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More "Plumage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... grounds, innumerable slaves furnishing the labor. The gold and silver of the nation was gathered and beaten into ornaments and woven into beautiful designs to grace the occasion. There was a profusion of the most gorgeous plumage and richest fabrics, while over all were sprinkled in unheard of prodigality, the rarest gems and jewels. It was indeed to be a fitting celebration of the glory of Bel, and the power and magnificence of his earthly representative; heathen opulence, heathen pride ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... little bodies huddled against one another on the sill, pressing closer; some on her arm and some eating out of her hand. She stroked their bright plumage, holding ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... into her bosom, and inspire Through all her veins with unsuspected sleight The poisoned sting of passion and desire." Young Love obeys, and doffs his plumage light, And, like Iulus, trips forth with delight. She o'er Ascanius rains a soft repose, And gently bears him to Idalia's height, Where breathing marjoram around him throws Sweet shade, and odorous ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... has, we should like to know, bewitched ornithologists to designate the great, coarse, tuneless bird, that visits us in the earliest dawn of spring, in this far off America, "the robin?" Neither in throat nor plumage is it even a thirty-first cousin of the sweet, timid, little, brown bunch of melody that haunts the hawthorn hedges of Ireland and the sister island, when they are in bloom, or seeks a crumb at the open casement, when winter ruffles all its ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... plumage the Cuckoo appeared turned into a tropical humming-bird. Ulyth had thought her good-looking before, but she had not realized that her room-mate was a beauty. She stared almost fascinated at the vision of blue eyes, coral cheeks, white neck, and ruddy-brown hair. ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... curiously wrought and inlaid with porcupine-quills, the work of the savages, which especially drew forth the king's admiration. He also presented two specimens of the scarlet tanager, Pyranga rubra, a bird of great brilliancy of plumage and peculiar to this continent, and likewise the head of a gar-pike, a fish of singular characteristics, then known only in the waters ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... there are persons of an opposite mind who welcome an invitation. Even the preliminary rummage delights them when their clothes are sent for pressing and their choice wavers among their plumage. For such persons the superscription on the envelope now seems written in the spacious ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... thy lovely form; Charm our senses by the elegance of thy attitudes; Our hearts are transported by thy glances. The proud peacock, covered with confusion, Dares not display before thee the rich And pompous variety of his plumage. Thy ebon ringlets are chains, which hold Monarchs in captivity, and make Them slaves to the power ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 491, May 28, 1831 • Various
... a formative element. The birds represent the spherical (dry, saline) pole; the ruminants the linear (moist, sulphurous) pole. The carnivorous quadrupeds form the intermediary (mercurial) group. As ur-phenomenal types we may name among the birds the eagle, clothed in its dry, silicic plumage, hovering with far-spread wings in the heights of the atmosphere, united with the expanses of space through its far-reaching sight; among the ruminants, the cow, lying heavily on the ground of the earth, ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... peacock was anciently in great demand for stately entertainments. Sometimes it was made into a pie, at one end of which the head appeared above the crust in all its plumage, with the beak richly gilt; at the other end the tail was displayed. Such pies were served up at the solemn banquets of chivalry, when knights-errant pledged themselves to undertake any perilous enterprise, whence came the ancient oath, ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... is told of his lying on his back in the woods with some moss for his pillow, and looking through a telescopic microscope day after day to watch a pair of little birds while they made their nest. Their peculiar grey plumage harmonized with the color of the bark of the tree, so that it was impossible to see the birds except by the most careful observation. After three weeks of such patient labor, he felt that he had been amply rewarded for the toil and sacrifice ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... shelf held birds, and this sight nearly took Marjorie's breath away. Some were in gilt cages, a canary, a goldfinch, and another bird whose name Marjorie did not know. And some were stuffed birds of brilliant plumage, and mounted in most natural positions on twigs or branches, or perched upon an ivy vine which was trained along the wall. The fourth side was almost empty, and Marjorie knew at once that it was left so in order that she might have a place for such treasured belongings as she ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... produced in them, on our public appearances, by the alien stamp in us that, for our comfort, we vainly sought to dissimulate. We conformed in each particular, so far as we could, to the prevailing fashion and standard, of a narrow range in those days, but in our very plumage—putting our ramage aside—our wood-note wild must have seemed to sound, so sharply we challenged, when abroad, the attention of our native contemporaries, and even sometimes of their elders, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... room with swift steps, and kissed her. "Don't let me ruffle your plumage, Jenny Wren," she said; "I'm ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... ever-shifting market, conversant with every move of his opponents and meeting them with a shrewdness—and sometimes, Adam thought—with a cunning far beyond his years. The other, the fresh, outspoken, merry young girl, fluttering in and out like a bird in her ever-changing plumage—now in hat loaded with tea-roses, now in trim walking costume fitting her dainty figure; now in her waterproof, her wee little feet "wringing wet" she would tell Adam with a laugh—always a welcome guest, no matter who had ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... pleasant, with their bamboo chairs and couches and little tables where you could have tea served. Birds of the most beautiful plumage soared and sung in the trees, and butterflies that looked like flowers on wings fluttered about. You can't tell men from wimmen by their clothes. They all wear earrings and bracelets and ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... extracting nectar from "every opening flower," and plunged recklessly into the tempting sweets, has ample time to bewail its folly. Even if it has not paid the forfeit of its life, but has been able to obtain its fill, it returns home with all its beautiful plumage sullied and besmeared, and with a woe-begone look, and sorrowful note, in marked contrast with the bright hues and merry sounds with which the industrious bee returns from its happy rovings amid "the budding honey ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... a moment imagine the scene. Not the moment of struggle, but the pause that succeeds. The angels of good have triumphed, and though the plumage of their wings may droop, they are white and dazzling so as no "fuller of earth could whiten them." The moonlight of peace rests upon the battle field, where evil passions lie wounded and trampled under feet. Strains ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... two black, lustrous braids, twisted with feather and quill and ribbon, her wealth of hair hung over her shoulders down the front of her slender form. A robe of dark blue stuff, rich with broidery of colored bead and bright-hued plumage, hung, close clinging, and her feet were shod in soft moccasins, also deftly worked with bead and quill. But it was her face that chained the gaze of all, and that drew from the pallid lips of Lieutenant Field a gasp of mingled consternation and amaze. ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... five valves, comes in its myriads attached to derelict coco-nuts, floating logs, and pumice-stone. The species owes its name to the fabulous belief that it was the preliminary state of the barnacle goose of the Arctic regions, the filaments representing the plumage and the valves the wings. It has been found on shells, whales, turtles, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... skins, his multitudinous plumage moulting) Rats! (He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and closes his jaws by an upward push of his parchmentroll) After having said which I took my departure. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... a bower in this fragrant land. Bright birds, no larger than the costly gems The river bedded in their golden sands, Sparkle like prismal rain-drops 'mong the leaves; And others sang, or flashed their plumage gay Like rainbow fragments on my dazzled eyes. The sky had warmer teints: I could not tell Whether the heavens lent color to the flowers, Or but reflected that which glowed in them. The gales that blew from off the cloud-lost hills, Struck from the clambering vines Eolian songs, ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... wings; whereas the larger birds measure from twelve to thirteen feet. The bird, when caught, was held firmly down, and despatched by the doctor with the aid of prussic acid. He was then cut up, and his skin, for the sake of the feathers and plumage, divided amongst us. The head and neck fell to my share, and, after cleaning and dressing it, I hung my treasure by a string out of my cabin-window; but, when I next went to look at it, lo! the string had been cut, and my albatross's head and ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... strange beyond thought; here lie dense groves and tangled thickets where bloom great flowers of unearthly beauty yet rank of smell and poisonous to the touch; here are birds of every kind and hue and far beyond this poor pen to describe by reason of the beauty and brilliancy of their plumage, some of which would warble so sweet 'twas great joy to hear while the discordant croakings and shrill clamours of others might scarce be endured. Here, too, are trees (like the cocos) so beneficent to yield a man food ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... loves to wear a glaring yellow roll of silk or cloth around his hat, a blue or green 'kerchief about his throat, and a crimson girdle encircled about his loins. Then he thinks he is a midsummer sunset, and swaggers round like a peacock in full plumage, looking for something to "mash." He has no sense of the eternal law of averages. It does not trouble him if the whole seat of his most important garment is represented by a hole big enough to put a baby in, if he only has the artistic decorations I have mentioned above. Nor does he see anything ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... windy weather, but now dawned on the earth one of those still, golden times of November, full of dreamy rest and tender calm. The skies above were blue and fair, and the waters of the curving bay were a downward sky—a magical under-world, wherein the crimson oaks, and the dusk plumage of the pine, and the red holly-berries, and yellow sassafras leaves, all flickered and glinted in wavering bands of color as soft winds swayed ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... detested monarchies. "Some talent is required to be a simple workman," he wrote; "to be a king there is need to have only the human shape." Of Burke, he said: "Mr. Burke's mind is above the homely sorrows of the vulgar. He can feel only for a king or a queen.... He pities the plumage, ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... with growing irritation; "when we are down at Kerryfield you won't stir a step to take the house dogs out, even if they're dying for a run, and I don't think you've been in the stables twice in your life. You laugh at what you call the fuss that's being made over the extermination of plumage birds, and you are quite indignant with me if I interfere on behalf of an ill-treated, over-driven animal on the road. And yet you insist on every one's plans being made subservient to the convenience of that stupid little ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... around the lake more pleasing to contemplate. On a distant point stood a troop of flamingoes, drawn up in order like a company of soldiers, their scarlet plumage shining in the sun. Near them was a flock of whooping-cranes—each as tall as a full-grown man— at intervals uttering their loud trumpet notes. The great egret, too, was there, with its snowy plumage and orange bill; the delicately-formed Louisiana heron, with ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... visit. Turning around, we beheld quite an interesting spectacle. Approaching was the dignitary referred to, lance in hand, and apparelled in official robes. The latter consisted of a blanket thrown gracefully around him, and a magnificent head-dress of black plumage covering his head and shoulders, and hanging down his back in a streamer, nearly to the ground. His pace was slow, his eyes cast downward, and his whole demeanour expressive of formal solemnity. Upon his right hand was the interpreter, upon his left a boy acting as page, and following ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... specimens, but failed because I could not get young birds. Now in answer to your question, my belief is that the young bird moults into the winter plumages direct and that this is changed into the full plumage in spring either by a spring moult or by a shedding of the tips of the feathers. This is private because it is theoretical, and for your private ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... and lambs are being emasculated to make her meat succulent; wild animals are painfully done to death to provide her table with delicacies; birds with young in the nest are shot so that she may parade in their plumage; or fur-bearing animals are for her comfort and adornment ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... the base. Preceded by the lion Tarzan descended into the valley, which, at this point, was forested with large trees. Before him the trail wound onward toward the center of the valley. Raucous-voiced birds of brilliant plumage screamed among the branches while innumerable monkeys chattered and scolded ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... dissection) are in the typical tiphia plumage, without one particle of black on either ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... Lawrence, and known afterwards as Point Callire. The rivulet was bordered by a meadow, and beyond rose the forest with its vanguard of scattered trees. Early spring flowers were blooming in the young grass, and birds of varied plumage flitted among the boughs. [ Dollier de Casson, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... to Ripon, through the fine park and grounds of Studley Royal, belonging to the Marquis of Ripon, and we esteemed it a great privilege to be allowed to do so. The fine trees and gardens and the beautiful waters, with some lovely swans floating on them, their white plumage lit up with the rays of the sun, which that day shone out in all its glory, formed such a contrast to the dull and deserted moors, that we thought the people of Ripon, like ourselves, ought to be thankful that they were allowed to have access ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... a wrathful dove! Come and smooth her ruffled plumage, Mac. I'll dodge before I do further mischief," and Charlie strolled away into the other room, privately lamenting that Uncle Alec had spoiled a fine girl by ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... understand how any one can be so changed, yet—recognizable. I guess it's the plumage. You're in a new ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... naturally as he wore his errors of opinion. The fuzzy brown stuff, the green tie with red spots, the striped shirt—was it blue or purple?—all became as much a part of Gideon Vetch as the storm-ruffled plumage was part of an eagle. If the misguided man had attired himself in a toga, he would have carried the Mantle without dignity perhaps, but certainly ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... slings, the two former very neatly made, and with the latter they threw stones a considerable distance but without accuracy. Mr. Forster managed to secure a quantity of small birds with very beautiful plumage. ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... ghost, and almost touched the ice-cakes now and then as his round, yellow eyes, savagely hard and brilliant, searched the dark crevices for prey. With his black beak, his black talons protruding from the mass of snowy feathers which swathed his legs, and the dark bars on his plumage, one might have fancied him a being just breathed into menacing and furtive life by the ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... century, at the "King's Arms," Paternoster-row, London, contains the following sentence, which, as perhaps the first example of invention in reference to the country, may deserve remembrance:—"Stately groves, rivers, and lawns, of vast extent." "Thickets full of birds of the most beautiful plumage, of various notes, whose melody was truly enchanting. It was now the time (29th January!) when nature poured forth her luxuriant exuberance, to clothe this country with rich variety."—Vol. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... delicious? It is as old as the best time of cameo-cutting, they say, but I do not remember when that was; it's rather large for a lady's ring, but it is an undoubted beauty. Jupiter's eagle, with the thunderbolts. Just look at the plumage of the bird,—and ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... father brought them from a heronry not many miles from the great Okeechobee Lake. Then they were very young, and so fat that their long, awkward legs would not sustain their weight. Now they are three months old, and stand about two feet high. Their plumage is white as snow, and their legs and long beak a bright orange-color. Their eyes are yellowish-gray, ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... upon the objects of their game. Others, with boar-spears, swords, and old-fashioned guns, were attacking stags or boars whom they had brought to bay. The branches of the woven forest were crowded with fowls of various kinds, each depicted with its proper plumage. It seemed as if the prolific and rich invention of old Chaucer had animated the Flemish artist with its profusion, and Oldbuck had accordingly caused the following verses, from that ancient and excellent poet, to be embroidered in Gothic letters, on ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... or the relationships that subsisted among them, this unanimity was at an end. Each principality, each nome, each city, almost every village, conceived and represented them differently. Some said that the sky was the Great Horus, Haroeris, the sparrow-hawk of mottled plumage which hovers in highest air, and whose gaze embraces the whole field of creation. Owing to a punning assonance between his name and the word horu, which designates the human countenance, the two senses were combined, and to the idea of the sparrow-hawk ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... we heard two voices instead of one outside our window, and behold! Mrs. Bantam had taken another mate—a fine handsome fellow, so graceful in form and brilliant in plumage that we at once pronounced him a fit companion to our favorite hen. They were evidently on the best of terms, croaking and cackling to each other, and exchanging sage opinions about us as we watched them from the open door. I am sure she must have told him all about her long illness ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning
... necessary treaty made, with legislation to carry out its provisions; the Madagascarene Philosopher took his seat in the Temple of Immortality, and Peace spread her white wings over the two nations, to the unspeakable defiling of her plumage. ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... them all, on the other. No subject was too low or too high for him; we find him one day hard at work on a cock and hen, with their family of chickens in a farm-yard; and bringing all the refinement of his execution into play to express the texture of the plumage; next day he is drawing the Dragon of Colchis. One hour he is much interested in a gust of wind blowing away an old woman's cap; the next, he is painting the fifth plague of Egypt. Every landscape painter before him had acquired ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... had come birds of gorgeous plumage. On the breath of a sweet-scented breeze they were wafted far to southward—to the summer land. And those earth children who followed the beautiful birds still live easily in ...
— Stories of Birds • Lenore Elizabeth Mulets
... place with Hertford. Now that he had the powerful comradeship of Sergeant Whitley, the wilderness became beautiful instead of gloomy for Dick. The live oaks and magnolias were magnificent, and there was a wild luxuriance of vegetation. Birds of brilliant plumage darted among the foliage, and squirrels chattered on the boughs. He saw bear tracks again, and called the sergeant's ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the months, the student of ornithology can least afford to lose. Most birds are nesting then, and in full song and plumage. And what is a bird without its song? Do we not wait for the stranger to speak? It seems to me that I do not know a bird till I have heard its voice; then I come nearer it at once, and it possesses ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... jewels' shine, While sandal-wood and aloe lent The mingled riches of their scent; With all the odorous sweets that fill The breezy heights of Dardar's hill. There by the gate the Saras screamed, And shrill-toned peacocks' plumage gleamed. Its floors with deftest art inlaid, Its sculptured wolves in gold arrayed, With its bright sheen the palace took The mind of man and chained the look, For like the sun and moon it glowed, And mocked Kuvera's loved abode. Circling the walls ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... Ladies, had been represented by the bard of Avon—needless were it to mention the immortal SHAKESPEARE, also called the Swan of his native river, not improbably with some reference to the ancient superstition that that bird of graceful plumage (Miss Jennings will please stand upright) sang sweetly on the approach of death, for which we have no ornithological authority,—Rumour, Ladies, had been represented by ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... mention of beauteous maidens who usually live beneath the wave, but who can transform themselves into birds and fly wherever they please. We may perhaps be allowed to designate them by the well-known name of Swan-Maidens, though they do not always assume, together with their plumage-robes, the form of swans, but sometimes appear as geese, ducks, spoonbills, or aquatic birds of some other species. They are, for the most part, the daughters of the Morskoi Tsar, or Water King—a being who plays an important part in Slavonic popular fiction. He is of a somewhat shadowy ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... And I do believe they would eat from her hand things unnatural to them, lest she should be grieved and hurt by not knowing what to do for them. One of them was a noble bird, such as I never had seen before, of very fine bright plumage, and larger than a missel-thrush. He was the hardest of all to please: and yet he tried to do his best. I have heard since then, from a man who knows all about birds, and beasts, and fishes, that he must have been a Norwegian bird, called in this country a Roller, who never comes to England ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... but cloudy; a heavy thunderstorm during the night had cooled the air, and the whole plain was glistening with bright drops; the peacocks were shrieking from the tree-tops and spreading their gaudy plumage to the cool breeze; and the whole face of nature seemed refreshed. We felt the same invigorating spirit, and we took a long survey of the many herds of buffaloes upon the plain before we could determine which we ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... much more spirit, talent, and manner, than the home-grown article; but he is poor in a like ratio, and is therefore obliged to feather his nest by denuding the pigeon tribe of their metallic plumage. He is familiarly known to all the fast fellows, who cut him, however, as soon as they marry, but is not accounted good ton by heads of families. He is liked at the Hells and Clubs, where he has a knack of distinguishing himself without presumption or affectation. He is a dresser ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... by several thousands of feet than at present, were rude, rough, jagged masses, fresh from the factory of God. There was not a tree, not a shrub, not a flower, not a blade of grass. No bird sang its cheering song, or delighted the eye with its gorgeous plumage; not even a frog croaked, a cicada rattled, or a serpent hissed. All was barren desolation, fearful ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... its thorn, the nut and its shell; it developed the peacock's tail and the deer's antlers, the protective mimicry of various insects and butterflies, and the wonderful instincts of the white ants; it gave the serpent its deadly poison and the violet its grateful odour; it painted the gorgeous plumage of the Impeyan pheasant and the beautiful colours and decorations of countless birds and insects and flowers. These, and a thousand other achievements, it has evidently accomplished without the help of use-inheritance. Why should it be thought incapable ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... passed, through the flecking light and shade, where the long, white tables were laid beneath the apple boughs. And as they moved, a bluebird, swinging far above them in the sunlight, caroled forth a joyous marriage hymn. And down below, the little blue silk gown, of the same shade as his dazzling plumage, covered a ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... moment there was an interruption; again the apologetic Mr. Papps with yet another guest. This was a tradesman's comely young wife, with very ruffled plumage, and the distracted air of the unaccustomed traveller. She was carrying in her arms a shiny black valise, three assorted paper-covered bundles with the string coming off, and a hat in a paper bag; and, although it was so warm, she wore her winter's coat, plainly because there ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... had not heard him, of course. He sat looking over the parapet toward the river, with one knotted hand smoothing the bird's ruffled plumage and such a look of wretchedness in his eyes that it hurt to see it. God's fools, who cannot reason, can feel. Some instinct of despair had seized him for its own—some conception, perhaps, of what life would never mean to him. Before ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... why he should not," she said: "God is so good, that he never takes away one beauty without bestowing another; and the raven's glossy wing might be, to some, even more beautiful than the purple plumage of the dove: at all events, so excellent a man would not be chained by mere eye-beauty, which, after all, passeth quickly. Though I think it was very uncourteous of Mr. Fleetword to say, in my hearing, Robin, that the time would come ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... effected. The simple gown of wool and cotton gave place to loose and flowing draperies of silk and satin; the stiff neckerchief was removed to display fair shoulders and voluptuous breasts; the hat was bedecked by feathers of rare plumage and rich colour; the cloaks changed hues from sad to gay; the hoods being of "yellow bird's eye," and other bright tints. Indeed, the prodigal manner in which ladies of quality now exposed their bosoms, though pleasing to the court, became a matter of grave censure to worthy men. One of ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... with a bird on his wrist, and Fanny thought she had never seen one of more beautiful colours. Most of its plumage was of the richest scarlet, while the top of its head was of a deep purple. On its breast was a broad yellow collar; the wings were green, changing to violet towards the edges, and while the feathers on its thighs were of a lovely azure, those of the tail ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston
... the consciousness of his high destiny being at once her glory and her despair; but, as regards herself, her outlook on life was cool and sober. Paul was peacock born; it was for him to strut about in iridescent plumage. She was a humble daw and knew her station. It must be said that Paul held out the stage as a career more on account of the social status that it would give to Jane than through a belief in her histrionic possibilities. He too, fond as he was of the girl with whom he had grown up, recognized ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... scythe!—what power Can stay him in his silent course, or melt His iron heart to pity? On, still on He presses, and forever. The proud bird, The condor of the Andes, that can soar Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave The fury of the northern hurricane, And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home, Furls his broad wings at nightfall and sinks down To rest upon his mountain crag—but Time Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness, And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind His rushing pinions. Revolutions sweep O'er earth, like troubled visions ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... him as he stealthily nears his prey; the brilliant green of tropical birds; the leaf-like form and colors of certain insects; the dried, twig-like form of many caterpillars; the bark-like appearance of tree-frogs; the harmony of the ptarmigan's summer plumage with the lichen-colored stones upon which it sits; the dusky color of creatures that haunt the night; the bluish transparency of animals which live on the surface of the sea; the gravel-like color of flat-fish that live at the bottom; and the gorgeous tints of those that ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... the head and hinder part of the neck are a dingy brown, which on the neck has a shade of ash colour; the bend of the wing and lesser wing-coverts are a brownish black; the whole upper surface of the plumage is of a glossy brownish-green, which is spotted on the middle wing-coverts with minute white spots, that change to a dingy yellow on the back, scapulars, and tertials, the last of which have twelve spots on the outer margin of the feathers, and six on the inner ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... on this wide earth whither shall they turn and fly? Like some bird bereft of plumage, they ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... of beauty, whose bright plumage Sparkles with a thousand dyes: Bright thine eyes, and gay thy carol, Though stern winter ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... A tramp of this genus would be a rarity indeed. I had nothing with me of value to attract a thief. The usual limited masculine jewelry—a watch, a pair of cuff-links, a modest pin—surely were not sufficiently tempting to snare so dainty a bird of prey as one wearing such plumage as I held. I have not a small fist, yet that braid was a generous handful. How did it come to trail across my bed, in any case? And why was its owner locked in silence and immobility? Surely startled innocence would have cried out, questioned my ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... life in soft plumage glides, As on the ruffled lake the swan, Whose downy breast the struggle hides ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... party of us were out shooting, and a red-leg was shot. The keeper, seeing the new and handsome-looking bird, was very proud of it, and though he had never yet tasted one, he loudly proclaimed, in his ignorance, that it would be as good in the eating as fine in the plumage. A day or two after we were out shooting again. Luncheon time came, and we lay stretched on the sward under a spreading tree, on a hot day in September, where the ladies joined us, bringing the refreshment. Cold partridges ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... mie,' says he, ''tis not I who am the Dauphin, but his Highness yonder,'—pointing to the young knight, who showed all his plumage like ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... ecstatic note, still its exquisite song, and render forever mute and silent its voice. But where are Professor Beale's bioplasts which, but a moment before, were not only weaving the nerves, tissues, muscles, bones, and even the wonderful plumage of this canary bird, but plying the invisible threads of song—throwing off its chirps, carols, trills, quavers, airs, overtures and brilliant roulades, as if the little vocalist had caught its inspiration ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... insect-like forms that are the parasites of birds. Many of them are just plainly visible to the naked eye, others are too minute to be clearly seen, and others yet again wholly elude the unaided sight. The epizoa generally lodge themselves in various parts of the plumage of birds; and almost every group of birds becomes the host of some specific or varietal form with distinct adaptations. There is here seen a parasite that secretes itself in the inner feathers of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... interesting anecdote of a sparrowhawk at Burton. "In May, 1844," he writes, "I received from Burton Park an adult male sparrowhawk in full breeding plumage, which had killed itself, or rather met its death, in a singular manner. The gardener was watering plants in the greenhouse, the door being open, when a blackbird dashed in suddenly, taking refuge between his legs, and at the same moment the glass roof ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... and recrossing the various lines of flight. The first thrice-repeated roar of rising had given place to the clear, sustained whistling of wings, low, penetrating, inspiring. In the last flight had been a band of several hundred snow geese; and against the whiteness of their plumage the sun shone. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... unrighteous imp though he be, or horror to Bruennhilde, captured by violence and offered to his friend. Whereas Parsifal, when Gurnemanz now makes plain to him the cruelty of his thoughtless action, when he points out the glazing eye, the blood dabbling the snowy plumage of the noble swan, faithful familiar of the lake, killed as he circled in quest of his mate, is seized with a passion of realizing pity, impulsively breaks and flings from him his bow, and hides his eyes from the work of his hands. "How—how could you commit ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... Bob's feathers became dull and somewhat ragged, and with the warm days came our decision to let her go outside. She was delighted to scratch in the loose earth around the rosebushes, and eagerly fed on the insects she found there. Her plumage soon took on its natural trimness and freshness. She did not show any inclination to leave, and with Rex by her or near her, we felt that she was safe from cats, so we soon allowed her to ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... a lady friend, we are willing to die. We couldn't help it. For an hour we would not answer the constant ringing of the bell, but finally the bell fluttered as though a tiny bird had lit upon the wire and was shaking its plumage. It was not a ring, but it was a tune, as though an angel, about eighteen years old, a blonde angel, was handling the other end of the transmitter, and we felt as though it was wrong for us to sit and keep her in suspense, when she was evidently ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... governing the inheritance of traits by taking a few concrete cases. The first case is that of an Andalusian fowl. We shall consider the two species, pure bred black and pure bred white, and confine ourselves to observing the inheritance of the single characteristic, plumage color. Of course, as long as the black mate only with the black their children will be black, and as long as the white mate with white the children will be white. But if a white mates with a black, the children will not be either ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk
... priests never chanted more regretful dirges than when they sang of Tulan, the cradle of their race, where once it dwelt in peaceful indolent happiness, whose groves were filled with birds of sweet voices and gay plumage, whose generous soil brought forth spontaneously maize, cocoa, aromatic gums, and fragrant flowers. "Land of riches and plenty, where the gourds grow an arm's length across, where an ear of corn is a load for a stout man, and its stalks are as high as trees; land where the cotton ripens of its ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... not! Two stood apart, With plumage like fresh-fallen snow,— Two "Silver Herons," of a race As pure and fine as earth can show; Amid the tumult that was rife, These loathed the others' greedy strife, And looked disgusted ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... centre towered one grand design in fountain form, from which came sprays of perfumed water, hiding the sultry sky and falling back with musical rhythm into the many-coloured marble basin. Slaves with fans of gorgeous plumage wafted the perfumed air ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... buck we have become!" continued the baronet, "what splendid plumage! It is good to see you so prosperous. And so this is the latest fashion? No doubt it sets forth the frame of a goodly man, though no one could guess at the 'sea dog' beneath such a set of garments. I used to consider my brother Rupert the most especial dandy I had ever seen; but that, ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... tragically, "I had dreams—wonderful visions." She pressed the palms of her hands into her eyes. "I saw bronze rivers lapping marble shores, and great birds that soared through the air, parti-colored birds with iridescent plumage. I heard strange music and ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... permanently to dine, to dance, to hunt, to gossip, to unravel,[2180] (parfiler) to play comedy. We can trace these birds from cage to cage; they remain a week, a month, three months, displaying their plumage and their prattle. From Paris to Ile-Adam, to Villers-Cotterets, to Fretoy, to Planchette, to Soissons, to Rheims, to Grisolles, to Sillery, to Braine, to Balincourt, to Vaudreuil, the Comte and Comtesse de Genlis thus bear about their leisure, their wit, their ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... little wood that extended to the sea, we rested in the shade, near a clear stream, and took some refreshment. We were surrounded by unknown birds, more remarkable for brilliant plumage than for the charm of their voice. Fritz thought he saw some monkeys among the leaves, and Turk began to be restless, smelling about, and barking very loud. Fritz was gazing up into the trees, when he fell over a large round ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... you like water off the silvery sheen of that swan's plumage as he dips and raises his neck. Those who deny a God are, in your ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... no other country that I have ever visited do birds so abound. Even the virgin forests of America cannot, in my belief, boast of such numerous feathered denizens. . . . The birds of this country possess, in many instances, an excessively beautiful plumage, and he alone who has traversed these wild and romantic regions, who has beheld a flock of many-coloured parrakeets sweeping like a moving rainbow through the air, can form any adequate idea of the scenes that then burst on the eye of the wondering naturalist. As to fish, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... crowding back! One of the earliest recollections of childhood was hearing the scream of the Meredith peacocks as they drew their gorgeous plumage across the silent summer lawns; at home they had nothing better than fussing guineas. She had never come nearer to one of those proud birds than handling a set of tail feathers which Mrs. Meredith had presented to her mother for ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... the crisp-smiling waves, in a rich atmosphere of light and beauty—there Leda toyed with the wreathed neck and ruffled plumage of the enamoured swan—in this compartment, Danae lay warm and languid, impotent to resist the blended power of the God's passion and his gold—in that, Ariadne clung delighted to the bosom of the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... northern countries of Europe, occurring in Italy and other southern parts only as a winter visitor. White and black varieties are occasionally met with; the latter are often produced by feeding the bullfinch exclusively on hempseed, when its plumage gradually changes to black. It rarely breeds in confinement, and hybrids between it and the canary have been produced ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... higher in the clear blue of the heavens as they looked, and all about them rose the sounds of awakening nature. Away back in the woods they could hear the chattering of monkeys; parrots and birds of bright plumage screamed and sang and fluttered among the trees near the beach; and several bright-plumaged flamingoes stalked gravely about the shallows, seeking their morning meal ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Imaginations in the Description of Angels: But I do not remember to have met with any so finely drawn, and so conformable to the Notions which are given of them in Scripture, as this in Milton. After having set him forth in all his Heavenly Plumage, and represented him as alighting upon the Earth, the Poet concludes his Description with a Circumstance, which is altogether new, and imagined with the greatest ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... flowers upon the meadows, With his tongue he sucked the honey From the tips of six bright flowers, From the plumes of hundred grasses, 410 Then came buzzing loud and louder, Rushing on his homeward journey, With his wings all steeped in honey, And his plumage soaked with nectar. ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... handsome Prince, carried away by the flood of melody, sang. His voice displayed itself like a peacock's plumage, and died in spasms of "ohs" ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... drop my curtains for a dream.— What comes? A mighty swan, With plumage like a sunny gleam, And folded airy van! She comes, from sea-plains dreaming, sent By sea-maids to my shore, With stately head proud-humbly bent, And ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... old Mr. Wilson. "What little bird of scarlet plumage may this be? Methinks I have seen just such figures, when the sun has been shining through a richly painted window, and tracing out the golden and crimson images across the floor. But that was in the old land. Prithee, young one, who art thou, and what ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... diligentigxi. Plot konspiri, intrigi. Plot (league) intrigo, konspiro. Plot (of land) terpeco. Plough plugi. Plough plugilo. Ploughshare plugfero. Pluck (fowl) plumtiregi, senplumigi. Pluck (courage) kuragxo. Plug sxtopilego. Plum pruno. Plumage plumaro, plumajxo. Plumbago grafito. Plumber plumbisto. Plume plumfasko. Plummet sondilo. Plump dika. Plumpness dikeco. Plunder rabadi. Plunge subakvigxi. Plural multenombro. Plush plusxo. Poach cxasosxteli. Poach (eggs, etc.) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... see it brush the dew From bough and budding spray. And deemed its snow-white plumage grew More ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... blesser, prendre ou chasser les oiseaux de mer dans toute l'entendue de la jurisdiction de cette isle." Sec. 3, "Ceux qui depuis ce jour au 15 Octobre prochain auront ete trouves en possession d'un oiseau de mer recemment tue, blesse ou pris, ou qui auront ete trouves en possession de plumage frais appartenant d'un oiseau de mer seront censes avoir tue, blesse ou pris tel oiseau de mer sauf e eux de prouver le contraire. Pareillement ceux qui depuis ce jour au 15 Octobre prochain auront ete trouves en possession ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... or atrogon swooped at a falling bunch of fruit and caught it ere it reached the water; while ungainly toucans plumped clumsily down upon the branches, and sat, in striking contrast, beside the lovely pompadours, with their claret-coloured plumage ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... nothing about this young man," said Miss Winthrop, ruffling her plumage somewhat for an argument, of which she was fond; "but, as a case in hand, suppose a highly educated and refined man for some reason swept a store out every morning, what would you call him?" and she looked around as if ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... snares in sight of those innocent birds that perch on the tree of life in paradise. As Arthur's soul (it was a vain soul) preened its wings before her, Aggie never inquired whether the brilliance of its plumage was its own, or merely common to all feathered things in the pairing season. Young Arthur's soul was like a lark, singing in heaven its delirious nuptial hymn. Aggie sat snug in her nest and marvelled at her mate, at the mounting of his wings, the splendid and untiring ardors of his song. Nor was ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... had pleasanter companions than my own sullen thoughts: a pair of blue-birds kept with me, for two or three miles at least, fluttering and twittering along the fences by my side, with the prettiest sociability—sometimes ahead, sometimes behind—never more than a dozen yards off; their brilliant plumage shot through the twilight like jets of sapphire flame: I felt absurdly sorry when they disappeared at last into the deepening blackness. I had been warned of the probability of encountering a cavalry picket somewhere on my road: so I was not greatly surprised when the possible ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Italian landscape gardening; but the elaborately arranged paths, beds, and parterres, with their white statues and fountains, lost their effectiveness closed in as they were by high walls of vine-covered brick. It was rumored that once a stately peacock had here once flaunted his gorgeous plumage, giving his name to the inn itself—but this legend ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... shaded drives And walks, with rustic seats, cool grots and dells, With fountains playing and with babbling brooks, And stately swans sailing on little lakes, While peacocks, rainbow-tinted shrikes, pheasants, Glittering like precious stones, parrots, and birds Of all rich plumage, fly from tree to tree, The whole scene vocal with sweet varied song; And here a widespread lawn bedecked with flowers, With clumps of brilliant roses grown to trees, And fields with dahlias spread,[4] not stiff and prim ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... a pink-feathered kind of cockatoo, and black magpies, which in some parts of the country are also called mutton birds, and pigeons. One day Peter Nicholls shot a queer kind of carrion bird, not so large as a crow, although its wings were as long. It had the peculiar dancing hop of the crow, its plumage was of a dark slate colour, with whitish tips to the wings, its beak was similar ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... first, the locks of her dishevelled hair twined round with venomous and deadly serpents, ordering the wild fig-tree and the funereal cypress to be rooted up from the sepulchres on which they grew, and these, together with the egg of a toad smeared with blood, the plumage of the screech-owl, various herbs brought from Thessaly and Georgia, and bones torn from the jaws of a famished dog, to be burned in flames fed with perfumes from Colchis. Of the assistant witches, one traces with hurried ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... accent of deep disgust, in patent recognition of his borrowed plumage: "Damned if it ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... can reply more decidedly. I do think the females of the Gallinaceae you mention have been modified or been prevented from acquiring the brighter plumage of the male, by need of protection. I know that the Gallus bankiva frequents drier and more open situations than the pea-hen of Java, which is found among grassy and leafy vegetation, corresponding with the colours of the two. So the Argus pheasant, male and female, are, I feel sure, protected ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... day of grace, coming to Christ, have been pawed and fingered by unctuous hands for now two hundred years. The bloom is gone from the flower. The plumage, once shining with hues direct from heaven, is soiled and bedraggled. The most solemn of all realities have been degraded into the passwords of technical theology. In Bunyan's day, in camp and council chamber, in High Courts of Parliament, ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... America and the United States that there is but one toad in the Latin language. If I hadn't believed everything I see in print, hadn't been so cock-sure, and hadn't been so ready to parade borrowed plumage as my own, all this linguistic coil would have been averted. I suppose Mr. Henderson would send me to jail again for this. I certainly didn't do my best, and therefore I am immoral, and therefore a sinner; ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... possess in many instances an excessively beautiful plumage; and he alone who has traversed these wild and romantic regions, who has beheld a flock of many-coloured parakeets sweeping like a moving rainbow through the air whilst the rocks and dells resounded with their playful cries, can form any adequate ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... thought; here lie dense groves and tangled thickets where bloom great flowers of unearthly beauty yet rank of smell and poisonous to the touch; here are birds of every kind and hue and far beyond this poor pen to describe by reason of the beauty and brilliancy of their plumage, some of which would warble so sweet 'twas great joy to hear while the discordant croakings and shrill clamours of others might scarce be endured. Here, too, are trees (like the cocos) so beneficent to yield a man food and drink, aye, and garments to ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... his strength came back he followed the shepherds and heard from them many stories of wolves and dogs, and from a shepherd lad, whom he had chosen as a companion, he acquired knowledge of the plumage and the cries and the habits of birds, and whither he was to seek their nests: it had become his ambition to possess all the wild birds' eggs, one that was easily satisfied till he came to the egg of the cuckoo, which he sought in vain, hearing of it often, now here, now there, till at last ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... chieftain's daughter seemed the maid; Her satin snood, her silken plaid, Her golden brooch, such birth betrayed. And seldom was a snood amid Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid, Whose glossy black to shame might bring The plumage of the raven's wing; And seldom o'er a breast so fair Mantled a plaid with modest care, And never brooch the folds combined Above a heart more good and kind. Her kindness and her worth to spy, You need but gaze on Ellen's eye; Not Katrine ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... satiny plumage gently—and then drew back a little into shadow as she saw Robin Clifford step out from the porch into the garden and hurriedly interrupt the advance of a woman who just then pushed open the outer gate—a slatternly- looking creature with dark dishevelled hair and a face which might ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... himself in clean linen and immaculate gray broadcloth. His face was exquisitely shaved; his nails trimmed and clean. And there hung about him a faint odor of violets. In short, the male of the species had begun to change his plumage, as is customary in the ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... about here. We are now crossing low undulations. I have seen a number of kangaroos to-day; they do not seem to be as large as those in the south. The valleys are composed of conglomerated ironstone underneath the soil. A large number of new birds seen to-day, some of them with splendid plumage. Wind, south-east. Latitude, 13 degrees 7 minutes ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... the best use of his time, His twig he'll so carefully lime That every bird Will come down at his word. Whatever its plumage and clime. He must learn that the thrill of a touch May mean little, or nothing, or much; It's an instrument rare, To be handled with care, And ought to be treated as such. It is purely a matter of skill, Which all may attain if they will: But every Jack, He must study ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... tangle of keys, and opened it, and had the joy of seeing everything recognized by the owner: doll by doll, cook-stove, tin dishes, small brooms, wooden animals on feet and wheels, birds of various plumage, a toy piano, a dust-pan, alphabet blocks, dog's-eared linen Mother Goose books, and the rest. Tata had been allowed to put the things away herself, and she took them out with no apparent sense of the time ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... with hope and despondency was dissipated by the rising sun, the certainty of having discovered land was welcomed by a general burst of joy. A great luxuriancy of trees of unknown species, was soon observed to overspread the land, whence unknown birds of beautiful plumage came off in flocks to the vessel, and gave the appearance of a pleasing dream to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... living only in the glow of the sunlight, radiant in plumage, alighting first on one flower and then on another, but always on flowers, never on weeds; gathering such honey as suited her taste; never resting where she might by any chance be compelled to use her feet, but always poised in air; a woman, rich, brilliant, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... but it has greatly lost by not having been written daily, as the scenes and occurrences were fresh. The most picturesque points can be seized in no other way, and the hues of the affair fade as quickly as those of a dying dolphin; or as, according to Audubon, the plumage of a ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... calls up a blush. She is certainly only a child, hardly more than thirteen; but her figure is tall and slender, her face calm as if hewn out of alabaster, with severely antique lines, as if her mother had looked always at the Venus of Milo. Her thick black hair has a metallic gleam like the plumage of the black swan; but her eyes are dark-blue. The long delicate eyebrows almost meet over the brow, which gives her face a curious charm; it is as if these arching brows formed a black aureole round the ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... primary keenness of vision.[12] Thus in the fresh centuries the faith of parents alone sufficed, together with innocence, to secure salvation. After the first ages were, complete, it was needful for males with their innocent plumage to acquire virtue through circumcision. But after the time of grace had come, without perfect baptism in Christ, such ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... of liberality and confidence from a man of Major Bridgenorth's reserved and cautious disposition, gave full plumage to Mistress Deborah's hopes; and emboldened her not only to deliver another letter of Julian's to the young lady, but to encourage more boldly and freely than formerly the intercourse of the lovers when Peveril returned ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... changes to wild, mountainous country. On either hand rise high mountains, whose blue tops at times almost frowned over our heads, and the luxuriant tropical vegetation, with creeping lianas, threatened to bar our progress. Huge alligators sunned themselves on the banks, and birds of brilliant plumage flew from branch to branch. Carpinchos, with heavy, pig-like tread, walked among the rushes of the shore, and made more than one good dish for our table. This water-hog, the largest gnawing animal in the world, is here very common. Their length, ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... grew milder; the snow-drifts began to melt. The doctor made a tolerably large collection of northern birds, such as gulls, divers, molly-nochtes, and eider-ducks, which resemble ordinary ducks, with a white back and breast, a blue belly, the top of the head blue, the rest of the plumage white, shaded with different tints of green; many of them had already plucked from their bellies the eider-down, which both the male and the female devote to lining their nests. The doctor also saw great seals breathing at the surface of the water, but he was unable ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... young leaving the nest one at a time, to the number of six or eight. The young have quite the look of the young of the dove in many respects. When nearly grown they are covered with long blue pin-feathers as long as darning needles, without a bit of plumage on them. They part on the back and hang down on each side by their own weight. With its curious feathers and misshapen body the young bird is anything but handsome. They never open their mouths when approached, as many young birds do, but sit perfectly still, hardly moving when touched." He also ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... On my whistling to them, one whistled some beautifully varied notes, as soft as those of an octave flute, although their common chirp was harsh and dissonant. The male and female seemed to have very different plumage, especially about the head; that on the one having the varying tint of the Rifle bird, the head of the other more resembling in colour, that of the DACELO GIGANTEUS. They were about the size of a thrush, and seemed ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... the clever nests they build, of which I have not time to tell you now. Also, I should like you to find out all you can for yourself. You may at least learn to know by sight and by sound some of our own songsters. It is often said that English birds have sober plumage; and so they have, compared with the parrots and the humming-birds that "flit about like living fires, scarce larger than a bee," and the wonderful bird of paradise, which the natives of New Guinea call "God's bird," because it shines with silver ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... aspiration, however high, that the wings of the spirit cannot reach. Therefore be patient and strive. To others I would say: Be content. All birds cannot be eagles. The nightingale has a song and the humming bird a plumage the eagle can never possess. The nightingale may sing to the stars, the humming bird to the flowers, but the eagle, whose tireless eyes gaze into the heart of day, is uncompanioned in its lofty ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... which are not mounted at once are kept in the form of "scientific skins." In other words they are skinned, poisoned and without wiring, given the shape of the dead bird. Their plumage, size, etc., may be examined, they are easily packed or shipped and, if properly made, may be mounted at any time but at the expenditure of considerably more work than a ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... Pennington, a merchant of Philadelphia, who was likewise a member of the Society of Friends. The visitor, on entering the parlor, was surprised to see it ornamented with drawings of Indian chiefs, and of birds with beautiful plumage, and of the wild flowers of the forest. Nothing of the kind was ever seen before in the habitation ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... And all the time for her, as well as for man, calves and lambs are being emasculated to make her meat succulent; wild animals are painfully done to death to provide her table with delicacies; birds with young in the nest are shot so that she may parade in their plumage; or fur-bearing animals are for her comfort and adornment ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... the few quadrupeds to be found. Indeed, in no other country that I have ever visited do birds so abound. Even the virgin forests of America cannot, in my belief, boast of such numerous feathered denizens. . . . The birds of this country possess, in many instances, an excessively beautiful plumage, and he alone who has traversed these wild and romantic regions, who has beheld a flock of many-coloured parrakeets sweeping like a moving rainbow through the air, can form any adequate idea of the scenes that then burst on the eye of the wondering naturalist. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... savagely hard and brilliant, searched the dark crevices for prey. With his black beak, his black talons protruding from the mass of snowy feathers which swathed his legs, and the dark bars on his plumage, one might have fancied him a being just breathed into menacing and furtive life by ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... arrived poor Cuckoo had to struggle with a keen and a sore temptation. She longed to deck herself out in her usual borrowed plumage, to take the habitual brilliant complexion out of the accustomed drawer, to crown her frizzed head with feathers, and to look noisily dashing—her only idea of elegance and grace. Never before had she so desired to ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... is done in fish, whales, seals, fur, game, plumage and eggs. The fish are a problem apart. But it is worth noting that uncontrolled exploitation is beginning to affect even their countless numbers in certain places. Whales have always been exploited ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... of pigeons, but the regard which the Lady de Tilly had for the corn-fields of her censitaires caused her to thin out its population to such a degree that there remained only a few favorite birds of rare breed and plumage to strut and coo upon the roofs, and rival the peacocks on the terrace with their ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... young men could be so described. "Well then," said I, "would you rather I should call them donkeys, or even monkeys? What I mean is that the poor girl—a perfect little DECORATIVE person, who ought to have iridescent-gray plumage and pink-shod feet to match the rest of her—shouldn't be thrust into any general menagerie-cage, but be kept for the dovecote and the garden, kept where we may still hear her coo. That's what, at college, they'll make her unlearn; she'll learn to roar and snarl with ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Seth. "She is fit fo' any palace, she is so beautiful. And when the Wise Men come out of the East we will build it fo' her. It shall have gold do'knobs and jewelled ornaments and rare birds of gay plumage to sing and keep her company, and painted ceilings and little cupids carved in mahble, and theah shall be graven images set on onyx pedestals and some curious Hindoo gods squatting, and a Turkish room of red ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... gradually all their ramifications, till one end of the animal seems crowned with feathery, crimson sea-weeds of the most delicate tracery. It is much to be regretted that these lower marine animals are not better known. The plumage of the tropical birds, the down on the most brilliant butterfly's wing, are not more beautiful in coloring than the hues of many Radiates, and there is no grace of motion surpassing the movements of some of them in their native element. The habit of keeping marine animals in tanks is happily ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... days journey in length, and is very fertile. In it there are exceedingly large pheasants, with tails eight or ten handbreadths long, and many other kinds of birds, some of which have very beautiful and finely variegated plumage. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... any child; For, lo! a mighty swan, With radiant plumage undented, And folded airy van, With serpent neck all proudly bent, And stroke of swarthy oar, Dreams on to me, by sea-maids sent ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... breaks up, our lakes are visited by innumerable flights of wild fowl: some of the ducks are extremely beautiful in their plumage, and are very fine-flavoured. I love to watch these pretty creatures, floating so tranquilly on the water, or suddenly rising and skimming along the edge of the pine-fringed shores, to drop again on the surface, and then remain ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... could not help it, and are, for the most part, rarely excellent. They are joyous, rapturous, sprightly, dancing, and filled with references to sky, clouds, trees, fruit, grain, birds and flowers. Birds and flowers, by the way, are peculiarly lovers' properties. The song and the plumage of birds, and the color and perfume of flowers are all distinctly sex manifestations. Robert Burns sang his songs just as the bird wings and sings, and for the same reason. Sex holds first place in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... my aged friend had often himself seen, in his own boyish days, sweeping round the cliffs and over the broad expanse of the Susquehanna. They were easily distinguished, he said, by the residents of that district, by their peculiar size and plumage, being of a breed not known to our native ornithology, and both being males. For many years, it was affirmed,—long after the outlaw had vanished from the scene,—these gallant old rovers of the river still pursued their accustomed game, a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... ignorance of the fate that threatened his vessel. "A good thing the old fellow wasn't there to see," observed Ben Zoof; "he would have screamed like a peacock. What a misfortune it is," he added, speaking to himself, "to have a peacock's voice, without its plumage!" ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... first hint that she had given of a wistful sense of exile, the yearning for other skies, the message that a dead bird's plumage could bring across rolling ...
— When William Came • Saki
... groves where he had won His plumage of resplendent hue, His native fruits, and skies, and sun, He ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... have the sweet voice which the fox in his flattery attributed to him, but he has a good, strong, native speech, nevertheless. How much character there is in it! How much thrift and independence! Of course his plumage is firm, his color decided, his wit quick. He understands you at once and tells you so; so does the hawk by his scornful, defiant whir-r-r-r-r. Hardy, happy outlaws, the crows, how I love them! Alert, social, republican, always able to look out for himself, not afraid of the cold ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... actions of a big flock of very white birds. They rose suddenly from one side of the tiny rape field, wheeled and swirled like leaves in the wind, and dropped down suddenly on the other side the patch. After a few moments they repeated the performance. The sun caught the dazzling white of their plumage. At first we speculated on what they might be, then on what they were doing, to behave in so peculiar a manner. The lime juice and the armchair began to get in their recuperative work. Somehow the distance across ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... beauty by no means exhausted the charm of the place, for as we drew still closer to the beach we were able to distinguish that the woods were the habitat of countless thousands of birds of strange and most gorgeous plumage, among which I identified what I believed to be three or four species of birds of paradise, as well as a great variety of sun birds flitting from flower to flower like living gems. It is to be admitted that the cries of those birds were not always in accord with ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... its way through the gorge; they were covered with brushwood, ferns, and creepers, thick with flowers of many colours, while lofty palms and forest trees grew wherever their roots could find a hold. Splendid butterflies of immense size flitted about; birds of many kinds and beautiful plumage flew hither and thither among the trees; humming-birds sucked the honey from the bright flowers; parrots chattered and screamed in the upper branches of the trees, and the foam and spray of the torrent sparkled in the sun. Harry and his brother ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... with what composure and resignation he meets it!—Look in the face of a dying king, or a plundering, and blood-thirsty minister,—what terrors the sight of their velvet beds, adorned with crimson plumage, must bring to their affrighted imagination!—In that awful hour, it will remind them of the innocent blood they have spilt;—nay, they will perhaps think, they were dyed with the blood of men scalped and massacred, to support their vanity and ambition!—In short, dear Sir, while kings and ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... folded in her hands, She presses to her breast; The bird that brought the olive spray Was never more caressed. Her tears upon its plumage fall, They fall like soft warm rain— Sure if the bird were dead such love Would ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... tricks sometimes, and here was one vastly strange and most unlovely!" After this we went on side by side and never a word betwixt us until we had reached that pleasant champain country where flowed the river shaded by goodly trees, in whose branches fluttered birds of a plumage marvellously coloured and diverse, and beneath which bloomed flowers as vivid; insomuch that my lady brake forth ever and anon into little soft cries of delighted wonder. And yet despite all these marvels it was long ere we shook off the ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... wore. No pen-portraits of Clara Schumann have come down to us, for the reason that she was too great, too elusive in spirit, for any snapshot artist to attempt her. She never looked twice the same. In feature she was commonplace, her form lacked the classic touch, and her raiment was as plain as the plumage of a brown thrush in an autumn hedgerow. She was as homely as George Eliot, Mary Wollstonecraft, Rosa Bonheur, George Sand, or Madame De Stael. No two of the women named looked alike, but I once saw a composite photograph of their portraits and the picture sent no thrills along my keel. Their splendor ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... at its height on the Asamuk. The woodthrush was nearing the end of its song; a vast concourse of young robins in their speckled plumage joined chattering every night in the thickest cedars; and one or two broods of young ducks were seen on the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sidling, gliding along the barbed wire fence, the Baltimore oriole, always a charming fellow because of his flaming plumage, which has won for him the name of the golden robin and firebird. He walks along the wire fence in a gliding, one-leg-at-a-time fashion, as he often does on the twig of a tree. His head is down, he is on the lookout for caterpillars. Now he reaches the tick-trefoil, and nips out some ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... late. Side by side with the peace of night, there dwell Spirits of Evil, the never-resting, vagrant, home-destroying guests, who enter unbidden into the human soul! Hark, the rustling of their raven-hued plumage! They take wing, they fly aloft; 't is the shriek of the vulture, swooping ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert
... wing-feathers black; it is a breed which was established as long ago as the year 1600. I crossed a male Nun with a female red common Tumbler, which latter variety generally breeds true. Thus neither parent had a trace of blue in the plumage, or of bars on the wing and tail. I should premise that common Tumblers are rarely blue in England. From the above cross I reared several young: one was red over the whole back, but with the tail as blue as that ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... to ye, Mistress Elliott," said she, and hostility and gentility were nicely mingled in her tones. "A fine day, mem," the laird's wife would reply with a miraculous curtsey, spreading the while her plumage - setting off, in other words, and with arts unknown to the mere man, the pattern of her India shawl. Behind her, the whole Cauldstaneslap contingent marched in closer order, and with an indescribable ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... too far in some cases, as with the stripes on the tiger. I have also this morning read an excellent abstract in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" of your paper on nests. (203/6. An abstract of a paper on "Birds' Nests and Plumage," read before the British Association: see "Gard. Chron." 1867, page 1047.) I was not by any means fully converted by your letter, but I think now I am so; and I hope it will be published somewhere in extenso. It strikes me as a capital generalisation, and appears to me even more original ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... lovely in her delicate mauve morning dress, with the soft lace relieving her neck and wrists. Her dark hair was banded smoothly back from the grave, earnest face, and fell behind in heavy braids, rich and glossy as the plumage of a raven. Her mouth was tremulous with gladness and her whole face kindled into smiles and blushes under her husband's gaze. She was so calm that it seemed folly to vex his heart with vague fancies, instead of yielding to the full, ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... in another way, too, for under its influence Mark's own manhood had broadened and deepened. He longed to bind Patty to him for good and all, to capture the bright bird whose fluttering wings and burnished plumage so captured his senses and stirred his heart, but his longings had changed with the quality of his love and he glowed at the thought of delivering the girl from her dreary surroundings and giving her the tenderness, the ease and ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... like you as well in stone-coloured merino as in blue. Should a bird of paradise wear the plumage of a ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... a sprinkler for the holy water in the hand (in the first, second and fourth examples) of god D. Landa (1864, p. 150)[317-[]] describes in the ceremony of the baptism of children, that the leader of the rite wore on his head a kind of mitre embroidered with plumage in some manner and in his hand a small holy-water sprinkler of wood, carved skillfully, of which the filaments were the tails of serpents, ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... soon proved to you that its obscurity was the last place where she proposed to stay. She looked the latest thing evolved by the art of man. Her clothes were the prevailing fantastic creation, and yet, on her, they were not illogical. They were the plumage of an eccentric bird hatched to look that way. Her face, in its sandy monotone of color, fitted the art of her wonderful and yet not too noticeable hat, and her gloves and veil were the last word of ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... thunderstorm. This storm was not really overhead at all, and scarcely deserves mention except as the precursor of a severe one of which our valley got the full benefit. It was quite curious to see the numbers of dead butterflies on the garden-paths after that second storm. Their beautiful plumage was not dimmed or smirched nor their wings broken: they would have been in perfect order for a naturalist's collection; yet they were quite dead and stiff. The natives declare it is the lightning which kills ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... beautiful. There are no singing birds suitable for keeping in cages, although some calendar larks [Calandrias] called fimbaros, [81] smaller than those of Espana, are brought from Japon, whose song is most sweet. There are many turtle-doves, ring-doves; other doves with an extremely green plumage, and red feet and beaks; and others that are white with a red spot on the breast, like a pelican. Instead of quail, there are certain birds resembling them, but smaller, which are called povos [82] and other smaller birds called mayuelas. [83] There ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... a gorgeous copy of "Blue-beard" to the little bosom, which still heaved with the rapture of looking at that delicious mixture of lovely Fatimas in pale azure gowns, pink Sister Annes on the turret top, crimson tyrants, and yellow brothers with forests of plumage blowing wildly from their ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... owls. Yet the New Zealand owl-parrot is, to put it plainly, a lory which has assumed all the outer appearance and habits of an owl. A lurker in the twilight or under the shades of night, burrowing for its nest in holes in the ground, it has dingy brown plumage like the owls, with an undertone of green to bespeak its parrot origin: while its face is entirely made up of two great disks, surrounding the eyes, which succeed in giving it a most ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... not say; yet a penetrating eye looking at them—the slight bird lying dead, its brilliant plumage already dimmed, the young girl gazing at it—would perceive that alike these two were fitted for the warmth and sunshine, would perceive that both had been thwarted and defrauded of their fair inheritance, would ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... the Assyrian monuments is an oxide of copper, sometimes containing also a trace of lead. Besides occurring in combination with red in the cases already mentioned, it was employed to color the foliage of trees, the plumage of birds, the heads of arrows, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... to the coral and the plumage of birds, and to how large a part of animate and inanimate nature. The same independence of law on matter is observable in many other instances, as in the natural rhymes, when some animal form, color, or odor, has its counterpart ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... yield, Against HER suffered to have lost a field. Herself must with herself be sole compeer, Unless the people of her distant sphere Some gold migration send to melodise the year. But first our hearts must burn in larger guise, To reformate the uncharitable skies, And so the deathless plumage to acclimatise: Since this, their sole congener in our clime, Droops her sad, ruffled thoughts for half ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... Heaven—Buddha's—is perfect gold. Its gardens and palaces are adorned with gems. They are encircled with rows of trees, and borders of net-work. There are lovely birds, of sparkling plumage and exquisite notes. The great god O-lo-han; the goddess of Mercy; the unnumbered Buddhas; the host of demigods, and the sages of heaven and earth, will all be assembled on that sacred spot. But in that sacred kingdom there are ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... the latest cut, son, or the finest fit, but you won't mind; you're not a girl. A man's dress is on'y a sort o' skin, anyhow; a woman's is her plumage. And, anyhow, at Rosemont you'll wear soldier clothes. Look out son, I asked ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... outcry from the poultry reached his ears; and, too well acquainted with the cause of their disquiet, he threw down his spade, and ran to the scene of action; and arrived just time enough to save the plumage of a hapless peacock from being entirely ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie
... not liking. It is worship. Some kind of Pantheism which I cannot explain. Nowhere are the loneliness and grandeur of God so manifested. Mind, I don't quite sympathize with that comparison of St. Augustine's where he detects a resemblance between yon spectra of purple and green and the plumage of a dove. What has a dove to do with such magnificence and grandeur? It was an anti-climax, a bathos, of which St. Augustine is seldom guilty. 'And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... called, who at the end of heaven sits, a Joetun in an eagle's plumage: from his wings comes, it is said, the wind, that ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... Bard inspir'd. Borne on triumphant wings he take this flight, Explores all heaven, and treads the realms of light: In martial pomp he clothes th' angelic train, While warring myriads shake th' etherial plain. First Michael stalks, high tow'ring o'er the rest; With heav'nly plumage nodding on his crest: Impenetrable arms his limbs unfold, Eternal adamant, and burning gold! Sparkling in fiery mail, with dire delight, Rebellious Satan animates the fight: Armipotent they sink in rolling smoke, All heav'n resounding, to its centre shook, To crush his foes, and quell ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... of game-birds, the aristocracy of the species, with their delicate heads and exquisite plumage, and kept at one time no less than sixty-two in the back yard of his house. The noise was simply unendurable to all but Wilson, who was never annoyed by it in the least. He kept one lame sparrow for eleven years, caring for it ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... distance—upwards of a mile—I could, of course, hear no word of what was said. All at once there began the most horrid, unearthly screaming, which at first startled me badly, though I had soon remembered the voice of Captain Flint and even thought I could make out the bird by her bright plumage as she sat perched upon her ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no doubt that they were falling rapidly. Already they grew larger to the eye. Presently the heron disengaged himself and flapped heavily away, the worse for that deadly embrace, while the peregrine, shaking her plumage, ringed once more so as to get high above the quarry and deal it a second and more fatal blow. The Bishop smiled, for nothing, as it ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... free itself appeared only to result in its being more securely and hopelessly bound; and there it perished; and there its form, dried and embalmed by the summer heats, was yet hanging in September, the outspread wings and plumage showing nearly ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... quarrels with a boyish idea that quick reconciliation would perhaps throw her into his arms. But now it seemed to him that an age had passed since those days. His love had certainly not faded. There had never been a moment when that had been on the wing. But now the azure plumage of his love had become grey as the wings of a dove, and the gorgeousness of his dreams had sobered into hopes and fears which were a constant burden to his heart. There was time enough, still time enough for happiness if she would ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... came the hat crowned with birds' feathers, some ladies even placing the complete bird on their hats—a most ridiculous exhibition of bad taste. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals should take up the question of the destruction of birds for their plumage, and agitate until the law makes it illegal to wear a bird on a hat. Some may say that if people kill animals and birds for food they might just as well wear a dead bird on their hats, if they wish to be so silly, although the large majority of America's population, I am sorry to find, ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... is the theme, the aim must of course be to give its typical perfection. No naturalist describes the defects of his specimens, though it may happen that all are imperfect. Comparatively few persons ever saw our robin in the plumage in which it is always described. Only in early spring, not very commonly then, is the black of the head and tail seen pure. But no one hesitates to call this the true color. The sculptor does not reproduce the peculiarities of his model, but aims to give ideal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... delight in doing any little service to please and gratify her, but it was towards Hector that she displayed the deepest feeling of affection and respect. It was to him her first tribute of fruit or flowers, furs, mocassins, or ornamental plumage of rare birds was offered. She seemed to turn to him as to a master and protector. He was in her eyes the "Chief," the head of his tribe. His bow was strung by her, and stained with quaint figures ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... In Gorgeous plumage, azure, gold and green, They trample the pale flowers, and their shrill cry Troubles the garden's bright tranquillity! Proud birds of Beauty, splendid and serene, Spreading their brilliant fans, screen after screen Of burnished sapphire, gemmed with mimic suns— Strange magic eyes, ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... with such a keen relish. This worried him; but not half as much as did the assiduous, delicate attention which the chief bestowed on Jane. Had the chief been hunting and procured game, it was laid at her feet; did he secure a bird of rare plumage, its plumes fantastically arranged, were modestly presented to her; and furs of rare softness and beauty in profusion adorned her apartment, at the request of the chief. Unwilling to offend, and as he had never spoken on the subject to her, ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... this country west of the mountains, too, will be broken off and set up into a republic, and allied with that most glorious of all republics, France. Believe me, the Jacobins have not been idle, and there have been strange-looking birds of French plumage dodging between the General's house at Clarksville and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... melodia,) a little bird that is universally known and admired. The Song-Sparrow is the earliest visitant and the latest resident of the vocal tenants of the field. He is plain in his vesture, undistinguished from the female by any superiority of plumage, and comes forth in the spring and takes his departure in the autumn in the same suit of russet and gray by which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... a beautiful white bird, Webfooted, not unlike a dove in size And plumage (probably it might have erred Upon its course), passed oft before their eyes, And tried to perch, although it saw and heard The men within the boat, and in this guise It came and went, and fluttered round them till Night fell:—this seemed a better ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... interjected the Young Doctor. "Her of the plumage—her! Shure, she's not livin' in this wurruld. She's only visitin' it. She's got no responsibility. If iver there was a child of a fairy tale, that wumman's the child. I belave she'd think her son was doin' right if he tied the ould fella up to a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... . . The kea is pretty to look at, having rich red and green plumage, but it is a cruel bird. It is said that it will fasten on the back of a living sheep and peck its way down to the kidney-fat, for which this parrot has a special fancy. No tourist need feel compunction about ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... the peacock's tail and the deer's antlers, the protective mimicry of various insects and butterflies, and the wonderful instincts of the white ants; it gave the serpent its deadly poison and the violet its grateful odour; it painted the gorgeous plumage of the Impeyan pheasant and the beautiful colours and decorations of countless birds and insects and flowers. These, and a thousand other achievements, it has evidently accomplished without the help of use-inheritance. Why should it be thought incapable of reducing ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... aware of the flutter, and called Harman's attention to it with a touch upon his arm and a laugh and a nod of her violent plumage. ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the object at which he was gazing moved sharply, turning a small head on a long neck. It was a peacock. But he had thought of a thousand things before he thought of the obvious thing. The burning blue of the plumage on the neck had reminded him of blue fire, and blue fire had reminded him of some dark fantasy about blue devils, before he had fully realised even that it was a peacock he was staring at. And the tail, that trailing ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... is told of his lying on his back in the woods with some moss for his pillow and looking through a telescopic microscope day after day, to watch a pair of little birds while they made their nest. Their peculiar gray plumage harmonized with the color of the bark of the tree, so that it 5 was impossible to see the birds except by the most careful observation. After three weeks of such patient labor, he felt that he had been amply rewarded for the toil and sacrifice ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... singularly beautiful. It might have been compared to a crest of gigantic feathers, the diadem of the mountain, high arched, and drooping downward, with the hues delicately shaded off, and the whole shifting and tremulous as the plumage on a warrior's helm. The glare of the flame spread, luminous and crimson, over the dark and rugged ground on which they stood, and drew an innumerable variety of shadows from crag and hollow. An oppressive and sulphureous exhalation ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not—for it is the record of the Church—I would ask, what is? and where shall we find the history of Christianity for the fifteen centuries before Luther's time? and where, to-day? Their predecessors plucked the plumage from the dying bird of mythology, as they, themselves, have robbed the liberal orchard of all its choicest fruits and palmed them off as of their own growth. Protestants would not, I dare say, now countenance the persecutions of the past, but yet, I would tell them ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... anxious to get away from this place. There was a gate close by; he proposed they should go out by that. As he walked back with them to South Bank, they chatted about many of the animals—the two girls in especial being much interested in certain pheasants, whose colors of plumage they thought would look very pretty in a dress—but he never referred, either then or at any future time, to his visit to the reptile house. Nor did it occur to Miss White, in this idle conversation, to ask him whether his Highland blood had inherited any other qualities ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... unless I brought them fish, of which they had a supply four times a day, and then they would stand on their legs and open their beaks far apart, each waiting for its share. They were a great happiness to me, and I watched their gradual increase of plumage and of size, which was very rapid. I gave them all names out of my Natural History book. One was Lion, then Tiger, Panther, Bear, Horse, and Jackass (at the time that I named them, the last would have been very appropriate ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... were fastened and the bulwarks built, the boat could never put to sea. He pondered long over where he might find the lost words, and after a while he concluded that they might be found in the brains of swallows and the heads of swans and the plumage of the sea-duck. But though he killed great numbers of these birds, he could not find the three lost words. Then he thought that he might find them on the tongues of reindeers or of the squirrels; but though he killed great numbers of them, and found many words on their tongues, the three ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... upon which the pampered traveller depends. It is as a primeval forest in the hour before the dawn. When the sun of France penetrates pacifically to all its hidden places, the forest will wake to a new life. Strange birds of bright plumage, called in Europe gens d'armes, will displace the storks upon the battlements of its ancient towns, the commis voyageur will appear where wild boar and hyaena now travel in comparative peace, the wild cat (felis Throgmortonensis) will arise from all ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... I will not conceal from you, my dear little readers, that the Dove had hardly changed colour at all and that it was joy and happiness that decked him with a magnificent bright blue plumage in our hero's eyes. No matter! Tyltyl, without knowing it, had discovered Light's great secret, which is that we draw nearer to happiness by trying to give ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... river; innumerable doves, varying in species, throng the trees and seek the shade of the dome-palms; thousands of desert grouse arrive morning and evening to drink and to depart; while birds in multitudes, of lovely plumage, escape from the burning desert and colonize the poor but welcome bushes that fringe the ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... of woman as in this daughter of Sweden. Her description reads like a catalogue of all human perfections. Of medium height and a figure as faultless in its exquisite modelling as in its grace and suppleness; her hair, black as a raven's plumage, and falling, like a veil of night, below her knees, emphasised the white purity of face and throat, arms, and hands. Her teeth, twin rows of pearls, glistened between smiling crimson lips, curved like Cupid's ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... gull Jack is still flourishing, and the time is coming when I look for that singularly sudden change in the plumage of his head which took place last March. I have asked all my ocean-going friends to note whether these little birds are not the gulls par excellence of the sea; and so far all I have heard from them confirms this. ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... beautiful seems to be innate; that is, born in us. And the birds appeal to this in at least two ways: First, on account of the beauty of their songs, and second, on account of the beauty of their plumage. ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... rich, glossy, reddish-brown fathers. The rest of the bath is orange-brown, the tail-coverts and tail dark bronzy, the wings light orange-buff: The whole under surface is covered with an abundance of plumage springing from the margins of the breast, and of a rich deep green colour, with changeable hues of purple. Down the middle of the breast is a broad band of scaly plumes of the same colour, while the chin and throat are of a rich metallic ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Who in full dress-rehearsal pass to-day Before admiring eyes, hold in their store Those fine high principles which keep old Earth From being only earth; and make men more Than just mere men? How will they prove their worth Of years of study? Will they walk abroad Decked with the plumage of dead bards of God, The glorious birds? And shall the lamb unborn Be slain on altars of their vanity? To some frail sister who has missed the way Will they give Christ's compassion, or man's scorn; And will clean manhood, linked with honest love, The victor prove, When riches, gained by ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... dwelleth either in wood or in forest; But would have wept, if that he weepe could, For sorrow of her; she shriek'd alway so loud. For there was never yet no man alive, If that he could a falcon well descrive;* *describe That heard of such another of fairness As well of plumage, as of gentleness; Of shape, of all that mighte reckon'd be. A falcon peregrine seemed she, Of fremde* land; and ever as she stood *foreign She swooned now and now for lack of blood; Till well-nigh is she fallen from ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... subsided, he finished his speech, and received again an animated acclamation of applause. He then took off his hat, and after a while put it on again, at which the nobles also put on their hats, which resembled the King's, excepting the button. The effect of this display of plumage was fine. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... the picture is not inclosed by the rainbow, we see the forms of two birds standing with wings outstretched, facing one another, their beaks close together. These represent certain birds of blue plumage called by the Navajo çòli (Sialia arctica). This bluebird is of the color of the south and of the upper regions. He is the herald of the morning. His call of "çòli çòli" is the first that is heard when ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... meaning of his remark. Old Martha stood in the middle of a mob of poultry scattering handfuls of grain around her. The turkey-cock, with the bronzed sheen of his feathers and the purple-red of his wattles, the gamecock, with the glowing metallic lustre of his Eastern plumage, the hens, with their ochres and buffs and umbers and their scarlet combs, and the drakes, with their bottle-green heads, made a medley of rich colour, in the centre of which the old woman looked like a withered stalk standing amid a riotous growth of gaily-hued flowers. ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... are not lonely in their rural home. The plainly-dressed sparrows and the brilliant yellow-birds look in upon them, and, now and then, their cousin, the oriole, comes, clad in the richest golden plumage, and sings them a song. If he had dipped his feathers in the gorgeous sunset he could not be more beautiful. The delicate little humming-birds sip nectar from the deep horns of the honeysuckle; and the red-winged starling, in his glossy black coat, and his ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... very nice insects here, though, owing to illness most of the time, my collection was a small one, and my boy Ali shot me a pair of one of the most beautiful birds of the East, Pitta gigas, a lame ground-thrush, whose plumage of velvety black above is relieved by a breast of pure white, shoulders of azure blue, and belly of vivid crimson. It has very long and strong legs, and hops about with such activity in the dense ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... a glance into the hiding place of the swan. The soft plumage had not the dazzling purity which he had known, and the beautiful neck that should be ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
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