"Webbed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... down into the muskeg. It was spitting snow, but he had no difficulty in seeing where the trail led from hummock to hummock in the miry earth. The going here was difficult, for the thick moss was full of short, stiff brush that caught the webbed shoes and tripped the traveler. It was hard to find level footing. The mounds were uneven, and more than once Onistah plunged knee-deep from ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... follow him, but went to Umisk, who lay half in the mud, whimpering and snuffling in a curious sort of way. Gently Baree nosed him, and after a moment or two Umisk got up on his webbed feet, while fully twenty or thirty beavers were making a tremendous fuss in the water ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... hardly be necessary to inform readers that in devising this chronicle-piece no attempt has been made to create that completely organic structure of action, and closely-webbed development of character and motive, which are demanded in a drama strictly self- contained. A panoramic show like the present is a series of historical "ordinates" [to use a term in geometry]: the subject is familiar to all; and foreknowledge ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... were the prettiest of all the birds that visited the ship, being very like the common wood pigeon in the shape of their head and bill, but having webbed feet to suit their aquatic habits. They were much plumper, too, than either the shearwaters or parsons—which latter, by the way, unlike the fat cleric of popular opinion, were of very slender and ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... been fired, but wheeled round and round as if to discover what was the cause of the strange noise. Ball, 3 and 5' shot were equally efficacious and more than a dozen fell in a few minutes. These birds have a beautiful black and white plumage with a long neck and bill and webbed feet and weigh five or six pounds each. The flavour is somewhat like ptarmigan and the natives eat them, as usual, without waiting until ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... the coats are waxed and webbed They fall into a dream, And when they wake the ragged robes Are ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... the edge of his tub with webbed hands and swung his webbed, yellow-skinned feet free from the water which kept the sensitive membranes from drying, and at the same time supplied his body tissues with liquid. Falling upon all fours, like a great, misshapen pet, he ...
— The Indulgence of Negu Mah • Robert Andrew Arthur
... like that of the partridge, and the other webbed like that of a goose, its peculiarity consists in mourning over adultery, and loving its master so faithfully that it dies of pity in his arms when it learns that his wife has deceived him. So that this ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... and purify Webbed and inward-turning eye; These shall show thee treasure hid, Thy familiar fields amid; And reveal (which is thy need) ...
— Songs from Books • Rudyard Kipling
... do much to render greater the animal's usefulness. The same principles as were applied to the shoeing of flat feet will have to be observed here. Trimming or paring of any kind, save 'straightening up' of the wall, must be severely discountenanced. A broad-webbed shoe, one that will give a certain amount of cover to the sole, is indicated. As in the treatment of flat-foot, however, direct pressure upon the sole must be avoided, and the shoe 'seated.' The 'seating,' however, should not commence from the ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... for his swim. He wore a cloak of coarse material with breeches and had his fingers webbed. The weather was fine; he left the island towards the evening. Illugi thought his journey was hopeless. Grettir had the current with him and it was calm as he swam towards the fjord. He smote the ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... awe-inspiring receptacle in the whole house, because here were kept Dale's fireman's outfit always ready and handy to be snatched out at a moment's notice. Rachel gazed delightedly at the blue coat hanging extended, with the webbed steel on the shoulder-straps, at the helmet above, the great boots beneath, and the shining ax that dangled near an empty sleeve; but the sight was almost too tremendous for Billy. His lively young ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... wavy, but not curly. In the Blenheim there should be a profuse mane, extending well down in the front of the chest. The feather should be well displayed on the ears and feet, and in the latter case so thickly as to give the appearance of their being webbed. It is also carried well up the backs of the legs. In the Black and Tan the feather on the ears is very long and profuse, exceeding that of the Blenheim by an inch or more. The feather on the tail (which is cut to the length of three and a half to ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... Mesdames" he cries, flourishing a war-spear some nine feet in length. "Come and see the wonderful Peruvian maiden of Tanjore, with webbed fingers and toes, her mouth in the back of her head, and her eyes in the soles of her feet! Only four sous each, and an opportunity that will never ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... the spring makes open water you find some queer tracks on the fresh snow; there is a round spot as big as a quarter in each one, faint radiating lines in front ending with the marks of sharp toes; these were made by the soft-padded foot and webbed toes of the mink. ...
— Some Winter Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... aspiring palms so slender of shaft that their unceasing swaying in the still air seemed an act of unconscious affectation for the display of huge bunches of gaudy fruit, seductive and dulcet to the taste. Spider-webbed tree-ferns with furry, water-bespangled trunks stood in crowded groves on the brink of spray-creating cascades and along the margins of cool rivulets which murmured as they hurried ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... willows, tramping them down by main force, till I came to a wide stream of water, three inches deep, languidly creeping along over a bottom of sleek mud. My arrival produced a great commotion. A huge green bull-frog uttered an indignant croak, and jumped off the bank with a loud splash: his webbed feet twinkled above the surface, as he jerked them energetically upward, and I could see him ensconcing himself in the unresisting slime at the bottom, whence several large air bubbles struggled lazily to the top. Some little spotted frogs instantly followed the patriarch's ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... the second of these large valleys we saw two large white and black birds, more like pelicans than any other kind I am acquainted with; they had webbed feet, and the colour and form of their body resembled that of the pelican, but the head and beak were very different; after flying two or three times round our heads, well out of shot, so as to have a good peep at us, they flew away, and ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... between the two great families of creatures. This animal presents a startling appearance to the observer who witnesses it for the first time. It resembles a beaver, having a soft furry coat, but also has a horny, flat bill like a duck, its feet being webbed, but also furnished with claws projecting over the edge of the web-foot. It lays eggs in an underground nest—two eggs at a time, which are like the eggs of birds, inasmuch as they contain not only the protoplasm from which the embryo is formed, but also the "yolk." on which the embryo feeds ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... water when he came up, and so also detected him. But after an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as willingly and swam yet farther than at first. It was surprising to see how serenely he sailed off with unruffled breast when he came to the surface, doing all the work with his webbed feet beneath. His usual note was this demoniac laughter, yet somewhat like that of a waterfowl; but occasionally when he had balked me most successfully and come up a long way off, he uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like that of a wolf than any bird; ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... captured. It was necessary, however, first to allow them to land, for with their close, short hair, and their fusiform conformation, being excellent swimmers, it is difficult to catch them in the sea, while on land their short, webbed feet prevent their having more than a slow, ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... bees or wasps, several lizards, and the blackberry bushes were full of ants nests, webbed as a spider's, but so close and compact as not ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... broken down on a high note. Next behind, on the right, was a long-nosed gar-fish singing alto, and proud of her slender form, with the last new thing in folding fans held in her fin. In the fore-ground squatted a great fat frog with big bulging eyes, singing base, and leading the choir by flapping his webbed fingers up and down with his frightful cavern of a mouth wide open. Next, sat the stately and dignified mackerel who was rather scandalized at the whole affair, and kept very still, refusing to join in. At the mackerel's right fin, squeaked out the stupid flat-headed fugu ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... awkward as he works on land. In use of arms and hands he reminds one of a monkey, while his clumsy and usually slow-moving body will often suggest the hippopotamus. By using head, hands, teeth, tail, and webbed feet the beaver accomplishes much. The tail of a beaver is a useful and much-used appendage; it serves as a rudder, a stool, and a ramming or signal club. The beaver may use his tail for a trowel, but I have never ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... venerable British of the two Isles professing a suckling attachment to an ancient port-wine, lawyer, doctor, squire, rosy admiral, city merchant, the classic scholar is he whose blood is most nuptial to the webbed bottle. The reason must be, that he is full of the old poets. He has their spirit to sing with, and the best that Time has done on earth to feed it. He may also perceive a resemblance in the wine to the studious mind, which is the obverse of our mortality, and throws off acids and crusty particles ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... very white stomachs, which suddenly appeared upon the surface, jumping at invisible flies. These attracted a number of birds that resembled gulls of a light build. They had coal-black heads, white backs, greyish wings, and slightly webbed feet, pink as coral, with which they seized the small fish, uttering as they did so, a peculiar and plaintive cry that ended in a long-drawn e-e-e. The father of the flock, whose head seemed to be white like his back, ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... settlers. It is said there is no spot of land in the State three hundred feet above the sea-level. Men born with fins and webbed feet might enjoy themselves in the lakes and swamps, which form a considerable portion of Florida. Those whose tastes are favorable to timber-cutting, can find a profitable employment in preparing live-oak and other timbers for market. The climate is very healthy, and has been found highly beneficial ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... and fell in a slow breathing motion. Dr. Droon, looking rather apologetic, pointed out to Telzey that her pet was in no pain, that the stungun had simply put her comfortably to sleep. He also explained the use of the two sets of webbed paralysis belts which he fastened about TT's legs. The effect of the stun charge would wear off in a few minutes, and contact with the inner surfaces of the energized belts would then keep TT anesthetized and unable to move until the belts ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... sea-cliffs, in marshes or on weedy shores. The materials are sea-weed, tufts of grass or rushes, or the debris of the shore, heaped together with as little order and constructive art as might be expected from the webbed feet and clumsy bill of these birds, the latter better adapted for seizing fish than for forming a delicate nest. The long-legged, broad-billed flamingo, who is continually stalking over muddy flats in search of food, heaps up the mud into a conical stool, on the top of which it ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... housewives of those days were a kind of amphibious animal, delighting exceedingly to be dabbling in water, insomuch that an historian of the day gravely tells us that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed fingers like unto a duck; but this I look upon to be a mere sport of fancy, or, what ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... sound made him look down. A native child or pollywog as the Terrans called them was clinging desperately to the teacher's skirt. His tiny webbed feet clutched at the cloth as he buried his face against her leg. From behind her peered still another child, its baby frog face working spasmodically in the beginnings of a sob. Six or seven others were lying flat on the ...
— Narakan Rifles, About Face! • Jan Smith
... his way out to the castle, "the islander is right in his amphibious way. The solemn league and covenant is not amusing, but it cannot be worse than living here like a seal upon a rock; and when one goes forth to talk to a comely wench, being reconducted to one's rock by a Puritan with webbed feet. Yet he hath saved me from a shrewd pinch, and ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... flat-looking animal, with blunt nose, short ears almost buried in the fur, stiff whiskers like a cat, short legs and neck, small dark eyes, and sharply-clawed feet. The hinder ones are longest, and are half-webbed. Those of the ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... were webs between Mr. Cricket Frog's toes. And everybody knows that webbed feet are the ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... length of a full-grown one is about a yard, but there are some even four feet long; a large one weighed twenty pounds: on the island of Albemarle they seem to grow to a greater size than elsewhere. Their tails are flattened sideways, and all four feet partially webbed. They are occasionally seen some hundred yards from the shore, swimming about; and Captain Collnett, in his Voyage says, "They go to sea in herds a-fishing, and sun themselves on the rocks; and may be called alligators in miniature." It must not, however, be supposed that ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... and what he should reserve for breakfast, he fell to, ate sparingly, lit his pipe, and gazed around the wretched room, of which the walls were blue-washed with a most offensive shade of blue, the bare floor was frankly dry mud and dust, the roof was bare cob-webbed thatch and rafter, and the furniture a rickety table, a dangerous-looking cane-bottomed settee and a leg-rest arm-chair from which some one had removed the leg-rests. Had some scoundrelly oont-wallah pinched them for fuel? (No, Damocles, an ex-Colonel ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... cool white light shamed the pale sunbeams that filtered down through the girders and wires. Here and there a gossamer suspension bridge dotted with foot passengers flung across the chasm and the air was webbed with slender cables. A cliff of edifice hung above him, he perceived as he glanced upward, and the opposite facade was grey and dim and broken by great archings, circular perforations, balconies, buttresses, turret projections, myriads of vast windows, and an intricate ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... drew in among the broad vine-webbed slopes of the Wurzburg, hills, the stranger said she was going to change there, and take a train on to Berlin. Mrs. March wondered whether she would be able to keep up the comedy to the last; and she had to own that she carried it off very easily when the friends whom ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... twins was bent over a machine of some sort. There were levers, gears, and rollers mounted on a webbed platform no larger than a rather oversized typewriter. Muldoon's eyes went wide at the sight of the greenbacks coming in a steady stream from the interior of the machine and falling into a box at the side. He could see very little else that was in the room, other than the brother of the twin at the ...
— Lease to Doomsday • Lee Archer
... Some scratch about and feed on the ground, where they also nest, like our barnyard poultry. Others run along the banks of rivers or on the sea-beaches, where they wade in shallow water to pick up their food, like Snipes and Plovers; while others swim with their webbed, feet and take their food from deep water, like Geese and Ducks. There are a few game birds in this glass case—some Pigeons and Grouse; suppose we finish the morning in ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... naked hands Stern tore and battered it away. A thick, pungent haze of dust arose, yellow in the morning sunlight that presently, for the first time in a thousand years, fell warm and bright across the cob-webbed front ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... cautiously and gently, by means of the webbed feet alone, the young sportsman moved about like a sly water-spirit among the reeds, sometimes addressing a few pleasant words, such as, "how d'ye do, old boy," or, "don't alarm yourself, my tulip," to a water-hen ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... branches were sharply cut against the blue background, and they tossed their frosted balls in the face of Heaven. The giant of Rainbow Bottom might be broken, but it never would bend. Every clambering vine, every weed and dried leaf wore a coat of lace-webbed frostwork. The wind swept a mist of tiny crystals through the air, and from the shelter of the deep woods across the ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... sojourn in the kitchen. Domesticated, though he can scarcely be classed as a dainty feeder, he makes a strong appeal to some people, especially after he has contracted an intimate alliance with sage and onions, but he was never intended by Nature for a sprinter, nor are his webbed feet adapted for rapid locomotion. Sufferers from chronic melancholia would, I am sure, benefit by witnessing the nightly football scrums and speed-contests of these Chinese ducks, for I defy any one to see them ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... watched through the webbed window the lapidary's fingers prove a timedulled chain. Dust webbed the window and the showtrays. Dust darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... fineness and the lustre of its coat would certainly fetch L80. I admired this curious mammal, with its rounded head ornamented with short ears, its round eyes, and white whiskers like those of a cat, with webbed feet and nails, and tufted tail. This precious animal, hunted and tracked by fishermen, has now become very rare, and taken refuge chiefly in the northern parts of the Pacific, or probably its ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... and ferocious bull in hospital. Conscious of his priestly dignity and of the need of supporting it, but shaken by the minor stresses of the situation, the senseless multiplicity of forks and spoons, the bewildering restrictions by which he felt himself to be webbed about, hampered, mastered, Father Tim was as a wild bull in a net, and was even pathetic in his unavailing efforts to prove himself equal to his surroundings. He cleared his throat at intervals, with an authority that seemed to prelude ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... of the birds was exactly like that laughing sort of grating cry which a flock of geese make on being frightened, by some passer-by on a common, say, when they run screaming away with outstretched wings, standing on the tips of their webbed feet as if dancing—the appearance of the penguins rushing in and out of the tussock clump where their rookery ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... miser, who is excessively careful in hoarding up the necessaries of life. The coot [*Douay: porphyrion. St. Thomas' description tallies with the coot or moorhen: though of course he is mistaken about the feet differing from one another.] has this peculiarity apart from other birds, that it has a webbed foot for swimming, and a cloven foot for walking: for it swims like a duck in the water, and walks like a partridge on land: it drinks only when it bites, since it dips all its food in water: it is a figure of a man who will not take advice, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... inwards and outwards, she would remain quiet and mournful, with her form shrunk together in the shape of a frog. Her body was much larger than those animals ever are, and on this account it was much more hideous in appearance; for she looked like a wretched dwarf, with a frog's head, and webbed fingers. Her eyes had a most piteous expression; she was without a voice, excepting a hollow, croaking sound, like the smothered ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... sits appear upon its back. When we left Louisiana, near an hundred halcyons followed our vessel for near three days: they kept at the distance of about a stone-cast, and seemed to swim, yet I could never discover that their feet were webbed, and was therefore greatly surprised. They probably live upon the small insects that drop from the outside of the vessel when sailing; for they now-and-then dived, and came up in the same place. I have some suspicion that, by keeping in the wake of the ship, they float ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... the traveller had a view of the best of the old Virginia life, its wealth of beauty, its home comfort, its atmosphere of serenity, of old memories, rich and vivid, like the wine that lay cob-webbed in ancestral cellars, of gracious hospitality, of a softly tinted life like the color in old pictures and the soul in old books. The gentle humorist lived to see that life pass away from the Old Dominion and all too soon he vanished into another world where, like all ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett
... foggy sunset London glowed, Like one huge cob-webbed flagon of old wine. And, as I walked down Fleet Street, the soft sky Mowed thro' the roaring thoroughfares, transfused Their hard sharp outlines, blurred the throngs of black On either pavement, blurred the rolling stream Of red and yellow busses, ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... effects of the selection of indefinite variations, and the direct action of the conditions of life. For instance, it is possible that the feet of our water-dogs, and of the American dogs which have to travel much over the snow, may have become partially webbed from the stimulus of widely extending their toes; but it is far more probable that the webbing, like the membrane between the toes of certain pigeons, spontaneously appeared and was afterwards increased by the best swimmers and the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... Having no home to go to, and finding the water very delightful they decided to make their home in it. At first they would only stay timidly near the edges where the water was not deep, but by-and-by through living entirely in the water they grew webbed-toes (you try it!) and became as much at home in the swamp as any other water-creature. Some of them even grew elegant little tails (believe me or not, as you choose!) and they became known in the swamp as the Teenywiggles, and ...
— Piccaninnies • Isabel Maud Peacocke
... better. One by one the ghoulish muzzles emerged, peered into the darkness, and were satisfied; then the clumsy, ill-balanced bodies, entangled in loose-folded leathern cerements—the noctule's wing-spread measures a full foot; lastly, the webbed curving triangle of ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... had to make a long journey into the South, or else went into warm, snug hollows in the trees or caves in the rocks and slept the long winter through, just as Johnny Chuck does. He told how the Indians came through the great forest on big webbed shoes, that kept them from sinking into the snow, and hunted for Lightfoot the Deer, and how they never bothered Prickly Porky, but always treated him with the greatest respect. He told so many, many interesting things about the great North Woods, ...
— The Adventures of Unc' Billy Possum • Thornton W. Burgess
... supply of corn, grasses on which the cattle fed, wild plums, a few nuts and berries. They brought to Britain fruits and vegetables from many lands beyond the seas; from Italy gooseberries, chestnuts, and apples; walnuts from Gaul; apricots, peaches, and pears from Asia. Paved roads webbed the island, wide and well-drained, by which bodies of troops could be massed at any given point with incredible rapidity. Fortifications were built and in the north walls of solid masonry were thrown across the country from the Oceanus Ibernicus to the Oceanus Germanicus, for the determent ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... for walking and wading. Therefore, in these birds the hind toe is small, and more or less elevated above the plane of the other digits, or, as has already been said, is wholly wanting. The feet of some of these birds are partly webbed, so that, if necessary, they can change their mode of locomotion from running and wading to swimming. Birds whose feet are partly webbed ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... boy," he replied. "It looks like the foot of a bear, and yet it appears to be webbed as if it might be that of ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... extraordinary circumstance observed in its structure was, its having, instead of the mouth of an animal, the upper and lower mandibles of a duck. By these it was enabled to supply itself with food, like that bird, in muddy places, or on the banks of the lakes, in which its webbed feet enabled it to swim; while on shore its long and sharp claws were employed in burrowing; nature thus providing for it in its double or amphibious character. These little animals had been frequently noticed rising to the surface of the water, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... and general habits, but smaller in size. They are as fond of ancient abbeys and churches as ever were the monks of old. Indeed, they have many monkish habits and predilections, and chatter over their Latin rituals in the storied towers of old Norman cathedrals, and in the belfries of ivy-webbed churches in as ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... period any more than so many Trenton trilobites. Bent up, wrinkled, yellow-eyed, with long upper-lip, projecting jaws, retreating chin, still meek features, long arms, large flat hands with uncolored palms and slightly webbed fingers, it was impossible not to see in this old creature a hint of the gradations by which life climbs up through the lower natures to the highest human developments. We cannot tell such old women's ages because ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... himself in a long and rather narrow room, with a high ceiling, duskily lighted by three wide windows that were thickly webbed and dusted, like ancestral bottles of fine crusty Port. A veritable den it was, filled with what seemed to be the wrecks of philosophical apparatus dating back two or three generations—ill-fated ventures on the treacherous main of science. Here a fat-bellied alembic lolled ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... the shores of morn to even: And the stars, like rafts, went down: and the moon, like a ghost-ship, driven, A feather of foam, from port to port of the cloud-built isles that dotted, With pearl and cameo, bays of the day, her canvas webbed and rotted, Lay lost in the gulf of heaven: while over her mixed and melted The beautiful children of Morn, whose bodies are opal-belted; The beautiful daughters of Dawn, who, over and under, and after The rivered radiance, ...
— Myth and Romance - Being a Book of Verses • Madison Cawein
... DUCKS, &c.—Every one knows how awkward are the Anatidae, waddling along on their unelastic webbed toes, and their short legs, which, being placed considerably backward, make the fore part of the body preponderate. Some, however, are formed more adapted to terrestrial habits than others, and notably amongst ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... good and proper, and away sailed the ball. Off Buddy started for first base, hoping he could make a home run, but alas! before he got to second base the ball he had knocked was coming down, and was almost in the webbed foot of Jimmie Wibblewobble, who was waiting to catch it, and if it was caught that would mean that Buddy would be out, and his side would not ...
— Buddy And Brighteyes Pigg - Bed Time Stories • Howard R. Garis
... quadruped, with a large bill like a duck's. It spends most of its time in the water, but lives in a burrow on the shore. Its feet are very curious, as they can be changed at the pleasure of their owner. When in the water they are webbed like a duck's, but if the creature comes on shore, the web shrinks, and leaves long sharp claws ready ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... extra deep for the corral. The work was completed before noon, the gate being the only feature of interest. It was made double, fifty feet wide, and fastened in the centre to a strong post. The gate proper was made of wire, webbed together with stays, admitting of a pliability which served a double purpose. By sinking an extra post opposite each of the main ones, the flexibility of the gate also admitted of making a perfect wing, aiding in the entrance ...
— Wells Brothers • Andy Adams
... found in the more inaccessible parts of America, and the more northern countries of Europe, affords a curious instance of what may be called a compound structure. It has the fore-feet of a land animal, and the hind ones of an aquatic one—the latter only being webbed. Its tail is covered with scales like a fish, and serves to direct its course in the water, in which it ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... brought to the door of the dining-room by Francois. At a sign from the countess, Francois allowed him to pass in, followed by Mouche with his mouth full and carrying the otter, hanging by a string tied to its yellow paws, webbed like those of a palmiped. He cast upon his four superiors sitting at table, and also upon Sibilet, that look of mingled distrust and servility which serves as a veil to the thoughts of the peasantry; then he brandished his amphibian ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... a big bird, bigger than the houses of the white man. Its body was like the eagle's, and its wings were longer than the tallest pines. Its face was that of an Indian, but covered with hard scales, and its feet were webbed. Its nest was deep down in the bottom of the Lake, out in the center, and out of the nest rushed all the waters which fill the Lake. There are no rivers to feed the Lake, only the waters from the ong's nest. All the waters flow back near the bottom, in great under-currents, and ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... He bounded into the middle of the flock and knocked them every-which-way with his great paws. He thrust his muzzle under the hissing gander and sent him over on his back, where he lay and flapped his webbed feet ridiculously. And he did not hiss any more. ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... direction in which she pointed. Above their heads the soft blue sky was fading into gray, and here and there a misty star peeped out: but to the westward, where the downs and woods of Raleigh closed in with those of Abbotsham, the blue was webbed and turfed with delicate white flakes; iridescent spots, marking the path by which the sun had sunk, showed all the colors of the dying dolphin; and low on the horizon lay a long band of grassy green. But what ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... spoke, a change, strange and terrible, passed over the forms of the trampling peasants. Their stature shrank. They grew squat and fat. Their hands and feet were webbed, and their grinning mouths became great, sad, gaping openings by which to swallow worms and flies. Green and yellow and brown were their skins, and when they would fain have cried aloud for mercy, from their throats there would come only the ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... has two sticks, with a kind of hoop at the end, webbed across, and with these they catch and strike the ball. The goal on each side, consisting of two upright posts and a pole across the top, is set up twenty-five feet high; these goals are from forty to fifty rods ...
— History, Manners, and Customs of the North American Indians • George Mogridge
... of the order Chelonia, to which turtles and tortoises belong, are distinguished mainly by the limbs. The common fresh-water turtles have distinct toes, which are webbed and provided with long nails. They are easy and powerful swimmers, but are very helpless on land. They feed upon all kinds of aquatic worms and insects. The tortoises, or land turtles, have short clubbed feet adapted ...
— Harper's Young People, October 19, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... swan, and constantly reproved by their mothers for reasons which must always seem obscure to the bachelor. A little breeze was blowing, and the ducks bobbed like corks in the waves, keeping themselves in place with graceful side-strokes of their webbed feet. Sometimes the ducks rose from the water and flew round the trees by Queen Anne's Mansions, or they fled down the lake with outstretched necks like ducks on a Japanese fan, dropping at last into the water by the darkening island, leaving long silver lines, ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... little beasts were gregarious, we hunted about for a nest, which we might send to you after ousting its disagreeable occupant. After much searching, we found a group of them—quite a tarantula village, in fact. Their wonderful little houses are closed on the outside by a circular, many-webbed mesh, two or three inches across, and this web betrays the spider's den to the person who knows the tricks of the trade. Directly underneath it you come upon the tiny circular trap-door, which you will notice in the nest we send with these letters. You will see how wonderfully it is made, with ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... strictly terrestrial to aquatic habits; and as each exists by a struggle for life, it is clear that each must be well adapted to its place in nature. Look at the Mustela vison of North America, which has webbed feet, and which resembles an otter in its fur, short legs, and form of tail; during summer this animal dives for and preys on fish, but during the long winter it leaves the frozen waters, and preys, like other polecats on mice and land animals. If a different case had ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... wandered far from the banks of the creek—for the best of reasons. He was anything but a fast walker. In fact, one might say that he waddled, or even crawled, rather than walked. But in the water he was quite a different creature. By means of his webbed feet he could swim as easily as Mr. Crow could fly. And he could stay at the bottom of Black Creek a surprisingly long time before he came up for a breath of air. Indeed, Mr. Crow sometimes remarked that he would be just as well pleased if Timothy Turtle buried himself in the mud beneath ...
— The Tale of Timothy Turtle • Arthur Scott Bailey
... [Footnote: Amphibious: able to live in water and on land.] animal, delighting exceedingly to be dabbling in water,—insomuch that an historian of the day gravely tells us that many of his townswomen grew to have webbed fingers, "like ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... wagon, at eight o'clock next morning, he would have been surprised at the occupation upon which the boys were engaged. Each was sewing a piece of thin waterproof cloth upon a pair of white woolen gloves; so that the fingers, when outspread, had the appearance of the webbed foot of ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... dozen young bees, nearly mature, will be removed alive, all webbed together, fastened by legs, wings, &c. All their efforts for breaking loose prove unavailing. Also others that are separate may be seen running about with their wings mutilated, or part of their legs eaten off, or tied together! These generally are the first symptoms of ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... a young tadpole, some pond or ditch was his home, for he was an aquatic animal; but now that he is full-grown he has passed into another way of living: he breathes, or rather swallows air, and must, as he swims about with his beautifully webbed feet, come to the surface of the water now and then, or he would die. I am sure you know the frog well enough, and you may even have heard the harsh croak from which it has its name, as you have passed some damp meadow or weedy pond, on a summer evening. But ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... Aristotle, pretended that the ospreys taught their young to gaze at the sun, and those who were unable to do so were destroyed. Linnaeus even believed, on ancient authority, that one of the feet of this bird had all the toes divided, while the other was partly webbed, so that it could swim with one foot, and grasp a fish with the other." But that educated eye is now dim, and those talons are nerveless. Its shrill scream seems yet to linger in its throat, and the roar ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... known by its great size—weighing from twenty-five to fifty pounds—its chestnut color, darker on the crown, its webbed feet, and its broad, flat, naked, scaly tail. The pelt of this animal is a valuable fur. The creature is famous for building dams and digging canals. It was found wherever there was water and timber in North ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... grown to his size and strength. His thick body was fully three feet long. He weighed at least sixty pounds. His tail was fourteen inches in length and five in width, and on a still night he could strike the water a blow that could be heard a quarter of a mile away. His webbed hindfeet were twice as large as his mate's and he was easily the swiftest swimmer in ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... tresses of the maiden's-hair fern. Above, the rock was lost in a steep wilderness of trees and dense undergrowth, which met the radiant sky somewhere where the eye could not follow. The bell-like tinkle of water out of sight was the only sound until I heard a patter-patter of webbed feet coming along the road. A flock of geese were moving homeward, followed by a woman, whose feet were as bare as theirs, and whose eyes were fixed upon her distaff and spindle. She would not have noticed me had not the birds, true to their ancient ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... his beauty is to that of the seal as that of the Theseus or Antinous to that of an orangoutang. His five senses are extraordinarily acute, even the sense of touch in his webbed fingers and toes; and in addition to these he possesses a sixth, that comes from his keen and unintermittent sense of the magnetic current, which is far stronger in Mars than on the earth, and far more complicated, and ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Uncle Dick, "when I wish all horses had been born with webbed feet. The hoof of a horse seems made purposely to cut through a muskeg, and the leg of a horse is just long enough to tangle him up in one. None the less, here is the muskeg, and here we are with our horses, and we must get across. We'll ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... derives its distinctive title from the Greek words, cheen, a goose, and pous, a foot, in allusion to the resemblance borne by its leaves to the webbed members of that waddling bird which raw recruits are wont to bless for their irksome drill of the goose-step. Incidentally, it may be said that goosegrease, got from the roasted bird, is highly emollient, and very useful in clysters; it ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... account with them we intended going in search of a curious swamp-dwelling tribe, whose feet were reported to be webbed, like those of a duck, and many were the weird and fantastic rumours that reached our ears ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... the earth Suck'st our poor prayers, conveying them to Him; Be aidant, tender Lady, to my lay! Of thy two maidens somewhat must I say, Ere shadowy twilight lashes, drooping, dim Day's dreamy eyes from us; Ere eve has struck and furled The beamy-textured tent transpicuous, Of webbed coerule wrought and woven calms, Whence has paced forth the lambent-footed sun. And Thou disclose my flower of song upcurled, Who from Thy fair irradiant palms Scatterest all love and loveliness as alms; Yea, Holy One, Who coin'st Thyself to beauty ...
— Sister Songs • Francis Thompson
... frog, esculenta, is about three inches in length, grass-green, with black spots. His eyes have a golden color, and the toes of his hind legs are webbed. His voice, which is often heard on warm summer nights, sounds Brekekex! He passes the winters hidden in the mud and ...
— Gritli's Children • Johanna Spyri
... itself by two clawlike hands upon the windowsill. These claws, unlike the face, were of a clayey brown hue, and bore an indistinct resemblance to human hands, in that they had four fingers and a thumb; though these were webbed up to the first joint, much as are a duck's. Nails it had also, but so long and powerful that they were more like the talons of an ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... sprinkled, a mile apart, among the forest-clad hills, with access to each other by firm smooth country roads which are so embowered in dense foliage that it is always twilight in there, and comfortable. The forests are spider-webbed with these good roads, they go everywhere; but for the help of the guide-boards, the stranger would ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "The webbed feet of the seal and ornithorhynchus typify the period when the hands and feet of the human embryo are as yet only partly subdivided into fingers and toes. Indeed, it is not uncommon for the 'web' to persist to some extent between the toes of adults; and occasionally ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... black, arcuated, and truncated. Nostrils large, round, open, and situated in the middle of the bill. Wings ample, third quill longest. Legs long, light dull-red, and naked to a little above the knee. Feet black, webbed, the membrane being deeply notched, great toe articulated to the metatarsus. Plumage slate-grey, with black spots upon the wings and back. Wing-feathers dusky black, and edged at the tip with pale grey. Irides ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... Different Angles. Difference Between Lift and Drift in Motion. Tables of Lift and Drift. Why Tables of Lift and Drift are Wrong. Langley's Law. Moving Planes vs. Winds. Momentum not Considered. The Flight of Birds. The Downward Beat. The Concaved Wing. Feather Structure Considered. Webbed Wings. The Angle of Movement. An Initial Movement or Impulse Necessary. A Wedging Motion. No Mystery in the Wave Motion. How Birds Poise with Flapping Wings. Narrow- winged Birds. Initial Movement of Soaring ...
— Aeroplanes • J. S. Zerbe***
... which can in most cases be controlled by the identification officer. These can be lack of fingers (born without), amputations, crippled fingers (bent, broken), deformities (webbed, extra fingers), and ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... the shape of a great bird, which the West Highlanders called the Boobrie, who has a long neck, great webbed feet with tremendous claws, a powerful bill hooked like an eagle's, and a voice like the roar of an angry bull. The lochs, according to popular fancy, are also inhabited by water-spirits. In Sutherlandshire this kind of creature is called the Fuath; ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce
... A crispness in the feel of the air, elusive but persistent, hinted of approaching frost. The still warmth was haunted, every now and then, by a passing ghost of chill. Here and there the pale green of the birches was thinly webbed with gold. Here and there a maple hung out amid its rich verdure a branch prematurely turned, glowing like a banner of aerial rose. Along the edges of the little wild meadows which bordered the loitering brooks the first thin blooms of the asters began to show, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... won't share any cramped delusion that things are good merely because they are dusty and immobile. I won't share the fallacy that to call a thing conservative sanctifies it. There is more virtue in a tiled bathroom than in a cob-webbed chapel. If we change this house at all we will ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... cavies are among the largest animals of the Rodent Family; for instance, the great Capivara, which is equal in size to an ordinary pig. This species is not a swift runner upon land; but it is semi-aquatic in its habits, and can swim and dive like an otter, its feet being webbed or palmated. It herds in troops of from five or ten to fifty in number, and is found upon the banks of all the great South American rivers, where it has for its chief ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid |
