"Reptile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... it. I, who had been so witless as to let this come upon us! Moa's weapon prodded me. Her voice hissed at me with all the venom of a reptile enraged. "So that was your game, Gregg Haljan! And I was so graceless as to admit ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... ancient Grecians made The soul's fair emblem, and its only name— But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade Of mortal life! For to this earthly frame Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, Manifold motions making little speed, And to deform and kill ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... me your little ducky, dovey, doggieboy, your swallow, your little jackdaw, your little tootsie wootsie sparrowkin: (opening his mouth) make a reptile of me and let me have a double tongue in my mouth; throw a chain of arms around me; clasp me close around ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... transferred to the bank, the crew lifted the great canoe off the water and turned it bottom up, while four of them placed their heads beneath and rested the gunwales upon their capote-bepadded shoulders. As they carried it off, one was reminded of some immense antediluvian reptile crawling slowly ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... first cause of all the species of animated nature which people the earth, the ocean, and the air. Born of electricity and albumen, the simple monad is the first living atom; the microscopic animalcules, the snail, the worm, the reptile, the fish, the bird, and the quadruped, all spring from its invisible loins. The human similitude at last appears in the character of the monkey; the monkey rises into the baboon, the baboon is exalted to the ourang-outang, and the chimpanzee, with a more human ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... have received their fullest development during the Carboniferous period. Their number was very great: some of them attained to an enormous size, and, though the true reptile had already appeared, they continued to retain, till the close of the system, the high reptilian character and organization. Nothing, however, so impresses the observer as the formidable character of the offensive weapons with which ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... is a Reptile," said the Hoosier, backing away from the Table. "I've heard they were Et, but I never believed it. I can go out any Morning and gather ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... among the fittest. Seeing a snake hole and desiring information as to the family record of the proprietor, he inserted a finger, and while waiting for results explained that there is no better way to secure a specimen, as the enraged reptile will fasten its fangs into the intruding member and then can be easily withdrawn. It is a pleasure to state that even snakes recognize the claims of friendship, and no ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... carriage-rug, and in the rainy season as a mat at the door of a room. "There is nothing good in the wolf," says Buffon, "he has a base low look—a savage aspect, a terrible voice, an insupportable smell, a nature brutal and ferocious, and a body so foul and unclean that no animal or reptile will touch his flesh. It is only a wolf that can eat a wolf." "No animal," writes Cuvier, "so richly merits destruction as the wolf." With these two funeral orations on these incarnate fiends of Natural History, I shall close this chapter, remarking that the anathema bestowed ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... you most contemptible reptile," shouted the other. "My daughter, sirrah, never eloped with an adventurer. She never eloped at all, sir. She durst not elope. She knows what my vengeance would be, sirrah. She knows, you lying whelp of perdition, that I would pursue herself and her paramour to the ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... then I should get hanged. But, if I have to endure this agony much longer, I shall do both.' And his reply was to send me up here, to this ice-cold hell of snow and silence, to mind his store and watch the Last Chance River flowing on and on, until the day of my death. God curse the reptile and ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... It is a most extraordinary animal, and is a species of flying lizard, although differing from the lizard in many respects. It has the head and neck of a bird, the trunk and tail of an ordinary mammal, the jaws and teeth of a reptile, and the wings of a bat. Owen describes one whose sweep of wings exceeded twenty feet, and many have been found of every gradation of size down to that of a bat. There is no reason why they should not be as large as More says; and I for my part do not suspect ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... seen 'em!" Volpatte yelled with a desperate effort through the storm. "Tiens! not far from the front, don't know where exactly, where there's an ambulance clearing-station and a sous-intendance—I met the reptile there." ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... can you be so ungrateful as to make them unhappy? You have all read the story of the kind man, who found a viper lying upon the ground almost dead with cold. He took it up and placed it in his bosom to warm it, and to save its life. And what did that viper do? He killed his benefactor! Vile, vile reptile! Yes! as soon as he was warm and well, he stung the bosom of his kind preserver, and ...
— The Child at Home - The Principles of Filial Duty, Familiarly Illustrated • John S.C. Abbott
... of naturalists would be useless, for a biped and a reptile not unfrequently bear the same interpretation as emblems. The simplest plan will be to divide the Church menagerie into two large classes, real beasts and monsters; there is no creature that we may not include in one or ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm. An inadvertent step may crush the snail That crawls at evening in the public path; But he that has humanity, forewarned, Will tread aside, and let the reptile live. The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight, And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes, A visitor unwelcome, into scenes Sacred to neatness and repose, the alcove, The chamber, or refectory, may die: A necessary act incurs no blame. Not so when, held within their ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... with a piece of wood. Yuranigh did the same, both missed it, when it unexpectedly turned upon us, took a position on higher ground beside a large tree, then descended with head erect, moving nimbly towards the horses, and the rest of the party. The deadly reptile glided straight to the forefeet of my horse, touched the fetlock with his head, but did not bite; then passed to the hind legs and did the same, fortunately the horse stood quietly. The snake darted thence towards one of the men, ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... sage elephant, facing a hideous hippopotamus; whilst an anaconda twined its long spire round the stem of some tropical tree in zinc. In glass cases, brought into full light by festooned lamps, were dread specimens of the reptile race,—scorpion and vampire, and cobra capella, with insects of gorgeous hues, not a few of them ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with which he conquered all obstacles in science was patience. He knew how to sit immovable, a part of the rock he rested on, until the bird, the reptile, the fish, which had retired from him, should come back, and resume its habits, nay, moved by curiosity, should come to him ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... search for the abodes of inhabitants. Nothing of this sort, however, could be discovered. The island was unquestionably without a human being, our young man alone excepted. Nor could he see any trace of beast, reptile, or of any animal but birds. Creatures gifted with wings had been able to reach that little paradise; but to all others, since it first arose from the sea, had it probably been unapproached, if not unapproachable, ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... next cut the sceptre from his hand; my third—a great one—hewed the head from off him. It came rattling down, and out of it crawled a viper, which reared itself up and hissed. I set my heel upon the reptile's head and crushed it, and slowly ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... rapidity of a single bullet the whole contents of the automatic's magazine poured out and every missile took effect in the reptile's huge head. In its death agony it straightened out its folds and Frank's senseless body dropped from ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... meet me in the village, on the Cob, on the links, and pass by as if I were the Invisible Man. And why? Because of the reptile, Hawk. The worm, Hawk. ...
— Love Among the Chickens • P. G. Wodehouse
... Callieres, Champigny, and Vaudreuil drew the first smoke, then the Iroquois deputies, and then all the tribes in turn. The treaty was duly signed, the representative of each tribe affixing his mark, in the shape of some bird, beast, fish, reptile, insect, plant, ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... need to be proved only by a bare perusal of this hateful bill, by which the meanest, the most worthless reptile, exalted to a petty office by serving a wretch only superiour to him in fortune, is enabled to flush his authority by tyrannising over those who every hour deserve the publick acknowledgments of the community; to intrude upon ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... firm on his feet, and so exactly like the La Baudraye of 1836, that Dinah despaired of ever burying the dreadful little dwarf. From the garden, where he was smoking a cigar, the journalist could watch Monsieur de la Baudraye for so long as it took the little reptile to cross the forecourt, but that was enough for Lousteau; it was plain to him that the little man had intended to wreck every hope of his dying that his wife might ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... prairie. We entered it, and galloping up, in a moment were surrounded by the bleak sand-hills. Half of their steep sides were bare; the rest were scantily clothed with clumps of grass, and various uncouth plants, conspicuous among which appeared the reptile-like prickly-pear. They were gashed with numberless ravines; and as the sky had suddenly darkened, and a cold gusty wind arisen, the strange shrubs and the dreary hills looked doubly wild and desolate. But Henry's face was all eagerness. He tore off a little hair ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... cried Archer, with a look of ineffable contempt; "you reptile!—YOUR party? Can such a thing as ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... the speculation of a seeker for election. Monsieur Jerome Thuillier has held himself impassible before these shameful imputations because justice and truth are patient, and he bided his time to scotch the reptile. That time ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... Court of Ages through the first nebulous period of the world's growth, through the second, which shows the transition in successive forms of sea-plant life, the third period is reached where are illustrated the earliest forms of human, animal, reptile and bird life prevailing in the stone age. This age is indicated, in the court, by the prehistoric figure surmounting the piers of the arcade and by the first sculptured group over the entrance to the tower. The repeated arcade figures, which were designed ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... un-Christian, father. You must come to church, in order that some idea of what Christianity demands of you may make its way into your heart. It is not what the clergyman may say of you, but that your mind will get away for two hours from that other reptile and his concerns." Then Mr. Grey, with a loud, long sigh, allowed his boots, and his gloves, and his church-going hat, and his church-going umbrella to be brought to him. It was, in fact, his aversion to these articles that Dolly ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... support, he ever after ranked in infamy next to Benedict Arnold. Thenceforth he became a stranger and a wanderer on the face of the earth. His friends left him and society shunned him. "I have not spoken to the damned reptile for twenty-five years," said former Governor Morgan Lewis, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... him of climatic change, Of bird, beast, reptile, in his forest range, Of flowers and fruits and simples new ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... is not invincible; Cadmus, who loved no one, slew Mars' own reptile. We love, and Love makes everything possible for the heart that follows his standard, for the hand of whose darts he ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... back in sudden horror. This tiny thing had taken the semblance of a snake. A vicious cobra cast at her feet would be less alarming, for the reptile could be killed, whilst his venomous fangs would only be used ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... stood poised, one foot on the ground, the other on the stool, both hands gripping the high shelf, she felt the reptile whipping, writhing, jerking, lashing, flogging at her ankle and instep, coiling round her leg.... And in the fraction of a second the thought flashed through her mind: "If its head is under my foot, or too close to my foot for its fangs to reach me, I am safe while I remain as I am. If ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... sir! nothing at all! Only Miss Lacordere has been good to us—which it's more than can be said for everybody! (Scowls at MRS. C. JAMES proceeds to lift THOMAS. She flies at him.) Put the old gentleman down, you sneakin' reptile! How many doors have you been a hearkenin' at since mornin'—eh, putty-lump? You touch the old man again, and I'll mark you! Here, Bill! I'll take his head—you take his feet. We'll carry him between us ...
— Stephen Archer and Other Tales • George MacDonald
... intimidated into signing what we require, not do I think would Robespierre. Marat is a different creature altogether. He is simply venomous. He hates the world, and would absolutely rejoice in slaughter. So loathsome is he in appearance that even his colleagues shrink from him. He is a venomous reptile whom it would be a pleasure to slay, as it would be to put one's heel upon a rattlesnake. Whether he is a coward or not I do not know, but I should think so. Men of his type are seldom brave. I think if we had him in our hands we might frighten him into ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... foremost reptile on the point of the snout, checking the beast and causing a flurry among its companions. Little gained a few precious feet, and as a patch of dirty gray belly showed for an instant in the over-roll of the smitten beast, Barry fired again, and his ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... so the eyes closed and the reptile began to move backward with incredible swiftness, lashing about on the ground before us with other tentacles similar to the one ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... or disgusting animals of the reptile or insect tribe, are sea-snakes, three feet long, with black and white circles alternately, often found on shore; some scorpions, and centipedes. There are fine green guanoes, a foot and a half long; another brown and spotted lizard about a foot long; and two other small sorts. Amongst ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... so am I reminded of a Whig or Tory measure. When the newspaper is brought in, I walk round and round it as a dog will do round the spot he is about to lie down upon. I would fain not touch it; but at last, like a fascinated bird who falls per force into the reptile's mouth, so do I plunge into its columns, read it with desperation, and when the poison has circulated, throw it away in despair. If I am reminded to say grace at dinner, I commence "My Lords, and gentlemen;" and ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... said my companion, pointing to a winding track in the dusty road, showing where the reptile must have crossed from one side to ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... and this Iemon. Wander not as one unburied, but becoming a Buddha at once enter Nirvana. Namu Myo[u]ho[u] Renge Kyo[u]! Namu Myo[u]ho[u] Renge Kyo[u]! Wonderful the Law, wondrous the Scripture of the Lotus!" With the invocation he cast the stunned reptile far out into the garden. Returning, he said—"The aodaisho[u] is the most harmless of snakes. The farmers keep it to destroy the rats which infest house and store rooms. How can Hana be afraid of snakes, living in this yashiki overgrown by weeds ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... unite in despising you. 'Tis an incendiary war upon society, which nothing can excuse or palliate,—an improvement upon beggarly villany—and shows an inbred wretchedness of heart made up between the venomous malignity of a serpent and the spiteful imbecility of an inferior reptile. ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... they are serpents' skeletons. Doubtless in their sacrificial ceremonies these people also offered up rattlesnakes, which seem to have been a sort of sacred reptile among them; much as, in a sense, the cat was sacred to the ancient Egyptians, and the python is worshiped in certain parts ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... colonel had just taken another mango out of the basket, when Newton perceived a small snake wind itself over the rim, and curl up one of the feet of the colonel's chair, in such a position that the very next time that the colonel reached out his hand, he must have come in contact with the reptile. Newton hardly knew how to act; the slightest movement of the old gentleman might be fatal to him; he therefore walked up softly and was about to strike the reptile on the head with his stick, when the ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... chest. Most of its movements were slow and uncertain, and it hopped about over the floor like a giant toad, uttering guttural sounds deep within its chest. Omega had set out to create an ape-man, but this thing was neither man nor beast, bird or reptile, but a travesty on all—an unspeakable horror from the dead womb of ...
— Omega, the Man • Lowell Howard Morrow
... itself surrounded by enemies, coiled itself round Harry's leg, a proceeding very painful to that youth, who nevertheless stood like a statue while Jim dodged about for a chance to strike at the wildly waving head. He got it at last, and while the reptile writhed in very natural annoyance, Harry managed to get free, and soon put a respectful distance between himself and his too-affectionate acquaintance. Jim finished up the snake, and they resumed the track, keeping a careful look-out, and imagining another ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... a meaning, although neither the interpreter nor the shaman consulted could explain them, which may be because the words have become altered in the song, as frequently happens. D[^u]nu[']wa appears to be an old verb, meaning "it has penetrated," probably referring to the tooth of the reptile. These medicine songs are always sung in a low plaintive tone, somewhat resembling a lullaby. Usu[']'g[)i] also is without explanation, but is probably the name of some small reptile ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... universe; and yet you have the folly to believe you are acquainted with the past, the present, and the future. I am an intelligence somewhat superior to you, though there are millions of beings as much above me in power and in intellect as man is above the meanest and weakest reptile that crawls beneath his feet; yet something I can teach you: yield your mind wholly to the influence which I shall exert upon it, and you shall be undeceived in your views of the history of the world, and of the system you inhabit." ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... and how glad he is of the chance to help her up and soothe her fears no one but himself ever knows. She, too, has been picking berries, and has come suddenly upon a monster snake just gliding from a cedar bough almost over her head. When her fright subsides he at once hunts for and kills that reptile with far more satisfaction than he ever felt in killing one before. It is an ungrateful return, for although the boy knew it not, the snake has done him a greater kindness than he ever realized. Then when all danger is removed, how sweet it is to sit beside her in the shade and ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn
... the hand from his knee as if it were a coiled reptile. "You insult her even by mentioning such a thing. The man does not live who could tarnish her name. I have watched her since she was a little child. I know her as well as if she were my sister, and ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... You must be a new sort of a Gentile. Never came across a reptile of your pattern before. Is that ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... the man he sent down," said the squire. "It was a concerted plan, and I think he was right. I should have brained him in the hall of the club." On the following morning Pratt had called upon him at his inn with Crosbie's apology. "His apology!" said the squire. "I have it in my pocket. Poor reptile; wretched worm of a man! I cannot understand it. On my honour, Bernard, I do not understand it. I think men are changed since I knew much of them. It would have been impossible for me to write such a letter as that." He went on telling how Pratt had brought him this letter, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... have liked to knock down that reptile Landsberg. But that would only have caused a scandal, which, for the dear woman's ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... expression of face shows you the terrorizing effect of fire. He holds his hand in the flame. The lightning plays on his right arm. Across his figure passes the salamander, the fabled reptile of the fire. (See the real salamander in the Japanese ...
— Palaces and Courts of the Exposition • Juliet James
... show If thou wilt succor me. I'll be to thee A faithful friend, as no snake ever yet. Lift me, and quickly from the flames bear forth: For thee I shall grow light." Thereat shrank up That monstrous reptile to a finger's length; And grasping this, unto a place secure From burning, Nala bore it, where the air Breathed freshly, and the fire's black path was stayed. Then made the Prince to lay the serpent down, But yet again it speaks: "Nishadha's Lord, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... Rome, through the hole whence, reptile-like, you emerged!—and feed your starving citizens with the words you have heard in ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... want the business for the money it brings them is not argument! We have seen many a steam roller go over Truth, and Right, and Justice, by main strength and red-hot power; but Truth and Right refuse to stay flat down. There is on this earth not one wild-animal species—mammal, bird or reptile—that can long withstand exploitation for commercial purposes. Even the whales of the deep sea, the walrus of the arctic regions, the condors of the Andes and alligators of the Everglade morasses are no exception to the ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... signs of the clans or tribes into which the various nations are divided. They are not the personal emblems of the chiefs, although in signing treaties they employ them as their sign manual. Each tribe or clan had its emblem, consisting of the figure of some bird, beast, or reptile, and is distinguished by the name of the animal which it has assumed as a device, as Wolf, Hawk, Tortoise. To different totems, says Parkman in his "Conspiracy of Pontiac," attach different degrees of rank and ...
— The Abenaki Indians - Their Treaties of 1713 & 1717, and a Vocabulary • Frederic Kidder
... still current that a wounded snake is certain to seek vengeance even if the person that has wounded it places miles of distance between himself and the reptile. The people of this country, therefore, always kill a snake outright and burn it in fire ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... They were very much disposed to remain in the house and give my servants their view of the cause of Krause's strange disappearance, which was—as they had previously told me—that he had been seized and devoured by an enormous reptile, half eel and half turtle, which had been known to swallow not only human beings, but such trifles as double canoes, groves of coco-nut trees, etcetera; but on my telling them that I was very tired and wanted ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... of human beings, and it is precisely in this dual character of theirs that their fascination lies. In their outward appearance they are deliciously true to life. With the fewest of rapid strokes, La Fontaine can raise up an unmistakable vision of any beast or bird, fish or reptile, that he has a ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... and saw that far behind rose the tufted tail of the king of the forest. From the two great eyes of the gigantic reptile shone dazzling streams of white light, like the rays of a mariner's beacon, and everywhere twinkling yellow lights were moving about the face of the great rock, across the platform whereon the colossal figure rested, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... received the message, which he did on his return from his club about eleven o'clock at night, he eyed the thin, pink paper on which it was written as if it had been a reptile of some poisonous kind. "I expected it," he said to himself, and all the gaiety went out of his face. "She has found ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... which it came. Its plumage is like a mirror which reflects the snow, the moss, or the lichens in turn. It is, indeed, a feathered chameleon, but with changes of colour taking place more slowly than is the case in the reptile. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... bachelor, he makes his home with the empress, attends her wherever she goes, and, after having been the object of much abuse and even calumny,—the latter originated and circulated by the so-called "reptile press,"—that is to say, the newspapers, domestic and foreign, drawing pay and inspiration from Prince Bismarck,—he now enjoys the regard and the good-will of everyone at the Courts of Berlin and Windsor, particularly at the latter, where his lifelong devotion to the ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... collar with the other. "Now you go!" she said. He looked at her and at the dog, said "All right, mum," in a cringing tone, and left. She was a determined-looking woman, and Alligator's yellow eyes glared unpleasantly—besides, the dog's chawing-up apparatus greatly resembled that of the reptile he was named after. ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... he said. "Your sympathy is for Oscar. He is the victim; he is the martyr; he has all your consideration and all your pity. I am a coward; I am a villain; I have no honor and no heart. Tread Me under foot like a reptile. My misery is only what I deserve! Compassion is thrown away—isn't it?—on such a scoundrel as ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... Straightway a scent steals into my nostril, a form presses against my palm in all its dilating softness, with rounded petals, slightly curled edges, curving stem, leaves drooping. When I would fain view the world as a whole, it rushes into vision—man, beast, bird, reptile, fly, sky, ocean, mountains, plain, rock, pebble. The warmth of life, the reality of creation is over all—the throb of human hands, glossiness of fur, lithe windings of long bodies, poignant buzzing of insects, the ruggedness of the steeps ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... than be One of the hundred thousand human flies That swarm within yon filthy city's walls. Here, I at least may live in solitude, Free from a forced communion with a race, Whose presence makes me feel that I am bound, By nature, to the thing I loathe the most, Earth's stateliest, proudest, meanest reptile, man! The beauty of a god adorns his form, The foulness of a fiend is in his heart; The viper's, or the scorpion's filthy nest Nurses a far less deadly, poisonous brood Than are the hellish lusts, the avarice,— The pride—the hate—the double-faced deceits— That make his breast their dwelling. ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... and in another minute the three travellers busily engaged in turning over the carcass of the huge reptile, which they found, to the amazement of Martin and Barney, had actually swallowed an ox whole, with the exception of the horns, which protruded ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... on the shoulder," the Port Security Officer said. "Won't you Earthmen ever learn?" The splay-tongued reptile-humanoids of Irwadi always spoke Interstellar Coine with a pronounced lisp which Ramsey found annoying, especially since it went so well with the officious and underhanded behavior for which the Irwadians were famous the ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance
... this was true by passing the spot, with the venomous reptile only increasing his rattle and drawing back his head. Then Perk shut his teeth hard and followed suit but it might have been noticed that he kept to the extreme edge of the narrow trail and had his muscles all set, ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... life was done— The very hue, so ghastly, won— The grey, dull tint:—the labour ceased, It stood—half reptile and half beast! And now began the mimic chase; Two dogs I sought, of noblest race, Fierce, nimble, fleet, and wont to scorn The wild bull's wrath and levell'd horn; These, docile to my cheering cry, I train'd to bound, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... mighty wrongs to petty perfidy Have I not seen what human things could do? From the loud roar of foaming calumny To the small whisper of the as paltry few And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Janus glance of whose significant eye, Learning to lie with silence, would SEEM true, And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... of Neleus (2 syl.). He had the power of changing his form into a bird, beast, reptile, or insect. As a bee, he perched on the chariot of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... finally gave me into custody for an attempt upon his life. Again I was taken to the magistrate, but not again discharged so easily. My character and previous offences were exhibited. The magistrate, serious with judicial sorrow, looked upon me as you would turn an eye towards a reptile that defiles the earth. I appealed to him, and in a loud and animated voice proclaimed my grievances. It was suggested that I was a lunatic, and whilst the justice committed me to hard labour, he benevolently promised that the prison surgeon should visit me, and pronounce upon my fitness ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... on the table, and the young men stood gazing as if it were a venomous reptile which ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the waist by a sash or belt of a darker shade. Her bosom was bare, and bore the same sickly hue of pale green; her face was placid; the eyes were open; but one of the balls had been extracted by some reptile of the deep; her long hair flowed among the weeds; and, hanging from the lobe of the left ear, I saw a clear gem that shone with the brightness of the stone called aqua marina. One of the arms had been taken off a little above the elbow; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... But the pathos of it was that we now saw it all too clearly. My brother explained that the barque was intended to be not "seen." Ugliness was almost desirable. It might help us if we called it the "Reptile," and painted it red—all of which suggestions were followed. But still I remember feeling a little crestfallen, when after launching it through the window, it lay offensively resplendent against the vivid green of the grass. It served, however, for a time, ending its days honourably ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... hurrying up and down the street. She had stopped and made their acquaintance, and now she knew them all, and they were her good friends, excepting a few, such as the poison-vines, and here and there a plant or reptile, with which she was never on ...
— What Might Have Been Expected • Frank R. Stockton
... Reptile developed a wide variety of monsters in the central regions of the continent from Montana to the Gulf of Mexico. The dinosaurs of the Triassic and Jurassic periods sometimes had gigantic size, the Brontosaurus attaining ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... he said, and the snap in his voice was like the crackling of electricity. "Don't let me ever see you here again. You are keen and intelligent. You spoke the truth a short time since. You were right. I tolerate nothing in my place that is not my own—no man, no animal, no bird, no insect nor reptile even—that will not obey my lightest order. And these creatures, great or small, who will not—or even cannot—obey my orders must ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... moved by a strong, mysterious impulse, went forward to look at the poor little clay-coloured body. At that moment a snake ran out from a tuft of grass at his feet and wriggled wildly over the sod. The dragoman shrieked, of course, but one of the soldiers put his heel upon the head of the reptile and it flung itself into the agonising knot of death. Then the whole crowd powwowed, turning from the dead man to the dead snake. Coleman signaled his contingent ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Surveyors had enter'd the Dismal, they had laid Eyes on no living Creature: neither Bird nor Beast, Insect nor Reptile came in View. Doubtless, the Eternal Shade that broods over this mighty Bog, and hinders the sun-beams from blessing the Ground, makes it an uncomfortable Habitation for any thing that has life. Not so much as a Zealand Frog cou'd endure ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... with its chin and belly upon the earth, or shooting over the turf with such a rapidity that it seems to fly rather than run. By the road-sides, and in the open pastures, and in the provision-grounds of the negroes, still he sees this elegant and agile lizard; and his prejudices against the reptile races must be inveterate indeed if he can behold its gentle countenance, and timid but bright eyes, its chaste but beautiful hues, its graceful form and action, and its bird-like motions, with any other ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... read the story: a duel of teeth between this captive reptile and the semi-crucified man; the one in anger wounding, the other snapping in his frenzy to sever that venomous head—his only means of escape from it. From the way the thongs had cut into his wrists and ankles I knew the struggle had been wild, yet ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... suffusion in the vicinity of his throat. In the next breath he felt genuinely guilty. As he looked deep into the anxious, appealing gray eyes of Miss Vost, he cursed himself for being, or having the tendencies to be, a trifler; and in his estimation a trifler was not far removed from the reptile class. Yet somehow, damn it, that trip to Ching-Fu on the Hankow appealed to him now as a most profitable excursion, for Ching-Fu was only a few hundred li ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... This reptile is almost more poisonous than a cobra, and, as it is thin and rarely exceeds twelve inches in length, it can hide anywhere and is an even deadlier menace in ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... traveling-bag and lifted out a strip of metal. He handled it as gingerly as if it were a reptile, and he looked at it with an air as if he feared it ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... said Livia. 'How strange, that Aurelian, who knows so well how to subdue the world, should have so little power to shake off this reptile.' ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... the way to the Reptile House?" Cassandra asked him, not from a genuine desire to visit the reptiles, but in obedience to her new-born feminine susceptibility, which urged her to charm and conciliate the other sex. Denham began to give her directions, and Katharine ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... to keep ahead of me. I follow and watch this tiresome creature and get more and more exasperated with him, I am conscious that he has, little by little, destroyed my happy mood and dragged the pure, beautiful morning down to the level of his own ugliness. He looks like a great sprawling reptile striving with might and main to win a place in the world and reserve the footpath for himself. When we reached the top of the hill I determined to put up with it no longer. I turned to a shop window and stopped in order to give him an opportunity of getting ahead, but when, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... that moment, the mother, to her horror, saw a deadly reptile coiled in the very path along which the child was rolling his "bushee," and with true frontier woman's pluck, ran and snatched up the bare-footed Fernando, when only within two feet of the deadly serpent, carried him ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... as to diet. A general scavenger, the Burying-beetle refuses nothing in the way of cadaveric putridity. All is good to his senses, feathered game or furry, provided that the burden do not exceed his strength. He exploits the batrachian or the reptile with no less animation, he accepts without hesitation extraordinary finds, probably unknown to his race, as witness a certain Gold-fish, a red Chinese Carp, whose body, placed in one of my cages, was instantly ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... after the lapse of two centuries and a half, to turn over those long forgotten pages and mark the depths to which political and theological party spirit could descend. That human creatures can assimilate themselves so closely to the reptile, and to the subtle devil within the reptile, when a party end is to be gained is enough to make the very name of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... up an exquisite rose-colored reptile. "The tritulus annularis or pink garter snake! Almost unheard of ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... Honest old Dick Reptile is the third of our society. He is a good-natured indolent man, who speaks little himself, but laughs at our jokes; and brings his young nephew along with him, a youth of eighteen years old, to show him good company, and give him a taste of the world. ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... is its freedom, its superior powers of locomotion, its triumph over time and space. The reptile measures its length upon the ground; the quadruped enjoys a more complete liberation, and is related to the earth less closely; man more still; and the bird most of all. Over our heads, where our eyes travel, but our bodies follow not,—in the free native air,—is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... possesses four of such glands; they vary in size according to the age of the reptile, but they are generally about as large as a hazel-nut, when dried. Two glands are situated in the groin, and two in the throat, a little in advance of the fore-legs. I have noticed two species of crocodiles throughout all ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... happened to disturb a big black snake, which lay sleeping under them. Grayskin had heard Karr speak of the poisonous adders that were to be found in the forest. So, when the snake raised its head, shot out its tongue and hissed at him, he thought he had encountered an awfully dangerous reptile. He was terrified and, raising his foot, he struck so hard with his hoof that he crushed the snake's head. Then, away he ran in ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... not perceive that he was losing consciousness—he was becoming benumbed and lifeless. Winter was silently delivering him over to night. There is something of the traitor in winter. The child was all but a statue. The coldness of stone was penetrating his bones; darkness, that reptile, was crawling over him. The drowsiness resulting from snow creeps over a man like a dim tide. The child was being slowly invaded by a stagnation resembling that of the corpse. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... to crawl slowly up the rock, dragging himself along on his belly like a veritable reptile. Two or three times he narrowly escaped sliding down into the abyss below, but finally he succeeded in reaching the ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... yes, and read in the dust how he had come at last and made the fateful step; but steel will break and iron will bend. The great Bear-trail was there to tell the tale: for a while he had raged and chafed at the hard black reptile biting into his paw; then, seeking a boulder, he had released the paw by smashing the trap to pieces on it. Thenceforth each year he grew more cunning, ...
— Monarch, The Big Bear of Tallac • Ernest Thompson Seton
... reptile, however, was the conventional mythical scorpion of the Zodiac, and only vaguely represented the evil-looking, venomous beast with which I subsequently became, according to her prophecy, acquainted, in ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... can tell you. What you say is fully proven in this letter. Let them call up the firm if they want; you have nothing to fear from any exposure. Come, we will get back to the bank as fast as possible. I want to see the face of that old reptile when he learns that the letter has been found, just as you said," by which rather severe epithet he undoubtedly meant Mr. Graylock, whose evident animosity toward the bank boy he must ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... word-formula will be enough; it is that, not thought, not action, that saves. I believe in—such and such an arrangement of consonants and vowels;—and therefore I am saved, and highly superior; and you, poor reptile, who possess not this arrangement, but some other and totally false one;—you, thank God, are damned. You are lost; you shall go to hell; I scorn and look down on you from the heights of the special favor of the Maker of ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... is called blood. In all the higher animal types it is of a red color, although redness is not one of its essential qualities. Some tribes of animals possess true blood, which is not red; thus the blood of the insect is colorless and transparent; that of the reptile yellowish; in the fish the principle part is without color, but the blood of the bird is deep red. The blood of the mammalia is of a bright scarlet hue. The temperature of the blood varies in different species, as well as in animals of the same species under ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... Perotti (1430-1480), persons who had been bitten by this reptile fell into a state of melancholia and stupefaction. While in this condition they were very susceptible to the influence of music. At the very first tone of a favorite melody, they sprang up, shouting for joy, and danced without ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... could she tell? Her heart misgave her; she crushed herself away from him as from some abnormally vicious, loathly reptile. ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... into melancholy or rather dulness. The fire of fancy, which had been kept alive in the country, was almost extinguished by reflections on the ills that harass such a large portion of mankind. I felt like a bird fluttering on the ground unable to mount, yet unwilling to crawl tranquilly like a reptile, whilst ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... had passed around the sliding door and thought herself unobserved, an expression of intense disgust came out upon her expressive face, and with her lace handkerchief she rubbed the hand he had kissed, as if removing the slime of a reptile; and the large mirror at the further end of the room had faithfully reflected the suggestive little pantomime. He saw and understood all in ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... the hairs is known in all its details, but there are two different views as to their phylogeny. On the older view the hairs of the mammals are equivalent or homologous to the feathers of the bird or the horny scales of the reptile. As we deduce all three classes of Amniotes from a common stem-group, we must assume that these Permian stem-reptiles had a complete scaly coat, inherited from their Carboniferous ancestors, the mailed amphibia ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... all our party on board the Rangoon would have been personal witnesses to the existence of a great sea-serpent. But, alas for romance! One glance through the lenses, and the reptile was resolved into a bamboo, root upwards, anchored in some manner to ...
— The Youth's Companion - Volume LII, Number 11, Thursday, March 13, 1879 • Various
... time. You were never out of my thoughts, David dear. Oh, how many nights have I laid awake inventing reasons for hating you, and how many, many times have I ended up by hating myself. I am a very mean, despicable creature. I am a loathsome, poisonous reptile, and you ought to put your foot on my neck and keep it there forever and ever. Now I know why I have been so mean to you. It is because I love you so much. You cannot grasp that, can you? You could ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... Chicago, were there but three passengers on board a train of eight cars? What forced three rail trains from the tracks and shot down engineers with their hands on the valves? Communism. For hundreds of miles along the track leading from the great West I saw stretched out and coiled up the great reptile which, after crushing the free locomotive of passengers and trade, would have twisted itself around our republican institutions, and left them in strangulation and blood along the pathway of nations. The governors of States and ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... was, nobody had thought to use his pistol, but as Tom spoke Dick pointed his weapon at the snake, that was crawling rapidly over the tree roots towards them. The puff of smoke was followed by a writhing of the reptile, and they saw that it had been ...
— The Rover Boys in Southern Waters - or The Deserted Steam Yacht • Arthur M. Winfield
... sprung forward beside her. His curious eyes at once perceived the hideous, thickset lizard that lay flattened upon the shadowed sand as if in a torpor. The reptile's dirty orange-mottled black body was as loathsome as ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... demanding that the plank be restored to its place. Wai-lua does not recognize the deity in Hiiaka and, sullen, makes no response. At this the goddess puts forth her strength, and Wai-lua, stripped of her power and reduced to her true station, that of a mo'o, a reptile, seeks refuge in the caverns beneath the river. Hiiaka betters the condition of the crossing by sowing it with stepping stones. The stones remain in evidence to ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... fantastically decorated with strips of rags, damask silk, and cotton of variegated colours; and they performed to admiration. The second exhibition was hunting the boa snake, by the men in the sacks. The huge snake, it seems, went through the motions of this kind of reptile, "in a very natural manner, though it appeared to be rather full in the belly, opening and shutting its mouth in the most natural manner imaginable." A running fight ensued, which lasted some time, till at length the chief ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 357 - Vol. XIII, No. 357., Saturday, February 21, 1829 • Various
... ridiculous by fighting with such an apology for a man; but I will crush him as I would any other reptile that attempts to injure me. There shall not be a day of his life that does not bring him some pang which he shall owe to the hate of Barbesieur de Louvois. And I counsel YOU not to ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... personal possessions had been transferred, an image crossed his mind which was disagreeable. It was that of Nash, the shady solicitor in Pengarth, Melrose's factotum in many disreputable affairs, and his agent in the ruin of the Brands. A little reptile if ever there was one! Faversham had come across the creature a good deal since his appointment as agent; and was well aware that he had excited Nash's jealousy and dislike. A man to be guarded against no doubt; but what could he do? Faversham contemptuously ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... dry it and use it as a specific against asthma, as they believed that any asthmatic person who lived on the flesh for a certain time would be infallibly cured. Another native wished the fat as an antidote for rheumatic pain. The head of this huge reptile was presented to an American, who in turn presented it to the Boston Museum. Unfortunately La Gironiere's picturesque descriptions must often be taken with a grain of salt. For some information regarding the reptiles of the islands see Report ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... python. The snake was rolled up in a tight coil, and had evidently spent the night within a yard of the professor's head! Being unable to make out what sort of snake it was, and fearing that it might be a poisonous one, he crept quietly from his couch, keeping his eyes fixed on the reptile as he did so. One result of this mode of action was that he did not see where he was going, and inadvertently thrust one finger into Moses' right eye, and another into his open mouth. The negro naturally shut his mouth with ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... soon as the animal was out of the water and placed on the platform, the pilot put his foot on his back. Then, closing the animal's massive jaws, he tried to tie his big snout tight with the rope. The reptile made a last effort, doubled up his body, struck the floor of the platform with his powerful tail and, breaking loose, made a leap into the water of the lake, on the other side of the weir, at the same time dragging with him his captor. It seemed that the pilot would be a dead man. ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... remainder do not. I have questioned numbers of persons of both sexes, and have been astonished at the frequency with which I have been assured that they had no shrinking whatever from the sight of the wriggling mysterious reptile. Some persons, as is well known, make pets of them; moreover, I am told that there is no passage in Greek or Latin authors expressive of that form of horror which I myself feel, and which may be compared to what is said to be felt by hydrophobic ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... "that yesterday I took a turn in Medicis' kitchen, I suppose the reptile accidentally fell into my pocket; these creatures are very short-sighted. Since I have got it," added he, "I should like to keep it. I will tame it and paint it red, it will look livelier. I am sad since Phemie's departure; it will be a companion ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... daughter of Rappaccini plucked one of the richest blossoms of the shrub, and was about to fasten it in her bosom. But now, unless Giovanni's draughts of wine had bewildered his senses, a singular incident occurred. A small orange-colored reptile, of the lizard or chameleon species, chanced to be creeping along the path, just at the feet of Beatrice. It appeared to Giovanni,—but, at the distance from which he gazed, he could scarcely have seen anything so minute,—it appeared to him, however, that a ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... it come to this; I am about to leave you forever, and yet you shrink from me as if I were a reptile," cried Jameson. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... la Barca (in "Life in Mexico") speaks of persons who have been inoculated with the venom of rattlesnakes, by pricking them in various places with the tooth. These persons are thus secured forever after against the bite of any venomous reptile. They have the power of calling snakes, and feel great pleasure in playing with and handling them. Their own bite becomes poisonous to people not inoculated in the same manner. Thus a part of the serpent's nature appears to be transfused ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... that the tale, as far as the Pecos were concerned, was certainly true. He never could get to see the reptile, however. ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... voit cet oiseau qui porte le tonnerre, Blesse par un serpent elance de la terre; Il s'envole, il entraine au sejour azure L'ennemi tortueux dont il est entoure. Le sang tombe des airs. Il dechire, il devore Le reptile acharne qui le combat encore; Il le perce, il le tient sous ses ongles vainqueurs; Par cent coups redoubles il venge ses douleurs. Le monstre, en expirant, se debat, se replie; Il exhale en poisons les restes de sa vie; Et l'aigle, tout sanglant, fier et victorieux, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... away from comparisons, shut in by the stable hills, among which mere walking had the novelty of pageantry, and where any man could imagine himself to be Adam without the least difficulty, they attracted the attention of every bird within eyeshot, every reptile not yet asleep, and set the surrounding rabbits curiously watching from hillocks ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... not form an attractive object in the lovely landscape surrounded by hills, in and out amongst which the Reptile River ran, for a building hastily raised of corrugated iron never was and never ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... a good deal of pluck, I think, rushed into the shallow water and grabbed hold of their comrade. The snake did not let go, but the dress was torn from her body by the wrestle between the strength of the reptile and that of the four girls. I know one of the sisters quite well. She's an old woman, now, but she lives in ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... kind! A person that can lie like that deserves no one's respect. I ask you all to answer me. Do you believe what this reptile ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... down with the poker next time he comes. I'll throw a kettle of boiling water on him as sure as eggs are eggs. Fancy the reptile leering around me: I felt nearly poisoned as it was, but I didn't know he was a murderer as well! Oh, the hide of him to come here! I really will throw ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... had ended his existence, but the snake was indeed an honorable highwayman, and sounded a gentlemanly warning in the nick of time. Collins would have killed it for its pains, but killing had upset his nerves that day. So he left the reptile to try its fangs on a better man. Besides, he reflected that he could not consistently advocate capital punishment, and he sincerely hoped that his humane sentiments would spread in California. He recalled the fact that there ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall
... tarpaulin on the ground to lay our blankets, rugs, etc., to sleep on. When I had arranged my bed, several old men standing close by, the master-fiend, deliberately threw himself down on my rugs. I am rather particular about my rugs and bedding, and this highly though disagreeably perfumed old reptile, all greasy with rotten fat, lying down on and soiling them, slightly annoyed me; and not pretending to be a personification of sweetness and light, I think I annoyed him a great deal more, for I gave him as good a thrashing with ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... not an insect, not even a reptile to be seen, the solemn, melancholy silence is unbroken by the voice of any living creature." From the summit of these hills the commander saw New Bay, that known as Admiralty, which communicates by a current with that in which the Astrolabe was anchored; and he was anxious to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne |
