"Cockatoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deal in the kitchen, and Aunt Clara, I think, spent most of the morning dusting the drawing-room and going through the linen and silver. Then there were the dogs. They had to be exercised, besides being washed and brushed. Now Sandy's dead, but Aunt Clara has a very old cockatoo that came from India. Everything in our house," she exclaimed, "comes from somewhere! It's full of old furniture, not really old, Victorian, things mother's family had or father's family had, which they didn't like to get rid of, I suppose, though we've really no room for them. It's rather a nice ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... and the great pastoral country. Shearing at any one shed only lasts a few weeks in the year; the number of men employed is according to the size of the shed—from three to five men in the little bough-covered shed of the small "cockatoo," up to a hundred and fifty or two hundred hands all told in the big corrugated iron machine ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... would just do, he was gone. I heard outside Egstrom's deep gentle voice saying cheerily, "That's the Sarah W. Granger, Jimmy. You must manage to be first aboard"; and directly Blake struck in, screaming after the manner of an outraged cockatoo, "Tell the captain we've got some of his mail here. That'll fetch him. D'ye hear, Mister What's-your-name?" And there was Jim answering Egstrom with something boyish in his tone. "All right. I'll make a race of it." He seemed to take refuge in ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... season of year, and the hardest looking and shiniest silk hat to be had for love or money—these were Mr Randall's Sabbath wear, and it always struck me as a child that he had very much of the aspect of a cockatoo in mourning. He was a preternaturally solemn man and when I felt that I could command my features, I used to like to talk with him about his Art, and hear in what manner his inspirations occurred to him. "It's no credit to ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... that there was no good in bein' nothing else. He spluttered something about me disgracin' him, because something on his crest said he was brave or something; but I told him I didn't care a hang if he had a crest the size of a cockatoo or was as bald as Uncle Jake, that I was full of him actin' the goat, ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... know why a man who possessed the most beautiful and noble Bird of Paradise—a bird of rare plumage and wonderful qualities—should suddenly see more beauty in an ordinary Cockatoo, whose only attraction was its yellow feathers—a Cockatoo that screamed monotonously as it swung backward and forward on its perch, and would eat sugar out of the hand of any stranger while it cried 'Pretty Poll.' The man could not afford to buy this creature also, so he deliberately ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... the horses three gallons of water out of the kegs, after which they fed well; the hills, as we advanced were getting lower, and the sandy ridges now wound close under them, and in some instances even among them; still there were many birds around us, amongst which cockatoo parrots were very numerous. Our ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... were china cups and saucers, and china shepherds and shepherdesses, represented in the act of contemplating the heavens serenely, with their arms round each other's waists. There were also china dogs and cats, and a huge china cockatoo as a centre-piece; but there was not a single spot the size of a sixpence on which the captain could place his ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... bell bird, which, piping its pretty monotone, flitted in those earlier years amongst the acacias on the banks of the Yarra close to Melbourne, but which has taken its departure to far distances many a year ago. The gorgeous black cockatoo was another of our early company, now also long since departed. For a very few years after my arrival they still hovered about Melbourne, and I recollect gazing in admiration at a cluster of six of them perched upon a large gum-tree near the town, upon the Flemington-road. ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... vehicles over the cobbled streets. Gone the hoarse excitement of the shouting mobs, the poisonous atmosphere of close rooms, all the turmoil and racket and anxiety of those fighting days. He was back again in Bonestre. Below in the courtyard the white cockatoo was screaming. The waiters in their linen coats were preparing the tables for the few remaining guests. And the other things ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of the beautiful parrot family is the anaca (Derotypus coronatus). It is of a green colour, and at the back of its head rises a hood of red feathers bordered with blue, which it can elevate or depress at pleasure. It is the only American parrot which resembles the cockatoo of Australia. It is of a solemn, morose, and irritable disposition. The natives often keep the bird in the house for the purpose of seeing the irascible creature expand its beautiful feathers, which it readily does when excited. The crest is something ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... holds out many invitations. Birds, though not remarkably numerous, are in great variety, and of the most exquisite beauty of plumage, among which are the cockatoo, lory, and parroquet; but the bird which principally claims attention is, a species of ostrich, approaching nearer to the emu of South America than any other we know of. One of them was shot, at a considerable distance, with a single ball, by a convict employed for that purpose ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... "That's a cockatoo from Ecuador," said Bibb. "All he has been taught to say is 'Merry Christmas.' A seasonable bird. He's only seven dollars; and I'll bet many a human has stuck you for more money by making the ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... man worn down by fatigue and thirst is not equal to wield a gun, or direct its fire to any purpose; so it seems as if thirst were escaped for a time, in order that hunger might occupy its place. At length, however, the native kills a cockatoo, which had been wounded by a shot; and this bird, with a spoonful of flour to each man, and a tolerable abundance of liquid mud, becomes the means of saving the lives ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... harmless fixture at the Inn—so much so that men and women pass and repass my easel, or look over my shoulder while I work without a break in their confidences—quite as if I was a deaf, dumb, and blind waiter, or twin-brother to old Coco the cockatoo, who has surveyed the same scene from his perch near the roof for the past ...
— The Parthenon By Way Of Papendrecht - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... what it is? Name of God! do you know? See that red cross upon the blue and white ground! You never saw it before? Seguramente no. It is the naval flag of your country. Mire! This rotten tub we stand upon is its navy—that dead cockatoo lying there was its commander—that stroke of cutlass and single pistol shot a sea battle. All a piece of absurd foolery, I grant you—but authentic. There has never been another flag like this, and there never will be another. ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... "I thought you got away. Never saw any more of you after you jumped through the French window. Never had time. The last thing I remember is her Ladyship screaming like a mad cockatoo, yes, and abusing me as though I were a pickpocket, with the drawing-room all on fire. Then something happened, and down I went among the broken china and hit my head against the leg of a table. Next came a kind of whirling blackness and I woke ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... you what you like for a pet instead of it. Love-birds, now, or a cockatoo? A cockatoo is no trouble at all, and quite an ornament to the house, and worth a great deal more than a silly white kitten.— Where are you going, my love?"—for Philippa had suddenly rushed back through the ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton
... stranger — a 'Cockatoo' — The word means farmer, as all men know Who dwell in the land where the kangaroo Barks loud at dawn, and the white-eyed crow Uplifts his song on the stock-yard fence As he watches the lambkins ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... writing in these pages, seems to be more a suspicion than a reality; for recently he has once or twice ventured on discussions of such matters with a confidence and an insight which put me—me, who have plumed myself on my mental St. Simeon's tower, like a detestable intellectual cockatoo (you must untwist the metaphors!)—at his feet in the attitude of a humble learner. It took some of the conceit out of me; and yet, with true Elizabethan inconsistency I turned this new view of his character ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... baptized in his own blood. The other gods besides Oro were numerous, and there were also many animals supposed to be possessed with familiar spirits. A chief was once in the cabin of a ship where there was a talking cockatoo: the moment the bird spoke he rushed away in the utmost terror, leapt overboard, and swam for his life, convinced that he had heard ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... as a dewdrop joy enspheres This pleasant planet, arched with blue, When every prospect charms and cheers, And all the world is fair to view— Who does not envy (have not you?) That mortal, by Thalia kissed, Who plies, in plumes of cockatoo, ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... one can play the violin and can't teach, any more than a cockatoo, what's the good of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... had cooked one spoonful of flour each in the liquid mud which the pool afforded, and assured me that they found this thick water very nourishing; whence I concluded that the large portion of mud it contained in some degree gratified the cravings of the stomach. Kaiber soon plucked the cockatoo and roasted it: I gave him the entrails, the feet, and the first joint of the legs, eating the head and thighs myself and reserving the other portions as a store against future emergencies. I now felt assured that my life was saved and, rendering thanks ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey |
