a more extraordinary dog was seldom seen. He was rough, rather strongly made, and of a sort of cinnamon colour, having only ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... fiercely determined, her feet on the last line mark, was putting up a strong defence. Tom Hall, captain pro tem., and Carmine consulted. A forward pass might succeed, and if it did would win the game, but Benton would be watching for it and neither Holt nor Compton was a brilliant catcher of thrown balls. A goal from the field would only tie the score, but it seemed the wisest play. So Rollins dropped back to the twenty and stretched his arms. But Benton was sure a forward was to result and when the ball went ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... and rats were one and the same kind of vermin all together and ought to be exterminated. Then the forester came in and agreed with Jens; and nothing that his daughter said to the contrary was of any use. The forester said that he would see and get a regular rat-catcher out here, who would lay poison for the lot of us. And all this is surely not my fault, but is due to that disgusting rat, who bit Jens in the nose. It is really no joke having a reprobate like that in the family, ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... she won't be going very fast, on account of the curve at the bottom, and we'll be going like a house afire," declared Alex, confidently. "And when she bunts us, we'll jump for her cow-catcher, and five minutes later we'll be out in ...
— The Young Railroaders - Tales of Adventure and Ingenuity • Francis Lovell Coombs
... written. On looking over a provincial paper, I find astounding rumors of ghosts appearing upon the track of a western railroad. Things clothed in the traditional white appear before the impartial cow-catcher, which divides them for the passage of the train, in the wake of which they immediately reappear in a full state of repair and posture of contempt. If this sort of thing goes on, what a splendid new field will be opened for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... Bandeliah, the revered king of the Crumbos, who had evidently smelled rum far inland. With him they were enabled to hold discourse, partly by signs, and partly by means of an old and highly polished negro, who had been the rat-catcher at the factory now consumed; and the conclusion, or perhaps the confusion, arrived at from signs, grunts, grins, nods, waggings of fingers and twistings of toes, translated grandiloquently into broken English, was not far from being to the ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... did not steal a single base were pitchers Esper, Dwyer, J. Clarkson, Ehret, Staley, Whitrock, McGill, Wadsworth and catcher Buckley. ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... those at this conclave, except Atta-Culla-Culla, are less than six feet in height "without their moccasins." Squatted as they are gravely around the council-fire, they present a most picturesque appearance. Among them are the Bread-Slave-Catcher, noted for his exploits in stealing negroes; the Tennassee Warrior, prince of the town of that name; Noon-Day, a wide-awake brave; Bloody Fellow, whose subsequent exploits will show the appropriateness of his name; Old Tassell, a wise and reasonably just ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... the first act is over, now is the time for the great Queen of Night." The day before his death he said to his wife, "Oh, that I could only once more hear my 'Flauto Magico!'" humming, in scarcely audible voice, the lively bird-catcher song. The same day, at two o'clock in the afternoon, he called his friends together, and asked for the score of his nearly completed "Requiem" to be laid on his bed. Benedict Schack sang the soprano; his brother-in-law, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... source of Base Ball is traced to the game of "One Old Cat," which was a favorite among the boys in old colonial times. This was played by three boys—a thrower, a catcher, and a batsman. If the batsman after striking the ball could run to a goal about thirty feet distant, and return before the ball could be fielded, he counted one tally. This game was developed to ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... T'ae-Sze's Freedom from Jealousy The Fruitfulness of the Locust Lamenting the Absence of a Cherished Friend Celebrating the Goodness of the Descendants of King Wan The Virtuous Manners of the Young Women Praise of a Rabbit-Catcher The Song of the Plantain-Gatherers The Affection of the Wives on ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... box and was putting some swift ones over the plate. As yet he did not have perfect control of the horsehide, and as a consequence it occasionally went over the catcher's head. ...
— The Rover Boys in the Land of Luck - Stirring Adventures in the Oil Fields • Edward Stratemeyer
... on, "that motoring wasn't invented by some grand seignor in the Middle Ages, when the rich thought no more of the poor than we do of flies, or they'd have run over every one who didn't get out of their way on the instant. They'd have had a sort of cow-catcher fitted on to their cars, to keep themselves from coming to harm, and they'd have dashed people aside, anyhow. In these days, no matter how hard your heart may be, you have to sacrifice your inclinations more or less to decency. I dare say the Car of ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... "Hullo old sprat-catcher! Going for a sail?" called out a soldier, and I knew that the group were all round our boat, Heru trembling so violently in my breast that I thought she would ...
— Gulliver of Mars • Edwin L. Arnold
... this period. There was another rival, and one in more direct competition with herself. This was Sam Cowell, a music-hall "star" from England. A comedian of genuine talent, he took America by storm with a couple of ballads, "The Rat-Catcher's Daughter" and "Villikins and his Dinah." The public flocked to hear him in their thousands. Lola's lectures fell very flat. Even fresh material and reduced prices failed to serve as a lure. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... in the grounds of the Lord of Sark. It was very tame, and allowed me to approach it very closely. I did not see any others at that time amongst the fir-trees, though no doubt a few others were there. On my return to Guernsey on the following day I was requested by a bird-catcher to name some birds that were doing considerable damage in the gardens about the town. Thinking from having seen the one in Sark, and from his description, that the birds might be Crossbills, I asked him to get me one or two, which he said he could easily ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... may have some irregular neighbours," was the prince's remark. "But, it must be confessed, that I am the intruder on their domain, not they on mine; and, if I were plundered, perhaps I should have not much more right to complain, than a whale-catcher has of being swamped by a blow of the tail, or a man fond of law being forced to pay a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... out among the passes, now approaching the mountain-sides, now suspended over precipices, avoiding abrupt angles by bold curves, plunging into narrow defiles, which seemed to have no outlet. The locomotive, its great funnel emitting a weird light, with its sharp bell, and its cow-catcher extended like a spur, mingled its shrieks and bellowings with the noise of torrents and cascades, and twined its smoke among the ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... which Giles professed, he sometimes practised that of a rat-catcher; but he was addicted to so many tricks, that he never followed the same trade long, for detection will sooner or later follow the best-concerted villany. Whenever he was sent for to a farm-house, his custom ...
— Stories for the Young - Or, Cheap Repository Tracts: Entertaining, Moral, and Religious. Vol. VI. • Hannah More
... Cabinet says, that "In presence of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, while the philosophers were making elaborate dissertations on the danger of the poison of vipers, taken inwardly, a viper catcher, who happened to be present, requested that a quantity of it might be put into a vessel; and then, with the utmost confidence, and to the astonishment of the whole company, he drank it off. Everyone expected the man instantly to drop down dead; but they soon perceived ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... men's bones across the rails to be crushed by the hundreds under the wheels of the Juggernaut; great lizards ran from sunny rocks at the sound of their approach, and a deer bounded across the tracks fifty feet in front of the cow-catcher. MacWilliams escorted Hope out into the cab of the locomotive, and taught her how to increase and slacken the speed of the engine, until she showed an unruly desire to throw the lever open altogether and shoot them off the ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... individuality,—but lacked the skill to work them out. Such is the Bailiff of Hexham, who represents the iniquities of local magistrates. He has four sons,—Walter, representing the frauds of farmers; Priest, the sins of the clergy; Coney-catcher, the tricks of cheats; and Perin, the vices of courtiers. Besides these, we have Honesty, whose business it is to expose crimes and vices. The Devil makes his appearance several times, and, when the old Bailiff dies, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... felt the need to go abroad. In a kind of burlesque of the calling of the infant Samuel, she sat up in her bed, startled as by a voice calling her to a mission. She had been an actress, a wanderer, a performer in cheap theaters, a catcher of late trains, a dweller in rickety hotels. She knew cold, and she had played half ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... was a fairly good one, although rather low. Jack swung at it, and high into the air spun the sphere, well back of the catcher's head. ...
— The Rover Boys Under Canvas - or The Mystery of the Wrecked Submarine • Arthur M. Winfield
... like the St. Louis Cardinals, I want to have the best sort of an outfit. You know a ball will often slip out of a new glove, so I'm making a sort of 'pocket' in this one, only not as deep as in a catcher's mitt, so it ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... here, belonging to this class of birds, are few. I have observed the black and white creeping warbler, the Kentucky warbler, the worm-eating warbler, the redstart, and the gnat-catcher, breeding near ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... this uncomfortable encumbrance, it is unsafe for any valuable dog to be seen, even on his own doorsteps, for the "dog-catcher" is ever on the look-out ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... and hovering over the tops of the firs, but, catching a glimpse of me, disappears from sight. Presently a little bird, with an eye keener even than the cruel hawk's, comes out from the hazels and perches on a post some ten yards away. It is a fly-catcher. As he sits he turns his eyes in every direction, on the look-out for dainty insects. He seems to have eyes at the back of his head, for instantly he sees a fly in the air right behind him, makes a dash, catches it, and flies on to the next post. He repeats the performance there, ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... most aristocratic dog in his usual habits, when staying in England with Mr. St. John, he struck up an acquaintance with a rat-catcher and his curs, assisting them in their business, watching at the rat-holes where the ferrets were in, and being the best dog of all; for he never gave a false alarm, or failed to give a true one. The moment he saw his master, however, he cut his humble friends, and ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... lose his head? But between you, you pushed the car off the track in a jiffy. And Mrs. O'Burke's new bonnet was all smashed in the ditch, an' the bloody snort of Number Five knocked you senseless. Who would have thought that boost of the cow-catcher was jist clear good luck? And you moped about with a short draw in your chist, and seemed bound to be a grouty old man in the chimney corner that could niver lift a stroke for your childer, ah' you didn't see the good luck, you know, Tim—but when the prisident ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... that big catcher's mitt that Marmaduke always wanted—do you 'spouse that's still in ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... typical peasants, too, in Mauprat. We have Marcasse, the mole-catcher, and Patience, the good-natured Patience, the rustic philosopher, well up in Epictetus and in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who has gone into the woods to live his life according to the laws of Nature and ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... he cried gruffly. 'It was with sweet words that you did coax my fingers into that fool-catcher of yours. Now, here is my old headpiece of Spanish steel. It has, as you can see, one or two dints of blows, and a fresh one will not hurt it. I place it here upon this oaken stool high enough to be within fair sword-sweep. Have at it, Junker, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... looking stranger concerning his business in Philadelphia; and he, being ashamed to acknowledge himself a slave-catcher, returned very evasive and unsatisfactory answers. He was accordingly committed to prison, to answer at the next court of Sessions. It was customary to examine prisoners before they were locked up, and take whatever ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... danced at the age of fifty-six. Cicero, however, reproached a consul with having danced. Tiberius, that monster of indulgences, banished dancers from Rome; and Domitian, the illustrious fly-catcher, expelled several of his members of parliament for having danced. We are much more civilized, for such an edict as that of Domitian would clear our senate-houses as effectually as when Cromwell turned out the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... really deeply interested in the "fly catcher." "I have always wanted to see one of ...
— The Girl Scouts at Bellaire - Or Maid Mary's Awakening • Lilian C. McNamara Garis
... had a habit, when he was flustered or annoyed—and that was most of the time—of scratching his head with the point end of it, his forehead under the hair roots was usually streaked with purplish-blue tracings, like a fly-catcher's egg. ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... green apples when making the jelly. Birds, especially field fares, eat the berries with avidity; and a botanical designation of the tree is aucuparia, as signifying fruit used by the auceps, or bird catcher, with which ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... is to be refused till all the prophets of evil are refuted, Ireland must go without Home Rule for ever. "If the sky fall, we shall catch larks." But he would be a foolish bird-catcher who waited for that contingency. And not less foolish is the statesman who sits still till every conceivable objection to his policy has been mathematically refuted in advance, and every wild prediction falsified by the event; for that would ensure his never moving at all. ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... with a rod 'n' line 'n' reel, whether it's with flies, spoons, or minnows, castin' or trollin', or spearin' or nettin', Warry's th' expertest fish-catcher that ever waded the rapids or paddled th' lakes o' this old Province o' Quebec. But it's gettin' a leetle hard for Warry late years—fish 's come to know him so well that after he's made a few casts 'n' hooked one or two that's got away, they know his tricks so well they ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... you will find it a great saving to have some sort of a grass-catcher on your lawn-mower. One can be made easily, but very handy ones are sold at a small price. They prevent the wear and tear to a lawn that results from the hard raking necessary ...
— Making a Lawn • Luke Joseph Doogue
... war horse, charger, destrier. marine, man-of-war's man &c (sailor) 269; navy, wooden walls, naval forces, fleet, flotilla, armada, squadron. [ships of war] man-of-war; destroyer; submarine; minesweeper; torpedo-boat, torpedo-destroyer; patrol torpedo boat, PT boat; torpedo- catcher, war castle, H.M.S.; battleship, battle wagon, dreadnought, line of battle ship, ship of the line; aircraft carrier, carrier. flattop [Coll.]; helicopter carrier; missile platform, missile boat; ironclad, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... might do for a wilful, spoiled child over which he had no authority of the rod, allowed himself to be dragged to the middle of the room and there, standing side by side, the two men lifted their voices to the swing and pulse of "The Flying Fish Catcher," through all but interminable verses, while the men about them kept enthusiastic time by tramping heavily with their thick boots. At the end Kendric put his arm about the shoulders of his shorter companion, and in lock step they went ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory
... be chained as directed, even if the chains had to be forged expressly for him. Upon which Mr. Lieutenant took a very surly leave of the Great Man, cursing him as he comes down the steps for a Thief-catcher and Tyburn purveyor, and sped him to Newgate, where he borrowed a set of double-irons from the Peachum or Lockit, or whatever the fellow's name it was that kept that Den of Thieves. And even then, when they had gotten ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... to his room and found Ling Chu polishing the meagre stock of silver which Tarling possessed. Ling Chu was a thief-catcher and a great detective, but he had also taken upon himself the business of attending to Tarling's personal comfort. The detective spoke no word, out went straight to the cupboard where he kept his foreign kit. On a shelf in neat ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... postscript from Dr. Miller. He says, 'The girls were pretty excited when they wrote the above, and with excellent reason. Apparently this apparition appears fairly often. A number of townfolk have seen it. I don't know what you can do, unless your ingenuity can produce a super spook catcher, but you will enjoy tackling this problem. It is worthy of your best effort. Mrs. Miller and I heartily endorse ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... the truth. College mates of Taylor will recall the deceptiveness of this outward appearance. It concealed muscles of steel and a will that had only to be right in order to be invincible. He was the peer of any amateur baseball catcher in his day, and held the same enviable place as a student of the classics. He was the strong man for the D.K.E. initiations, and took the same rank ...
— Jukes-Edwards - A Study in Education and Heredity • A. E. Winship
... expecting a visit from the young man, and had been waiting for him with the cool complacency of a bird-catcher, who, having arranged all his lines and snares, stands with folded arms until his feathered victims fall into his net. The line that he had displayed before the young man's eyes was the sight of liberty. Daumon had emissaries ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... nest like the humming-bird's, and comparable to it in neatness and symmetry, is that of the blue-gray gnat-catcher. This is often saddled upon the limb in the same manner, though it is generally more or less pendent; it is deep and soft, composed mostly of some vegetable down, covered all over with delicate tree-lichens, and, except that it is much larger, appears almost identical with ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... lamps and drawing shades or meeting the masculine population at front gates with babies in their arms or beau-catcher curls set on their cheeks with deadly intent. Negro cooks were hustling suppers on their smoking stoves, and one of the doves that lives up in the vines under the eaves of my home moaned out and was answered by one from under the vines that grow over the gables at the Crittendens'. ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the bases, and the babies' insolence grew with their opponents' score. As the last inning dragged its tedious length, the prospect of the Freshmen forcing a rush had become the important thing with the crowd. The fighting class limbered up for action. Now their third man struck out and the catcher's ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... once we think of kings and aristocracies, and of world-wide celebrities in soldierships, the arts, letters, etc., and we stop there. But that is a mistake. Rank holds its court and receives its homage on every round of the ladder, from the emperor down to the rat-catcher; and distinction, also, exists on every round of the ladder, and commands its due of deference ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... fuel, and, there being no smoke or spark-catcher to the chimney or smoke stack, a volume of black smoke, strongly impregnated with sparks, coal, and cinders, came pouring back the whole length of the train. Each of the outside passengers who had an umbrella raised it as a protection against the smoke and fire. ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... my night at the Scollays' and my plan for trapping the spies. My self-respect as a criminal catcher was distinctly soothed to hear her hearty ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... socialists said. "The Grangers have come over to us, the farmers, the middle class, and the laborers. The capitalist system will fall to pieces. In another month we send fifty men to Congress. Two years hence every office will be ours, from the President down to the local dog-catcher." ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... intrusive, and we were often foiled in getting what we most desired. Even where we were allowed to catch our object peaceably, it was a case of working under difficulties which would have daunted a less ardent picture-catcher. Wherever the camera was set up, there swarms of children sprang into being, burrowed in and out like rabbits, and scuttled about over everything, to the confusion of the poor artist, who had to fix focus and look after the safety of ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... for them by turning them into elliptical orbits and thus making them prisoners in the solar system. Jupiter, owing to his great mass and his commanding situation in the system, is the chief "comet-catcher;'' but he catches them not for himself, but for the sun. Yet if comets do come originally from without the borders of the planetary system, it does not, by any means, follow that they were wanderers at large in space before they yielded ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... on the right of the post with the red tie, is the son of an ostler. He commenced betting thousands with a farthing capital. The man next him, all teeth and hair, like a rat-catcher's dog, is an Honourable by birth, but not very honourable in his nature." "But see," cried Mr. Jorrocks, "Lord—— is talking to the Cracksman." "To be sure," replies Sam, "that's the beauty of the turf. The lord and ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... is illogical that a ground stroke behind the diamond should be a no-ball, and yet, should that ball be in the air and caught, the striker should be out. I thought it an odd example of lenience to allow the batsman as many strokes behind the catcher as he chanced to make. But the more baseball I see the more it enchants me as a spectacle, and these ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas
... war or for a long journey to the distant bazaar of Chinese traders in the lower part of the river; the necessity of removing to a new site; an epidemic of disease; the rites of formally consulting the omens, or otherwise communicating with and propitiating the gods; the operations of the soul-catcher. The more important of these incidents will be described in later chapters. Here we need only give a brief account of the way in which some of them affect the daily round of life ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... air, but such a car was efficient in any open place clear of high buildings or trees. Human aeronautics, Graham perceived, were evidently still a long way behind the instinctive gift of the albatross or the fly-catcher. One great influence that might have brought the aeropile to a more rapid perfection had been withheld; these inventions had never been used in warfare. The last great international struggle had occurred before the ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... right, And 'twere a sin to rob them of their mite; Yet ne'er one sprig of laurel graced these ribalds, From slashing Bentley down to piddling Tibbalds. Each wight, who reads not, and but scans and spells, Each word-catcher, that lives on syllables, Even such small critics some regard may claim, Preserved in Milton's or in Shakespeare's name. Pretty! in amber to observe the forms Of hairs, or straws, or dirt, or grubs, or worms! The things, we know, are neither rich nor rare, But wonder ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... Sam, "with the intention of converting uncle Rik into a thief-catcher. That stupid waiter told me only this morning that the time he followed Stumps to the harbour, he overheard a sailor conversing with him and praising a certain tavern named the Tartar, near London Bridge, to which he promised ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... Bryant. Best stories to tell. Bryant. How to tell stories. Crommelin. Famous legends. Jacobs. More English fairy tales. (Pied piper of Franchville.) Lang. Red fairy book. (Rat catcher.) Lang. Snow man ...
— Lists of Stories and Programs for Story Hours • Various
... satisfied with whipping, shooting, hanging, destroying in a thousand ways these unhappy slaves, the aggressive South forced upon a passive North a law whose enormity passes description. Every man at the beck of the Southern kidnapper, by its provisions was obliged to play the part of a Negro catcher. So great was the passiveness of the North that her most eminent orator, instead of decrying the proposition as unworthy of humanity, even lifted up his voice in its defense. Virgil inveighed against ...
— John Brown: A Retrospect - Read before The Worcester Society of Antiquity, Dec. 2, 1884. • Alfred Roe
... doors. She did not long survive her marriage; and Martin, turning fortune-hunter, could not supply his occasions any other way, than by taking to the road, in which he has travelled hitherto with uncommon success. — He pays his respects regularly to Mr Justice Buzzard, the thief-catcher-general of this metropolis, and sometimes they smoke a pipe together very lovingly, when the conversation generally turns upon the nature of evidence. — The justice has given him fair warning to take care of himself, and he has received ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... "run," and the sockeye season was almost over. For that reason I wondered many times why my old friend, the klootchman, had failed to make one of the fishing fleet. She was an indefatigable workwoman, rivalling her husband as an expert catcher, and all the year through she talked of little else but the coming run. But this especial season she had not appeared amongst her fellow-kind. The fleet and the canneries knew nothing of her, and when I enquired of her tribes-people they would reply without explanation, "She not here ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson
... catcher at words?" said I. "I thought that catching at words had been confined to the pothouse farmers ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... is a rat-catcher," said Sprouse. "What are you doing here?" demanded Barnes, staring. He seized the man's arm and inquired eagerly: "Have ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... game you must first decide which one of you is to be the Bird-catcher; the other players then each choose the name of a bird, but no one must choose the owl, as it is forbidden. All the players then sit in a circle with their hands on their knees, except the Bird-catcher, who stands in the center, and tells a tale about birds, taking care to specially ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... the book. But, Dannie, he wouldn't drink with us, but he stayed to iducate us up a little. That little spool man, Dannie, iducatin' Jones of the gravel gang, and Bingham of the Standard, and York of the 'lectric railway, and Haines of the timber gang, not to mintion the champeen rat-catcher of the Wabash." ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... scorpion-catcher came by; and he asked them why they were crying. "A panther has devoured our mother and brother," said the girls. "He has gone now, but he is sure to return and devour ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... and gagged him with the loose end of the rope; and Tybee held the candle to light the knotting of it. And so they marched him out, with Tybee muttering between his teeth that it was rat-catcher's work, and no soldier's, this killing of vermin, and bidding his men ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... high as ever its voice can go, and then, just at its highest pitch, the note breaks suddenly at a right angle; clear and clean as if cut with a diamond; then softly and sweetly down the scale once more. Along the shore, too, there is life; guillemot, oyster-catcher, tern are busy there; the wagtail is out in search of food, advancing in little spurts, trim and pert with its pointed beak and swift little flick of a tail; after a while it flies up to perch on a fence and sing with the rest. But when the sun has set, may come the cry of a loon ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... concluding his bargain with the girl, whose butter he was determined to have even if he must pay her own price for it. Like the Reeve in the Canterbury Tales, who "ever rode the hinderest of the rout," being such a rogue and such a rogue-catcher that he could not bear anybody behind his back, Bruce, when about the business that his soul loved, eschewed the presence of any ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... "The Rat Catcher then said 'Look behind.' I looked behind, and there on the seat was strapped a larger cake. This ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 24, 1920 • Various
... was a Freemason; he had been his companion in dissipation, and exercised a great influence over him. Mozart at last consented. A compact was made, and Schickaneder set to work on the libretto. As he was a popular buffoon, he invented the part of Papageno, the bird-catcher, for himself, and arranged that it should be dressed in a costume of feathers. It is a trivial part, but Schickaneder intended to tickle the fancy of the public, and succeeded. The first act was finished, when it was found that the same subject ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... below water the crayfish had made holes or homes of some sort, and were sitting at the doors with their claws and feelers just outside, waiting, like Mr. Micawber, for something to turn up. To meet their views the crayfish catcher had cut a long willow withe. From the tapering tip of this he had cut the wood, leaving the bark, which had been carefully slit and the woody tip extracted from it. This pendant of bark he had made into a running noose, and leaning over the bank he worked it ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... and tangled together That their fate was involved in a dark mystery As to which was the catcher and which the catchee . . . And the fishermen thought it could never be known After all their thinking and figuring, Whether the nigger a-fishing had gone, Or the fish had gone ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... such as the scenes at Norman Cross, a station or prison where some six thousand French prisoners were immured. And vividly impressed on my memory is my intercourse with an extraordinary old man, a snake-catcher, who thrilled me with the recitals of his experiences. He declared that the vipers had a king, a terrible creature, which he had encountered, and from which he had managed to escape. After telling me that strange story of the king of the vipers, he gave me a viper which he had tamed, and had rendered ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... latter unfair rule which the committee repealed in getting rid of the foul fly tip; and now a batsman who has earned his base by a safe hit and who runs to the next base on a foul fly tip ball caught by the catcher, can no longer be put out on the double play, as he is now allowed to return to the base he left on the hit, as in the case of ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
... Paul Dangerfield, with his head erect, 'I bear Mr. Lowe no ill-will. He is, you'll excuse me, a thief-catcher by nature. He can't help it. He thinks he works from duty, public spirit, and other fine influences; I know it is simply from an irrepressible instinct. I do assure you, I never yet bore any man the least ill-will. I've had to remove two or three, not because I hated them—I did ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... name. Since reading that charming poem myself, I have often thought that, considering the noble hospitality and manly character of Nathan Johnson—black man though he was—he, far more than I, illustrated the virtues of the Douglas of Scotland. Sure am I that, if any slave-catcher had entered his domicile with a view to my recapture, Johnson would have shown himself like him of ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... vacuum cleaner this morning before I started to school. I saw how easily the motor-driven fan sucked in everything in sight. I held the nozzle near a fly on the window pane and zipp—p-p, in went Mr. Fly. I thought right away that a big vacuum cleaner would make a fine moth catcher if we could only get near enough to the moths. And I even figured out a plan for a large one which wouldn't cost very much and could be made mostly of wood. But I knew it was foolish 'cause we couldn't get near the ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... care for me a bit," she said once. "I am only another form of 'ze sensation'—like going up in a balloon or riding on the cow-catcher." ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne
... of choice friends was hastily got up to do honour to the superb fish, and on that occasion Fred and his father well-nigh quarrelled on the point of, "who caught the salmon!" Mr Sudberry insisting that the man who hooked the fish was the real catcher of it, and Fred scouting the ridiculous notion, and asserting that he who played and landed it was entitled to all the honour. The point was settled, however, in some incomprehensible way, without ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... the organ-grinder after this? What are the limits of a man's domicile? How much of the coast does he own beyond his area-railings? Is No. 48 to be deprived of the 'Hat-catcher's Daughter' because 47 is dyspeptic? Are the maids in 32 not to be cheered by 'Sich a gettin' up stairs' because there is a nervous invalid in 33? How long may an organ-man linger in front of a residence to tune or adjust ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... one she suddenly became possessed and started dancing round the ebony tree and singing some song which he could not clearly catch; and as she danced she called out "The Pig's fat is overflowing: brother-in-law Ramjit come here to me." When she called out like this the quail catcher quietly crept nearer still to her. Although the woman repeatedly summoned him in this way the Bonga would not come out because he was aware of the presence of the onlooker; the woman however got into a passion at his non-appearance ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... have had a sorter kinder sample day. Up at 5, to see a dying man; ought to have been up at 2, but Ben King the rat-catcher, who came to call me, was taken nervous!!! and didn't make row enough; was from 5.30 to 6.30 with the most dreadful case of agony—insensible to me, but not to his pain. Came home, got a wash and a pipe, and again to him at 8. Found him ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... the cause of the conflagration, and, in place of recognising, like the rest of the world, that the moist straw had taken fire of its own accord, they suspected that it was a case of revenge. It proceeded, no doubt, from Maitre Gouy, or perhaps from the mole-catcher. Six months before Bouvard had refused to accept his services, and even maintained, before a circle of listeners, that his trade was a baneful one, and that the government ought to prohibit it. Since that time the man prowled about the locality. He wore ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... only a grass fire after all!" Jones, the left-end gasped, as he ran lightly along close beside Hemming, the right guard, who had also been a substitute catcher in the baseball days when Steve Mullane held out behind the ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... a middle stature, not too high nor too low, and had somewhat an aquiline nose, made like the handle of a razor. He was at that time five and thirty years old or thereabouts, fine to gild like a leaden dagger—for he was a notable cheater and coney-catcher—he was a very gallant and proper man of his person, only that he was a little lecherous, and naturally subject to a kind of disease which at that time they called lack of money—it is an incomparable grief, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... never seen an otter, even in a museum, he was delighted with this episode of his early walk. "Come," said he, quite touched when the old man walked away without asking him for a compensation, "you say you are a famous otter catcher. If you are sure there is an ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... hundred and five gulls, for there are fifteen species; one hundred and twelve cormorants, forty-nine gannets, one hundred and forty terns, two hundred and eighty-seven kingfishers, beside storks, herons, spoonbills, penguins, albatrosses, and a host of others; mollusks for the oyster-catcher, turnstone, and other birds. ...
— The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science - A Discourse • William Denton
... all other people who did not appreciate him. Not that he ever did so snap his fingers; on the contrary, Mr Slam, though practically defiant, was remarkably civil, not to say obsequious, in his demeanour when he came into contact with the gentry. By profession he was a rat-catcher, and he had an intimate knowledge of the habits and frailties of all the small predatory animals of Great Britain, and knew well how to lure them to their destruction. In a game-preserving community such talents ought, one would imagine, to have met with appreciative ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... not provocations an element in the interest of every pursuit, the pepper which flavours all pleasant occupation? I collect butterflies, and my friends think I am a man to be envied because I have such a taste. Do they suppose a butterfly catcher has no provocations? Was it seventeen or seventy times (I forget) in one page that I laid down my pen, put off my spectacles and caught up my net to rush after that brute of a Papilio polymnestor, who just came to the duranta flowers to flout me and skip over the wall into the next garden? ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... army is there of these shore birds, that we cannot even glance at them all in this lesson. So we will take a few of them only—the Black-headed Gull, the Cormorant, the Ringed Plover, the Oyster-catcher and ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... move a trifle faster than the other, and they will overlap neatly and without striking—completely covering the ground between them. When the trap is spread the draw-rope should extend to some near shelter where the bird-catcher may secrete himself from view. Spreading the bait on the ground between the nets, and arranging his call birds at the proper distances, he awaits his opportunity of springing his nets. At the proper minute, when the ground is dotted ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... couldn't seem to concentrate her mind upon that thirteenth chapter of "Lily the Lovely Laundress." The handsome rat-catcher had just beaten the aristocratic villain to a pulp and would have finished the job neatly and thoroughly had not Lily raised her lovely fair hand and cried with the ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... ball against the east side we only had 6 boys and they had twelve. We have a base ball team, and I am Captain, so you see I need a suit. Gretchen and Mother are playing backgammon with one dice. I catch sometimes when our real catcher is not there. When he is there I play first Base. Your loving ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... a living illustration of mutual aid, as well as of the infinite variety of characters, individual and specific, resulting from social life. The oyster-catcher is renowned for its readiness to attack the birds of prey. The barge is known for its watchfulness, and it easily becomes the leader of more placid birds. The turnstone, when surrounded by comrades belonging ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... "Yes, and wonderful catcher!" said Dorothy. "Just think how he caught us—Ugh! It makes me shiver to think of being tossed in the air over those black, raging waves. We must have looked like little bundles flying from the ship. Wasn't Jack just wonderful, to hold on to us as he did, and work so hard ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... after they had left they met another man, a bird catcher from the uplands of Olaa;[53] he asked, "Where ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... Black-bellied Plover Golden Plover Semi-palmated Plover Belted Piping Plover Wilson Plover Piping Plover Killdeer Willett Greater Yellow Legs Summer Yellow Legs Turnstone Red Phalarope Northern Phalarope Avocet Oyster Catcher Long-billed Curlew Jack Curlew Hudsonian Godwit Sanderling Black-necked Stilt Dowitcher Knot Stilt Sandpiper Solitary Sandpiper Spotted Sandpiper Red-backed Sandpiper White-rumped Sandpiper ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... a catcher at words?' said I. 'I thought that catching at words had been confined to the pot-house ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... was Robins, the mole-catcher,' growled Jog; 'what have you to do with (puff) Robins, ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... dishonourable, vile submission: Alla stucatho carries it away. Tybalt, you Rat-catcher, will you walke? Tib. What wouldst thou haue with me? Mer. Good King of Cats, nothing but one of your nine liues, that I meane to make bold withall, and as you shall vse me hereafter dry beate the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your Sword ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Russian and French armies during the campaign from Moscow back to the Niemen were like those in a game of Russian blindman's bluff, in which two players are blindfolded and one of them occasionally rings a little bell to inform the catcher of his whereabouts. First he rings his bell fearlessly, but when he gets into a tight place he runs away as quietly as he can, and often thinking to escape runs straight ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... creeper, redstart, waxwing, woodpecker, humming bird, killdeer, swallow, blue bird, blackbird, meadow lark, bunting, starling, redwing, purple martin, brown thresher, American goldfinch, chewink or ground robin, pewee or phoebe bird, chickadee, fly catcher, knat catcher, mouse hawk, whippoorwill, snow bird, titmouse, gull, eagle, buzzard, or any wild bird other than a game bird. No part of the plumage, skin or body of such bird shall be sold or had in possession ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... and catcher for the Putnam Hall team. Tom was pitcher, while Larry played first base, Dick second, and Sam was down in center, to use those nimble legs of his should occasion require. Fred was shortstop, ...
— The Rover Boys at School • Arthur M. Winfield
... lightness in my breast, so that I could scarce keep from laughing out. And when my father admonished me, pretty roughly, for not having mended the fence of the fowl walk to his liking, I minded it no more than if it had been old Sugden the rat-catcher. Once or twice during the dinner I caught my mother looking at me with a certain apprehension, as if she observed somewhat unusual in my behaviour. I fancy she thought I might be sickening for the ague, which was very rife in those parts. My mother was a great physician, and always kept ready ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... that both Channing and Thoreau seem to have vied with each other in uttering hard or capricious sayings when in his presence. Emerson catches at a vivid and picturesque statement, if it has even a fraction of truth in it, like a fly-catcher at ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... men, who were indeed known from the letters of Hammurabi and the contemporary contracts, but whose functions are not easy to fix. They were the rid sabi and the bairu. By their etymology these titles seemed to mean "slave-driver," and "catcher." But the Code sets them in a clearer light. They were closely connected, if not identical, officials. They had charge of the levy, the local quota for the army, or for public works. Hence "levy-master" and "warrant-officer" are suggestive renderings. For the ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... add a word of explanation, if not of defence. (Pause.) When she was fifteen, Maria fell into the hands of a man who seemed to have made it his business to entrap young girls, much as a bird-catcher traps small birds. He was no seducer, in the ordinary sense, for he contented himself with binding her senses and entangling her feelings only to thrust her away and watch how she suffered with torn wings and a broken heart—tortured by the agony of love, ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... compelled to choose between being a slave-catcher or a slave. As a slave-catcher he spread terror and destruction among his fellows, seized them and sold them to white men. As a slave he made the long journey across ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... but Madame MRAVINA apparently not strong enough. "What made author-chap think of calling her Manon?" asks languid person in Stalls. WAGSTAFF, revived after an iced B.-and-S., is equal to the occasion. "Such a bad lot, you know—regular man-catcher; hooked a man on, then, when he was done with, hooked another man on. Reason for name evident, see?" The Cavalleria Rusticana is the favourite for Derby Night. All right up ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 4, 1892 • Various
... of Maraki—a dark-skinned, passionately jealous creature, who had followed his fortunes for three years to his present location, and then developed mal-du-pays to such an extent that the local priest and devil-catcher, one Pare-vaka, was sent for by her female attendants. Pare-vaka was not long in making his diagnosis. A little devil in the shape of an octopus was in Tene-napa's brain. And he gave instructions how to get the fiend out, and also further instructions to one of the girl attendants to fix, ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... intend making one to go fowling with nets and looking-glasses, as it is so beautifully described by a poet of my acquaintance, (the Sieur Lebrun himself.) I hope the same accident won't happen to us that befell the bird-catcher in the fable. It is for you to be on your guard, if you enter into such amusements; for love keeps constantly prowling in the scenes frequented by the Graces. We are, therefore, in safety here, in spite of his wings. We expect the family of M. and Madame Grimod at the beginning of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... stands high, and deservedly so, for to these active qualities, more French I think than English, and partaking of the Creole vivacity and suppleness of character, she adds, I believe, honourable principles and an excellent heart. As a lion-catcher, I could pit her against the world. She flung her lasso (see Hall's South America) over Byron himself. But then, poor soul, she is not happy. She has a temper, and Davy has a temper, and these tempers are not one temper, but two tempers, and they quarrel ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... went uproariously on to a finish, with the result that the champions of "Home" had "to stand The Painkiller," their defeat being due chiefly to the work of Hi and Bronco Bill as pitcher and catcher. ...
— The Sky Pilot • Ralph Connor
... the year picturesque with the white sails of yachts and other pleasure boats that have skimmed its placid waters since the Broadland first became a holiday resort. In the early days of Borrow's residence at Oulton, the only craft that stirred its sunlit ripples were the punts of the eel-catcher and wildfowl-seeker and the slowly gliding wherries voyaging to and from the coast and inland towns. To-day, a little colony of dwellers in red-brick villas have invaded the lonely spot where Borrow lived; but even now you have but to turn aside a few steps from the lake side to reach the ...
— George Borrow in East Anglia • William A. Dutt
... locomotive got drowned. He was very fond of the little Pony Engine, and told it stories at night after they got into the car-house, at the end of some of his long runs. It would get up on his cow-catcher, and lean its chimney up against his, and listen till it fell asleep. Then he would put it softly down, and be off again in the morning before it was awake. I tell you, those were happy days for poor No. 236. The little Pony Engine could just remember him; it was awfully ...
— Christmas Every Day and Other Stories • W. D. Howells
... wiped his eyes with his paws. "It was the dog catcher! For I followed the wagon at a distance and I saw him put all the dogs into a big wire pen, so that none ...
— Raggedy Ann Stories • Johnny Gruelle
... who had envied the count the glory gained by his former achievements, continued to magnify, among themselves his present imprudence; and we are told by Fray Antonio Agapida that they sneeringly gave the worthy cavalier the appellation of count de Cabra the king-catcher. ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... and restored her, not to life, it is true, but to the consciousness of some dreadful suffering. I meanwhile walked up and down the path behind the house, weeping, and doubting my success. I only wished to give up this part of the bird-catcher which I had so rashly assumed. Madame Gobain, who came down and found me with my face wet with tears, hastily went up again to ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... favoured his wishes. It happened, while his passions were in full force, that a rat-catcher arrived at Mowbray Hall; which at that time was greatly infested by the large Norway rats. The man had the art of taking them alive, and was accordingly employed by the Squire. While he was preparing to perform his business, the gentle Olivia, very innocently and without ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the caption, a typical Banneker eye-catcher, "The Rattlesnake Dies Out; But the Pen-Viper is Still With Us." "I don't care to indulge myself with your literary efforts at present, Mr. Banneker," he said languidly. "Is this ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... of the other baseball stars in the defeated set—-Dolan, who guarded the middle garden, Sherley whose domain was away off in right, Boggs, the energetic shortstop, Hennessy the catcher, who had taunted Fred and his chums So persistently whenever they came to bat, in hopes of making them nervous, and Gould the agile ...
— Fred Fenton Marathon Runner - The Great Race at Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... a prigger of cacklers who harms, [25] The poor country higlers, and plunders the farms; [26] He steals all their poultry, and thinks it no sin, When into the hen-roost, in the night, he gets in; The twentieth's a thief-catcher, so we him call, Who if he be nabb'd will be made pay for all. ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... made the acquaintance of an old snake-catcher and herbalist, a circumstance which, insignificant in itself, was to exercise a considerable influence over his whole life. Frequently this curious pair were to be seen tramping the countryside together; a tall, quaint figure with fur cap and gaiters ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... tinker, and worship god Pan, or I might grind scissors as sharp as the noses of bakers. But, as a matter of fact, I'm a piper, not a rat-catcher, you understand, but just a simple singer of sad songs, and a ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... men made Second Lieutenants by promotion from the ranks while in San Antonio were John Greenway, a noted Yale foot-ball player and catcher on her base-ball nine, and David Goodrich, for two years captain of the Harvard crew. They were young men, Goodrich having only just graduated; while Greenway, whose father had served with honor ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... home an' put dese greens on. (Looks off stage left) Here come Mayor Clark now, wid his belly settin' out in front of him like a cow catcher! His name oughter ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... more than a thousand quails lived together in a forest in India. They would have been happy, but that they were in great dread of their enemy, the quail-catcher. He used to imitate the call of the quail; and when they gathered together in answer to it, he would throw a great net over them, stuff them into his basket, and carry ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... want that to happen," said the catcher. "And that reminds me. There's a rip in my glove, and I've ...
— Andy at Yale - The Great Quadrangle Mystery • Roy Eliot Stokes
... exclaimed Frank indignantly, "I wouldn't vote for Squire Pope, even for dog-catcher! The meanest part of it is the underhanded way in which he has taken Phil. He must have known he was acting illegally, or he would have come here in open day and required Phil ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
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