"Covey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... haase behund th' pump, An he grummel'd throo mornin to neet, On his rig he'd a varry respectable hump, An his nooas end wor ruddy an breet. His een wor askew an his legs knock-a-kneed, An his clooas he could don at a jump; An th' queerest old covey 'at ivver yo seed, Wor mi naybor old ...
— Yorkshire Lyrics • John Hartley
... assisted by the advent of a covey of flying fishes and a (Sunday) "school" of porpoises, is responsible for the following, which is adventured with profuse ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... sea anemone from the genus Caryophylia with translucent tentacles, plus anemone with grassy tufts from the genus Zoantharia; and to complete the illusion, minnows flitted from branch to branch like a swarm of hummingbirds, while there rose underfoot, like a covey of snipe, yellow fish from the genus Lepisocanthus with bristling jaws and sharp scales, flying gurnards, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... glance through the brushwood as they moved onward, but saw no living thing, excepting a family of chitmunks gaily chasing each other along a fallen branch, and a covey of quails that were feeding quietly on the red berries of the Mitchella repens, or twinberry, [Footnote: Also partridge-berry and checker-berry, a lovely creeping winter-green, with white fragrant flowers and double scarlet berry.] as it is commonly called, of which the partridges and ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... conspicuous person in the gathering, but the colonel, who was a seasoned politician, observed that the farm-hand had become a fisher of men, and was angling for the souls of these boys, and their interest in the school. Jim was careful not to flush the covey, but every boy received from the next winter's teacher some confidential hint as to plans, and some suggestion that Jim was relying on the aid and comfort of that particular boy. Newt Bronson, especially, was leaned on as a strong staff and a very present ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... went flopping heavily away under the low-growing branches. Underneath this embodied spirit of night galloped the dog, filling the woods with barks, leaping high into the air, his teeth snapping and clicking like castanets. In the edge of a straw field looked down upon by stars he rushed a covey on the roost. One struck against a tree and came chirping down. Dan leaped upon him. His hunger satisfied, he tramped a pile of leaves into ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... facilities for fording, and when a pig had broken fairly from the jungle, and was making for the river (as they very frequently did), you would see the cluster of horsemen scattering over the plain like a covey of partridges when the hawk swoops down upon them. Each made for what he considered the most eligible ford, in hopes of being first up with the pig on the further bank, and securing ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... I think," said Jeekie, kneeling down and letting fly at a clump of the little men, which scattered like a covey of partridges, leaving one of its number kicking on the ground. "Ah! my boy," shouted Jeekie in derision, "how you like bullet in tummy? You not know Paradox guaranteed flat trajectory 250 ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... observation. The fog, however, abated none of its denseness even on the "Surrey side," and before they reached the "Elephant and Castle," Jorrocks had run against two trucks, three watercress women, one pies-all-ot!-all-ot! man, dispersed a whole covey of Welsh milkmaids, and rode slap over one end of a buy 'at (hat) box! bonnet-box! man's pole, damaging a dozen paste-boards, and finally upsetting Balham Hill Joe's Barcelona "come crack 'em and try 'em" stall at the door of the inn, for all whose benedictions, the Yorkshireman, as ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... the first of her shadows in New York, but had been called off when she proved unprofitable and before she met Easton. And now he found her at work in a shipyard where strange things were happening! He was all afire with the covey of spies he had flushed. His first impulse was to shoot off a wire in code to announce his discovery. Then he decided to work this gold-mine himself. It would be pleasanter to cultivate this pretty ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... you, my lord," said Monkbarns, "body and soul: give him leave to crack off his birding-piece at a poor covey of partridges or moor-fowl, and he's yours for everI will enchant him by the intelligence. But O, my lord, that you could have seen my phoenix Lovel!the very prince and chieftain of the youth of this age; and not destitute of spirit neitherI promise ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... Lord Stowell had truth as well as humor on his side when he observed, "My brother has done much execution this shooting season; with his gun he has killed a great deal of time." Having ineffectually discharged two barrels at a covey of partridges, the Chancellor was slowly walking to the gate of one of his Encome turnip-fields when a stranger of clerical garb and aspect hailed him from a distance, asking, "Where is Lord Eldon?" Not anxious to declare himself to the witness of ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... like I c'n just get a whiff of the steak a sizzling on the gridiron at our house; and say, when I think of it, I get wild. I'm as hungry as that bear that came to our camp, and sent us all up in trees like a covey of partridges." ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... on and sometime during it Raf fell asleep. But the two or three hours of restless, dream-filled unconsciousness was not what he needed, and he blinked in the dawn with eyes which felt as if they were filled with hot sand. In the first gray light a covey of winged things, which might or might not have been birds, arose from some roosting place within the city, wheeled three times over the building, and then vanished out over ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... sandbag us into electing him? Is that the sort of hold-up you stand for? Well, then, I tell you I'll never vote for him. I'd rather see these lakes and streams of ours dry up; I'd rather see the last pheasant snared and the last covey leave for the other end of the island, than buy off that Dutchman with a certificate of membership ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... larger are somewhat like red gurnards, and are said to prey on their smaller cousins, which are also pursued by bonitos, albicores, and dolphins of various species, as well as by numerous sea-birds. Several times we saw a large covey of the smaller kind rise above the surface, followed closely by another of the larger species, when at the same moment a dozen sea-birds would descend, and, quick as lightning, a dolphin would dart by, intent on sharing the ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... got to shoot Putney or Battersea," said Travers with a grim smile, as he stood shaping her course by inches with his magic-like steering, in the midst of a little covey of pleasure boats: "with this wind we might ha' brought either on 'em about our ears ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... boh shouted out, 'Witches! devils! Lort deliver us fro' ye!' An' os ey spoke, ey tried t' barst thro' t' winda. In a trice, aw t' leets went out; thar wur a great rash to t' dooer; a whirrin sound i' th' air loike a covey o' partriches fleeing off; and then ey heerd nowt more; for a great stoan fell o' meh scoance, an' knockt me down senseless. When I cum' to, I wur i' Nick Demdike's cottage, wi' his woife watching ower me, and th' unbapteesed chilt i' ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of command the dog rushed forward; the covey rose with a mighty whir, and the hunter fired both barrels, and the dog looked in vain for a dead bird, and ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... mist hung over the ocean; the sky above our heads was of a grey tint; the water below our feet of the colour of lead. Not a ripple disturbed its mirror-like surface, except when now and then a covey of flying fish leaped forth to escape from their pursuers, or it was clove by the fin of a marauding shark. We knew that we were not far off the coast of Africa, some few degrees to the south of ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... No Man's Land—queer how those old phrases last—a covey of enemy helicopters hung, waiting for the barrage to lift. A black hulk broke the surface of the water, split open: then another. Enemy sub-surface craft. The fight was being waged under water, too. A green mass spilled its ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... the farther clumps came the calling of the male quail, and around sounded the different murmurs of clucking, of twittering, of the ruffling of feathers: in a word, the divers voices of the small inhabitants of the plains. Sometimes there flew up a whole covey of quail; the gaudy-topped pheasants scattered on their approach; the black squirrels dived into their holes; the rabbits disappeared in all directions; the gophers were sitting on their hind legs beside their holes, looking like fat German farmers ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... chimney grace So nicely scour'd, you might have seen your face; And over all, to frighten thieves, was hung Well clean'd, altho' but seldom us'd, my gun. Ah! that damn'd gun! I took it down one morn— A desperate deal of harm they did my corn! Our testy Squire too loved to save the breed, So covey upon covey eat my seed. I mark'd the mischievous rogues, and took my aim, I fir'd, they fell, and—up the keeper came. That cursed morning brought on my undoing, I went to prison and my farm to ruin. Poor Mary! for her grave the parish paid, No tomb-stone tells ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... to the—," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" (Harting, ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... humanity this is, and how strange if one be more strange than another. Reflection rebukes it almost instantaneously, and yet for the life of me I cannot help wishing I had a fowling-piece whenever I put up a covey of these creatures; though I suppose, if one were brought bleeding and maimed to me, I should begin to cry, and be very pathetic, after the fashion of Jacques. However, one must live, you know; and here our living consists very mainly of wild ducks, ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... purpose. Immediately the dogs, recognising their dominance, slunk back. Three men sauntered forward, grinning broadly in amiable greeting. Two or three women, more bashful than the rest, scuttled into the depths of wigwams out of sight. A multitude of children concealed themselves craftily, like a covey of quail, and focussed their bright, bead-like eyes on the new-comers. The rest of the camp ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... base and sides. The level growing fields stretched away to the north in a blaze of warming yellow. A boy was leading a harnessed horse along the road; behind him lagged a dog to which the boy was cheerfully whistling and calling. A covey of quails rose from a patch of blackberry vines and fluttered away ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... covey of flying-fish might be seen skimming over the ocean, but they came out of the water to avoid the jaws of their persevering foes, the dolphins or bonitos, not because they liked it, or wished to ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... of a covey soon after. He and Ernest slipped out of the wagon and stole up as close as possible. Ernest got two with the scattering bird ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... herself down in the long yellow sedge-grass,—frightening a whole covey of gossiping young partridges and a couple of meek doves, all of which whirred away to an adjacent pea-field, leaving her with her face buried in her hands, and watched by trembling ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... the young man, Mr. Norman Halliday, tell upon the covey of frightened girls. Mrs. Morse herself began to recover from her disturbance of mind. This was ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... dodges,—sometimes these friends, odd specimens, old music-masters, rambling artists, seedy tutors, fencers, boxers, hunters, clowns, all light down together, and then the neighborhood rings with this precious covey: the rest of the year, may-be, he don't see an individual. One result of this isolation is, that freaks which would be very strange escapades in other people with him are mere commonplaces. Sometimes he goes over to the city there, and roams round like a lost soul seeking for its body; sometimes ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... penetration of a statesman, (Mrs. Swiggs makes a curt bow, as a great gray cat springs into her lap and curls himself down on her Milton;) and, as I was going on to say of this dashing Baronet, he played our damsels about in agony, as an old sportsman does a covey of ducks, wounding more in the head than in the heart, and finally creating no end of a demand for matrimony. To-day, all the town was positive, he would marry the beautiful Miss Boggs; to-morrow it was not so certain that he would not marry the brilliant and all-accomplished Miss Noggs; and ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... revived, to fade again. Arctic petrels flew across the road with joyful cries; marmots called to one another in the grass. Somewhere, far away to the left, lapwings uttered their plaintive notes. A covey of partridges, scared by the chaise, fluttered up and with their soft "trrrr!" flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets, locusts and grasshoppers kept up their churring, ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... thanked him, and gave him the smallest coin in her purse, which happened to be a shilling. He, in a transport at possessing what was to him a fortune, uttered a piercing yell, and darted off to show the coin to a covey of small ragamuffins who had just raced into view round the corner at which the public-house stood. In his haste he dashed against one of the group outside, a powerfully built young man, who turned and cursed him. The boy retorted passionately, ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... was a freshman at Oxford, 1642, I was wont to go to Christ Church, to see King Charles I. at supper; where I once heard him say, " That as he was hawking in Scotland, he rode into the quarry, and found the covey of partridges falling upon the hawk; and I do remember this expression further, viz. and I will swear upon the book 'tis true." When I came to my chamber, I told this story to my tutor; said he, that covey ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... "I perceive a native. Several natives, in fact. Quite a little covey of them. We will put our case before them, concealing nothing, and rely on their advice to take ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... again at page 29 of the little volume, depicting Gonsales being drawn up to the lunar world in a machine, not unlike a primitive parachute, to which are harnessed his 'gansas ... 25 in number, a covey ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... Baltimore, got him into disfavor with a master easily displeased; and, not proving sufficiently amenable to the discipline of the home plantation, he was sent to a certain celebrated negro-breaker by the name of Edward Covey, one of the poorer whites who, as overseers and slave-catchers, and in similar unsavory capacities, earned a living as parasites on the system of slavery. Douglass spent a year under Coveys ministrations, and his life there may be summed up in his own words: "I ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... till late; and returning, loaded with game, had nearly reached the palace, when Corny, who had marked a covey, quitted Harry, and sent his dog to spring it, at a distance much greater than the usual reach of a common fowling-piece. Harry heard a shot, and a moment afterwards a violent shout of despair;—he knew the voice to be that of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... spruce forest. Then he came to a shallow, roaring river. The horses drank the water, foaming white and amber around their knees, and then with splash and thump they forded it over the slippery rocks. As they cracked out upon the trail a covey of grouse whirred up into the low branches of ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... pines above us as we sped on; and ever I thought of Okwencha and the Dead Hunter. And the upward roar of a partridge covey bursting in thunder through the river willows was like the flight ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... the man comes to himself an' looks around. The same thing holds true of a dog. If the engineer has reason to suspect that the dog's mind is occupied with some engrossin' topic, he must stop the train. That case has been tested in this very state, where a dog was on the track settin' a covey of birds in the adjoinin' field. The railroad was held responsible for the death of that dog, because the engineer ought to have known by the action of the dog that his mind was on somethin' else beside railroad ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... air free of every obstacle, and though their flight sometimes equals the speed of a railroad train, they have little to fear when well above the ground. Collision with other birds seems scarcely possible, although it sometimes does occur. When a covey of quail is flushed, occasionally two birds will collide, at times meeting with such force that both are stunned. Flycatchers darting at the same insect will now and then come together, but not hard enough to injure ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... rider I ever saw; she was a perfect female Centaur, looking part and parcel of the animal upon which she stood; and then we had a regularly Dutch-built lady, who amused us with a tumble off her horse, coming down on the loose saw-dust, in a sitting posture, and making a hole in it as large as if a covey of partridges had been husking in it for the whole day. An American black (there always is a black fellow in these companies, for, as Cooper says, they learn to ride well in America by stealing their masters' horses) rode furiously well and sprained his ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... he in mighty voice, peering at me over the fire. "I've a blunderbuss here and two popps, so hold hard or I'll be forced to brain ye wi' this here kettle. Now then—come forward slow, my covey, slow, and gi'e us a peep o' you churi—step cautious now or I'll be the ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... breath, you find that each absurdity is invested with habits, strong interests, and chummy Congressmen. Attack all along the line and you engage every force of reaction. You go forth to battle, as the poet said, and you always fall. You can lop off an antiquated bureau here, a covey of clerks there, you can combine two bureaus. And by that time you are busy with the tariff and the railroads, and the era of reform is over. Besides, in order to effect a truly logical reorganization ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... stubble tries, And searches every breeze that flies; The scent grows warm; with cautious fear He creeps, and points the covey near; The men, in silence, far behind, Conscious of game, the net unbind. A partridge, with experience wise, The fraudful preparation spies: She mocks their toils, alarms her brood; The covey springs, and seeks the wood; 10 But ere her certain wing she tries, Thus to the creeping spaniel cries: ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... hills, the caravan sprang a covey of guinea-fowls, and at some springs in a valley I shot several couple of sand-grouse, darker in plumage than any I ever saw in Africa or India, and not quite so big as the Tibet bird. The chief of the village offered me a bullock; but as the beast did not appear until the ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... last, about six o'clock, a covey of partridges were seen to pitch in the middle of the CIRCUS, Bath, supposed to have taken refuge there, after having escaped from the aim of some distant gunner. Under the effects of fright and fatigue six were easily caught by three servants, and strange ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... relief. At least the match was still alive. Soon a large flight came over, mixed up with mallard and widgeon. I took the right-hand angle bird, so that it could not be supposed I had "browned the lot," as here in England they say of one who fires at a covey and not at a particular partridge. Down he came, shot straight through the breast. Then I knew that I had got my nerve, and felt ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... called, by which a long stretch would be saved, and we were cracking on cheerily, my mind full of my recent promotion, when, scur, scur, scur, we stuck fast on the bank. Our black boatmen, being little encumbered with clothes, jumped overboard in a covey like so many wild—ducks, shouting, as they dropped into the water, "We must all get out,—we must all get out;" whereupon Mr Callaloo, a sort of Dominie Sampson in his way, promptly leaped overboard up to his waist in the water. The ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... stream, creeping through layers of jewel-weed and mint, the white setter in the lead swung suddenly west, quartered, wheeled, crept forward and stiffened to a point. Behind him his mate froze into a silvery statue. But Gordon walked on, gun under his arm, and the covey rose with a roar of heavy wings, driving blindly through the tangle deep into ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... exclaimed as a covey of large Namaqua partridges whirred up from his path. "A good sign that: they are seldom ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... I was watching again; and I saw, on a sudden, a covey of birds rise suddenly about two hundred yards away to the north of the hut—that is, by the way that I should have to go down to the valleys again. They rose as if they were frightened. I kept my eyes on the place, and presently I saw a man's ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... blood-hound, when his own is heated! And 'tis no boy's play. Now he strikes them down! 160 His hand is on the battlement—he grasps it As though it were an altar; now his foot Is on it, and——What have we here?—a Roman? The first bird of the covey! he has fallen [A man falls. On the outside of the nest. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... off. Hautot Senior had fired. They all stopped, and saw a partridge breaking off from a covey which was rushing along at great speed to fall down into a ravine under a thick growth of brushwood. The sportsman, becoming excited, rushed forward with rapid strides, thrusting aside the briers which stood in his path, and disappeared in his ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... men; others were vessels of 300 tons, with an armament and crew like a man-of-war. Before the middle of July, 1812, sixty-five such privateers had sailed, and the British merchantmen were scudding for cover like a covey of ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... the City bubbles and bladders, at all events,' Mr. Fenellan said. 'But if we let our journals go on making use of them, in the shape of sham hawks overhead, we shall pay for their one good day of the game with our loss of the covey. An unstable London's ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... life, so well sustained throughout that grown-up readers may enjoy it as much as children. This 'Covey' consists of the twelve children of a hard-pressed Dr. Partridge out of which is chosen a little girl to be adopted by a spoiled, fine lady. We have rarely read a story for boys and girls with greater pleasure. One of the chief characters would not ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... books that he had spoken much to-day. He had not spoken at all. He had bade her listen to the meadow-lark, when its song fell upon the silence like beaded drops of music. He had showed her where a covey of young willow-grouse were hiding as their horses passed. And then, without warning, as they sat by the spring, he had ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... one day a shooting with the gamekeeper; when happening to spring a covey of partridges near the border of that manor over which Fortune, to fulfil the wise purposes of Nature, had planted one of the game consumers, the birds flew into it, and were marked (as it is called) by the two sportsmen, in some furze bushes, about ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... The waterplane is not primarily designed to perform long flights, although such may be carried out if the exigencies demand. The practice of deputing certain vessels to art as "parent ships" to a covey of waterplanes has proved as successful in practice, as in theory. Again, the arrangements for conveying these machines by such means to a rendezvous, and there putting them into the water to complete a certain duty, have been ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... loneliness and the hour set her eyes to dancing and the glad blood to bounding in her veins. When a startled rabbit shied from the brushwood she would slacken her speed to watch it, and when, as sometimes chanced, she frightened a covey of partridges from their retreat, she went softly, rejoicing that ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... She sat down on the floor in front of the fire and stared into it. It was pretty to look at just then, for the wood was burning redly, and at the tiniest touch a whole bevy of lovely sparks would fly out like bees from a hive, or a covey of birds, or better still, like a thousand imprisoned fairies escaping at some magic touch. Of all things, Jeanne loved to give this magic touch. There was no poker, but she managed just as well with a stick of unburnt ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... be seeing death, friend Louis" he snorted. "There are a couple of rogues in that covey who would spit you or split you or slit you for the ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... newly harvested grain. The season for Hungarian partridge opened on August 20th. These were shot over dogs in the stubble and in the potato fields. After a few weeks partridges became very wild and we then shot them with a kite. When we had put up a covey out of range and marked where they went down in a potato patch or field, perhaps of lucern or clover, a small boy would fly a kite made in the form of a hawk over the field. This kept the partridges from flying and they would lie while the dogs pointed ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... covey we at last reached another clearing. There the aspen-trees had only lately been felled, and lay stretched mournfully on the ground, crushing the grass and small undergrowth below them: on some the leaves were still green, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... little arroyo, he saw a covey of the blue desert quail with their white crests erect, darting among the rocks and cactus on the hillside. It was still the close season, but he never thought of that. In an instant he was all hunter, ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... our play, we saw an immense buffalo coming at full speed directly toward us. Our mimic buffalo hunt turned into a very real buffalo scare. Fortunately, we were near the edge of the woods and we soon disappeared among the leaves like a covey of young prairie-chickens and some hid in the bushes while others took refuge ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... whimpered as they came, and on and on they came out of shadows. Hirondelle stated that he began to think the Crown Prince's army was surrendering to him. At last, when the procession stopped, he—and his mythical sixteen—marched the entire covey, without any objection from them, only abject obedience, to ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... family, you would be dining out or going to some matinee or sitting around watching the clock. That's where it is your solemn duty to envy Homeburg if you never have done it before. And that's why I would be homesick to-day if you had fed me four dinners, Mrs. Jim, and had been a whole covey, or bevy, or flock, or constellation ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... in barns, and byres, or other out-houses: and when they cannot find that accommodation, they take the canvas covering from the pottery cart, and squat below it like a covey of ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... towards half-past five, about a score of small boys, chattering, pushing, and tumbling over one another like a covey of partridges, issued from one of the religious schools of Chartres. The joy of the little troop just escaped from a long and wearisome captivity was doubly great: a slight accident to one of the teachers had caused the class to be dismissed half an hour earlier than usual, and in consequence of ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... come, the devils! one, two, three—there are seven of them. I suppose this is what they call a covey in these parts. Were you ever ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... though of a more humorous order, even in the taking of a bath, as B.-P. discovered in going down to a pool and spotting just in time a leering crocodile in the reeds. Lions, too, were stumbled upon in clumps, just as in peaceful England one walks upon a covey of partridges. Then, lying down one day after dinner for a nap, B.-P. discovered on awaking that a snake had selected precisely the same spot for its own siesta. The charm of night marches, too, was occasionally broken by the ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... glad the old covey left me all his money. I don't care a d—— red cent why you love me, only I must be sure that it's a fixed fact. Now I'll go straight ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... bottles!" said Frank; "wouldn't it be better if I made a mark of some old covey's head? I don't ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... that very afternoon, he had been so sure that he had heard Piney's pony up on the bluff that he had gone up there searchingly, joyfully. But except for a little scatter, that he took to be the lift of a covey of quail somewhere off in the Gulch bushes, not a sound or sign came up to the bluff. Steering mourned for Piney. If the tramp-boy had not gone away, things might have been more bearable. But the lad's jealousy and his love for Steering were in battle royal now, and Piney kept ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... be imagined, went to the very heart of the errand-boys, who were collected in a circle, plotting how to release Rosa, when Elsworthy, mortified and furious, came back from his unsuccessful assault on the Curate. They scattered like a covey of little birds before the angry man, who tossed their papers at them, and then strode up the echoing stairs. "If you don't hold your d——d tongue," said Elsworthy, knocking furiously at Rosa's door, "I'll turn you to the door this ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... will, I grant, do this sometimes, on very warm days in September; but let a man go out with his heavy gun and steady dog late in December, or the month preceding it, let him see thirty or more covies—as on good ground he may—let him see every covey rise at a hundred yards, and fly a mile; let him be proud and glad to bag his three or four brace; and then tell me that there is any sport in these Atlantic States so wild as ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... Confucius worked out the doctrine thus: True government is by example; given the true ruler, and he will have the means of ruling at his disposal, and they will be altogether different from physical force. 'Example' does not covey it either: his thought was much deeper. There is a word li—I get all this from Dr. Lionel Giles—which the egregious have been egregiously translating 'the rules of propriety'; but which Confucius used primarily ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... brought down by the Huns, and everybody with glasses was looking to the south-eastward for signs of them. But at last, when they had almost been given up, the first one suddenly reappeared in the midst of a snow squall. He was hoisted in, and within the next ten minutes the whole covey, except ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... thunder, mist rising like smoke. The rain-cloud unfolds in the heavens; Dark grows Hilo, black with the rain. The skin of Hilo grows rough from the cold; The storm-cloud hangs low o'er the land. 20 A rampart stand the woods of Haili; Ohi'as thick-set must be brushed aside, To tear one's way, like a covey of fowl, In the wilds of Pa-ie-ie— Lehua growths mine—heart of Mokau-lele. 25 A breaking, a weaving of boughs, to shield from rain; A look enraptured on Hana-kahi, Sees Hilo astir, the blue ocean tossing Wind-thrown-spray—dear ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... plant, not being found in any other country. This is the pride of the family. There is nothing more beautiful than a cluster of this fungi. To look over the beautiful scaly pileus is a sight equally as fascinating as a covey of quail." ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard
... of happy, monotonous whistling behind him all day, as his dog followed the winding trail of prairie-chickens, as a covey of chickens rose with booming wings and he swung his shotgun for a bead. He stopped by prairie-sloughs or bright-green bogs to watch for a duck. He hailed as equals the occasional groups of hunters in two-seated buggies, quartering the fields ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... their knees, at which they looked fitfully and again looked at the river ahead. At one point Hewet read part of a poem aloud, but the number of moving things entirely vanquished his words. He ceased to read, and no one spoke. They moved on under the shelter of the trees. There was now a covey of red birds feeding on one of the little islets to the left, or again a blue-green parrot flew shrieking from tree to tree. As they moved on the country grew wilder and wilder. The trees and the undergrowth seemed to be strangling each other near the ground in a multitudinous wrestle; ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... William again, when he comes with our tea. I won't have my wild things shot. There was a covey of partridges on the lawn this morning, and my squirrels come up to the porch to be fed. Men are cruel creatures with their ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... almost the first time in which the two interpreters, Covey and Pratt, have not been engaged with special reference to the trial to take place in November, one of the captives named Grabeau, was requested to give a narrative of himself since leaving Africa, for publication in the papers. The interpreters, who are considerably exhausted by the examinations ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... his feet. At last he managed to get erect, and came spluttering for the bank with such a mixture of godly ejaculations and of profane oaths that, even in our terror, we could not keep from laughter. Rising from under his feet like a covey of wild-fowl, we scurried off across the fields and so back to the school, where, as you may imagine, we said nothing to our good master of what ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 'There's a covey of ten in thicky holler,' where you could see neither land nor bird. 'I allow 'tis ten,' he says, 'but we won't be particular to a chick.' There was nine, if you credit me, that rose out of a kind of a dimple in the down, that you couldn't see, and no man could see. 'Lord love ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... selection, possibly lead to a very useful change in the habits of the animal. Hunting the Virginia partridge in the tall grass on the sea-coast of Georgia, his dog found by experience that his master could not discern him when he was pointing birds, and that a yelp of impatience would put up the covey before the gun was ready for them. The sagacious dog, therefore, adopted the habit of backing away from the point where he first fixed himself, so that he, by barking, denoted the presence of the birds without ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... and flutter, as when a covey of wild pigeons has been started; and all the little elves who rejoice in the name of "says he" and "says I" and "do tell" and "have you heard" were speedily flying through the consecrated air ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... shooting, but it is good training for the bowman. A sentinel cock, sitting on a low limb, warns his covey of our approach, but he himself makes a gallant mark for the archer. I saw Compton spit such a bird on his arrow at fifty yards, while a confused scurrying flock made easy shooting for two hunters. I am ashamed to say that we have often taken advantage ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... with very fair sport, considering that we were only going through outlying cover for cocks. I think that we had killed twenty-seven, a woodcock and a leash of partridges which we secured out of a driven covey. On our way home there lay a long narrow spinney, which was a very favourite "lie" for woodcocks, and generally held a pheasant ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... with the whirr of a covey on wing before the fowler, our crested three of immemorial antiquity and a presumptive immortality, the Ladies Endor, Eldritch, and Cowry, shot up again, hooting across the dormant chief city Old England's fell word of the scarlet shimmer above the nether pit-flames, Rome. An ancient horror ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... they started a covey of partridges. The small brown and white shapes vanished in a skurry of dead leaves. "No doubt, no doubt!" said the soldier of fortune. "At any rate, I have rubbed off particularity in such matters. Live and let ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... monotony. Just one vast rolling expanse of snow gleaming beneath the dazzling rays of a now warming sun. A hungry coyote and his mate prowling in search of food at a distance of half-a-mile looked large by reason of their isolation. An occasional covey of prairie chicken, noisily winging their way to a far-distant bluff, might well be startling both to horses and driver. A dark ribbon-like flight of ducks or geese, high up in the heavens, speeding from the south to be early in the field when the sodden ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... seldom penetrated further than his own garden on the occasions when he roamed abroad at night. For cat-shooting the Wain spinneys were unsurpassed. There was one particular dustbin where one might be certain of flushing a covey any night; and the wall by the ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... constrained silence. Foxy, frightened by a covey of partridges, created a diversion by pulling her cord from Hazel's inattentive hand and setting off for ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb |
