"Moult" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another, itself but temporary. Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained, and of such there ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... You can always tell when it is going to moult, because it raises its head and remains still in that position as if asleep. When it has grown to the full size of its fourth skin it is ready to spin its cocoon. This is all very simple when you understand it; and ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... of a blot on Paynim princesses like Floripas in Fierabras. This heroine exclaims in reference to her father, "He is an old devil, why do you not kill him? little I care for him provided you give me Guy," though it is fair to say that Fierabras himself rebukes her with a "Moult grant tort aves." All these ladies, however, Christian as well as heathen, are as tender to their lovers as they are hard-hearted to their relations; and the relaxation of morality, sometimes complained of in the later ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... more human softening than the same vices in the saloon bars of our own time. I greatly prefer Mr. Richard Swiveller to Mr. Stanley Ortheris. I prefer the man who exceeded in rosy wine in order that the wing of friendship might never moult a feather to the man who exceeds quite as much in whiskies and sodas, but declares all the time that he's for number one, and that you don't catch him paying for other men's drinks. The old men of pleasure (with their tooral ooral) got at ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... the lower leaves of the pecan trees. These eggs hatch in less than a week, and the colonies of young caterpillars at first feed upon the undersides of the leaves. They cast their skins four times, each time increasing in size and changing their color somewhat. The last moult, and sometimes the last two, take place on the trunk of the tree, and the clusters of discarded skins frequently remain for several months afterwards. After the last moult they ascend the trees, ...
— The Pecan and its Culture • H. Harold Hume
... beginning to moult. They are casting off worn feathers and assuming the new ones that will keep them warm during the cool winter months. With most birds the new feathers grow as fast as the old ones fall out. In a few, however, ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... a great age. Some of these birds have been known to attain an age of seventy years, and one seen by Vaillant had reached the patriarchal age of ninety three. At sixty its memory began to fail, at sixty-five the moult became very irregular and the tail changed to yellow. At ninety it was a very decrepit creature, almost blind and quite silent, having forgotten its ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... crop for the production of eggs unless the worms have shown, until they began the spinning of their cocoons, every sign of perfect, robust health. Any indication of the disease called flacherie, from which the worms so often die after the fourth moult and turn black from putrefaction, or of any other disease from which silk worms suffer, should be considered as ample reason for not using the cocoons for the purpose in question. They should, on the other hand, be sold for the filature. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... you please, ladies. We have been educated in a theory, that when you lead off with the bow, the order of Nature is reversed, and it is no wonder therefore, that, having stript us of one attribute, our fine feathers moult, and the majestic cock-like march which distinguishes us degenerates. You unsex us, if I may dare to say so. Ceasing to be men, what are we? If we are to please you rightly, always ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... and Konrad, and now the Emperor stood between her and the possession of the most magnificent pearls in Europe. It was no wonder that she cursed him. Konrad Karl did not rebuke her disloyalty. He merely shrugged his shoulders, feeling that it was no use damning the Emperor. That potentate would not moult a feather though Madame Ypsilante cursed him all day long. Madame herself felt the uselessness of losing her temper with some one she could not hurt. She asked the King to give her a glass of brandy. ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... tell you why; so shall my anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather.[35] I have of late (but wherefore I know not) lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a steril promontory; this most excellent ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... were other tables. At that festival more than two thousand persons were magnificently entertained free of every expense; their attendants, their armourers, their plumassiers, and others, were also present. La Dame de Sandricourt, "fut moult aise d'avoir donne dans son chasteau si belle, si magnifique, et gorgiasse fete." Historians are apt to describe their personages as they appear, not as they are: if the lady of the Sieur Sandricourt really was "moult aise" during these gorgeous days, one ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... watch'd her through the moult, till her castings all were pure, And have steep'd and clean'd each gorge ere 'twas fix'd upon the lure; While now to field or forest glade I can my falcon bring Without a pile of feather wrong, on body, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... and wing feathers. In autumn and early winter feathers of sides of head, breast, flanks and underparts are tipped with white, giving a gray, mottled appearance. During the winter most of the white tips on breast and underparts wear off. Until the first moult in late summer the young birds are a dark olive-brown in color, with white or whitish throat. These differences in plumage at different seasons and different ages make starlings hard to identify. Red-winged blackbirds and grackles are often mistaken ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... ocean stretched its pale molten gold to the sunset. Gresson waxed lyrical over the scene. 'This just about puts me right inside, Mr Brand. I've got to get away from that little old town pretty frequent or I begin to moult like a canary. A man feels a man when he gets to a place that smells as good as this. Why in hell do we ever get messed up in those stone and lime cages? I reckon some day I'll pull my freight for a clean location and settle down there and make little poems. This place would about ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... devant d'icelle librairie est moult richement orne et entaille par le bas de collunnes d'estranges facons, et par le hault de riches feuillaiges, pinacles et tabernacles, garnis de grandes ymaiges, qui decorent et embelissent ledict edifice. La vis, par laquelle on y monte, est a six ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... S'issoit une gote de sang Del fer de la lance au sommet, Et jusqu'a la main au vaslet Coroit cele gote vermoille.... A tant dui autre vaslet vindrent Qui chandeliers an lors mains tindrent De fin or ovrez a neel. Li vaslet estoient moult bel Qui les chandeliers aportoient. An chacun chandelier ardoient Dous chandoiles a tot le mains. Un graal antre ses dous mains Une demoiselle tenoit, Qui avec les vaslets venoit, Bele et gente et bien acesmee. Quant cle fu leans antree Atot le graal qu'ele tint Une si granz ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... 15; 13 Ric. II. stat. 2. The first of these acts contains a paragraph which shifts the blame from the popes themselves to the officials of the Roman courts. The statute is said to have been enacted en eide et confort du pape qui moult sovent a estee trublez par tieles et semblables clamours et impetracions, et qui y meist voluntiers covenable remedie, si sa seyntetee estoit sur ces choses enfournee. I had regarded this passage as a fiction ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... at this period of their existence. Their colours and markings have become marvellously adapted to conceal them among the foliage of the plant they live upon, and this colour often changes completely after the last moult, when the creature has to descend to the ground for its change to the pupa state, during which period a brown instead of a green colour is protective. Others have acquired curious attitudes and large ocelli, which cause them to resemble ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... before when you went torn and shamefaced through the mire, what shall I say to you going in silk, in a litter, with a crown, Isoult la Desiree!" He called her name over and over, Isoult la Desiree, la Moult-Desiree, ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... (Colymbus glacialis) came, as usual, to moult and bathe in the pond, making the woods ring with his wild laughter before I had risen. At rumor of his arrival all the Mill-dam sportsmen are on the alert, in gigs and on foot, two by two and three by three, with patent rifles and conical balls and spy-glasses. They ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... drawing, by Mr. C. S. Bate, of the larva of a Chthamalus (Balanus punctatus of British authors), after having kept alive and moulted once, these organs are distinctly shown as articulated antennae (without a case), directed forwards: hence, before the first moult in Scalpellum, we have two pair of antennae in process of formation. Anteriorly to the bases of these smaller antennae is seated the heart-shaped eye, (as I believe it to be,) .001 in diameter, with apparently a single lens, surrounded, except at ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... Akka observed that the time was approaching for her to moult and put on a new feather dress so as to be ready to fly. For a whole moon she would be unable to carry food to the baby eaglet, and he might starve ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... The grub's length promptly increases from two millimetres to four. Soon, a moult takes place which alters its costume: its skin becomes speckled, on a pale-yellow ground, with a number of black dots intermingled with white bristles. Three or four days of rest are necessary after the fatigue of breaking cover. When this is over, the hunger-fit starts ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... will tell you why; so shall my anticipation preuent your discouery of your secricie to [Sidenote: discovery, and your secrecie to the King and Queene moult no feather,[10]] the King and Queene[9] moult no feather, I haue [Sidenote: 116] of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custome of exercise; and indeed, [Sidenote: exercises;] it goes so heauenly with my disposition; that this [Sidenote: ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation preuent your discouery of your secricie to the King and Queene: moult no feather, I haue of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custome of exercise; and indeed, it goes so heauenly with my disposition; that this goodly frame the Earth, seemes to me a sterrill Promontory; ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... be little variation in color with season. In the series at hand, most specimens taken during the fall, winter, and spring are very slightly browner than those of summer, suggesting that the fresh pelage following the fall molt is a little brighter than is the pelage after being worn all winter and into the following summer. But at ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor |
