"Insect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the form of an insect, to make artistic webs until the end of her life," the slave, now sufficiently well informed, added importantly. "Since that transformation, as you know, the spider has been called by the Greeks Arachne. Perhaps—I always thought so—Hermon ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... for the cricket, but the little black insect hopped to one side, and then, all of a sudden he began to laugh. ...
— Uncle Wiggily's Travels • Howard R. Garis
... neglect of soil and shrubbery into which the place had lapsed. It was idle, however, to imagine that an airy guest from Monument Mountain, Bald Summit, and old Graylock, shaggy with primeval forests, could see anything to admire in my poor little hillside, with its growth of frail and insect-eaten locust trees. Eustace very frankly called the view from my hill top tame; and so, no doubt, it was, after rough, broken, rugged, headlong Berkshire, and especially the northern parts of the county, with which his college residence had made him familiar. But to me there is a peculiar, ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... faintest sound startled me! A falling leaf; a blade of grass moved by an insect; a snake or a lizard gliding out of my path; the squeal of a monkey; the fluttering of a bird's wings as it flew up to its perch, all subjected me to ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... home. Not to be beaten, however, we secured reinforcements and more ammunition, in the shape of old rags, brooms and so forth, and returned to the charge, and although we were driven back several times we stayed until we won out, and the last insect lay a quivering mass on the ground. There was not one among us, not wounded in some manner, as for myself I had enough of it. My nose looked like a dutch slipper, and it was several days before my eyes were able to perform ...
— The Life and Adventures of Nat Love - Better Known in the Cattle Country as "Deadwood Dick" • Nat Love
... the snail, reduced to a powder, and mixed up with water dropped from the shell of the butternut, through the ochre of war. The wise master of the spell had drawn from field, and forest, earth, air, and water, from beast and bird, and fish and reptile, and insect and tree, and flower and fruit, all the various properties which have an agency in subduing things to the will of him, to whom those properties have been taught. From these he had compounded a medicine, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... the little house, tiny as an insect before the great bulk of the mountains, dwarfed by the gigantic tree, ridiculous, despicable in the face of Nature, like the human life it sheltered. From its every window poured a flood of yellow light that was drunk up in a twinkling by the ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... lightened by the clergy, professionally gloating over approaching doom, nor by the speculations of the scientists, who were now predicting an insect and aquatic world. Man, they said, could not adapt himself to the Grass—this was proved to the hilt by the tragedy of the Russian armies in the Last War—but insects had, fishes didnt need to, and birds, especially those who nested above the snowline, might possibly be able to. ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... be a purely vegetable production when found in the combs, for after being collected by the insect by means of its proboscis, it is transmitted into what is called the honey bag, where it is elaborated, and, hurrying homewards with its precious load, the bee regurgitates it into the cell of the honey comb. It takes a great many drops to fill a cell, as the honey ...
— A Description of the Bar-and-Frame-Hive • W. Augustus Munn
... was wrinkled, her chin long and pointed. She was an excellent woman, a true la Bertelliere. L'abbe Cruchot found occasional opportunity to tell her that she had not done ill; and she believed him. Angelic sweetness, the resignation of an insect tortured by children, a rare piety, a good heart, an unalterable equanimity of soul, made her universally pitied and respected. Her husband never gave her more than six francs at a time for her personal ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... made some years ago by sending a malarial mosquito by mail from Italy to England, where an enthusiast allowed himself to be bitten by the insect. He had had no trace of malaria before, but a week after the mosquito's bite he came down with the disease. It has also been noted that in such parts of the country as Greenland and Alaska, where mosquitoes are as thick as in the far-famed New Jersey marshes, ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... was not in Assuncion, but some twenty miles out in the "campo." He rarely visited the capital, except on matters of business. For a business he had; this of somewhat unusual character. It consisted chiefly in the produce of his gun and insect-net. Many a rare specimen of bird and quadruped, butterfly and beetle, captured and preserved by Ludwig Halberger, at this day adorns the public museums of Prussia and other European countries. But for the dispatch and shipment of these he would never ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... remain at home, I entered into an arrangement with her that she was to supply me with board and lodgings for three pounds a week, and henceforth resisting all Curzon Street temptations, I trudged home to eat a chop. I studied the servant as one might an insect under a microscope. "What an admirable book she would make, but what will the end be? if ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... was, five years before his marriage, in a broker's office, with no other means than the meagre salary of a clerk. But he was a man to whom misfortune had early taught the truths of life, and he followed the strait path with the tenacity of an insect making for its nest; he was one of those dogged young men who feign death before an obstacle and wear out everybody's patience with their own beetle-like perseverance. Thus, young as he was, he had all the republican virtue of poor peoples; he was sober, ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... time of great awakenings," and upon the ominous text, Their foot shall slide in due time. "The God that holds you over the pit of hell" runs an oft-quoted passage from this powerful denunciation of the wrath to come, "much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked.... You are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.... You hang by a slender thread, with the flames ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... lonely solitudes, the Eden of nature, without meeting with the slightest trace of a human being. Evening was approaching, still, calm, and bright. The most singular and even oppressive silence prevailed, for neither voice of bird nor insect was to be heard. Crockett began to feel very uneasy. The fact that he was lost himself did not trouble him much, but he felt anxious for his simple-minded, good-natured friend, the juggler, who was left entirely alone and quite unable ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... spoke, for the first time, a sudden misgiving, like the pinch of an insect, brushed Barron's consciousness. He had not, as a matter of fact, examined the Dawes letter very carefully, having been, as he now clearly remembered, in a state of considerable mental excitement during the whole time it was in his possession ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... going," the detective said, strutting across the room, with his little round belly protruding like that of an insect. "You can always find me at the hotel down here, if I'm in this part of the country. Just ask for me ask for me and I'll ...
— Boy Scouts in the Coal Caverns • Major Archibald Lee Fletcher
... answer nor to catechize Kirkwood. They found seats on the forward deck and rested there in grim silence, both fretting under the enforced restraint, while the boat darted, like some illuminated and exceptionally active water insect, ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... wound—weary and hopeless is the king. Through the Wound-motive comes the sweet woodland music and the breath of the blessed morning, fragrant with flowers and fresh with dew. It is one of those incomparable bursts of woodland notes, full of bird-song and the happy hum of insect life and rustling of netted branches and waving of long tasseled grass. I know of nothing like it save the forest ...
— Parsifal - Story and Analysis of Wagner's Great Opera • H. R. Haweis
... little entomologist chased scarlet-winged dragon-flies and descanted on the myriad forms of insect-life with premature accomplishment. "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings" we heard revelations not unmixed with the ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard
... remarked that, when I say that a man passes from a lesser to a greater perfection, or vice versa, I do not mean that he is changed from one essence or reality to another; for instance, a horse would be as completely destroyed by being changed into a man, as by being changed into an insect. What I mean is, that we conceive the thing's power of action, in so far as this is understood by its nature, to be increased or diminished. Lastly, by perfection in general I shall, as I have said, mean reality—in other words, each thing's essence, in so far as it exists, ...
— The Ethics • Benedict de Spinoza
... the insect wore a dark-blue swallowtail coat with a yellow silk lining and a flower in the button-hole; a vest of white ...
— The Marvelous Land of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... white and fine like cambric, but of a looser texture. The fibres of this natural cloth are strong and flexible, but harsher to the feel than those made from flax. This province produces great abundance of the opuntia, a species of the cactus, which nourishes the cochineal insect; but the natives are in use to string these insects on a thread by means of a needle, by which they acquire a blackish tint. The fruit of this plant is woolly, about the size of a peach, its internal ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... against this evil are enumerated in our books on husbandry. The best preventative, however, appears to be the putting manure on the ground in a moist state and sowing the seeds with it, in order to excite the young plant to grow rapidly; for the insect does not hurt it when the rough leaf is once grown. I have this season seen a fine field of Turnips, sown mixt with dung out of a cart and ploughed in ridges. The seeds which were not too deeply buried grew and escaped ...
— The Botanist's Companion, Vol. II • William Salisbury
... the wood's insect-hum Invites ye; expand there, like buds in the sun; Leave schools and their studies for days that will come, And let thy first lessons from nature be won! Teachings hath nature most sage and most sweet— The music that swells in the tree-linnet's psalms; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... consist of parts which remain, under some circumstances, invisible. When he approaches an object from a distance, he sees parts which he could not see before; and what appears to the naked eye a mere speck without perceptible parts is found under the microscope to be an insect with its full complement of members. Moreover, he has often observed that objects which appear continuous when seen from a distance are evidently far from continuous when seen close at hand. As we walk toward a tree we can see the indefinite ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... House-fly walks gently in. The web rocks like a cradle in the breeze. The house-fly feels honored to be the guest of such a big spider. We all have regard for big bugs. "But what is this?" cries the fly, pointing to a broken wing, "and this fragment of an insect's foot. There must have been a murder here! Let me go back!" "Ha! ha!" says the spider, "the gate is locked, the drawbridge is up. I only contracted to bring you in. I cannot afford to let you out. Take a drop of this poison, and it ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... Zimmermann means by this.) Lord John Murray undertook to shape some black wax into the appearance of a spider, with a view to observe whether the antipathy would take place at the simple figure of the insect. He then withdrew for a moment, and came in again with the wax in his hand, which he kept shut. Mr. Matthews, who in other respects was a very amiable and moderate man, immediately conceiving that his friend really had a spider in his hand, clapped his ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... and, instead of admiring them, I should try to annihilate them. He who is to be a welcome tool for me, must either have a stain by which I may catch him at the slightest symptom of disobedience, like an insect tied to a string, and draw him back to me, or he must be so narrow-minded and ignorant as not to understand me fully, and to be unable to divine and penetrate my hidden thoughts and intentions." [Footnote: Thugut's own words.—Vide Hormayer, "Lebensbilder aus dein Befreiungskrieg," ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... birds were calling, mate to mate. A proud redbreast danced across the lawn, pausing to capture a fated insect, then flew up into one of the trees to feed its mate ...
— Frank Merriwell's Son - A Chip Off the Old Block • Burt L. Standish
... one of several interesting and important communications sent to the Royal Society during his lifetime. One of these was a report on what he calls "Pneumatical Experiments." "Upon including in a vacuum an insect resembling a beetle, but somewhat larger," he says, "when it seemed to be dead, the air was readmitted, and soon after it revived; putting it again in the vacuum, and leaving it for an hour, after which the air was readmitted, it was observed that the insect required a longer time to recover; ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Agriculture, which seeks the remotest regions of the earth for crops suitable to the areas reclaimed by the government, maps and analyzes the soils, fosters the improvement of seeds and animals, tells the farmer when and how and what to plant, and makes war upon diseases of plants and animals and insect pests. The recent legislation for pure food and meat inspection, and the whole mass of regulative law under the Interstate Commerce clause of the constitution, further ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... face of nature! What pleasure I take as I commence my journey at this hour, to witness the rising of the mist in the autumn from the low grounds, and its pausing on the hill-tops, as if regretting the scene it was about to leave! And how I admire the little insect webs, that are spangled over the field at that time; and the partridge warming itself in the first gleam of sunshine it can discover on the road! The alder, as I descend into the glen, gives me notice ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... of them, and defends them from their many enemies by hiding them out of sight in the singular manner I have just told you. This love of offspring, my dear child, has been wisely given to all mothers, from the human mother down to the very lowest of the insect tribe. The fiercest beast of prey loves its young, and provides food and shelter for them; forgetting its savage nature to play with and caress them. Even the spider, which is a disagreeable insect, fierce and unloving to its fellows, displays the tenderest ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... at noon, we found the good people annoyed by a visitation which had not yet reached St. John's, namely, myriads of a winged insect called the shad-fly; these covered and crowded every building, filled the water and the air; they lodged on your clothes, rendered sight difficult, and speaking impracticable, except with closed teeth. Luckily, these flies ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... and jurists constantly developed new theories as to the modes of diabolic entrance into the "possessed." One such theory was that Satan could be taken into the mouth with one's food—perhaps in the form of an insect swallowed on a leaf of salad, and this was sanctioned, as we have seen, by no less infallible an authority than Gregory the Great, Pope and Saint—Another theory was that Satan entered the body when the mouth was opened to breathe, and there are well-authenticated cases ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... healing. She had bidden him share her belief; and he never had felt altogether alone. Sustained by that inner conviction, he had somehow adapted himself to the strangeness of a life empty of her physical presence. The human being, in a world of pain, like the insect in a world of danger, lives mainly by that same ceaseless, unconscious miracle of adaptation. Dearly though he craved a sight of his father and Christine, he had not asked for leave home. There were bad moments when he wondered if he could ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... green, low, wooded shore on her larboard bow was a large island: an island of swamp and jungle, ancient fastness of an Indian prophet, hiddenly swarming with all the ravening and venomous brute, reptile, and insect life possible to the region. Prophet's Island, it was, yet no senator, bishop, general, judge, or squire was ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... upon your bitter Osher smile, why shut your eyes to the palpable analogy suggested? Naturalists assert that the Solanum, or apple of Sodom, contains in its normal state neither dust nor ashes, unless it is punctured by an insect (the Tenthredo), which converts the whole of the inside into dust, leaving nothing but the rind entire, without any loss of color. Human life is as fair and tempting as the fruit of 'Ain Jidy,' till stung and poisoned ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... is the following: "Though they come stealing to your bedside in the silent watches of the night, drive not away, but rather cherish these—the fragrance of flowers, the sound of distant bells, the insect humming of a frosty night." And again, "Though they may wound your feelings, these three you have only to forgive, the breeze that scatters your flowers, the cloud that hides your moon, and the man who tries to pick quarrels ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... a lost boat over a cataract down into a whirlpool of white roads far below, I saw afar a black dot crawling like an insect. I looked again: I could hardly believe it. There was the slow old woman, with her slow old donkey, still toiling along the main road. I asked my friend to slacken, but when he said of the car, "She's wanting to go," I knew it was ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... of vision which could not see at a glance that fly and insect were one and the same, is, as you say, enough to account for its being the writer's only sonnet (there is one more however which I ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... one's dress in the way grasshoppers do. Jakie was in his cage, but he noticed the stranger instantly, and I opened the door for him. He went at once to look at the grasshopper, and when it hopped he was so startled that he hopped too. Then he picked the insect up, but he did not know what to do with it, so he dropped it again. Again the grasshopper jumped directly up, and again the jay did the same. This they did over and over, till every one was tired laughing ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... 'Muddpenah' or drinker of honey. There are innumerable butterflies of graceful shape and gorgeous colours; what few birds there are have beautiful plumage; there is a faint rustle of leaves, a faint, far hum of insect life; but it feels so silent, so unlike the woods at home. You are oppressed by the solemn stillness, and feel almost nervous as you push warily along, for at any moment a leopard, wolf, or hyena may get up before you, or you may disturb ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... tree-tops, he will probably be rewarded with a wonderful display, as many jungle trees are glorified with crowns of gorgeous colours. There will he also discover the honey-suckers, moths, butterflies, the beetles, and all the other insect brood which he had also vainly looked for before. The fruits are likewise borne aloft, and therefore at the proper time these tree-tops will be the haunt of the monkeys, the parrots, the bats, the toucans, ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... in a panic of fear—ridiculous, puerile fear, I forcibly withdrew my gaze and concentrated it abstractedly on the ground at my feet. I then listened, and in the rustling of a leaf, the humming of some night insect, the whizzing of a bat, the whispering of the wind as it moaned softly past me, I fancied—nay, I felt sure I detected something that was not ordinary. I blew my nose, and had barely ceased marvelling at the ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... one of these about noon of a remarkably fine day, Harold could not help remarking on the strange stillness which pervaded the air. No sound was heard from beast, bird, or insect; no village was near, no rippling stream murmured, or zephyr stirred the leaves; in short, it was a scene which, from its solitude and profound ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... which must fall ere the family may venture into the land of swamps and agues. He looks out upon the flower-beds, glowing with life and quivering in the sunshine, and listens to the incessant shrill-voiced cicada piping from the tree-tops, while the insect-drone, in the heated, languid air, seems to speak of an unending summer; but as "all things come to him who waits," so at length come the ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... like that made by ants in decayed wood, rubs its eyes and examines its antennæ, as bees always do before leaving their hive, then takes flight. At the same instant several bees come by us loaded with our honey and settle home with that peculiar low, complacent buzz of the well- filled insect. Here then, is our idyl, our bit of Virgil and Theocritus, in a decayed stump of a hemlock-tree. We could tear it open with our hands, and a bear would find it an easy prize, and a rich one, too, for we take from it fifty pounds of excellent honey. The ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... uncertain and obscure existence did the moths lead for many years in Liberty Forest. There were no insect folk in the whole country that were so scarce, and they would have remained quite harmless and powerless had they not, most ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... the perfect stillness of the pool near the opposite shore. A fish had leaped at some unseasonable insect on the surface, or one of the overhanging trees had dropped a dead twig upon it, and in the lazy doubt which it might be, I lay and watched the ever-widening circle fade out into fainter and fainter ripples toward the shore, till it weakened to nothing ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... smell of sprouting grass! In a blur the violets pass. Whispering from the wildwood come Mayflower's breath and insect's hum. Roses carpeting the ground; Thrushes, orioles, warbling sound: Swing me low, and swing me high, To the warm ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... a truth, and in a regular bee-line, or as straight as an arrow. Of all that crowd, the bee-hunter and Margery alone saw the insect in its flight. Most of those present lost sight of it, while circling around the stand; but the instant it darted away, to the remainder it seemed to vanish into air. Not so with le Bourdon and Margery, however. The former saw ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... and eternal, for they are the hidden springs of existence and life. Can one resist the melancholy, the sense of tears in things when we reflect that, like our own bodily frame, the whole visible world is hastening to dissolution? From the infinitesimal insect whose earthly career is rounded off in a few moments, hardly come before gone, to the longest-lived of living beings, to the oaks that stand beyond a thousand years, to the hills that seemed so enduring that the Hebrew poet called them "everlasting," ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... is in the Brazils a popular superstition to this effect. There is a tree called Japecarga, which is said to grow out of the body of the insect called Cigara. This is a very large tree, and the Cigara is an insect which makes an incessant chirping on the tree, and, as the saying goes, chirps till it bursts. When the insect dies, the tree is said to grow out of it, the roots growing ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... full information on all branches of Nature study," broke in the bookagent, with a tired note sounding in his voice for the first time; "forestry, insect life, bird migration, reclamation of waste lands. As I was saying, no man who has to deal with the varied interests ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... and followed the doctor as he pressed on for some distance farther, till the valley opened out a little and there was ample room to walk on the same level as the river, here gliding gently in the full sunshine, with its banks beautiful with flower, insect, ...
— King o' the Beach - A Tropic Tale • George Manville Fenn
... priori impossible, nor is the theory that the moon is hollow, that the "Selenites" live below the surface, or that evolution has produced on our satellite an intelligent form which, anatomically, is more nearly allied to the insect than to the vertebrate type as we know it. The exposition of lunar social conditions cannot be taken very seriously. Specialisation is the key-note; the production by education and training, of minds, and, as far as possible, bodies, ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... life, are described in the Laws of Menu, ii. 191 to 218, 242, 8. "By censuring his preceptor, though justly, he will be born an ass; by falsely defaming him, a dog; by using his goods without leave, a small worm; by envying his merit, a larger insect or reptile." As the Roman law did not contemplate the possibility of parricide, that of Menu has no provision against the crime in ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... all achievements 'tis the least To perpetuate the species; it is done By the insect and the serpent, and the beast. But the man who keeps his body, and his thought, WORTH bestowing on an offspring love-begot, Then the highest earthly glory he has won, When in pride a grown-up daughter or a ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... trotting. Flowers. Armadillo. Fire-flies. Singular Fandango. Epiphytes. The Junta. Indian Life. Decorative Art. Horses. Jalapa. Anglo-Mexicans. Insect-life. Monte. Fate of Antonio. Scorpion. White Negress. Cattle. Artificial lighting. Vera Cruz. Further Journey. St. Thomas's. Voyage to England. Future destinies ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... imperfection of an intellectual colossus, it complacently smooths its wings and explains, with a patronizing air, that the big 'un isn't half bad; but sagely adds that had it been consulted, his too visible imperfections would have been eradicated. We dislike to see an insect leave its periods and semi-colons on the immortal marble; but it were idle to grow angry with a Gosse. This must be the English literary exquisite whom Americans have hitherto incidentally heard bellowing before the tent of this or ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... come, my love, The swallow skims the lake, As o'er its glassy bosom clear The insect cloudlets shake. The heart of nature throbs with joy At love and beauty's sway; The meanest creeping thing of earth Shares in ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... forgot all about Artemisia, as they brooded, wide-eyed, over the activities of the dwellers in the waste. At such moments they realized the magic of life, as they had never realized it in the turmoil of London. The insect with its wings that caught the sun, the intent and preoccupied little traveler whose course could be deflected by a twig, revealed the wonder that is lost and forgotten in the crowded ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... which had been displayed in the workmanship, I rapidly arrived at the conclusion that it was the most uncomfortable carpet I had ever seen. I wagged my finger at the repeated portrayals of the— to me!—unspeakable insect. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... the forest and the river, like millions of nothings flowing and flowing on. No birds here, no creatures hopping about, but if I turn up a stone, I may find some insect under it. ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... you will find the grass growing fresh and green where the stone lay—the ground-bird builds her nest where the beetle had his hole—the dandelion and the buttercup are growing there, and the broad fans of insect-angels open and shut over their golden disks as the rhythmic waves of blissful consciousness pulsate through ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... is set in the sling. Four soldiers on each side of the engine wind the arm down until it is almost level with the ground. When the arm is set free, it springs up and hurls the stone forth from its sling." In early times the weapon was called a "scorpion," for like this dreaded insect ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... and nodding her head over the dying embers of her hearth. Her husband was induced by the traveller to bring up from the cherished corner of his cellar a bottle of the old wine of Tursac, made from the patriarchal vines before the pestilential insect drew the life out of them. The hillsides above the Vezere are growing green again with vineyards, and again the juice of the grape is beginning to flow abundantly; but years must pass before it will be worthy of being put into ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... garb," and "Melancholy, silent maid" attend the footsteps of Adversity;[24] and to Contemplation's sober eye, the race of man resembles the insect race: ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... creatures that she loved. She was a great walker, spending all her leisure on the moors. She loved the freedom there, the large air. She loved the creatures, too. Never was a soul with a more passionate love of Mother Earth, of every weed and flower, of every bird, beast, and insect that lived. She would have peopled the house with pets had not Miss Branwell kept her niece's love of animals in due subjection. Only one dog was allowed, who was admitted into the parlour at stated hours, but out of doors Emily made friends with all the beasts and birds. She would ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... growth became quite hardy; but undue moisture would then cause a shedding of the bolls, and the first frost of autumn would stop the further fruiting. The plants, furthermore, were liable to many diseases and insect ravages. In infancy cut-worms might sever the stalks at the base, and lice might sap the vitality; in the full flush of blooming luxuriance, wilt and rust, the latter particularly on older lands, might blight the leaves, or caterpillars in huge armies reduce them to skeletons ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... sharp shears, in insect guise Behold us at your revel! That we may tender, filial-wise, Our homage ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... sanctioned with the name of parliament, and which can have no object but to do us injury, by spreading a groundless alarm in those countries of Europe where our wheat is constantly and kindly received. It is a mere assassination. If the insect they pretend to fear, be the Hessian fly, it never existed in the grain. If it be the weevil, our grain always had that; and the experience of a century has proved, that either the climate of England is not warm enough to hatch the egg and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... talked unconcernedly, for their speech began below the lowest end of the scale that untrained human beings can hear. [The other end is bounded by the high squeak of Mang, the Bat, which very many people cannot catch at all. From that note all the bird and bat and insect talk ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... important because of its indication of the health of the insect in winter and of the efficiency of the sweet-producing hive in summer, was recently measured by Prof. G. H. Vansell of the University of California. To do this he conducted the air coming from the hive trough a tube into bulbs containing ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... metal. KCN is employed to kill insects for cabinet specimens. In a wide-mouthed bottle is placed a little KCN, which is covered with cotton, and over this a perforated paper. The bottle is inverted over the insect, and the fumes destroy life without injuring the delicate parts. HCN is made from KCN ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... voice of solitude, the death-stillness, throbbing silence, reigned once more. Not an animal, not an insect, not a tree, struck the eye. The arid and level floor was again clean of movement. The sun glared, revealing here and there out of the drifts a bleached skeleton, in this speechless thing mutely proclaiming its own sway. Beneath the sun the horizon, an immense girdle, swept round in unbroken line, ...
— Bred of the Desert - A Horse and a Romance • Marcus Horton
... most beautiful books from the American press is Episodes of Insect Life, by ACHETA DOMESTICA, just reprinted by J. S. Redfield. The natural history and habits of insects of every class are delineated by a close observer with remarkable minuteness, and in a style of unusual felicity; and the peculiar illustrations of the book are more spirited and highly ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... Ramdass said; "none of the three princes would hesitate to put to death anyone who stood in his way, and it seems strange to me that even the Brahmins, who would not take the life even of a troublesome insect, yet support the men who have killed scores of other people. But it is no use grumbling; the thing has always been, and I suppose always will be. It is not only so in the Deccan, but in the Nizam's dominions, in Mysore and, so far as I know, in Oude ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... every branch of floriculture, the price of success is constant vigilance. If you do not get the start of insect enemies, and keep them under control, they will almost invariably ruin your crop of flowers, and often the bushes themselves. Therefore be thorough and persistent in the warfare waged against the common enemy, and do not relax your efforts until he ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... Egyptian god. For example, the lice covered everything and were miserably polluting. All Egyptian worship was compelled to cease, since none of the priests could perform their religious service so long as any such insect had touched them since they went through a process of purification. In smiting the cattle with murrain, the sacred bull of Memphis was humiliated whether stricken himself or because of his inability to protect the ...
— The Bible Period by Period - A Manual for the Study of the Bible by Periods • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... still unable to provide the necessary letters of reference. I hadn't succeeded in making any tracks into which, on being pushed to the bottom again, I could stick my toes, and mount the way a second time more easily. Lying awake there, flat on my back, I was reminded of a little insect I once watched climbing the slippery surface of a window-pane. It was a stormy day, and he was on the outside of the window, buffeted by winds. I saw that little creature successfully cover more than half his journey four successive times, only to fall wriggling on his back ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... on a Time Margaret Benson To a Mouse Robert Burns The Grasshopper Abraham Cowley On the Grasshopper and Cricket John Keats To the Grasshopper and the Cricket Leigh Hunt The Cricket William Cowper To a Cricket William Cox Bennett To an Insect Oliver Wendell Holmes The Snail William Cowper The Housekeeper Charles Lamb The Humble-Bee Ralph Waldo Emerson To a Butterfly William Wordsworth Ode to a Butterfly Thomas Wentworth Higginson The Butterfly Alice Freeman Palmer Fireflies Edgar Fawcett ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 4 (of 4) • Various
... from the King of Kings Are found in animal and insect life, And birds and fishes, beauteous flowers and trees, Are with such lessons eloquently rife; So are the gracious, light-dispensing heavens, Grand ocean's depths and mountain heights sublime, Day's regent ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... scarce from his mould Behemoth, biggest born of earth, upheaved His vastness; fleeced the flocks and bleating rose As plants; ambiguous between sea and land, The river-horse and scaly crocodile. At once came forth whatever creeps the ground, Insect or worm." ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... with a short laugh, "what about it? You don't think Kerns fell in love with an insect of that genus, ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... arises from insects and vermin. These animated foes appear chiefly in the form of book-worms, cockroaches, and mice. The first-named is rare in American libraries, though its ravages have extended far and wide among the old European ones. This minute little insect, whose scientific name is the anobium paniceum, bores through the leaves of old volumes, making sometimes holes which deface and mutilate the text. All our public libraries, doubtless, have on ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... sunset slowly faded out of the western sky. And the hush of the night was over all. The feeling of an awful solitude, which comes to those whose business is to pass the night on the open prairie, is enhanced rather than reduced by the buzz of insect life upon the night air. The steady hum of the mosquito—the night song of the grasshoppers and frogs—the ticking, spasmodic call of the invisible beetles—all these things help to intensify the loneliness and magnitude of the wild surroundings. Nor does the smoldering camp-fire ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... many birds have been cited in support of the various flying theories that the house fly, as an example has been disregarded. We are prone to overlook the small insect, but it is, nevertheless, a sample which is just as potent to show the efficiency of wing surface as ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... Some have asserted that it spits the spiders and other insects for the purpose of attracting nearer the small birds upon which it preys; but this cannot be true, for it preys mostly upon birds that are not insect-eaters, as the finches: besides, it is itself as fond of eating grasshoppers as anything else, and consumes large quantities ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... at these persistently, and sweated profusely over his work. He might as well have attempted to deface the moon. They regarded him serenely with the stately smile they had worn so long, and which seemed to say, "Peck away, poor insect; we were not made to fear such as you; in ten-score dragging ages we have seen more of your kind than there are sands at your feet: have they left ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... individually and collectively considered. A knowledge of trees and forests adds vastly to the pleasures of outdoor life. The more we study trees and the more intimate our knowledge of the forest as a unit of vegetation in which each tree, each flower, each animal and insect has its part to play in the complete structure, the greater will be our admiration of the wonderful beauty and variety exhibited in the ...
— Studies of Trees • Jacob Joshua Levison
... her modesty would only suffer her to admit his eager kisses, her violent love made her more than passive in his embraces; and she often pulled him to her breast with a soft pressure, which though perhaps it would not have squeezed an insect to death, caused more emotion in the heart of Joseph than the closest Cornish hug could ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... slightly, and she could not restrain a laugh. That was all the Harvester hoped for and more. He went beyond the edge of the rug and sat on the leaves under a tree. She bent over her work and only bird and insect notes and occasionally Belshazzar's excited bark broke the silence. The Harvester stretched on the ground, his eyes feasting on the Girl. Intensely he watched every movement. If a squirrel barked she gave a nervous start, so precipitate it seemed as if it must hurt. If ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... put it in the sun, keep the insect enemies away, and then enjoy it for itself. Give the child everything that is consistent with its best growth, but neither force the growth nor limit it; and stand far enough off to see the individuality, to enjoy it and profit by it. ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... more highly developed in the one than in the other, it is, as far as I can discover, almost invariably the male which retains such organs, or has them most developed; and this shews that the male is the more active member in the courtship of the sexes. (19. One parasitic Hymenopterous insect (Westwood, 'Modern Class. of Insects,' vol. ii. p. 160) forms an exception to the rule, as the male has rudimentary wings, and never quits the cell in which it is born, whilst the female has well-developed wings. Audouin believes that ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... This insect looked at Jurgen, and its pincers rose erect in horror. The bug cried to the three judges, "Now, by St. Anthony! this Jurgen must forthwith be relegated to limbo, for he is offensive and lewd and ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... breath was easy and regular and his steps were long and swift. His guide was before him. Whatever his pace, whether fast or slow, the distance between them never seemed to change. The bird would dart aside, perhaps to catch an insect, but it always returned ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... not only stoop but crawl through the gate. It is fortunate there are no lusty people here, all being bony and wiry like the Arabs. Not being dependant on rain, the gardens only suffer from the locusts, and now and then a blighting wind. In the Spring of this year these insect marauders passed over the oasis and made a pillage of the date blossoms for thirty days, besides doing much damage to the barley. I encountered a flight of the same horde, which emerged from The Desert and then took to sea, and were scattered ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... an iron spade, an ice-staff, an axe, some tent-pegs, and a canvas tent were too indigestible food even for a bear's stomach. Anyhow, it was following with mighty strides in the track of the fugitives. It caught sight of me and stopped, astonished, as if it were thinking, 'What sort of insect can that be?' I went on to within easy range; it stood still, looking hard at me. At last it turned its head a little, and I gave it a ball in the neck. Without moving a limb, it sank slowly to the ice. I now ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... and the words of the Rishi, the king, with his ministers, felt the desire of eating those fruits. The particular fruit, within which Takshaka had entered, was taken by the king himself for eating. And when he was eating it, there appeared, O Saunaka, an ugly insect out of it, of shape scarcely discernible, of eyes black, and of coppery colour. And that foremost of kings, taking that insect, addressed his councillors, saying, 'The sun is setting; today I have no more tear from poison. Therefore, let this ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... bobolinks grow intimate, just as Southern fashionables from different States may meet and sing duets at Saratoga? There sounds the sweet, low, long-continued trill of the little hair-bird, or chipping-sparrow, a suggestion of insect sounds in sultry summer, and produced, like them, by a slight fluttering of the wings against the sides: by-and-by we shall sometimes hear that same delicate rhythm burst the silence of the June midnights, and then, ceasing, make stillness more still. Now watch that woodpecker, roving in ceaseless ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... heroically refraining from rubbing the affected parts. After a short interval of staring at the glowing heavens, as if the sight fairly fascinated him, Perk again spoke, this time finding something of more importance than insect bites ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... and that the pollen was not good. (629/1. "Shorter stamens" seems to be a slip of the pen for "longer,"—unless the observations were made on some genus in which the structure is unusual.) The mature pollen is incoherent, and must be [word illegible] against the visiting insect's body. I remembered this, and I find it said in my EARLY notes that bees would never visit the flowers for pollen. This made me afterwards write to the late Dr. Cruger in the West Indies, and he observed for me the flowers, and saw ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... well, and Prof. determined to remain till the next day. Our camp was on the left in a thick grove of cottonwoods, and box-elders or ash-leaved maples, at the end of the point. As the sun sank away bats flew about and an insect orchestra began a demoniacal concert that shrilled through the night and made us feel like slaughtering the myriads if we could. The noises ceased with the day, or most of them, though some seemed to intensify with the light. We helped Beaman get his dark box and other paraphernalia ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... daylight. I do not need to open a book; I take the whole of its contents into my mind at a single glance, through the cover; and in a million years I could not forget a single word of it, or its place in the volume. Nothing goes on in the skull of man, bird, fish, insect, or other creature which can be hidden from me. I pierce the learned man's brain with a single glance, and the treasures which cost him threescore years to accumulate are mine; he can forget, and he ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... was sitting near her mother, had picked up a book, but put it down when Walters came in, and Lucy felt a curious tremor of repugnance as she glanced at him. It was a shrinking she sometimes experienced at the sight of a noxious insect. Yet there was nothing about Walters to excite aversion. He was rather a handsome man, and stood in a careless ...
— Carmen's Messenger • Harold Bindloss
... designed to sketch attractively and simply the wonders of reptile and insect existences, the changes of trees, rocks, rivers, clouds, and winds. This is done by a family of children writing letters, both playful and serious, which are addressed to all children ...
— Rollo in Naples • Jacob Abbott
... parasitic germ in her heart that was eating her life-blood away. To her, alone, in all that party, the warm arms of the sun brandished javelins, and the calm riches of the landscape concealed jibes. The meanest field labourer seemed happier than she, the commonest insect more wanton ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... but one huge wall of never-ending insects filling nostrils, ears, and eyes. Where they came from I cannot tell; the prairie seemed too small to hold them; the air too limited to yield them space. I had seen many vast accumulations of insect life in lands old and new, but never any thing that approached to this mountain of mosquitoes on the prairies of Dakota. To say that they covered the coat of the horse I rode would be to give but a faint idea of their ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... place their greatest hope of salvation in abstaining from killing any creature whatever, and even use no light at night, lest any moth should fly into the flame; and always carry a broom to sweep the ground they tread on, that they may not trample any worm or insect to death. The third race consists of the Resbuti or Rajputs, who are good soldiers, and to whom formerly the kingdom belonged. These people acknowledge one God in three persons, and worship the blessed Virgin, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... insects, though numerous, are not so troublesome or so venomous as in many parts of the torrid zone. The white ant is perhaps as destructive as any other insect, and the greatest precaution hardly preserves ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... and apprehensive of an early change for the worse. When the worst comes he positively beams over it. Difficult to say whether he enjoys himself more in an over-wet season, or in one of drought. His special and ever-recurring joy is the discovery of some insect breaking out in a fresh place. He is always on the look-out for the Mottled Amber Moth, or the Frit-fly, or the Currant Scale, or the Apple-bark Beetle, or the Mustard Beetle,—"Black Jack," as he familiarly calls ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... are three species of the mangosteen tree, but of only one, the Garania mangostina, is the fruit edible. The others are valuable for timber, and the bark for the manufacture of a dye that resists the attacks of every sort of insect. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... was an awful one. No sound was heard save an occasional ejaculation between a sigh and a smothered groan from the wretched felon. The candle burned dimly; and as I turned I saw, though I scarcely noticed it at the moment, a dim insect of the moth species, fluttering hurriedly round it, the sound of whose wings mournfully filled up the pauses of myself and my companion. When the nerves are strained to their uttermost, by such trifling ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... "Your pencil," he reminded the artist Mueller, "will delineate the features of my face. These are visible: but my inner man is hidden. I must tell you that I have shed rivers of blood. I tremble, but I love my neighbour. In my whole life I have made no one unhappy; not an insect hath perished by my hand. I was little; I was big. In fortune's ebb and flow, relying on God, I stood immovable—even as now." (Suvoroff, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... 1869.—I extracted twenty Funyes, an insect like a maggot, whose eggs had been inserted on my having been put into an old house infested by them; as they enlarge they stir about and impart a stinging sensation; if disturbed, the head is drawn in a little. When a poultice is put on they ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... trios, whence spring three side branches, surrounding the upright and central one. The habit of the whole specimen is very rigid, with the exception of the flowers, which are slightly nodding; the tallest growths need no stakes, and the species enjoys a happy immunity from insect pests, probably by reason of its hispid character. As already stated, as a garden subject this is one of the most useful; it shows grandly in front of evergreens, and associates well with lilies. In borders of tall perennials, or in conspicuous but distant situations, such as are visible from ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... 'Descriptive Sociology' the religion of the Bushmen is thus disposed of. 'Pray to an insect of the caterpillar kind for success in the chase.' That is rather meagre. They make arrow-poison out of caterpillars,[2] though Dr. Bleek, perhaps correctly, identifies Cagn with i-kaggen, ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... commerce is the fibre spun by the larvae or caterpillars of a moth, Bombyx mori, as they enter the chrysalis stage of existence. The silk-growing industry includes the care and feeding of the insect in all its stages. The leaves of the white mulberry-tree (morus alba) are the natural food of the insect, and silk-growing cannot be carried on in regions where this tree does not thrive. Not all areas that produce the mulberry-tree, however, will also ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... nature and revelation affirms; and if we be referred to the whole of mankind, as that wherein harmony will reveal itself, then our whole actions and endeavours are but as the labours of the coral-insect: mankind becomes but a monument of greatness to the Creator: he would then only have raised His glory, not shown His greatest love. ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... The most forcible arguments, the most pathetic eloquence from the pulpit, will not affect so powerfully the mind of man, as the investigation of a blade of grass, or the mechanism of the almost imperceptible insect. If, then, such is the effect upon mankind in general, how strong must be the impressions of those who occupy their business in the great waters! These men "see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep." They behold him in all ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... revelation then? a list, An inventory just Of that poor insect's goods, so late Call'd out of ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... however, disappeared shortly afterwards, when a number of large beetles, called elaters, took their place, displaying both red and green lights. The red glare, like that of a lamp, alternately flashed and vanished, as the insect turned its body in flight; and now and then a green light was displayed. The mingling of the two colours, red and green, in the evolutions of flight totally surpasses my power of description. We caught several, and had we possessed an uncoloured glass bottle we might have made a lantern which would ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... fruits, which they had found by hundreds on the broiling ledges of the low tufa-cliffs; and then all, sitting on the sandy turf, defiant of galliwasps and jackspaniards, and all the weapons of the insect host, partook of the equal banquet, while old blue land-crabs sat in their house-doors and brandished their fists in defiance at the invaders, and solemn cranes stood in the water on the shoals with their heads on one ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... insect breeze Is but a mungrel prince of bees, That falls before a storm on cows, And stings the founders of his house; From whose corrupted flesh that breed 5 Of vermin did at first proceed. So e're the storm of war broke out, Religion ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... their love-festival by the most poetical of nature's inventions, and crushed under the foot of a passer-by. But there is another danger! When they meet with the form that answers to their soul, and which not unfrequently is that of a baker's wife, they do as Raphael did, as the beautiful insect does, they ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... All petals, no prickles, Delicious as trickles Of wine poured at mass-time, And choose One indulgent To redness and sweetness; Or if with experience of man and of spider, She use my June lightning, the strong insect-ridder To stop the fresh ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... Nerrinyeri. p. 2. "Every tribe, regarded by them as a family, has its ngaitge, or tutelary genius or tribal symbol, in the shape of some bird, beast, fish, reptile, insect, or substance. Between individuals of the same tribe no marriage can take place." Among the Narrinyeri kindred is reckoned (p. 10) on the father's side. See also (p. 46) ngaitge Samoan aitu. "No man or woman will kill their ngaitge," ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... The bubbles were slightly viscid, and in nearly every case there was a small fly pressed into the front end of the balloon, apparently as food for the Empis. In all cases they were dead. The balloon appears to be made while the insect is flying in the air. Those flying highest had the smallest balloons. The bubbles are probably produced by some modification of the anal organs. It is possible that the captured fly serves as a ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... them! Mosquitoes—myriads of them—buzzed busily about, seeking whom they might devour! The mosquito of the Philippines is well entitled to be called an insect of prey. He is a big fellow, tireless, always hungry and a valiant fighter. The men who lay on the ground carefully wrapped themselves in their blankets, with their hands tucked in. Their heads ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... horror and pity, whereas I cause it to be loved; you labour in a torture-chamber and dissecting-room, I make my observations under the blue sky, to the song of the Cicadae (The Cicada Cigale, an insect akin to the Grasshopper and found more particularly in the south of France.—Translator's Note.); you subject cell and protoplasm to chemical tests, I study instinct in its loftiest manifestations; you pry into death, ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... first," said the Goblin, pointing to a large, round insect that went flying by, humming like a top. Ribsy snapped at it, and swallowed it, and the next instant disappeared with a tremendous explosion in a ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... The pretty insect more generally called the Lady-bird, or May-bug. It is one of those highly favoured among God's harmless creatures which superstition protects from wanton injury. Some obscurity seems to hang over this popular name {132} of it. It has certainly no more relation ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various
... Sweetheart Abbey, if he had not changed later on. But he did change. There was a little piano in the sitting-room they gave us, and Mrs. James began drumming out a few Scotch airs, warbling the words in a high, thin voice rather like that of an intelligent insect. There was one tune I knew, and I couldn't resist joining in. At the end ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... someplace you don't care about any more because you're dead. All frozen up in space ... preserved like a piece of meat in a cold storage locker. And then maybe in a million years or so some lousy insect man from Jupiter comes along and finds you and takes you ...
— To Each His Star • Bryce Walton
... and at last went all around the Giant's lodge. He seized an insect and said to it, "Oh, insect! You shall go and bite the Giant ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... example of my hardness of heart, what do I care for their approval, or the praise of short-sighted men! I do my duty, and am answerable only to God and myself. Trenck intends to murder me—I must preserve myself for my people. My mission is not yet accomplished; and if a poisonous insect crosses my path, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... allowance of nerve and sinew to men of every size, and that nature spun the stock out thinner or stronger, according to the extent of surface which they were to cover. Hence, the least creatures are oftentimes the strongest. Place a beetle under a tall candlestick, and the insect will move it by its efforts to get out; which is, in point of comparative strength, as if one of us should shake his Majesty's prison of Newgate by similar struggles. Cats also, and weasels, are creatures of greater exertion ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... enormous thumbnail; but no flea will ever be so foolish as to preach that in slaying fleas Man is applying a method of Natural Selection which will finally evolve a flea so swift that no man can catch him, and so hardy of constitution that Insect Powder will have no more effect on him than ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... desire to ask who had removed him, while Mrs. Wilmot murmured, "How interesting!" As she minced away Mrs. Crawley said meditatively, "The Rocking Horse Fly," and with a squeal of delight I realized that that was what she had always vaguely reminded me of. You remember the insect, don't you, in Through the Looking-Glass? It lived on sawdust. One lesson one has every opportunity of learning on board ship is to suffer fools, if not gladly, at least with patience. The curious people who stray across one's path! One woman ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... mornings from seven to nine, attired in a wadded, brown cashmere dressing-gown, a broad-brimmed hat, a black cravat, patent-leather shoes, and black gaiters. As he talked, he held his magnifying-glass in his hand, ready to examine any insect or blade of grass that might come ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... monkeys and even of leopards darted among the trees. But the country—whether forest, mud-flat, or prairie—was always damp and feverish: a wet land steaming under a burning sun and humming with mosquitoes and all kinds of insect life. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Mr. J. A. Lintner, to the effect that the Persian insect powder would probably prove unavailing as a remedy against the ravages of the new carpet beetle (Anthrenus), W. L. Carpenter, of the U.S.A., was led to institute some experiments with this well known insecticide, the results of which he communicates ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... mind on the great and splendid thing you would like to do; and then, as the days go gliding by, you will find yourself unconsciously seizing upon the opportunities that are required for the fulfilment of your desire, just as the coral-insect takes from the running tide the elements that it needs. Picture in your mind the able, earnest, useful person you desire to be, and the thought you hold is hourly transforming you into that particular ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard |
