"Magpie" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... exquisite green and white flashes of the herb called Snow-on-the-Mountain. The inhabitants were jackrabbits, or American magpies in sharp black and white livery, forever trying to balance their huge tails against the wind, and yelling in low-magpie ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... had begun, they turned in to the Vicus Patricius, and soon found themselves before the dwelling of Aulus. A young and sturdy "janitor" opened the door leading to the ostium, over which a magpie confined in a cage greeted them noisily ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... either in cages or in courtyards, with their wings cut. They soon become tame, and are very amusing from their cunning odd manners, which were described to me as being similar to those of the common magpie. Their flight is undulatory, for the weight of the head and bill appears too great for the body. In the evening the Saurophagus takes its stand on a bush, often by the roadside, and continually repeats without ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... straight in the direction of sensuality. He's as ignorant and as clever as they're made. He's never done a stroke of honest work in his life, and despises all those who are fools enough to toil, me among them. He is as acquisitive as a monkey and a magpie rolled into one. His constitution is made of iron, and I dare say his nerves are made of steel. He's a rare one, I tell you, and I'll make a rare picture ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Nicholas peeped into it, and, behold, it was full of coloured pictures of birds. And such birds! In the garden, and in the lanes when he went for a walk, Nicholas came across a few birds, of which the largest were an occasional magpie or wood-pigeon; here were herons and bustards, kites, toucans, tiger-bitterns, brush turkeys, ibises, golden pheasants, a whole portrait gallery of undreamed-of creatures. And as he was admiring the ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... all alone here last evening. I cried and prayed that vengeance might not fall on you and him—the innocent—but on me alone—if all I have suffered up to now is not enough. And then a woodpecker came and sat outside under the window, with its eerie tapping. And a little after came a magpie croaking on the roof, like a chuckling fiend. It made me shudder all over. I dare say you will laugh at my weakness. But it might be one of those mysterious threads of fate. I have seen the like before—and you know how ill and nervous I ...
— The Song Of The Blood-Red Flower • Johannes Linnankoski
... ball. The grandson of Robert Bucknor had not heard her say it nor had he heard his sister's cruel answer, as he had come into the hall the moment afterward. Now he was plainly bored, but trying to conceal it. The girl was chattering like a magpie. Suddenly Jeff looked up and ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... have capitally typified many of the wars of the state, their sole purpose being so many carcases—whilst, for the courts of law, the magpie would have been the very bird of legal ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... together, a fortunate one; three forebode a funeral, and four a wedding; or, when on a journey, to meet two magpies portends a wedding; three, a successful journey; four, unexpected good news; and five, that the person will soon be in company with the great. To kill a magpie, indicates or brings down some terrible misfortune. The Sparrow Hawk was sacred with the Egyptians, and the symbol of Osiris. The Yellow Hammer is superstitiously considered an agent diablerie. The ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various
... very long pause, which threatened to be final, when, mercifully, a bird about the size of a magpie, but of a metallic blue colour, appeared on the section of the terrace that could be seen from where they sat. Mrs. Thornbury was led to enquire whether we should like it if all our rooks were blue—"What do you think, William?" she asked, touching her ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... "What a magpie it is!" said Annie, impatiently. "But, of course, you have heard all about the turn father's affairs have taken since this bad rheumatic attack, which he does not believe he can shake off. It need not be any secret that my sisters ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... it? If we would win we must voyage light; besides, what need is there to carry salt salmon and dried flesh with us when the woods are swarming with such as these, and when we have a man in our company who can bring down a magpie ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... summit the brass cover to the object end of my spy-glass; and as it will probably remain there undisturbed by Indians, it will furnish matter of speculation to some future traveler. In our excursions about the island, we did not meet with any kind of animal; a magpie, and another larger bird, probably attracted by the smoke of our fire, paid us a visit from the shore, and were the only living things seen during our stay. The rock constituting the cliffs along the shore where we were encamped, is a talcous rock, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... must necessarily have excited the fetishtic fancy of primitive men. The worship of birds was therefore universal, in connection with that of trees, meteors, and waters. They were supposed to cause storms; and the eagle, the falcon, the magpie, and some other birds brought the celestial fire on the earth. The worship of birds is also common in America, and in Central America the bird voc is the messenger of Hurakau, the god of storms. The magic-doctors of the Cri, of the Arikari, and of the ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... a vague form could be discerned in the dark, then slowly, by degrees, a little man, four and a half feet high at the most, frail, ragged, his face withered and yellow, his eye gleaming like a magpie's, and his hair tangled, came ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... escape, you white-skinned traitor? But we've watched you. We know how you went to the Babylonian. We know your guilt. And now the good gods have stricken you mad and delivered you to justice." She waved her bony fists in the prostrate man's face. "Run, Phormio! don't stand gaping like a magpie. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... for some minutes, still half asleep, gazing at the black face, which seemed to be somehow connected with his dreams and with the soft sweet piping of the magpie crows, which were apparently practising their scales prior to joining in the morning outburst of song, while the great kingfishers—the laughing jackasses of the colonists—sat here and there uttering their discordant sounds, ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... so turned out that Mr. Corkscrew's letter was read in full conclave in the board-room of the office, just as he was describing the excellence of his manoeuvre with great glee to four or five other jolly souls at the 'Magpie and Stump.' ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... friend the Guide was spinning such romances as seemed good unto him, to account for his presence in this secluded valley, a small boy came and squatted down at his feet, to lose not a word of the story. And sitting there, like a boy, or a magpie, he picked up one of the shoes which Abdul Mujid had slipped off as he took his seat and began to examine it curiously. This perfectly childish act by chance caught the wandering glance of the headman, and as he looked at the shoes, and then up at the fine strapping ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... blood ally. She was y-foster'd in a nunnery: For Simkin woulde no wife, as he said, But she were well y-nourish'd, and a maid, To saven his estate and yeomanry: And she was proud, and pert as is a pie*. *magpie A full fair sight it was to see them two; On holy days before her would he go With his tippet* y-bound about his head; *hood And she came after in a gite* of red, *gown And Simkin hadde hosen of the same. There durste ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... "Magpie?" cried Nic, forgetting his uncomfortable seat; "but magpies at home in Kent have a harsh kind ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... more fool you!... But all the other things she had of our Mother's were there: a perfect magpie's nest! And she, living in her boxes, and never settling anywhere. What did she want ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... stirred. Dey mad. Dis time maybe dey not ketch you, but some time, yes! You get more brave and you steal from white man. You steal two, t'ree cow, maybe all right, but when you steal de white man's horses de rope is on your neck. I know—I have seen. Some time de thief he swing in de wind, and de magpie pick at him, and de coyote jump at him. Yes, I have ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... a roaring in the wind all night, The rain came heavily and fell in floods; But now the sun is rising calm and bright. The birds are singing in the distant woods; Over his own sweet voice the stock dove broods. The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters, And all the air is filled with ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... southeastern extremity. Five tail plumes of some blue bird decorate the bend in the southwest. The plumes of the red shafted flicker (Colaptes auratus var. mexicanus) are near the bend in the northwest and the tail of the magpie terminates the northeastern extremity. Throughout the myth, it will be remembered, not only is the House of Dew-Drops spoken of as adorned with hangings and festoons of rainbows, but many of the ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... replies: "If thou provest not this, thou diest in the morning!" Over and over again Marcolf snores, and is awakened by Solomon, but he is always thinking. He gives various answers during the night: There are as many white feathers as black in the magpie.—There is nothing whiter than daylight, daylight is whiter than milk.—Nothing can be safely entrusted to a woman.—Nature is stronger ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... lament that, although he does full justice to the "half-reasoning elephant," to the aptitude and fidelity of the dog, to the marvellous economical arrangements of the bees, and even to the imitative capacity of the magpie, he pays no higher tribute to the merits of the cat than that she is as capable of being amused as himself, and like himself, too, has her periods of gravity when recreative sports are distasteful. Her social qualities he does not allude to, though he, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... amant alterna Camaenae—relate in turn anecdotes of Johnson's way of life, his witty sayings, &c., &c. Sir John Hawkins, as judge of the contest, gives neither a prize; tells the lady, "Sam's Life, dear ma'am, will only damn your own;" calls the gentleman "a chattering magpie;" and— ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... the wind was fair and strong from the southeast. The chaloupe ran swiftly along the coast past the broad mouth of the River Saint-Jean, with its cluster of white cottages past the hill-encircled bay of the River Magpie, with its big fish-houses past the fire-swept cliffs of Riviere-au-Tonnerre, and the turbulent, rocky shores of the Sheldrake: past the silver cascade of the Riviere-aux-Graines, and the mist of the hidden fall of ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... boy was apparently oblivious of everything but the parrots up aloft, and it was not till after he had had his shot that he returned the young man's salutation. Then he took a seat astride the log and offered some commonplace information about a nest of joeys in a neighboring tree and a tame magpie that had escaped, and was teaching all the other magpies in Wilson's paddocks to whistle a jig and curse like a drover. But he got down to his ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... gayly, and without effort, for he was very happy. Lady Belgrade chattered, because she was spiritually a magpie. And as both constantly appealed to "Mr. Scott," or to Salome, it was impossible for either of the lovers to relapse into awkward silence. The ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... immeasurable differences between the gregarious man and the man who lives closest to nature. Toussaint Louverture, after he was caught, died without speaking a word. Napoleon, transplanted to a rock, talked like a magpie—he wanted to account for himself. Z. Marcas erred in the same way, but for our benefit only. Silence in all its majesty is to be found only in the savage. There is never a criminal who, though he might let his secrets fall with his head into the basket ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... the air came to the magpie and asked her to teach them how to build nests. For the magpie is the cleverest bird of all at building nests. So she put all the birds round her and began to show them how to do it. First of all she took some mud and made a sort of ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... with the mounting sun the silence has become complete save when it is broken by the heavy, quick flap of the wood-pigeon or the remonstrance of a surprised magpie. Service is just beginning all over England in churches and the chapels belonging to a hundred sects. In the village two miles away the Salvation Army drum is beating, but it cannot penetrate these recesses. Stay! a faint ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... there he was to be seen at the gate of the tribunal. Since then we let him go out no more, but he escaped us by the drains or by the skylights, so we stuffed up every opening with old rags and made all secure; then he drove short sticks into the wall and sprang from rung to rung like a magpie. Now we have stretched nets all round the court and we keep watch and ward. The old man's name is Philocleon,[29] 'tis the best name he could have, and the son is called Bdelycleon,[30] for he is a man very fit to cure an insolent ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... a small magpie, has a pretty but short note. There is not any bird in the country that can be said to sing. The ti-yong, or mino, a black bird with yellow gills, has the faculty of imitating human speech in greater perfection than any other of the feathered ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... ravens, jackdaws, canaries, magpies, and even parrots, have shown unmistakable signs of uneasiness and distress. The raven has croaked in a high-pitched, abnormal key; the jackdaw and canary have become silent and dejected, from time to time shivering; the magpie even has feigned death; the parrot has shrieked incessantly. Owls, too, are sure predictors of death, and may be heard hooting in the most doleful manner outside the house of anyone ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... The magpie listened, hopped awhile from branch to branch, and then darted away, the princess watching him anxiously as far ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... said I bent his ribs; but they sprang all right under the vet's thumb. Tell me, why does our baronial friend look so vinegary? He chattered like a magpie in the police bureau, or whatever it is called, ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... her way through the darkness, and proceeds on her road to Vannes. On awakening next morning, Comorre finds his wife fled, and pursues her on horseback. The poor fugitive, seeing her ring turn black, turned off the road and hid herself till night in the cabin of a shepherd, where was only an old magpie in a cage at the door. Comorre, who had given up the pursuit, was returning home that road, when he heard the magpie trying to imitate her complaints, and calling out "Poor Triphyna!" he therefore ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... know what all doctors had but I'll tell you what my old uncle had 'cause I seen it lots of times. [At this point another Indian entered the house, obviously curious, and my informant stopped talking until the visitor left.] He had eagle feathers and magpie feathers. He had a rattle with six or eight cocoons on a stick wrapped in weasel skin and humming bird feathers. He had a tobacco pouch of tree-squirrel hide. He also had a stone. It looked like a big tooth with a cavity in it. He told me how he got that stone. He was ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... so much awakening as turning over in its bed. Pallid men rushed by, pinching together their coat-collars; a great swarm of tired, magpie girls from a department-store crowded along with shrieks of strident laughter, three to an umbrella; a squad of marching policemen passed, already miraculously protected ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... but all seems still. You can hear the twittering of birds, perhaps the harsh call of a jay, or the laughing chatter of a magpie, but those familiar sounds would not have startled the rabbits; and if you are new to such woodland matters, you will conclude that some one of the nearest fur-coated fellows must have caught sight of you, called out danger, and sent the colony flying. But if you ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... betimes next day. Robert offered his friend Toline half his bed, and the little fellow accepted it. Lady Helena and Mary Grant withdrew to the wagon, and the others lay down in the tent, Paganel's merry peals still mingling with the low, sweet song of the wild magpie. ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... and tried to punt, but the green water was too deep and entangled with great roots, so that he had to make his way by clawing with the hook at branches. Birds seemed to shun this gloom, but a single magpie crossed the one little clear patch of sky, and flew low behind the willows. The air here had a sweetish, earthy odour of too rank foliage; all brightness seemed entombed. He was glad to pass out again under a huge poplar-tree into the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... herself, my own countenance no doubt sufficiently expressive of the wonder which I felt, but there was little to be read in that quarter which could give me any clue to the mystery. Yet she chattered like a magpie; her conversation running on certain styles of dress, various purchases of silks, and satins, and other stuffs, which she had been buying—a budget of which, I afterward discovered, she had brought ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... and mother, the children, and servants, and indeed all of the people in the Castle, came into the garden to see it fall. As soon as it was cut down, my two little brothers ran immediately towards a magpie's nest in the tree, which had for a long time been a coveted object, but had hitherto been out of their reach. Now they seized upon the nest and ...
— The Basket of Flowers • Christoph von Schmid
... promising and athletic young actor, of jovial habits and irregular inclinations, between whom and Mr. Costigan there was a considerable intimacy. They were the chief ornaments of the convivial club held at the Magpie Hotel; they helped each other in various bill transactions in which they had been engaged, with the mutual loan of each other's valuable signatures. They were friends, in fine: although Mr. Garbetts seldom called at Costigan's house, being disliked by Miss Fotheringay, of whom in her turn ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... tutor. Another group, on Ptolemy's left, is headed by Achillas, the general of Ptolemy's troops. Theodotus is a little old man, whose features are as cramped and wizened as his limbs, except his tall straight forehead, which occupies more space than all the rest of his face. He maintains an air of magpie keenness and profundity, listening to what the others say with the sarcastic vigilance of a philosopher listening to the exercises of his disciples. Achillas is a tall handsome man of thirty-five, with a fine black beard ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... bring it down, but that pair of chattering magpies appeared to be debating whether to continue their work or move elsewhere. One would hop down to the place where the shell had hit and, cocking his head this way and that, would let loose a flow of magpie talk that would bring his mate to him and then they would both investigate, flying to the shattered place, clinging to the bark and picking out splinters and pieces of wood. Then they would go up aloft and consult about the nest itself. I watched ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... Bergerac, and at Paris the millers' and the changers' bridges, in length, size, weight, and iron-work, he at a mile's distance would open an oyster and never touch the edges; he would snuff a candle without putting it out; would shoot a magpie in the eye; take off a boot's under-sole, or a riding-hood's lining, without soiling them a bit; turn over every leaf of Friar John's breviary, one after another, and not ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... fairly beamed with happiness; he, the silent man, chattered like a magpie, gazed admiringly at his Frantz and remarked upon his growth. The pupil of the Ecole Centrale had had a fine physique when he went away, but his features had acquired greater firmness, his shoulders were broader, and it was a far cry from the tall, studious-looking ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Flying, the magpie has flown away, O that 'twere brought to me again: In yonder covert 'Twas mine at will, 65 With its dark-brown eyes And its golden bill. O that 'twere brought to me again! By Heaven in fine trim to-day Our Serra ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... applied to practical improvements in the arts, or how they could lead to the solution of any of the great problems in science. Here we must again observe, that judgment saved the labour of memory. A person, who sets about to collect facts at random, is little better than a magpie, who picks up and lays by any odd bits of money he can light upon, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... the defence!" said the Swallow, quite delighted, as were all the other creatures, at the Magpie's accomplishment; "you must save the prisoner from the ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... The American magpie talks beautifully; but I regret to say that I do not understand a word of its language. One summer we had several fine specimens in the great flying-cage, with the big and showy waterfowl, condor, griffon vulture, ravens and crows. One of those magpies often came over ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... became the object of Boswell's magpie curiosity; and to Boswell's Life of Johnson we are indebted for many of the details of Goldsmith's life,—his homeliness, his awkward ways, his drolleries and absurdities, which made him alternately the butt and the wit of the famous Literary ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... interesting when being pruned, or when pruned just lately. A friend once consulted me casually about a picture on which he was at work, and complained that a row of trees in it was without sufficient interest. I was fortunate enough to be able to help him by saying: "Prune them freely and put a magpie's nest in one of them," and the trees became interesting at once. People in trees always look well, or rather, I should say, trees always look well with people in them, or indeed with any living thing in them, especially when it is of a kind that is not commonly seen in them; and ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... Magpie, the Jay has considerable talent for mimicry, and in a state of domestication may be taught to articulate words like a Parrot. At certain times I have heard this bird utter a few notes resembling the tinkle of a bell, and which, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... altogether. We quarrel with them, not on the score of form so much as on that of inutility and undue contrast of colour. If the thing be dark, and the stocking light, an effect of cleanliness is attained; but the magpie appearance immediately prevails. The case is the same as that of a white waistcoat and a black coat; too glaring, trop prononce. If they are both of the same colour, then the tight and continuous pantaloon is far more reasonable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... little of their magpie chatter, but it was a proud moment. Alone, unaided, a stranger in a strange land, I had gained the attention of children while speaking in a foreign tongue. Oh, if I had only left the door open that Salemina might have witnessed this triumph! But hearing ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... unkindly of him, but at this time I really think he began to be rather penurious—not avaricious, certainly not. But he was not a hermit of the holiest kind. He began to save money and acquire stock. He had not been long on the hill before he owned a horse, two dogs, a cat, a native bear, a magpie, and a parrot, and he paid nothing for any of them except the horse. One day he met Mr. McCarthy talking to Bob Atkins, a station hand, who had a horse to sell—a filly, rising three. McCarthy was a good judge of horses, and after inspecting the filly, he said: "She will just suit you, Mr. Philip, ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... the birds carry the nuts for the four-footed people, but they answered that they had all they could do to feed themselves and couldn't spare the time. And Grandmother Magpie said she wouldn't carry nuts for anybody, even if she had all the time that was wasted every day by some people right there in ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... and hills of home, and its ruddy woods, lay spread around him in the quiet sunshine of a beauteous autumn day; the nest of the stork was empty, but ripe fruit still clung to the wild apple tree, although the leaves, had fallen; the red hips gleamed, and the magpie whistled in the green cage over the window of the peasant's cottage that was his home; the magpie whistled the tune that had been taught him, and the grandmother hung green food around the cage, as he, the grandson, had been accustomed to do; and the daughter of the blacksmith, very young ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... moon is unbelievable. It is a figment of dream. The metal-silver ball that hung at the top of the Christmas tree, or, earlier still, the shining thing, necklace or spoon, the thing the baby leans to catch ... the magpie in us.... ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... plumage, and voice. They meet at Shiraz, a place which possesses a climate so temperate and equable as to bring together the birds and fruits of the East and West, North and South; for there I saw and heard the Indian bulbul and the hoopoe, the European nightingale, the cuckoo, and the magpie, and I know that the fruits range from ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... largely provided his own with an array of cupboards, drawers, and various apparatus, to induce systematic regulation, under the sanguine illusion that it would be of any possible assistance to Dinah in her arrangements. He might as well have provided them for a squirrel or a magpie. The more drawers and closets there were, the more hiding-holes could Dinah make for the accommodation of old rags, hair-combs, old shoes, ribbons, cast-off artificial flowers, and other articles of vertu, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... massa—top, I shall see." And the fellow to whom I addressed myself stepped forward, and began to squint into the muzzle of one of the fieldpieces, slewing his head from side to side, with absurd gravity, like a magpie peeping into a marrow—bone. "Him most be load— no daylight come troo de touch—hole—take care make me try him." And without more ado he shook out the red embers from his pipe right on the touch—hole of the gun, when the fragment of a broken tube spun up in a small jet of flame, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... magpie came down to tell all the fowls in the yard that one of Snowdrop's ducklings had been eaten by a rat, and that a second had been stolen by ...
— Dick and His Cat and Other Tales • Various
... starling sang the song for the thousandth time, the boy rode over the place. He put his hands up to his mouth, as a pipe, and called: "The magpie will get them. ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... open the door of the magpie's cage, and he hopped out and began picking up the grain which she held in her hand for him. "I think this magpie is going to stay with me," she said. "He is very tame and I often let him out of the cage. Mother says he will bring me good luck," ...
— Gerda in Sweden • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... effect - being a cold, hard, dry, man, dressed in grey and white, like a flint; with small twinkles in his eyes, as if something struck sparks out of them. The three natural kingdoms, indeed, had each a fanciful representative among this brotherhood of disputants; for Snitchey was like a magpie or raven (only not so sleek), and the Doctor had a streaked face like a winter-pippin, with here and there a dimple to express the peckings of the birds, and a very little bit of pigtail behind that ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... later when Mr. Pickwick hunts up Perker's clerk Lowten, and joins the jovial circle at the Magpie and Stump, he finds on his right hand "a gentleman in a checked shirt and Mosaic studs, with a cigar in his mouth," who expresses the hope that the newcomer does not "find this sort of thing disagreeable." "Not in the least," replied Mr. Pickwick, ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... was covered with pink silk, and in the recess on the first landing, or rather where the stairs paused, there was an aviary in which either hawks screeched or owls blinked; generally there was a magpie there, and the quaint bird now hopped to Frank's finger, casting a thievish look on his rings. The drawing-room was full of flowers. There was a grand piano, dark and bright; the skins of tigers Lord Seveley had shot carpeted the floor, and on their heads, ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... anchors and arrows and letters, tattooed in with gunpowder like a sailor-boy's, and a stink fit to knock you down coming out. 'Twas all the Doctor could do to stand his ground, and East and I, who were looking in under his arms, held our noses tight. The old magpie was standing on the window-sill, all his feathers drooping, and ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... tavern called the "Magpie and Stump," referred to in the twenty-first chapter of Pickwick,—where that hero spent an interesting evening on the invitation of Lowten (Mr. Perker's clerk), and heard "the old man's tale about the queer client,"—is supposed to have been "The old George the IVth" in Clare Market, ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... not be very far from the front, for the noise of guns sounded very near, both the sharp crack of the field-pieces, and the deeper boom of the howitzers. More, I could hear the chatter of the machine-guns, a magpie note among the baying of hounds. I even saw the bursting of Russian shells, evidently trying to reach the main road. One big fellow—an eight-inch—landed not ten yards from a convoy to the east of us, and another ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... boyish-looking man in the force. He had a perfectly smooth face, ruddy complexion, and fair hair. He was of middle height, and was rather inclined to stoutness. He was so fond of talking that his comrades nicknamed him "magpie." A colonist by birth, he could speak the Kafir language ...
— Kafir Stories - Seven Short Stories • William Charles Scully
... time. As a reward for my prowess, I was given La Fontaine's Fables, in a popular, cheap edition, crammed with pictures, small, I admit, and very inaccurate, but still delightful. Here were the crow, the fox, the wolf, the magpie, the frog, the rabbit, the ass, the dog, the cat: all persons of my acquaintance. The glorious book was immensely to my taste, with its skimpy illustrations on which the animal walked and talked. As to understanding what it said, that was ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... named Dubble, bringing his great fist down on the table with a force that made the tankards jump. "My darter, she's larned to play the pianner, an' I'm dorned if she kin do anythin' else! Just a gillflurt she is, an' as sassy as a magpie. That's what eddication 'as made of 'er an' be ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... one, and deadened by the impassive dulness of the other. Pope confessed his own pain by his anger; but he gave no pain to those who had provoked him. He was able to hurt none but himself; by transferring the same ridicule from one to another, he reduced himself to the insignificance of his own magpie, who from his cage calls ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... MAGPIE (Corvus pica).—Pages might be filled with the merry mischief of this handsome creature. Perhaps the most observable characteristic of the three tame ones closely observed was their exclusive and devoted attachment to one ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... Example, that I may be a Fortune-teller properly speaking. I am grown weary of my Taciturnity, and having served my Country many Years under the Title of the dumb Doctor, I shall now prophesie by Word of Mouth, and (as Mr. Lee says of the Magpie, who you know was a great Fortune-teller among the Ancients) chatter Futurity. I have hitherto chosen to receive Questions and return Answers in Writing, that I might avoid the Tediousness and Trouble of Debates, ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... quite pleased with Mme. de Lorcy, her sympathy and her kindly services, and she had bestowed her most amiable attentions upon her. Mme. de Lorcy had done her best to respond to her advances; but she found herself revolted by this old magpie whose prattling never ceased, and whose chief delight was in the recital of the secret chronicles of every capital of Europe; Mme. de Lorcy, in fact, soon grew disgusted with her cosmopolitan gossip and her physiology; she found her cynical and evil-minded. ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... strain, As, with a foot that ne'er reposes, She jigs thro' sacred and profane, From "Maid and Magpie" up to "Moses;"—[3] Wearing out tunes as fast as shoes, Till fagged Rossini scarce respires; Till Meyerbeer for mercy sues, And Weber ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... don't you perceive that if we continue to hide ourselves as we do now the enemy will never guess where we are. But if you chatter like any magpie, of course they ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... another." But why was not the lawyer's clerk's French as she is spoke given as well as that of M. le Duc? And how much more telling it would have been had M. le Duc been served well and faithfully by a clerk like Perker's Mr. Lowten, fresh, very fresh, from a carouse at the "Magpie and Stump," or even by one of Messrs. Dodson and Fog's young men who enjoyed themselves so much when "a twigging" of the virtuous ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various
... copper gong. My masseur disappeared. A stunted old Negress entered, dressed in the most tawdry tinsel. She was talkative as a magpie, but at first I did not understand a word in the interminable string she unwound, while she took first my hands, then my feet, and polished ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit
... a man in Colorado found a magpie by the roadside. Its wings had been clipped, so that it could not fly. The man gave it to a ...
— The Nursery, No. 169, January, 1881, Vol. XXIX - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... hatched out her various sort of eggs. We expected that her motley brood would afford us some fun. Here we expected to see a young hawk, and there a goslin, and next a strutting turkey, and then a dodo, a loon, an ostrich, a wren, a magpie, a cuckoo, and a wag-tail. But the old continental hen has now set so long, that we conclude that her eggs are addled, and incubation frustrated. During all this time, the Gallick cock is on his roost at Elba, with ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... Fate had already placed me the eldest by three years of a large family. Add to the eminence thus attained intentions which varied from hour to hour, a will so little in accordance with desire that I had rather give up a cherished plan than fight for it, and a secretive faculty equalled only by the magpie, and you will not wonder when I affirm that I lived alone in a household of a dozen friendly persons. As a set-off and consolation to myself I had very strongly the power of impersonation. I could be within my own little entity a dozen different people in a day, and live a life thronged with ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... planned and executed that robbery were two cool, level-headed, and daring scoundrels, known as 'Chuckle-luck' and 'Magpie.' They were killed soon after this occurrence, by a member of their own band, whose name was Seward. A reward of a thousand dollars had been offered for their capture, an this tempted Seward to kill them, one night when they were ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... intense disappointment, a new idea had come to her, and she hastened to act upon it. As quickly as she could with her torn fingers she unfastened her gown and slipped out of it, and then, unheeding Mrs. Nitschkan, who was scolding her like a magpie, she threw it over Seagreave, tucking it about him as best she could. The breath of the snow-damp air upon her shoulders and arms was like a bath of ice water, but she scarcely noticed it, for she heard ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... was a moment's hush while Mr. Hammond asked a blessing on the food; then the merry talk went on. For them all Maggie poured cups of tea, and Ester passed bread and butter, and beef and cheese, and Sadie gave overflowing dishes of blackberries, and chattered like a magpie, which last she ...
— Ester Ried • Pansy (aka. Isabella M. Alden)
... born chatterbox the latter alternative seemed the acme of misery, so it behoved her to prepare for speech before the dread verdict was given, which she did in a manner astonishing to her companions. Of French grammar she had the poorest opinion, but she was sharp as a magpie to pick up the phrases of others and store them for her own use. The morning after Mademoiselle had suffered from a headache, Pixie's handkerchief was soaked with offerings of eau-de-Cologne, from the various ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... then sigh'd, When Gerard reach'd the door; But whose the Thief? the Magpie cry'd, Annette, and said ...
— The Maid and the Magpie - An Interesting Tale Founded on Facts • Charles Moreton
... may, the heart of the man and the fancy of the poet are the two grand considerations for which I live: if miry ridges and dirty dunghills are to engross the best part of the functions of my soul immortal, I had better been a rook or a magpie at once, and then I should not have been plagued with any ideas superior to breaking of clods and picking up grubs; not to mention barn-door cocks or mallards, creatures with which I could almost exchange lives at any time. If you continue so deaf, I am afraid a visit will be ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... and animals were very few, and but rarely met with in the upper parts of this excursion; but Mr. Flinders found a new species of pheasant, about the size of an English magpie. The emu was not seen, although its voice had been so often heard, as to induce him to suppose that bird must be numerous. The more inland part of the country was something higher and better than in the neighbourhood of the salt water; but no where did he meet with any that was calculated ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... greatly the various kinds of cabbage differ in appearance. In the Island of Jersey, from the effects of particular culture and of climate a stalk has grown to the height of sixteen feet, and "had its spring shoots at the top occupied by a magpie's nest:" the woody stems are not unfrequently from ten to twelve feet in height, and are there used as rafters (9/64. 'Cabbage Timber' 'Gardener's Chronicle' 1856 page 744, quoted from Hooker 'Journal of Botany.' A walking-stick ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... his head on one side like a great wise magpie, and "H'm—ha!" said he whimsically, "aho! Gabord the soldier, Gabord, thou hast a good heart—and the birds fed the beast with plums and froth of comfits till he died, and on his sugar tombstone they carved the words, 'Gabord ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... common garden spider, which, on the approach of rainy or windy weather, will be found to shorten and strengthen the guys of his web, lengthening the same when the storm is over. There is a popular superstition that it is unlucky for an angler to meet a single magpie, but two of the birds together are a good omen. The reason is that the birds foretell the coming of cold or stormy weather, and at such times, instead of searching for food for their young in pairs, one will always remain on the nest. Sea-gulls predict ...
— Harper's Young People, November 4, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... them, and dragged them home. As we approached the camp we formed in line abreast, and began to sing. When we reached the camp every one was in bed. We sang the song which indicated that we had caught something; then we imitated the cry of the crow and the magpie, which indicated that we had had extra good luck. If we imitated the hooting of an owl, it showed that we had had bad luck, and none of us had caught anything. We were always anxious to catch some wild ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... rounded pate Is blue, is heavenly blue with slate; She "wings the midway air" elate, As magpie, crow, or chough; White paint her modish visage smears, Yellow and pointed are her ears, No pendent portico appears Dangling beneath, for Whitbread's shears {51} Have ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... single coin from his store; and that he endured unheard-of agonies in crawling out of bed alone, and taking it from that unlucky box. In effect, we presently heard him uttering suppressed groans of the most dismal nature, as this magpie proceeding racked him in every joint; but while Peggotty's eyes were full of compassion for him, she said his generous impulse would do him good, and it was better not to check it. So he groaned on, until he had got into bed again, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... But the Herr Mayor must have proof of that. Now, could Jacob shoot a feather out of the tail of the magpie ...
— Pepper & Salt - or, Seasoning for Young Folk • Howard Pyle
... goblins. You are an eternal prater, said the emperor, and very self-sufficient; but talk your fill, and upon what subject you like till tomorrow morning; but I swear by the soul of the holy Jirigi, who rode to heaven on the tail of a magpie, as soon as the clock strikes eight, you are a dead woman. Well, who ...
— Hieroglyphic Tales • Horace Walpole
... highly approved of this idea, and encouraged the children by every means in his power; so that, for more than three weeks, the beans went in regularly and the halfpence in Tuttu's store, which he kept like a magpie hidden away in a crack of the woodwork, ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... long before Vanrenen crossed the Wye Bridge at Hereford. Medenham stopped the car at "The Feathers," that famous magpie among British Inns, where Cynthia admired and photographed some excellent woodcarving, and saw an iron-studded front door which has shut out revellers and the night on each alternate round of the clock since 1609, if ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... beasts of prey that are to blame for this, for, with the disappearance of game, lions have become extremely scarce, and leopards and lynxes are no longer common. Few quadrupeds are seen, and not many kinds of birds. Vultures, hawks, and a species something like a magpie, with four pretty white patches upon the wings and a long tail, are the commonest, together with bluish-grey guinea-fowl, pigeons and sometimes a small partridge. In some parts there are plenty of bustards, prized as dainties, but we saw very few. Away from the ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... delight, it seemed to her that she had found the companion suited to her purpose, because the gourd is more apt to bind others than to need binding; having come to this conclusion she awaited eagerly some friendly bird who should be the mediator of her wishes. Presently seeing near her the magpie she said to him: "O gentle bird! by the memory of the refuge which you found this morning among my branches, when the hungry cruel, and rapacious falcon wanted to devour you, and by that repose which you have always found in me when your wings craved rest, and by the ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... are owing to bad observation, to the post hoc, ergo propter hoc; and bad observers are almost all superstitious. Farmers used to attribute disease among cattle to witchcraft; weddings have been attributed to seeing one magpie, deaths to seeing three; and I have heard the most highly educated now-a-days draw consequences for the ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... really, for the most part, strangers acclimatized by long sojourn. Some of them—the turtledove, the magpie, the kingfisher, the partridge, and the sparrow-may be classed with our European species, while others betray their equatorial origin in the brightness of their colours. White and black ibises, red flamingoes, pelicans, and cormorants enliven the waters of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... water? Trust a little to first appearances—leave something to fancy. I observe that the great puppets of the real stage, who themselves play a grand part, like to get into the boxes over the stage; where they see nothing from the proper point of view, but peep and pry into what is going on like a magpie looking into a marrow-bone. This is just like them. So they look down upon human life, of which they are ignorant. They see the exits and entrances of the players, something that they suspect is meant to be kept from them (for they think they ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... grey, with a white handkerchief pinned over her grey hair, and a light Indian shawl hanging from her shoulders. As upright as a dart: she came towards us through the burning heat, as calmly and majestically as if the temperature had been delightfully moderate. A hoary old magpie accompanied her, evidently of great age, and from time to time barked like an old bulldog, ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... go away leaving it in that exposed place on the turf, to be found a little later by a magpie or carrion crow or fox, and devoured. Close by there was a small round hillock, an old forsaken nest of the little brown ants, green and soft with moss and small creeping herbs—a suitable grave for a ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... above, 'Tis little deeper than a Dove! In fact, looked at in a strong light, 'Tis scarce distinguishable from white!" "White!" yelled a third, with rage half throttled, "With jet-black streaks 'tis thickly mottled. If not pure Raven, all must own No Magpie hath a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 1, 1890 • Various
... spurred his pony, and, by a sudden bound of our light vehicle, the ruffian missed his grasp at the front rein. We now proceeded at full speed, while the footpad ran endeavouring to overtake us. At length, my horses fortunately outrunning the perseverance of the assailant, we reached the first 'Magpie,' a small inn on the heath, in safety. The alarm which, in spite of my resolution, this adventure had created, was augmented on my recollecting, for the first time, that I had then in my black stock a brilliant stud of very considerable value, ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... sugared, and adorned with all sorts of Ribbons. They have also a singular mode of airing their Linen and Beds, by means of what they call a Trokenkorb, or Fire-basket, which is of the size and shape of a Magpie's Cage, and within it is a pan filled with burning Turf, and the Linen is spread over the Wicker-frame; or, to air the Bed, the whole Machine is placed between the Sheets. Nay, there are sundry Dowager Fraws who do warm their Legs with ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... he, as brisk as a magpie, 'you're here at last; there's no hurry with you Scotchmen. My boy has been sick all night, and I've never had one wink of sleep. You might have come a little quicker, that's all ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... tide, you can walk across the mud-flats to Lampit, with a pleasing chance of being sucked under by quicksands. Abram Sclanders' unhappy half-witted son haunted this boat-house, it seemed, storing his shrimping nets there, any other things as well, a venerable magpie's hoard of scraps and lumber; using it as a run-hole, too, when the other lads hunted and tormented him according to their ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... bustling agitation, and induced her to shut up one of her own shrivelled hands in closing the drawer, with a force that made her cry aloud, and, when released, wring it with agony, that drew some words in the vernacular. "What makes you suppose Miss Monfort wants to hear your chattering, old magpie that you are?" continued Mrs. Clayton, throwing off her mask. "Now walk very straight, or the police shall have you next time you steal from a companion. Remember who rescued you on the Latona, and on what conditions, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... older than Miss Mackenzie; but the circumstances of her life had induced her to retain many of the propensities of her girlhood. She was as young looking as curls and pink bows could make her, and was by no means a useless guest at a small dinner party, as she could chatter like a magpie. Her claims to be called "Mademoiselle" were not very strong, as she had lived in Finsbury Square all her life. Her father was connected in trade with the Rubb and Mackenzie firm, and dealt, I think, in oil. She was introduced with great ceremony, and having heard that Miss Mackenzie ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... disgrace for a dignitary of the church to be wealthy, at a time when churchmen in general spare no pains to become so. But the wisdom of some men has a droll sort of knavishness in it, much like that of a magpie, who hides what he finds with a deal of contrivance, merely for the pleasure ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... setting when they started back to the ranch house, with Felicia chatting like a magpie. Roger did the milking and the other chores, by the ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... however, who sought distraction, while traveling as fast as possible—for he was anxious to be in Paris by the twenty-third—stopped from time to time to fly the magpie, a pastime for which the taste had been formerly inspired in him by de Luynes, and for which he had always preserved a great predilection. Out of the twenty Musketeers sixteen, when this took place, rejoiced greatly at this relaxation; but the other four cursed it heartily. D'Artagnan, ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Steward, How are you, my old boy? How do things go on at home? Steward. Bad enough, your honor; the magpie's dead. Mr. H. Poor mag! so he's gone. How came he to die? Stew. Over-ate himself sir. Mr. H. Did he, faith? a greedy dog; why, what did he get he liked so well? Stew. Horse-flesh, sir; he died of eating ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... nature that on the morrow Pierrette rose light and joyous as a lark, as radiant and as gay. Such a change could not escape the vigilant eye of her cousin Sylvie, who, this time, instead of scolding her, set about watching her with the scrutiny of a magpie. "What reason is there for such happiness?" was a thought of jealousy, not of tyranny. If the colonel had not been in Sylvie's mind she would have said to Pierrette as formerly, "Pierrette, you are very noise, and very regardless of what you have often been told." But now the old maid ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Cornelia. The long-sought information came at a time when he was really off his guard. Agias had been visiting Artemisia. Sesostris as well as Pratinas had been out; the two young people were amusing themselves trying to teach a pet magpie to speak, when the Ethiop rushed into the room, all in a ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... out on him floods of German words in such order as not to produce a single German sentence. He doffed his cap to every woman, high or low, he caught sight of, and complimented her in his native tongue, well adapted to such matters; and at each carrion crow or magpie down came his crossbow, and he would go a furlong off the road to circumvent it; and indeed he did shoot one old crow with laudable neatness, and carried it to the nearest hen-roost, and there slipped in and sat it upon a nest. "The good-wife ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VII • Various
... wicker cage, A Magpie hung to view; Whose prattling tongue would oft assuage, The ...
— The Maid and the Magpie - An Interesting Tale Founded on Facts • Charles Moreton
... 'if I were the knight to whom the charger belongs, I would part with him instantly, even if, at the same time as I drowned him, I must throw into the Gave my sword and golden spurs: don't you see that spiteful-looking magpie, which has just started up before him, after having chattered in his very face? What awful signs of evil are these! and on such a morning, at the rising of the sun! * * * May the bon Dieu, the Holy Virgin, and the white fairies of the subterranean caves, who are ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello |
