"Tortoiseshell" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fetches, according to quality, from 5 to 200 pounds a ton. This establishment had been put up by the crew of a small vessel from Sydney, and several such have at various times made voyages along this coast and in Torres Strait, collecting trepang and tortoiseshell, the latter procured from the ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... errand. She was some moments before she could make the old man understand what she needed; then, with the air of one who parts with some treasure, he handed over to her a little tortoiseshell box, remarking, at the same time, that he had had it for the last sixty years and would not part with it for anything. A moment later, Vera was back again at the end of the corridor. Venner had not moved, a sure sign that no one had approached in the meantime. ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... apparently, a very young and very pretty, rather little, lady, and was dressed with some care—but not more than her person deserved—in black and white. Her dark hair, which was high upon her head, was crowned with a large tortoiseshell comb. She held the lamp, as I say, above her as she curtseyed, smiling, in the way. "Be very welcome, sir," she said, "and be pleased to enter our house." It was charming to see how deftly she dipped without spilling the lamp-oil, charming ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... then press the horn into proper shapes, and afterwards lay the following mixture on with a small brush, in imitation of the mottle of tortoiseshell:—Take equal parts of quicklime and litharge, and mix with strong soap-lees; let this remain until it is thoroughly dry, brush off, and repeat two or three times, if necessary. Such parts as are required to be of a reddish brown ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... the jungles a heap of branches and grass, and at first could not make out what it was, but the Gonds soon informed me that these heaps were the nests or lairs of the wild pigs, and they invariably turned them over to look for squeakers. These are funny little things, of a tortoiseshell colour, being striped reddish yellow and dark brown. There is an old writer on Indian field sports, Williamson, who makes some correct observations on the habits of the wild hog, although much in his book (now, I fancy, out of print) is open to question. He writes: "The ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... mantelpiece, buffets, sideboards, and chairs in carved wood, which would have made a Berruguete, a Cornejo Duque, or a Verbruggen envious; a drawing-room hung with gold-coloured damask, with doors, cornices, plinths, and embrasures of ebony; a library ranged in cupboards inlaid with tortoiseshell and copper in the style of Buhl; a bathroom in yellow breccia, with bas-reliefs in stucco; a domed boudoir, the ancient paintings of which had been restored by Edmond Hedouin; and a gallery lighted from the top, which we recognised later in the collection of 'Cousin Pons.' On the shelves ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... the others were closed, and as he looked he made out in the gloom, for this landing by the attic was very badly-lighted by a small and awkwardly-placed skylight, a scattered dozen or so of hairpins, and a tortoiseshell comb such as he had seen sometimes in Ella's hair, lying on the floor near the door of the larger of the two attics, the one in which he remembered well he had found Deede Dawson on a certain night busy measuring and ...
— The Bittermeads Mystery • E. R. Punshon
... other bony surfaces, and they represent oracles. As early as in the Lung-shan culture there was divination by means of "oracle bones", at first without written characters. In the earliest period any bones of animals (especially shoulder-bones) were used; later only tortoiseshell. For the purpose of the oracle a depression was burnt in the shell so that cracks were formed on the other side, and the future was foretold from their direction. Subsequently particular questions were scratched on the shells, and the answers to them; these are the documents that have come ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... tension. A little grim laugh from the searchers was followed by much poking about with a long piece of wood on the surface of the flooded hold under the decking, and some minutes later a large pile of timber floated into the light from the open hatchway, supporting a big tortoiseshell cat, looking very wet and emaciated. "Ricky"—for such is her name now—proved to be the only living thing on ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... the servant closed the door behind her, than Marianita—who had just finished placing some pomegranate flowers behind her tortoiseshell comb—glided eagerly towards the window. On reaching it she stood for some moments with her eyes bent inquiringly on the plain. Gertrudis had changed her oriental posture for a seat upon a leathern fauteuil. After casting back, by an indolent ...
— The Tiger Hunter • Mayne Reid
... degraded specimens of their class who had long been wild among the scrub. No: Sandy came of "pur sang," and held his small square head erect, with a haughty carriage as beseemed his ancestry. His fur was really beautiful, a sort of tortoiseshell red, the lighter stripes repeating exactly the different golden tints of a fashionable chignon. In early youth, though it is difficult to imagine Sandy ever a playful kitten, his tail had been curtailed to the length of three inches, and this short, ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker |
