"Plumage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... drop my curtains for a dream.— What comes? A mighty swan, With plumage like a sunny gleam, And folded airy van! She comes, from sea-plains dreaming, sent By sea-maids to my shore, With stately head proud-humbly bent, And ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... why he should not," she said: "God is so good, that he never takes away one beauty without bestowing another; and the raven's glossy wing might be, to some, even more beautiful than the purple plumage of the dove: at all events, so excellent a man would not be chained by mere eye-beauty, which, after all, passeth quickly. Though I think it was very uncourteous of Mr. Fleetword to say, in my hearing, Robin, that the time ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... old Mr. Wilson. "What little bird of scarlet plumage may this be? Methinks I have seen just such figures, when the sun has been shining through a richly painted window, and tracing out the golden and crimson images across the floor. But that was in the old land. Prithee, young one, who art thou, and what ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... diligentigxi. Plot konspiri, intrigi. Plot (league) intrigo, konspiro. Plot (of land) terpeco. Plough plugi. Plough plugilo. Ploughshare plugfero. Pluck (fowl) plumtiregi, senplumigi. Pluck (courage) kuragxo. Plug sxtopilego. Plum pruno. Plumage plumaro, plumajxo. Plumbago grafito. Plumber plumbisto. Plume plumfasko. Plummet sondilo. Plump dika. Plumpness dikeco. Plunder rabadi. Plunge subakvigxi. Plural multenombro. Plush plusxo. Poach cxasosxteli. Poach (eggs, etc.) ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... see it brush the dew From bough and budding spray. And deemed its snow-white plumage grew More ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... blesser, prendre ou chasser les oiseaux de mer dans toute l'entendue de la jurisdiction de cette isle." Sec. 3, "Ceux qui depuis ce jour au 15 Octobre prochain auront ete trouves en possession d'un oiseau de mer recemment tue, blesse ou pris, ou qui auront ete trouves en possession de plumage frais appartenant d'un oiseau de mer seront censes avoir tue, blesse ou pris tel oiseau de mer sauf e eux de prouver le contraire. Pareillement ceux qui depuis ce jour au 15 Octobre prochain auront ete trouves en possession ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... or atrogon swooped at a falling bunch of fruit and caught it ere it reached the water; while ungainly toucans plumped clumsily down upon the branches, and sat, in striking contrast, beside the lovely pompadours, with their claret-coloured plumage ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... nothing about this young man," said Miss Winthrop, ruffling her plumage somewhat for an argument, of which she was fond; "but, as a case in hand, suppose a highly educated and refined man for some reason swept a store out every morning, what would you call him?" and she looked around as if ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... snares in sight of those innocent birds that perch on the tree of life in paradise. As Arthur's soul (it was a vain soul) preened its wings before her, Aggie never inquired whether the brilliance of its plumage was its own, or merely common to all feathered things in the pairing season. Young Arthur's soul was like a lark, singing in heaven its delirious nuptial hymn. Aggie sat snug in her nest and marvelled at her mate, at the mounting of his wings, the splendid and untiring ardors of his song. Nor was ...
— The Judgment of Eve • May Sinclair
... had pleasanter companions than my own sullen thoughts: a pair of blue-birds kept with me, for two or three miles at least, fluttering and twittering along the fences by my side, with the prettiest sociability—sometimes ahead, sometimes behind—never more than a dozen yards off; their brilliant plumage shot through the twilight like jets of sapphire flame: I felt absurdly sorry when they disappeared at last into the deepening blackness. I had been warned of the probability of encountering a cavalry picket somewhere on my road: so I was not greatly surprised when the possible ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... Italian landscape gardening; but the elaborately arranged paths, beds, and parterres, with their white statues and fountains, lost their effectiveness closed in as they were by high walls of vine-covered brick. It was rumored that once a stately peacock had here once flaunted his gorgeous plumage, giving his name to the inn itself—but this legend ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... shaded drives And walks, with rustic seats, cool grots and dells, With fountains playing and with babbling brooks, And stately swans sailing on little lakes, While peacocks, rainbow-tinted shrikes, pheasants, Glittering like precious stones, parrots, and birds Of all rich plumage, fly from tree to tree, The whole scene vocal with sweet varied song; And here a widespread lawn bedecked with flowers, With clumps of brilliant roses grown to trees, And fields with dahlias spread,[4] not stiff and prim ...
— The Dawn and the Day • Henry Thayer Niles
... a pink-feathered kind of cockatoo, and black magpies, which in some parts of the country are also called mutton birds, and pigeons. One day Peter Nicholls shot a queer kind of carrion bird, not so large as a crow, although its wings were as long. It had the peculiar dancing hop of the crow, its plumage was of a dark slate colour, with whitish tips to the wings, its beak was similar ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... first, the locks of her dishevelled hair twined round with venomous and deadly serpents, ordering the wild fig-tree and the funereal cypress to be rooted up from the sepulchres on which they grew, and these, together with the egg of a toad smeared with blood, the plumage of the screech-owl, various herbs brought from Thessaly and Georgia, and bones torn from the jaws of a famished dog, to be burned in flames fed with perfumes from Colchis. Of the assistant witches, one traces with hurried ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... accent of deep disgust, in patent recognition of his borrowed plumage: "Damned if it ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... can reply more decidedly. I do think the females of the Gallinaceae you mention have been modified or been prevented from acquiring the brighter plumage of the male, by need of protection. I know that the Gallus bankiva frequents drier and more open situations than the pea-hen of Java, which is found among grassy and leafy vegetation, corresponding with the colours of the two. So the Argus pheasant, male and female, are, I feel sure, protected ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... day of grace, coming to Christ, have been pawed and fingered by unctuous hands for now two hundred years. The bloom is gone from the flower. The plumage, once shining with hues direct from heaven, is soiled and bedraggled. The most solemn of all realities have been degraded into the passwords of technical theology. In Bunyan's day, in camp and council chamber, in High Courts of Parliament, ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... America and the United States that there is but one toad in the Latin language. If I hadn't believed everything I see in print, hadn't been so cock-sure, and hadn't been so ready to parade borrowed plumage as my own, all this linguistic coil would have been averted. I suppose Mr. Henderson would send me to jail again for this. I certainly didn't do my best, and therefore I am immoral, and therefore a sinner; ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... possess in many instances an excessively beautiful plumage; and he alone who has traversed these wild and romantic regions, who has beheld a flock of many-coloured parakeets sweeping like a moving rainbow through the air whilst the rocks and dells resounded with their playful cries, can form any adequate ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... thought; here lie dense groves and tangled thickets where bloom great flowers of unearthly beauty yet rank of smell and poisonous to the touch; here are birds of every kind and hue and far beyond this poor pen to describe by reason of the beauty and brilliancy of their plumage, some of which would warble so sweet 'twas great joy to hear while the discordant croakings and shrill clamours of others might scarce be endured. Here, too, are trees (like the cocos) so beneficent to yield a man food and drink, aye, and garments to ...
— Martin Conisby's Vengeance • Jeffery Farnol
... his strength came back he followed the shepherds and heard from them many stories of wolves and dogs, and from a shepherd lad, whom he had chosen as a companion, he acquired knowledge of the plumage and the cries and the habits of birds, and whither he was to seek their nests: it had become his ambition to possess all the wild birds' eggs, one that was easily satisfied till he came to the egg of the cuckoo, which he sought in vain, hearing of it often, now here, now there, till at last ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... chieftain's daughter seemed the maid; Her satin snood, her silken plaid, Her golden brooch, such birth betrayed. And seldom was a snood amid Such wild luxuriant ringlets hid, Whose glossy black to shame might bring The plumage of the raven's wing; And seldom o'er a breast so fair Mantled a plaid with modest care, And never brooch the folds combined Above a heart more good and kind. Her kindness and her worth to spy, You need but gaze on Ellen's eye; Not Katrine ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... satiny plumage gently—and then drew back a little into shadow as she saw Robin Clifford step out from the porch into the garden and hurriedly interrupt the advance of a woman who just then pushed open the outer gate—a slatternly- looking creature with dark dishevelled hair and a face which might ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... himself in clean linen and immaculate gray broadcloth. His face was exquisitely shaved; his nails trimmed and clean. And there hung about him a faint odor of violets. In short, the male of the species had begun to change his plumage, as is customary in the ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... possess'd, In gay and brilliant plumage dress'd; He loved it well, and in boyish sport Its food to take from his mouth he taught, And in his pigeon he took such pride, That his joy to ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... about here. We are now crossing low undulations. I have seen a number of kangaroos to-day; they do not seem to be as large as those in the south. The valleys are composed of conglomerated ironstone underneath the soil. A large number of new birds seen to-day, some of them with splendid plumage. Wind, south-east. Latitude, 13 degrees 7 minutes ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... the best use of his time, His twig he'll so carefully lime That every bird Will come down at his word. Whatever its plumage and clime. He must learn that the thrill of a touch May mean little, or nothing, or much; It's an instrument rare, To be handled with care, And ought to be treated as such. It is purely a matter of skill, Which all may attain if they will: But every Jack, He must study ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... tangle of keys, and opened it, and had the joy of seeing everything recognized by the owner: doll by doll, cook-stove, tin dishes, small brooms, wooden animals on feet and wheels, birds of various plumage, a toy piano, a dust-pan, alphabet blocks, dog's-eared linen Mother Goose books, and the rest. Tata had been allowed to put the things away herself, and she took them out with no apparent sense of the time ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... with hope and despondency was dissipated by the rising sun, the certainty of having discovered land was welcomed by a general burst of joy. A great luxuriancy of trees of unknown species, was soon observed to overspread the land, whence unknown birds of beautiful plumage came off in flocks to the vessel, and gave the appearance of a pleasing dream to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... living only in the glow of the sunlight, radiant in plumage, alighting first on one flower and then on another, but always on flowers, never on weeds; gathering such honey as suited her taste; never resting where she might by any chance be compelled to use her feet, but always poised in air; a woman, rich, brilliant, ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... but it has greatly lost by not having been written daily, as the scenes and occurrences were fresh. The most picturesque points can be seized in no other way, and the hues of the affair fade as quickly as those of a dying dolphin; or as, according to Audubon, the plumage of a ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... calls up a blush. She is certainly only a child, hardly more than thirteen; but her figure is tall and slender, her face calm as if hewn out of alabaster, with severely antique lines, as if her mother had looked always at the Venus of Milo. Her thick black hair has a metallic gleam like the plumage of the black swan; but her eyes are dark-blue. The long delicate eyebrows almost meet over the brow, which gives her face a curious charm; it is as if these arching brows formed a black aureole round the ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... primary keenness of vision.[12] Thus in the fresh centuries the faith of parents alone sufficed, together with innocence, to secure salvation. After the first ages were, complete, it was needful for males with their innocent plumage to acquire virtue through circumcision. But after the time of grace had come, without perfect baptism in Christ, such ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 3, Paradise [Paradiso] • Dante Alighieri
... of liberality and confidence from a man of Major Bridgenorth's reserved and cautious disposition, gave full plumage to Mistress Deborah's hopes; and emboldened her not only to deliver another letter of Julian's to the young lady, but to encourage more boldly and freely than formerly the intercourse of the lovers when Peveril returned ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... changes to wild, mountainous country. On either hand rise high mountains, whose blue tops at times almost frowned over our heads, and the luxuriant tropical vegetation, with creeping lianas, threatened to bar our progress. Huge alligators sunned themselves on the banks, and birds of brilliant plumage flew from branch to branch. Carpinchos, with heavy, pig-like tread, walked among the rushes of the shore, and made more than one good dish for our table. This water-hog, the largest gnawing animal in the world, is here very common. Their length, ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... grew milder; the snow-drifts began to melt. The doctor made a tolerably large collection of northern birds, such as gulls, divers, molly-nochtes, and eider-ducks, which resemble ordinary ducks, with a white back and breast, a blue belly, the top of the head blue, the rest of the plumage white, shaded with different tints of green; many of them had already plucked from their bellies the eider-down, which both the male and the female devote to lining their nests. The doctor also saw great seals breathing at the surface of the water, but he was unable ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... young leaving the nest one at a time, to the number of six or eight. The young have quite the look of the young of the dove in many respects. When nearly grown they are covered with long blue pin-feathers as long as darning needles, without a bit of plumage on them. They part on the back and hang down on each side by their own weight. With its curious feathers and misshapen body the young bird is anything but handsome. They never open their mouths when approached, as many young birds do, but sit perfectly still, hardly moving when touched." He also ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... On my whistling to them, one whistled some beautifully varied notes, as soft as those of an octave flute, although their common chirp was harsh and dissonant. The male and female seemed to have very different plumage, especially about the head; that on the one having the varying tint of the Rifle bird, the head of the other more resembling in colour, that of the DACELO GIGANTEUS. They were about the size of a thrush, and seemed ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... the clever nests they build, of which I have not time to tell you now. Also, I should like you to find out all you can for yourself. You may at least learn to know by sight and by sound some of our own songsters. It is often said that English birds have sober plumage; and so they have, compared with the parrots and the humming-birds that "flit about like living fires, scarce larger than a bee," and the wonderful bird of paradise, which the natives of New Guinea call "God's bird," because it shines with silver ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... aspiration, however high, that the wings of the spirit cannot reach. Therefore be patient and strive. To others I would say: Be content. All birds cannot be eagles. The nightingale has a song and the humming bird a plumage the eagle can never possess. The nightingale may sing to the stars, the humming bird to the flowers, but the eagle, whose tireless eyes gaze into the heart of day, is uncompanioned in its lofty ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... which are not mounted at once are kept in the form of "scientific skins." In other words they are skinned, poisoned and without wiring, given the shape of the dead bird. Their plumage, size, etc., may be examined, they are easily packed or shipped and, if properly made, may be mounted at any time but at the expenditure of considerably more work than a ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... Pennington, a merchant of Philadelphia, who was likewise a member of the Society of Friends. The visitor, on entering the parlor, was surprised to see it ornamented with drawings of Indian chiefs, and of birds with beautiful plumage, and of the wild flowers of the forest. Nothing of the kind was ever seen before in the habitation ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... And all the time for her, as well as for man, calves and lambs are being emasculated to make her meat succulent; wild animals are painfully done to death to provide her table with delicacies; birds with young in the nest are shot so that she may parade in their plumage; or fur-bearing animals are for her comfort and adornment ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... the few quadrupeds to be found. Indeed, in no other country that I have ever visited do birds so abound. Even the virgin forests of America cannot, in my belief, boast of such numerous feathered denizens. . . . The birds of this country possess, in many instances, an excessively beautiful plumage, and he alone who has traversed these wild and romantic regions, who has beheld a flock of many-coloured parrakeets sweeping like a moving rainbow through the air, can form any adequate idea of the scenes that then burst on the eye of the wondering naturalist. ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... savagely hard and brilliant, searched the dark crevices for prey. With his black beak, his black talons protruding from the mass of snowy feathers which swathed his legs, and the dark bars on his plumage, one might have fancied him a being just breathed into menacing and furtive life by ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... arrived poor Cuckoo had to struggle with a keen and a sore temptation. She longed to deck herself out in her usual borrowed plumage, to take the habitual brilliant complexion out of the accustomed drawer, to crown her frizzed head with feathers, and to look noisily dashing—her only idea of elegance and grace. Never before had she so desired to ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... is done in fish, whales, seals, fur, game, plumage and eggs. The fish are a problem apart. But it is worth noting that uncontrolled exploitation is beginning to affect even their countless numbers in certain places. Whales have always been exploited ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... of pigeons, but the regard which the Lady de Tilly had for the corn-fields of her censitaires caused her to thin out its population to such a degree that there remained only a few favorite birds of rare breed and plumage to strut and coo upon the roofs, and rival the peacocks on the terrace with their ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... young men could be so described. "Well then," said I, "would you rather I should call them donkeys, or even monkeys? What I mean is that the poor girl—a perfect little DECORATIVE person, who ought to have iridescent-gray plumage and pink-shod feet to match the rest of her—shouldn't be thrust into any general menagerie-cage, but be kept for the dovecote and the garden, kept where we may still hear her coo. That's what, at college, they'll make her unlearn; she'll learn to roar and snarl with ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Seth. "She is fit fo' any palace, she is so beautiful. And when the Wise Men come out of the East we will build it fo' her. It shall have gold do'knobs and jewelled ornaments and rare birds of gay plumage to sing and keep her company, and painted ceilings and little cupids carved in mahble, and theah shall be graven images set on onyx pedestals and some curious Hindoo gods squatting, and a Turkish room of red ...
— The Way of the Wind • Zoe Anderson Norris
... gradually all their ramifications, till one end of the animal seems crowned with feathery, crimson sea-weeds of the most delicate tracery. It is much to be regretted that these lower marine animals are not better known. The plumage of the tropical birds, the down on the most brilliant butterfly's wing, are not more beautiful in coloring than the hues of many Radiates, and there is no grace of motion surpassing the movements of some of them in their native element. The habit of keeping marine animals in tanks is happily ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... days journey in length, and is very fertile. In it there are exceedingly large pheasants, with tails eight or ten handbreadths long, and many other kinds of birds, some of which have very beautiful and finely variegated plumage. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... any child; For, lo! a mighty swan, With radiant plumage undented, And folded airy van, With serpent neck all proudly bent, And stroke of swarthy oar, Dreams on to me, by sea-maids sent ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... breaks up, our lakes are visited by innumerable flights of wild fowl: some of the ducks are extremely beautiful in their plumage, and are very fine-flavoured. I love to watch these pretty creatures, floating so tranquilly on the water, or suddenly rising and skimming along the edge of the pine-fringed shores, to drop again on the surface, and then remain ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... could not help it, and are, for the most part, rarely excellent. They are joyous, rapturous, sprightly, dancing, and filled with references to sky, clouds, trees, fruit, grain, birds and flowers. Birds and flowers, by the way, are peculiarly lovers' properties. The song and the plumage of birds, and the color and perfume of flowers are all distinctly sex manifestations. Robert Burns sang his songs just as the bird wings and sings, and for the same reason. Sex holds first place in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... my aged friend had often himself seen, in his own boyish days, sweeping round the cliffs and over the broad expanse of the Susquehanna. They were easily distinguished, he said, by the residents of that district, by their peculiar size and plumage, being of a breed not known to our native ornithology, and both being males. For many years, it was affirmed,—long after the outlaw had vanished from the scene,—these gallant old rovers of the river still pursued their accustomed game, a ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... ignorance of the fate that threatened his vessel. "A good thing the old fellow wasn't there to see," observed Ben Zoof; "he would have screamed like a peacock. What a misfortune it is," he added, speaking to himself, "to have a peacock's voice, without its plumage!" ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... first hint that she had given of a wistful sense of exile, the yearning for other skies, the message that a dead bird's plumage could bring across rolling ...
— When William Came • Saki
... groves where he had won His plumage of resplendent hue, His native fruits, and skies, and sun, He ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... have the sweet voice which the fox in his flattery attributed to him, but he has a good, strong, native speech, nevertheless. How much character there is in it! How much thrift and independence! Of course his plumage is firm, his color decided, his wit quick. He understands you at once and tells you so; so does the hawk by his scornful, defiant whir-r-r-r-r. Hardy, happy outlaws, the crows, how I love them! Alert, social, republican, always able to look out for himself, not afraid of the cold ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... actions of a big flock of very white birds. They rose suddenly from one side of the tiny rape field, wheeled and swirled like leaves in the wind, and dropped down suddenly on the other side the patch. After a few moments they repeated the performance. The sun caught the dazzling white of their plumage. At first we speculated on what they might be, then on what they were doing, to behave in so peculiar a manner. The lime juice and the armchair began to get in their recuperative work. Somehow the distance across ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... beauty by no means exhausted the charm of the place, for as we drew still closer to the beach we were able to distinguish that the woods were the habitat of countless thousands of birds of strange and most gorgeous plumage, among which I identified what I believed to be three or four species of birds of paradise, as well as a great variety of sun birds flitting from flower to flower like living gems. It is to be admitted that the cries of those birds were not always in accord with ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... its way through the gorge; they were covered with brushwood, ferns, and creepers, thick with flowers of many colours, while lofty palms and forest trees grew wherever their roots could find a hold. Splendid butterflies of immense size flitted about; birds of many kinds and beautiful plumage flew hither and thither among the trees; humming-birds sucked the honey from the bright flowers; parrots chattered and screamed in the upper branches of the trees, and the foam and spray of the torrent sparkled in the sun. Harry and his brother ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... with what composure and resignation he meets it!—Look in the face of a dying king, or a plundering, and blood-thirsty minister,—what terrors the sight of their velvet beds, adorned with crimson plumage, must bring to their affrighted imagination!—In that awful hour, it will remind them of the innocent blood they have spilt;—nay, they will perhaps think, they were dyed with the blood of men scalped and massacred, to support their vanity and ambition!—In short, dear Sir, while kings and ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... folded in her hands, She presses to her breast; The bird that brought the olive spray Was never more caressed. Her tears upon its plumage fall, They fall like soft warm rain— Sure if the bird were dead such love Would ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... tricks sometimes, and here was one vastly strange and most unlovely!" After this we went on side by side and never a word betwixt us until we had reached that pleasant champain country where flowed the river shaded by goodly trees, in whose branches fluttered birds of a plumage marvellously coloured and diverse, and beneath which bloomed flowers as vivid; insomuch that my lady brake forth ever and anon into little soft cries of delighted wonder. And yet despite all these marvels it was long ere we shook off the ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... wore. No pen-portraits of Clara Schumann have come down to us, for the reason that she was too great, too elusive in spirit, for any snapshot artist to attempt her. She never looked twice the same. In feature she was commonplace, her form lacked the classic touch, and her raiment was as plain as the plumage of a brown thrush in an autumn hedgerow. She was as homely as George Eliot, Mary Wollstonecraft, Rosa Bonheur, George Sand, or Madame De Stael. No two of the women named looked alike, but I once saw a composite photograph of their portraits and the picture sent no thrills along my keel. Their splendor ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... at its height on the Asamuk. The woodthrush was nearing the end of its song; a vast concourse of young robins in their speckled plumage joined chattering every night in the thickest cedars; and one or two broods of young ducks were seen on the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... sidling, gliding along the barbed wire fence, the Baltimore oriole, always a charming fellow because of his flaming plumage, which has won for him the name of the golden robin and firebird. He walks along the wire fence in a gliding, one-leg-at-a-time fashion, as he often does on the twig of a tree. His head is down, he is on the lookout for caterpillars. Now he reaches the tick-trefoil, and nips out some ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... late. Side by side with the peace of night, there dwell Spirits of Evil, the never-resting, vagrant, home-destroying guests, who enter unbidden into the human soul! Hark, the rustling of their raven-hued plumage! They take wing, they fly aloft; 't is the shriek of the vulture, swooping ...
— A Ghetto Violet - From "Christian and Leah" • Leopold Kompert
... wing-feathers black; it is a breed which was established as long ago as the year 1600. I crossed a male Nun with a female red common Tumbler, which latter variety generally breeds true. Thus neither parent had a trace of blue in the plumage, or of bars on the wing and tail. I should premise that common Tumblers are rarely blue in England. From the above cross I reared several young: one was red over the whole back, but with the tail as blue as that ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... to ye, Mistress Elliott," said she, and hostility and gentility were nicely mingled in her tones. "A fine day, mem," the laird's wife would reply with a miraculous curtsey, spreading the while her plumage - setting off, in other words, and with arts unknown to the mere man, the pattern of her India shawl. Behind her, the whole Cauldstaneslap contingent marched in closer order, and with an indescribable ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... too far in some cases, as with the stripes on the tiger. I have also this morning read an excellent abstract in the "Gardeners' Chronicle" of your paper on nests. (203/6. An abstract of a paper on "Birds' Nests and Plumage," read before the British Association: see "Gard. Chron." 1867, page 1047.) I was not by any means fully converted by your letter, but I think now I am so; and I hope it will be published somewhere in extenso. It strikes me as a capital generalisation, and appears to me even more original ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... lovely in her delicate mauve morning dress, with the soft lace relieving her neck and wrists. Her dark hair was banded smoothly back from the grave, earnest face, and fell behind in heavy braids, rich and glossy as the plumage of a raven. Her mouth was tremulous with gladness and her whole face kindled into smiles and blushes under her husband's gaze. She was so calm that it seemed folly to vex his heart with vague fancies, instead of yielding to the full, ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... in another way, too, for under its influence Mark's own manhood had broadened and deepened. He longed to bind Patty to him for good and all, to capture the bright bird whose fluttering wings and burnished plumage so captured his senses and stirred his heart, but his longings had changed with the quality of his love and he glowed at the thought of delivering the girl from her dreary surroundings and giving her the tenderness, the ease and ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... like you as well in stone-coloured merino as in blue. Should a bird of paradise wear the plumage of a ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... a sprinkler for the holy water in the hand (in the first, second and fourth examples) of god D. Landa (1864, p. 150)[317-[]] describes in the ceremony of the baptism of children, that the leader of the rite wore on his head a kind of mitre embroidered with plumage in some manner and in his hand a small holy-water sprinkler of wood, carved skillfully, of which the filaments were the tails of serpents, ...
— Animal Figures in the Maya Codices • Alfred M. Tozzer and Glover M. Allen
... soon proved to you that its obscurity was the last place where she proposed to stay. She looked the latest thing evolved by the art of man. Her clothes were the prevailing fantastic creation, and yet, on her, they were not illogical. They were the plumage of an eccentric bird hatched to look that way. Her face, in its sandy monotone of color, fitted the art of her wonderful and yet not too noticeable hat, and her gloves and veil were the last word of ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... thunderstorm. This storm was not really overhead at all, and scarcely deserves mention except as the precursor of a severe one of which our valley got the full benefit. It was quite curious to see the numbers of dead butterflies on the garden-paths after that second storm. Their beautiful plumage was not dimmed or smirched nor their wings broken: they would have been in perfect order for a naturalist's collection; yet they were quite dead and stiff. The natives declare it is the lightning which kills ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... beautiful. There are no singing birds suitable for keeping in cages, although some calendar larks [Calandrias] called fimbaros, [81] smaller than those of Espana, are brought from Japon, whose song is most sweet. There are many turtle-doves, ring-doves; other doves with an extremely green plumage, and red feet and beaks; and others that are white with a red spot on the breast, like a pelican. Instead of quail, there are certain birds resembling them, but smaller, which are called povos [82] and other smaller birds called mayuelas. [83] There ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... a gorgeous copy of "Blue-beard" to the little bosom, which still heaved with the rapture of looking at that delicious mixture of lovely Fatimas in pale azure gowns, pink Sister Annes on the turret top, crimson tyrants, and yellow brothers with forests of plumage blowing wildly from their ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, July 1878, No. 9 • Various
... owls. Yet the New Zealand owl-parrot is, to put it plainly, a lory which has assumed all the outer appearance and habits of an owl. A lurker in the twilight or under the shades of night, burrowing for its nest in holes in the ground, it has dingy brown plumage like the owls, with an undertone of green to bespeak its parrot origin: while its face is entirely made up of two great disks, surrounding the eyes, which succeed in giving it a most ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... not say; yet a penetrating eye looking at them—the slight bird lying dead, its brilliant plumage already dimmed, the young girl gazing at it—would perceive that alike these two were fitted for the warmth and sunshine, would perceive that both had been thwarted and defrauded of their fair inheritance, would ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... the Assyrian monuments is an oxide of copper, sometimes containing also a trace of lead. Besides occurring in combination with red in the cases already mentioned, it was employed to color the foliage of trees, the plumage of birds, the heads of arrows, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... to the coral and the plumage of birds, and to how large a part of animate and inanimate nature. The same independence of law on matter is observable in many other instances, as in the natural rhymes, when some animal form, color, or odor, has its counterpart ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... yield, Against HER suffered to have lost a field. Herself must with herself be sole compeer, Unless the people of her distant sphere Some gold migration send to melodise the year. But first our hearts must burn in larger guise, To reformate the uncharitable skies, And so the deathless plumage to acclimatise: Since this, their sole congener in our clime, Droops her sad, ruffled thoughts for half ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... Heaven—Buddha's—is perfect gold. Its gardens and palaces are adorned with gems. They are encircled with rows of trees, and borders of net-work. There are lovely birds, of sparkling plumage and exquisite notes. The great god O-lo-han; the goddess of Mercy; the unnumbered Buddhas; the host of demigods, and the sages of heaven and earth, will all be assembled on that sacred spot. But in that sacred kingdom there are ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay
... the latest cut, son, or the finest fit, but you won't mind; you're not a girl. A man's dress is on'y a sort o' skin, anyhow; a woman's is her plumage. And, anyhow, at Rosemont you'll wear soldier clothes. Look out son, I asked ...
— John March, Southerner • George W. Cable
... outcry from the poultry reached his ears; and, too well acquainted with the cause of their disquiet, he threw down his spade, and ran to the scene of action; and arrived just time enough to save the plumage of a hapless peacock from being entirely ...
— The Little Quaker - or, the Triumph of Virtue. A Tale for the Instruction of Youth • Susan Moodie
... not liking. It is worship. Some kind of Pantheism which I cannot explain. Nowhere are the loneliness and grandeur of God so manifested. Mind, I don't quite sympathize with that comparison of St. Augustine's where he detects a resemblance between yon spectra of purple and green and the plumage of a dove. What has a dove to do with such magnificence and grandeur? It was an anti-climax, a bathos, of which St. Augustine is seldom guilty. 'And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... called, who at the end of heaven sits, a Joetun in an eagle's plumage: from his wings comes, it is said, the wind, that ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... Bard inspir'd. Borne on triumphant wings he take this flight, Explores all heaven, and treads the realms of light: In martial pomp he clothes th' angelic train, While warring myriads shake th' etherial plain. First Michael stalks, high tow'ring o'er the rest; With heav'nly plumage nodding on his crest: Impenetrable arms his limbs unfold, Eternal adamant, and burning gold! Sparkling in fiery mail, with dire delight, Rebellious Satan animates the fight: Armipotent they sink in rolling smoke, All heav'n resounding, to its centre shook, To crush his foes, and quell ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... of game-birds, the aristocracy of the species, with their delicate heads and exquisite plumage, and kept at one time no less than sixty-two in the back yard of his house. The noise was simply unendurable to all but Wilson, who was never annoyed by it in the least. He kept one lame sparrow for eleven years, caring for it ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... distance—upwards of a mile—I could, of course, hear no word of what was said. All at once there began the most horrid, unearthly screaming, which at first startled me badly, though I had soon remembered the voice of Captain Flint and even thought I could make out the bird by her bright plumage as she sat perched upon her ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... no doubt that they were falling rapidly. Already they grew larger to the eye. Presently the heron disengaged himself and flapped heavily away, the worse for that deadly embrace, while the peregrine, shaking her plumage, ringed once more so as to get high above the quarry and deal it a second and more fatal blow. The Bishop smiled, for nothing, as it ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... free itself appeared only to result in its being more securely and hopelessly bound; and there it perished; and there its form, dried and embalmed by the summer heats, was yet hanging in September, the outspread wings and plumage showing nearly ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... quarrels with a boyish idea that quick reconciliation would perhaps throw her into his arms. But now it seemed to him that an age had passed since those days. His love had certainly not faded. There had never been a moment when that had been on the wing. But now the azure plumage of his love had become grey as the wings of a dove, and the gorgeousness of his dreams had sobered into hopes and fears which were a constant burden to his heart. There was time enough, still time enough for happiness if she would ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... came the hat crowned with birds' feathers, some ladies even placing the complete bird on their hats—a most ridiculous exhibition of bad taste. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals should take up the question of the destruction of birds for their plumage, and agitate until the law makes it illegal to wear a bird on a hat. Some may say that if people kill animals and birds for food they might just as well wear a dead bird on their hats, if they wish to be so silly, although the large majority of America's population, I am sorry to find, ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... is the theme, the aim must of course be to give its typical perfection. No naturalist describes the defects of his specimens, though it may happen that all are imperfect. Comparatively few persons ever saw our robin in the plumage in which it is always described. Only in early spring, not very commonly then, is the black of the head and tail seen pure. But no one hesitates to call this the true color. The sculptor does not reproduce the peculiarities of his model, but aims to give ideal ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... delight in doing any little service to please and gratify her, but it was towards Hector that she displayed the deepest feeling of affection and respect. It was to him her first tribute of fruit or flowers, furs, mocassins, or ornamental plumage of rare birds was offered. She seemed to turn to him as to a master and protector. He was in her eyes the "Chief," the head of his tribe. His bow was strung by her, and stained with quaint figures ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... In Gorgeous plumage, azure, gold and green, They trample the pale flowers, and their shrill cry Troubles the garden's bright tranquillity! Proud birds of Beauty, splendid and serene, Spreading their brilliant fans, screen after screen Of burnished sapphire, gemmed with mimic suns— Strange magic eyes, ...
— The Inn of Dreams • Olive Custance
... with such a keen relish. This worried him; but not half as much as did the assiduous, delicate attention which the chief bestowed on Jane. Had the chief been hunting and procured game, it was laid at her feet; did he secure a bird of rare plumage, its plumes fantastically arranged, were modestly presented to her; and furs of rare softness and beauty in profusion adorned her apartment, at the request of the chief. Unwilling to offend, and as he had never spoken on the subject to her, ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... this country west of the mountains, too, will be broken off and set up into a republic, and allied with that most glorious of all republics, France. Believe me, the Jacobins have not been idle, and there have been strange-looking birds of French plumage dodging between the General's house at Clarksville and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... melodia,) a little bird that is universally known and admired. The Song-Sparrow is the earliest visitant and the latest resident of the vocal tenants of the field. He is plain in his vesture, undistinguished from the female by any superiority of plumage, and comes forth in the spring and takes his departure in the autumn in the same suit of russet and gray by which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... a beautiful white bird, Webfooted, not unlike a dove in size And plumage (probably it might have erred Upon its course), passed oft before their eyes, And tried to perch, although it saw and heard The men within the boat, and in this guise It came and went, and fluttered round them till Night fell:—this seemed a better ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... interjected the Young Doctor. "Her of the plumage—her! Shure, she's not livin' in this wurruld. She's only visitin' it. She's got no responsibility. If iver there was a child of a fairy tale, that wumman's the child. I belave she'd think her son was doin' right if he tied the ould fella up to a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... . . The kea is pretty to look at, having rich red and green plumage, but it is a cruel bird. It is said that it will fasten on the back of a living sheep and peck its way down to the kidney-fat, for which this parrot has a special fancy. No tourist need feel compunction about ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... the peacock's tail and the deer's antlers, the protective mimicry of various insects and butterflies, and the wonderful instincts of the white ants; it gave the serpent its deadly poison and the violet its grateful odour; it painted the gorgeous plumage of the Impeyan pheasant and the beautiful colours and decorations of countless birds and insects and flowers. These, and a thousand other achievements, it has evidently accomplished without the help of use-inheritance. Why should it be thought incapable of reducing ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... aware of the flutter, and called Harman's attention to it with a touch upon his arm and a laugh and a nod of her violent plumage. ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... midst of a country of marvelous beauty. There were lovely patches of greensward all about, with stately trees bearing rich and luscious fruits. Banks of gorgeous flowers were on every hand, and birds with rare and brilliant plumage sang and fluttered in the trees and bushes. A little way off was a small brook, rushing and sparkling along between green banks, and murmuring in a voice very grateful to a little girl who had lived so long on ...
— The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... the object at which he was gazing moved sharply, turning a small head on a long neck. It was a peacock. But he had thought of a thousand things before he thought of the obvious thing. The burning blue of the plumage on the neck had reminded him of blue fire, and blue fire had reminded him of some dark fantasy about blue devils, before he had fully realised even that it was a peacock he was staring at. And the tail, that trailing ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... is told of his lying on his back in the woods with some moss for his pillow and looking through a telescopic microscope day after day, to watch a pair of little birds while they made their nest. Their peculiar gray plumage harmonized with the color of the bark of the tree, so that it 5 was impossible to see the birds except by the most careful observation. After three weeks of such patient labor, he felt that he had been amply rewarded for the toil and sacrifice ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... singularly beautiful. It might have been compared to a crest of gigantic feathers, the diadem of the mountain, high arched, and drooping downward, with the hues delicately shaded off, and the whole shifting and tremulous as the plumage on a warrior's helm. The glare of the flame spread, luminous and crimson, over the dark and rugged ground on which they stood, and drew an innumerable variety of shadows from crag and hollow. An oppressive and sulphureous exhalation ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... not—for it is the record of the Church—I would ask, what is? and where shall we find the history of Christianity for the fifteen centuries before Luther's time? and where, to-day? Their predecessors plucked the plumage from the dying bird of mythology, as they, themselves, have robbed the liberal orchard of all its choicest fruits and palmed them off as of their own growth. Protestants would not, I dare say, now countenance the persecutions of the past, but yet, I would tell them ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... anxious to get away from this place. There was a gate close by; he proposed they should go out by that. As he walked back with them to South Bank, they chatted about many of the animals—the two girls in especial being much interested in certain pheasants, whose colors of plumage they thought would look very pretty in a dress—but he never referred, either then or at any future time, to his visit to the reptile house. Nor did it occur to Miss White, in this idle conversation, to ask him whether his Highland blood had inherited any other qualities ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... unless I brought them fish, of which they had a supply four times a day, and then they would stand on their legs and open their beaks far apart, each waiting for its share. They were a great happiness to me, and I watched their gradual increase of plumage and of size, which was very rapid. I gave them all names out of my Natural History book. One was Lion, then Tiger, Panther, Bear, Horse, and Jackass (at the time that I named them, the last would have been very appropriate ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... Imaginations in the Description of Angels: But I do not remember to have met with any so finely drawn, and so conformable to the Notions which are given of them in Scripture, as this in Milton. After having set him forth in all his Heavenly Plumage, and represented him as alighting upon the Earth, the Poet concludes his Description with a Circumstance, which is altogether new, and imagined with ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... were fastened and the bulwarks built, the boat could never put to sea. He pondered long over where he might find the lost words, and after a while he concluded that they might be found in the brains of swallows and the heads of swans and the plumage of the sea-duck. But though he killed great numbers of these birds, he could not find the three lost words. Then he thought that he might find them on the tongues of reindeers or of the squirrels; but though he killed great numbers of them, and found many words on their tongues, the three ...
— Finnish Legends for English Children • R. Eivind
... upon which the pampered traveller depends. It is as a primeval forest in the hour before the dawn. When the sun of France penetrates pacifically to all its hidden places, the forest will wake to a new life. Strange birds of bright plumage, called in Europe gens d'armes, will displace the storks upon the battlements of its ancient towns, the commis voyageur will appear where wild boar and hyaena now travel in comparative peace, the wild cat (felis Throgmortonensis) will arise from all ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... I will not conceal from you, my dear little readers, that the Dove had hardly changed colour at all and that it was joy and happiness that decked him with a magnificent bright blue plumage in our hero's eyes. No matter! Tyltyl, without knowing it, had discovered Light's great secret, which is that we draw nearer to happiness by trying to give ...
— The Blue Bird for Children - The Wonderful Adventures of Tyltyl and Mytyl in Search of Happiness • Georgette Leblanc
... river; innumerable doves, varying in species, throng the trees and seek the shade of the dome-palms; thousands of desert grouse arrive morning and evening to drink and to depart; while birds in multitudes, of lovely plumage, escape from the burning desert and colonize the poor but welcome bushes that fringe the ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... of woman as in this daughter of Sweden. Her description reads like a catalogue of all human perfections. Of medium height and a figure as faultless in its exquisite modelling as in its grace and suppleness; her hair, black as a raven's plumage, and falling, like a veil of night, below her knees, emphasised the white purity of face and throat, arms, and hands. Her teeth, twin rows of pearls, glistened between smiling crimson lips, curved like Cupid's ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... gull Jack is still flourishing, and the time is coming when I look for that singularly sudden change in the plumage of his head which took place last March. I have asked all my ocean-going friends to note whether these little birds are not the gulls par excellence of the sea; and so far all I have heard from them confirms this. ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... beautiful seems to be innate; that is, born in us. And the birds appeal to this in at least two ways: First, on account of the beauty of their songs, and second, on account of the beauty of their plumage. ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... rich, glossy, reddish-brown fathers. The rest of the bath is orange-brown, the tail-coverts and tail dark bronzy, the wings light orange-buff: The whole under surface is covered with an abundance of plumage springing from the margins of the breast, and of a rich deep green colour, with changeable hues of purple. Down the middle of the breast is a broad band of scaly plumes of the same colour, while the chin and throat are of a rich metallic ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Who in full dress-rehearsal pass to-day Before admiring eyes, hold in their store Those fine high principles which keep old Earth From being only earth; and make men more Than just mere men? How will they prove their worth Of years of study? Will they walk abroad Decked with the plumage of dead bards of God, The glorious birds? And shall the lamb unborn Be slain on altars of their vanity? To some frail sister who has missed the way Will they give Christ's compassion, or man's scorn; And will clean manhood, linked with honest love, The victor prove, When riches, gained by ...
— Poems of Purpose • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... dwelleth either in wood or in forest; But would have wept, if that he weepe could, For sorrow of her; she shriek'd alway so loud. For there was never yet no man alive, If that he could a falcon well descrive;* *describe That heard of such another of fairness As well of plumage, as of gentleness; Of shape, of all that mighte reckon'd be. A falcon peregrine seemed she, Of fremde* land; and ever as she stood *foreign She swooned now and now for lack of blood; Till well-nigh is she fallen from ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... subsided, he finished his speech, and received again an animated acclamation of applause. He then took off his hat, and after a while put it on again, at which the nobles also put on their hats, which resembled the King's, excepting the button. The effect of this display of plumage was fine. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... the picture is not inclosed by the rainbow, we see the forms of two birds standing with wings outstretched, facing one another, their beaks close together. These represent certain birds of blue plumage called by the Navajo çòli (Sialia arctica). This bluebird is of the color of the south and of the upper regions. He is the herald of the morning. His call of "çòli çòli" is the first that is heard when ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... meaning of his remark. Old Martha stood in the middle of a mob of poultry scattering handfuls of grain around her. The turkey-cock, with the bronzed sheen of his feathers and the purple-red of his wattles, the gamecock, with the glowing metallic lustre of his Eastern plumage, the hens, with their ochres and buffs and umbers and their scarlet combs, and the drakes, with their bottle-green heads, made a medley of rich colour, in the centre of which the old woman looked like a withered stalk standing amid a riotous growth of gaily-hued flowers. ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... are not lonely in their rural home. The plainly-dressed sparrows and the brilliant yellow-birds look in upon them, and, now and then, their cousin, the oriole, comes, clad in the richest golden plumage, and sings them a song. If he had dipped his feathers in the gorgeous sunset he could not be more beautiful. The delicate little humming-birds sip nectar from the deep horns of the honeysuckle; and the red-winged starling, in his glossy black coat, and his ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various
... very nice insects here, though, owing to illness most of the time, my collection was a small one, and my boy Ali shot me a pair of one of the most beautiful birds of the East, Pitta gigas, a lame ground-thrush, whose plumage of velvety black above is relieved by a breast of pure white, shoulders of azure blue, and belly of vivid crimson. It has very long and strong legs, and hops about with such activity in the dense ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... a glance into the hiding place of the swan. The soft plumage had not the dazzling purity which he had known, and the beautiful neck that should be ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer |
