"Bird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wrenched the handle and threw wide the door. Light as a bird she sprang to the ground, her fingers just touching the extended hand. Side by side they strolled away across the sunlit lawn, he so strong, virile, erect, she so lissome and graceful. Full of her purpose, yet fearful that with ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... but nobody was in sight, and there were no sounds of footsteps in the frosty air. Though so near the busy city of Bristol, yet high up on that long bridge, that triumph of engineering of our yesterday, all was quiet with scarce a sound save the shrill cry of a night-bird. ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... A new butterfly, an uncommon insect, would be irresistible to him; and not unfrequently, when he went out with his gun to procure some game which Mr. Hardy had wanted upon the arrival of some unexpected visitor, he would come back in a high state of triumph with some curious little bird, which he had shot after a long chase, the requirements of the ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... saw what sort of a boat he had; she cleared the waves like a sea-bird, without so much as a drop coming in, and he therefore judged that he did not need to take in a reef, which in an ordinary ten-oared boat he would be obliged to do ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... as I sat on the shaft of my cart in deep meditation, with my arms folded, I thought I heard a rustling in the bushes over against me. I turned my eyes in that direction, but saw nothing. 'Some bird,' said I; 'an owl, perhaps'; and once more I fell into meditation; my mind wandered from one thing to another—musing now on the structure of the Roman tongue—now on the rise and fall of the Persian power—and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... around the Sagamore Club that dewy June morning, chirping, chirking, trilling, repeating their endless arias from tree and gate-post. And through the outcry of the robins, the dry cackle of the purple grackles, and the cat-bird's whine floated earthward the ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... had been reeving them—now off duty—was preparing leisurely to descend to the deck, when, as nine out of every ten sailors will, he paused to take a last, long, comprehensive look round the horizon. There was not a sail of any sort in sight from the deck, not even so much as the glancing of a bird's wing against the warm, tender, grey tones of the horizon to arrest one's wandering glances; but this was apparently not the case from the superior altitude of the main-royal yard, for presently I observed a change in the attitude of the man up there from ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... striking bird makes its appearance in Northern India. This is the pied crested cuckoo (Coccystes jacobinus). Its under parts are white, as is a bar in the wing. The remainder of the plumage is glossy black. The head is adorned by an elegant ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... presume, as a business man, you would count a bird in the hand worth several in the bush—in other words, you would sooner have what he has stowed away—somewhere, than what he ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... street a bird's note rang out in one wild, delirious ecstasy of untrammeled springtime. To all intents and purposes the sound might have been the one final signal that Rae Malgregor's jangled nerves were ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... manifestaion of human energy, resemble the exercise of a creative power. Even wild animals have been compelled by him, through the destruction of plants and insects which furnished their proper aliment, to resort to food belonging to a different kingdom of nature. Thus a New Zealand bird, originally granivorous and insectivorous, has become carnivorous, from the want of its natural supplies, and now tears the fleeces from the backs of the sheep, in order to feed on their living ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... on His shoulders, He puts His on ours. 'My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.' As the old mystics used to say, Christ's burden carries him that carries it. It may add a little weight, but it gives power to soar, and it gives power to progress. It is like the wings of a bird, it is like the sails of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... us. We heard not even the notes of a bird. Not a zephyr moved the air, not a rustling leaf was there. In front, far below, lay the Potomac. Not a breath of wind moved the surface of its waters, but calmly, peacefully, undisturbed, the river moved on, as though conscious of the spot it ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... the top, Drake beside him; in the flash of a humming-bird's wing they were gripping me, swearing feebly. The unseen hold angled; struck upward; clutched from ankle to thigh; held us ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... will close with Professor Washburn's talk on "Bird Conservation," which will be given ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... replied, "By no means: they are representative forms of various moral virtues and spiritual truths. The people of that age were acquainted with the science of correspondences; and as every man, beast, bird, and fish, corresponds to some quality, therefore each particular carved figure represents partially some virtue or truth, and several together represent virtue itself, or truth, in a common extended form. ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... kiss'd by the aged mulatto nurse, On rivers boatmen safely moor'd at nightfall in their boats under shelter of high banks, Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle, others sit on the gunwale smoking and talking; Late in the afternoon the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp, There are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous moss, the cypress-tree, and the juniper-tree; Northward, young men of Mannahatta, the target ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... his hesitation accurately, the incredulous pause of the bird whose cage door is suddenly opened. He ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... stooping to pick up the dead bird, while the scared flock flies farther away, "let's light a bit o' a fire, an' cook it. Thar's plenty o' sage for the stuffin', an' its own flavour'll do for seasonin' 'stead o' inyuns. I reck'n we kin git some o' it down, by holdin' our noses; an' at all ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... Whether his success hasn't compelled Agent Quhayne to purchase a larger-sized hat? And Whether it isn't a fact that, though they are press-agented at the same figure, Prince Otto is getting fifty a week more than Grand Duke Vodkakoff? And If it is not so, why a little bird has assured us that the Prince is being paid five hundred a week and the Grand Duke only four hundred and fifty? And, In any case, whether the Prince isn't worth fifty a week more than ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... and carters-whips; bowles, shivers, and pins for blocks: Also it excels for door-bars and bolts; and as of the elm, so of this especially, they made even hinges and hooks to serve instead of iron, sinking in the water like it; and of the bark is compos'd our bird-lime thus: ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... vigilance. A nice story of traitorous mutiny I shall have to report to London! Three of the Parliament's men beaten and bound, and rebels here in hiding. For there is a hiding-place here, I will lay my life, and by the look in your eyes, mistress, the bird is still in it." ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... feminine hand the long hair that is falling over his face—he has half forgotten, he is a little mixed in the opening of the story, and he is striving in English to "scamp," in French to escamoter. "The family are watching, death if he is caught, if he fails to kill the French sentry. The cry of a bird, some vague sound attracts the sentry, he turns; all is lost. The Spaniard is seized. Martial law, Spanish conspiracy must be put down. The French general is a man of iron." (Villiers laughs, a short, hesitating laugh ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... degraded form, bearing much the same relation to the true character as a "churchwarden gothic" building does to Canterbury Cathedral; the colours were varied. The initial was pale gold, the h pink, the o black, the u blue, and the first letter was somehow connected with a bird's nest containing the young of the pigeon, who were waited on ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... Jocelyn preserved one characteristic, an unerring instinct for field-sports that no amount of drinking could impair. He could hit a flying bird with a stone, was a deadly shot for snipe or mallard, rode like a centaur, and fished with the instinct of a heron. It is probable that his consciousness of this faculty was at the bottom of his startling recovery. Possibly he was frightened to find a little of his skill failing. ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... Queen ELIZABETH II of the UK (since 6 February 1952), represented by Governor General James B. CARLISLE (since NA 1993) head of government: Prime Minister Lester Bryant BIRD (since 8 March 1994) cabinet: Council of Ministers appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister elections: none; the queen is a hereditary monarch; governor general chosen by the queen on the advice of the prime minister; ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... ask myself what o'clock it could be; I could hear the whistling of trains, which, now nearer and now farther off, punctuating the distance like the note of a bird in a forest, shewed me in perspective the deserted countryside through which a traveller would be hurrying towards the nearest station: the path that he followed being fixed for ever in his memory by the general excitement due to being in a strange ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... intended to represent things or thoughts, which afterwards became the symbols of sounds. For instance, the letter M is traced down from the conventionalized picture of an owl in the ancient language of Egypt, Mulak. This was used first to denote the bird itself; then it stood for the name of the bird; then gradually became a syllabic sign to express the sound "mu," the first syllable of the name, and ultimately to denote "M," the initial ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... of that extraordinary bird the DODO, belongs rather to {262} human history than to pure zoology, and I therefore hope that a few Queries relating to this curious subject will be admissible into your publication. I have already, in the work ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... a needlessly tight grip, and there was something of consternation in his eye. But I enjoyed the cry of surprise he gave once when we were getting used to it. A schooner passed us, quite close, a midget which fairly danced over the running hills, lifting her bows and soaring upwards, light as a bird, and settling in the hollows amid a white cloud. "Isn't she brave!" said ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... "Bird of the wilderness, Blithesome and cumberless, Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea; Emblem of happiness, Blest is thy dwelling-place, Oh! to abide ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... his patient wished to be alone, soon left him; and the black figure with hands behind and head bent forward continued to pace the walk where the dark yew-trees gave him a mute companionship in melancholy, and the little shadows of bird or leaf that fleeted across the isles of sunlight, stole along in silence as in the presence of a sorrow. Here was a man who now for the first time found himself looking into the eyes of death—who was passing through one of those rare moments of experience when we feel the ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... happened to glance up at the mansion—I mean the camp—and I saw by the window a rather jolly old buck with a waxed moustache and a monocle, smoking a good cigar and perusing his after-breakfast newspaper. A gardener told me that this tranquil old bird was Willett Senior, who had arrived the evening before from Europe via New York. So I went straight into that house and I disregarded the butler, second man, valet, and seven assorted servants; and Mr. Willett Senior ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... railways, and the formation of pens or enclaves into which the attenuated roving bands of Boers were to be herded and dealt with severally and severely. The work of extension was taken in hand in July, 1901. The Boers in the veld watched it with the detachment and unconcern of a wild bird on the branches looking down upon the fowler laying his snares in ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... believed to enhance the power of the spirits who ruled meteorological phenomena. The notion was that insects caused meteorological phenomena; then they were gods; the insects and beasts gave to the gods the magic power which they (insects and beasts) once had over rainfall, etc. The humming bird which hibernates and wakes again in spring was thought to cause the heat of summer. Therefore it was taken to be an envelope of the war god. Free flow of blood lets loose magic power. Hence the great bloodshedding in the Mexican cultus. "Human ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... jail-bird would be so afraid of telling about himself," cried the captain, though ceasing to threaten. "The best thing you can do will be to turn the cursed son of a sea cook over to the ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... heave to. In a moment all was in confusion on board the merchantman. Sheets and halyards were let go by the run, and the huge cloud of canvas seemed to shrink and shrivel up as the vessel was rounded to with folded wings like a crippled bird, and with her foretopsail to the mast, lay submissively awaiting the commands ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... in the garden. There was a full September moon. I stood beside the bird-bath and put a forefinger in it. I could hear Breck breathing hard beside me. I was sure he had broken his pledge and had ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... who loved the Cisco Kid, was half Carmen, half Madonna, and the rest—oh, yes, a woman who is half Carmen and half Madonna can always be something more—the rest, let us say, was humming-bird. She lived in a grass-roofed /jacal/ near a little Mexican settlement at the Lone Wolf Crossing of the Frio. With her lived a father or grandfather, a lineal Aztec, somewhat less than a thousand years old, who herded a ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... a large gilt parrot-cage. She swept up the gangway of the Fall of Rome and was enthusiastically received. There were, however, concealed titterings and suppressed whispers. "My sakes! She's went and brought that bird." ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... who had intercepted Gouache's passage across the bridge, as well as the dense crowd, had disappeared, and Faustina ran like the wind along the pavement it had taken the soldier so long to traverse. Like a flitting bird she sped over the broad space beyond and up the Borgo Nuovo, past the long low hospital, wherein the sick and dying lay in their silence, tended by the patient Sisters of Mercy, while all was in ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... the peacock is painted with great regardlessness of color, there is a feature in it which no common painter would have observed,—the peculiar flatness of the back, and undulation of the shoulders: the bird's body is all there, though its feathers are a good deal neglected; and the same thing is noticeable in a cock who is pecking among the straw near the spectator, though in other respects a shabby cock enough. The fact is, I believe, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... take your morning bath," smiled Knickerbocker. "Come, Mr. Flutter, get out of that, and find your rod and line, and come along. I have a good breakfast in this basket, which we will eat in some dewy nook of the woods, while we are waiting for a nibble. The early bird catches the worm, ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... of incense that hung in clouds throughout the church. Cecile presented her bag with a gentle, imploring smile. Jack was very grave. The little fluttering hand in its thread glove, which he held in his own, reminded him of a bird that he had once taken from its nest in the forest. Did he dream that the little girl would be his best friend, and that, later, all that was most precious in life for him would ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... idea, the marriage itself. The story of that has been told, but the reader has perhaps hardly been made to understand the utter bereavement which it brought on the mother. It is natural that the adult bird should delight to leave the family nest, and that the mother bird should have its heart-strings torn by the separation. It must be so, alas! even when the divulsions are made in the happiest manner. ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... pull on the twine string, and down came the heavy stone upon the duck's back. 'You should have heard the old thing quacking,' said he, evidently forgetting everything else but the sport of catching the bird: 'but I soon gave her neck a twist, and here we are ready for a dinner, when we only find a way to cook it. Have you discovered any way to ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... clear shade of tan, and the half dozen freckles, friendly remembrancers of the April sun and breeze—precisely give us the right to call her beautiful. But there was both luster and depth in her eyes. She was very pretty; as graceful as a bird and graceful much in the same way; as pleasant about the house as a gleam of sunshine falling on the floor through a shadow of twinkling leaves, or as a ray of firelight that dances on the wall while evening is ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... how straight up to heaven he holds them rear'd, Winnowing the air with those eternal plumes, That not like mortal hairs fall off or change!" As more and more toward us came, more bright Appear'd the bird of God, nor could the eye Endure his splendor near: I mine bent down. He drove ashore in a small bark so swift And light, that in its course no wave it drank. The heav'nly steersman at the prow was seen, Visibly written blessed in his looks. Within a hundred ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... panther, the wolf, the fox, the rabbit, wild and pole cats, are all found in the country, on which the American hunter pours his vengeance. Squirrels of various kinds and different hues are numerous here; one of which is called the flying squirrel, not from its having wings like a bird, but from its being furnished with a fine loose skin between its fore and hind legs, which it contracts or expands at pleasure, and which buoys it up, and enables it to spring from branch to branch at considerable ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... about, as if to testify to the abiding characteristics of the place. Within the building not only is the swan a prominent figure in the frescoed story, but whichever way one turns one sees a counterfeit presentment of the graceful bird. There is Lohengrin in his enchanted boat impelled by his beloved swan, an exquisite group in silver, and another like it in porcelain; swans are carved upon the furniture, moulded upon the dishes, painted upon cups and saucers, embroidered upon cushions and footstools: ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... filled with grass and dust. He noticed with a pang that the ivy had been torn from the church and that the glazed brick walls flaunted a nudity that was almost immodest. He had remembered it as a bower of shade—a gigantic bird's nest. He saw that ancient elms were rapidly decaying, and when he reached the judge's garden he found that the syringa and the lilacs had vanished. The garden had faced the destroyer in the plough, and trim vegetables thrived where gaudy ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... leaf for leaf, in needlework upon every alternate block of white muslin. How these workers accomplished the raised designs on plain white muslin is the mystery. How raised flowers, leaves, plumes, baskets, bunches of fruit, even animal and bird shapes, could be shown in bas-relief on these quilt blocks without hopelessly 'puckering' the material, ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... taught them these things. Out of their brains, as undeveloped and as primitive as the brains of men, they would never have conceived so much wisdom. The vague mind of the savage woman never sent her to the spider, the nesting bird, and the burrowing squirrel to learn to weave and to build and to store. When we find exactly what it was that taught primitive woman how to lay the first stones of civilization, we have a perfect philosophical understanding of ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... not bigger than sparrows, fly down upon the turf, reddened with strawberries; green parrots with yellow heads, purple woodpeckers, cardinals red as fire, clamber up to the very tops of the cypress-trees; humming-birds sparkle upon the jessamine of the Floridas; and bird- catching serpents hiss while suspended to the domes of the woods, where they swing about like creepers themselves.... All here ... is sound and motion.... When a breeze happens to animate these solitudes, to swing these floating ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... invisible ills. He saw everything and understood much. He leaned against the bulkhead, his gaze flicking from one to the other of the crew. Occasionally his small mustache twitched like the antennae of a cat watching a bird. ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... speck in a twisted old hawthorn bush some distance off. He stopped and said: "At first I thought that white speck in the bush was a piece of paper, but it's a magpie," next to the water- wagtail the gypsies' most famous bird. On going up to the bush they discovered a magpie crouched among the leaves. As it did not stir at their approach, Borrow's friend said to him: "It is wounded—or else dying—or is it a tame bird ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... The bird that flutters and twitters in the parent nest is a very different thing from the emancipated fledgeling, feeling its newly acquired power of flight, and soaring far up and out into the woods and over the fields; and the boy whose experience of ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... his weakness; it is dead certain that no one in Verona, least of all Vanna herself, suspected him of any affection for his young wife. Mostly he was silent; thus she became silent too whenever he was in the house. This was against nature, for by ordinary her little songs bubbled from her like a bird's. But to see him so glum and staring within doors awed her: she set a finger to her lips as she felt the tune on her tongue, and went about her business mute. Baldassare would go abroad, stooping under his pack: she took her seat at the shop-door, threaded her needle, her fingers flew and ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... in a mood for swimming, and for swimming with all his might. Never had he felt so strong and vigorous and so full of life and energy, and he made his fins and his tail go like the oars of a racing-shell. Now he was working up the swift current of a long rapid like a bird in the teeth of the wind. Now he was gathering all his strength for the great leap to the top of the water-fall. And now, perhaps, he rested for a little while in a quiet pool, and presently went ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... 'twas thought of me, And so 'twas thought of me because I had A hawk-like profile and a baleful eye. Lo! my soul's chin recedes, soft to the touch As half-churn'd butter. Seeming hawk is dove, And dove's a gaol-bird now. Fie out ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm
... ship as swiftly as a bird through the air, till it came down a little below the king's palace, and there it stopped. From the palace windows people had stood and seen Shortshanks come sailing along, and they were all so amazed that they ran down to see who it could be that came sailing ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... Glen St. Mary, like a great bird poised against the western sky—a sky so clear and of such a pale, silvery yellow, that it gave an impression of a vast, wind-freshened space of freedom. The little group on the Ingleside lawn looked up at it with fascinated eyes, although it was by no means an unusual thing to see an occasional ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... know where I live, nor can his employer give him any clew, as he, too, is ignorant of it. If he takes the trouble to call upon me again, he will find the bird flown." ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... could not; assimilate; never hope, then, to gather the honey of friendship out of that thorn-guarded plant. Hello, Crimsworth! where are your thoughts tending? You leave the recollection of Hunsden as a bee would a rock, as a bird a desert; and your aspirations spread eager wings towards a land of visions where, now in advancing daylight—in X—— daylight—you dare to dream of congeniality, repose, union. Those three you will never meet in this world; they are angels. ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... a granary; various warehouses; an immense aviary, with "birds of splendid plumage assembled from all parts of the empire—the scarlet cardinal, the golden pheasant, the endless parrot tribe, and that miniature miracle of nature, the humming-bird, which delights to revel among the honeysuckle bowers of Mexico." The birds of prey had a separate building. The menagerie adjoining the aviary showed wild animals from the mountain forests, as well as creatures from the remote swamps of the hot lands by the seashore. The serpents "were ...
— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson
... a valuable man to them; but it's at a serious loss,—the loss of your honor. You can't go home to Texas and again be respected among men. This outfit you are with will promise you the earth, but the moment that they're through with you, you won't cut any more figure than a last year's bird's nest. They'll throw you aside like an old boot, and you'll fall so hard that you'll hear the clock tick in China. Now, Archie, it hurts me to see a young fellow like you go wrong, and I'm willing to forgive the past and stretch out a hand to save you. If you'll quit those people, you ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... this side of the lake when I heard the strangest sounds I ever heard coming out of a bird or beast. Ye better believe, Henry, that I sot and listened until I was nothing but ears. But nary a thing could I make out of it. After awhile I said I would try to ambush the creetur and find out what mouth had a language that old John Norton couldn't understand. As ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... poor! See how I am wound up!" But Qastcèëlçi again said: "When you leave, take with you those bags filled with embroideries and take with you tobacco from the pouches near the fire." Scarcely had Qastcèëlçi disappeared when the Navajo heard a voice overhead, and a bird named qocçò¢i flew down through the smoke-hole, hovered four times around the lodge over the heads of the Ute, and departed by the way it had entered. In a moment after it had disappeared a few of the Ute began to nod and close their eyes; soon the others showed signs ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... whereas, by his own confession, she 'was no heretic.' A gentleman whom I know declared to me, upon his honor, that he heard Mr. Wesley repeat, in a sermon preached by him in the city of Cork, the following words: 'A little bird cried out in Hebrew, O Eternity! Eternity! who can tell the length of Eternity?' I am, then, of opinion that a little Hebrew bird gave Mr. Wesley the important information about the priest and the woman. One story is as interesting as the other, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... a bird's-eye view is presented of the entire position in this vicinity. Details will be found in the larger maps. Care has been taken to give the outlines, roads, and relative distances with accuracy. The plan is a photographic reduction of Ratzer's, ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston
... 'nuff what brings de lieutenant round dis way. As for dat—trash—wid him"—and here came a chuckle of delight at her own wit—"he just cain't help hisself." But Dora was not listening. Light as a bird she had flown to the other end of the little porch and was gazing out through the honeysuckles with all ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... of salvation might be called the ostrich method: it teaches men the foolish strategy of the bird of the desert, which hides its head in the sand when it sees an enemy approaching, and then imagines the enemy does not exist. Original sin may be disputed out of the Bible by a false interpretation, but it is not thereby ruled out of existence. When face to face ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... a vulture Sought a timid dove for prey, Would you not, with human pity, Drive the gory bird away? ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... flaw in that evidence. Walen read out their last observations, and Mankeltow asked questions, and Lord Lundie sort o' summarised, and I looked at the photos in the album. 'J'ever see a bird's-eye telephoto-survey of England for military purposes? It's interestin' but indecent—like turnin' a man upside down. None of those close-range panoramas of forts could have been ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... trying to tame a bird," she had thought half whimsically, after the first days, when the feeling of weariness and fright had worn down and a great relief and great thankfulness had taken its place, that she should never see the boarding-house ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... not part with the bird," said the King, "although I'm a bit tired of his song. It's too sweet," said he, "and I prefer the cawing of crows and the croaking of ravens. However, it is much admired by others, and therefore I shall ...
— The Cat in Grandfather's House • Carl Henry Grabo
... into their blossoms a richer coloring; and even the blades of grass seemed to stretch themselves upward, green, tender, and promising; and when the young lady skipped up the step of the post-office, she dropped the letter into Miss Harriet Corvey's little box, with the air of a mother-bird feeding a young one with the first ripe cherry ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... big baracouta and glouper—him fifty pound weight; and mauget, and hedgehog, and jew-fish; him wonderful good to eat, fit for de Queen of England," and Quasho smacked his lips. "Den dere is de snapper and flatfork, and squerrel and parot-fish, wid just all de colours like de bird; and de abacore, almost as big as de glouper; and, let me see, de doctor—him got lance in de tail, and so him called doctor, ho! ho! and den dere is de king-fish, and de wattee, de kind, de comaree, de convalby, de old wife, de cobbler, de ten pounder, de garr, bolalwe, ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... Adelaide amiably. "But he's a well-meaning, good-hearted little man, and, of course, he feels as at home in the surroundings he's had all his life as a bird ...
— The Second Generation • David Graham Phillips
... mystic cloud of distance. Gale had assimilated much of the loneliness and the sense of ownership and the love of lofty heights that might well belong to the great condor of the peak. Like this wide-winged bird, he had an unparalleled range of vision. The very corners whence came the winds seemed ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... were lily-pads,—great golden-hearted chalices, with long, sinuous greenish-pink stems under the shady, transparent water. How cool and peaceful! The sky overhead was of palest blue with white flecks, and somewhere a bird was singing. If he could go to it; if he could stay amid all this sweet quiet, and forget— What was it he wanted to forget? Not his little Fred, surely! How proud he should be of him in his manhood. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... sparrow, offensively cheerful upon a lamp-post. This self-centred little bird allowed a pebble to pass overhead and remained unconcerned, but, a moment later, feeling a jar beneath his feet, and hearing the tinkle of falling glass, he decided to leave. Similarly, and at the same instant, Penrod made the same decision, and the sparrow in flight took note ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... It has disappeared from Egypt There were two varieties of this bird, which was sacred to Toth, and mummies of both have been found in various places. Elian states that an immortal Ibis was shown at Hermopolis. Plutarch says, the ibis destroys poisonous reptiles, and that priests draw the water for their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... the land is he, The nephew of our lord. With clear and lovely eyes, his grace May not be told by word. All day at target practice, He'll never miss the bird. Such is the prince of Loo, and yet With grief for ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... equal vertical bands of light blue (hoist side), white, and light blue with the coat of arms centered in the white band; the coat of arms includes a green and red quetzal (the national bird) and a scroll bearing the inscription LIBERTAD 15 DE SEPTIEMBRE DE 1821 (the original date of independence from Spain) all superimposed on a pair of crossed rifles and a pair of crossed swords ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... foreman had left him, Annixter could not forbear a growl of satisfaction. It could not be denied that the barn was superb, monumental even. Almost any one of the other barns in the county could be swung, bird-cage fashion, inside of it, with room to spare. In every sense, the barn was precisely what Annixter had hoped of it. In his pleasure over the success of his idea, even Hilma for the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... foot upon the ground, it was slowly and cautiously, and at each time he threw his outstretched arms upward, like a bird when flying, distorting his face also, as if the effort caused him extreme pain. But he passed the sleepers safely, and was ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... round and powerless money of the world—limbs' tin grace, wooden wink, shoulderless, unhurried body, velocity of a grasshopper, soul up under his arm-pits, mysteriously falling over the ownness of two feet, floating fish of his slimness half a bird.... ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... corners of her eyes touched her ears, her lips were sweet with lunar ambrosia, her waist was that of a lion, and her walk the walk of a king goose. [FN53] As a garment, she was white; as a season, the spring; as a flower, the jasmine; as a speaker, the kokila bird; as a perfume, musk; as a beauty, Kamadeva; and as a being, Love. And if she does not come into my possession I will not live; this I have certainly ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... with arguments on a solid basis, but the basis gave way; and suddenly they had no longer a single idea—just as a bird takes wing the moment ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... to heel is such as his love is, and therefore such as his life is; and to convert his life into its opposite is to destroy the spirit completely. The angels declare that it would be easier to change a night-owl into a dove, or a horned-owl into a bird of paradise, than to change an infernal spirit into an angel of heaven. That man after death continues to be such as his life had been in the world can be seen above in its own chapter (n. 470-484). From all this it is evident that no one can be received into heaven from mercy ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... representing the father under a forbidding aspect. As his daughter's vendor,—her unwilling vendor,—as her guardian from capture, he would be the natural foe of her lover. He is not always so ready as the Bird Simer to give up to another his rights over her; but perhaps the Bird Simer's readiness may be partly explained by the husband's having already performed the feat of rescuing the maiden from a giant, beside slaying his own brother for ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... from the middle of the bog, comes a plaintive cry like the call of some night-bird. It is answered half a mile away, in the direction of Donaghmore, and then again there is silence. But it is no bird-call, Honor knows; and she raises her face from her lover's breast with a little ...
— Only an Irish Girl • Mrs. Hungerford
... more easily made than carried into effect. At the hotel from which the letter had been dated nothing was known of the missing youth except that he had departed long long ago, leaving as his future address the name of a bird-stuffer, which name had unfortunately been mislaid—not lost. Oh no—only mislaid! On further inquiry, however, there was a certain undersized, plain-looking, and rather despised chamber-maid who retained a lively ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... the latter was—for the delay allowed by the court had all but expired—Mr. White saw the danger of promising anything which could be construed into a reward; but he could use other means of decoying the shy bird into his meshes; and these he used in his answer with such effect, that the man who could solve the mystery was in Edinburgh at the end of a week. Nor was Mr. White unprepared to receive him, for he had previously ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... from them one of his strongest arguments for this alleged community of descent. Yet what is more certain to every observant field-naturalist than that this alleged uselessness of colouring is one of the greatest protections to the young bird, imperfect in its flight, perching on every spray, sitting unwarily on every bush through which the rays of sunshine dapple every bough to the colour of its own plumage, and so give it a facility of escape ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the morning we went on board of the Gazelle, and she weighed anchor immediately. Cornwood took possession of the pilot-house, declaring that he had never been confined in a canary-bird's cage before. But he was good-natured about it, and when the boy had got up the anchor, Cornwood rang the bell to start the engine. Everything worked as regularly as though the little yacht had been a steamer of a thousand tons. The pilot ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic
... swallowing a man. Bird and young. Dragon and lions. Three dragons, one with a human face. Winged figure with a tabour. Dragon devouring a bird. Coronation of the Virgin. Three griffins. Pelican in its act of piety. Dragon and lion fighting. Griffin and two young ones. Two dragons ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • C. King Eley
... had scolded her. Without speaking again, she began to fasten her letter under the bird's wing, but gave a little cry, for there was blood on her fingers. "Oh, he's hurt himself somehow!" she exclaimed. "He won't be able to fly, I'm afraid. What shall I do? I must send the other one. And yet—if I do, there'll be nothing ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... exhibit showed what that institution had been and what it is doing. Bird's-eye views of the university at different periods of its existence and a fine model of its present buildings and grounds were shown. The various departments made exhibits ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... from a tall oak tree, Just as important as he could be; For a Congress of birds was to meet that day, And he had determined to have his say. He plumed his feathers and looked severe, As the birds flew in from far and near. A Mocking Bird sat on a limb near by, With a desperate look in his round, dark eye; He was the culprit—a thief he had been, The Thrush and the Blackbird had "run him in." He had stolen the nest of the little brown Wren From the tangled depth of a shady glen. ...
— Nestlings - A Collection of Poems • Ella Fraser Weller
... a burst of feeling, "they say the American eagle might keep her beak shut with advantage, more than she does; but I tell you," and the Senator's hand came down hard on Dicky's knee, "a trip around Europe is enough to turn her into a singing bird, sir, a ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Michaelmas it were too late. When apples are ripe they must be plucked from the tree or they are spoiled. Procrastination is as bad as over-hastiness. There is my servant Wolf, when four or five birds fall upon the bird-net he will not draw it; but says, "Oh, I will stay until more come." Then they all fly away, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... her no more. Vanish, false Sorceress; into Space! Needless to hover at neighbouring Ruel; for thy day is done. Shut are the royal palace-gates for evermore; hardly in coming years shalt thou, under cloud of night, descend once, in black domino, like a black night-bird, and disturb the fair Antoinette's music-party in the Park: all Birds of Paradise flying from thee, and musical windpipes growing mute. (Campan, i. 197.) Thou unclean, yet unmalignant, not unpitiable thing! What a course was thine: ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... world, gathering "facts and figures," doubtless for their August master. It is a beautiful fable, and reminds one of Milton's "thoughts which wander through eternity." The dove of the Ark, and the bird which perched on the shoulder of the old Plutarchan hero Sertorius, are recalled ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... in the night while my man slept," Mitiahwe answered, looking straight before her, "and it was like the cry of a bird—calling, calling, calling." ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... himself, particularly when somebody else might be listening. I guess that's all, Earl, for the present, although if I were you I would keep these ten recovered cuff-buttons in some safer place than that dinky little jewel cabinet on your dresser, since a little bird recently informed me that the desperate William X. Budd, the author of all these atrocities, is about to visit Normanstow Towers to-morrow morning, and attempt to carry them all off for good. Be advised ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... Sauvager, the deputy, was a thin, tall young man of five-and-twenty, with a lengthy olive-hued countenance, black frizzled hair, and deep-set eyes; the wide, dark rings beneath them were completed by the wrinkled purple eyelids above. With a nose like the beak of some bird of prey, a pinched mouth, and cheeks worn lean with study and hollowed by ambition, he was the very type of a second-rate personage on the lookout for something to turn up, and ready to do anything if so he might get on in the world, while keeping within ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... underlies all comic things. Could there be a deeper pathos, after all, than simply being funny? This absurd old man, with his lean, crooked figure, his mottled skin, and his piercing bloodshot eyes, like the eyes of an overgorged bird of prey, appeared now as an object that moved one to tears, not to laughter. And yet because of this very quality which made him pitiable—this vulture-like instinct to seize and devour the smaller—he stood to-day the most conspicuously ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... right in the middle of the first line—I declare, it's twenty-five years ago, but I git mad now when I think about it—right in the middle of the first line Uncle Jim jined in like an old squawkin' jay-bird, and sung like he was tryin' to drown out Miss Penelope and the new ...
— Aunt Jane of Kentucky • Eliza Calvert Hall
... your bowers. Bid the shepherds and their swains See the beauty of their plains; And command them with their flocks To do reverence on the rocks; Where they may so happy be As her shadow but to see: Bid the birds in every bush Not a bird to be at hush: But to sit, and chirp, and sing To the beauty of the Spring: Call the sylvan nymphs together, Bid them bring their musicks hither. Trees their barky silence break, Crack yet, though they cannot ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... caught a glimpse of her in the High on Thursday. Very pretty, certainly, and as airy as a humming-bird.' ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... it. I'd the upper hand then: And well they kenned their master. No tawse to chide, Nor apron-strings to hold young Ezra then: His turn had come; and he was cock of the midden, And no braw cockerel's hustled him from it yet, For all their crowing. The blind old bird's still game. They've never had his spirit, the young cheepers, Not one; and Jim's the lave of the clutch; and he Will never lord it at Krindlesyke till I'm straked. But this what's-her-name the gaby's ...
— Krindlesyke • Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
... clear as the note of a bird, answered him, and then she said she was sorry, and the lines around Pallou's rigid mouth softened down. It was easy to see that this grim half-white loved, for all her bitter tongue, the bright creature who sat in the ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... his still loved and more than beautiful consort, must have been one of no slight interest. There was much to unfold and to explain; there was something to confess and to forgive; and as the character of Haman was now exposed and his acts were revealed, the king may have regarded himself as the bird escaped from the fowler. Esther revealed her lineage; while the rising favour of Haman, the dangers to be anticipated from his hatred to her nation, well justified the prudent caution of Mordecai. As the queen told the king in what relation Mordecai stood ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... the late winter days snowed past, and there came, by and by, hints of spring—faint suggestions of green in the bare, brown spots, whiffs of spring tonic in the air and clear little bird-calls overhead. New courage was born in Glory's heart and the Other Girl's, and both studied harder and harder with each day that went by. The Crosspatch Conductor took note of the two brown heads bent over the book and wondered ...
— Glory and the Other Girl • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... the youth in his grave, they heard a strange, new song. They looked up and saw, on the top of the lodge, an unknown bird. It had a brown coat and a red breast. As they watched, it began to sing. Its ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... the mountains, fit haunt for the robber bands with which the few roads were infested. The region where the Lucius of the book wandered, either as man, or after his own curiosity into mysterious things had converted him into an ass (whereas he had wished to become a beautiful bird)—the region recalls some wild picture of Salvator Rosa's. We are surrounded by gloomy shades, sepulchral caverns, and trees writhing in storm, nor are cut-throat bandits ever far away. Violence and murder threaten at every turn. Through the narrow and filthy streets young noblemen, ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... true that he threw the decanter at me. I heard him call my mistress a name, and I told him that he would not dare to speak so if her brother had been there. Then it was that he threw it at me. He might have thrown a dozen if he had but left my bonny bird alone. He was forever ill-treating her, and she too proud to complain. She will not even tell me all that he has done to her. She never told me of those marks on her arm that you saw this morning, but I know very well that they come from a stab with a hatpin. The sly devil—God forgive me ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... added Helgi as the bird-man turned away, "that here sits the king's foster-brother, a most proper person at all times to hear a maiden's tale, and now most persuasively charged ...
— Vandrad the Viking - The Feud and the Spell • J. Storer Clouston
... "Sweet Bird, you cannot believe this thing of me!" The Singer-Lady raised her bright head from Dick's shoulder, and met, steadfastly, his passionately ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... wreck 'tis! I make no apology; I've learned owl-eology. I've passed days and nights in a hundred collections, And cannot be blinded to any deflections Arising from unskilful fingers that fail To stuff a bird right, from his beak to his tail. Mister Brown! Mister Brown! Do take that bird down, Or you'll soon be the laughing-stock all over town!" And the barber ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... never coming, sir!" led the way through the passage in great haste. Davy noticed that they were now in a sort of tunnel made of fine grass. The grass had a delightful fragrance, like new-mown hay, and was neatly wound around the tunnel, like the inside of a bird's-nest. The next moment they came out into an open space in the forest, where, to Davy's amazement, the Cockalorum was sitting bolt upright in an arm-chair, with his head wrapped up ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... because they are worshipped once a year." The words of R. Meier. But the Sages say, "only those are forbidden which have in their hand a staff, or bird, or ball." R. Simon, the son of Gamaliel, said, "all images which have in ...
— Hebrew Literature
... swooned away! I sat down on the side of the car. And, O thou descendant of the Bharata race, seeing me deprived of consciousness on the car, and as if dead, my entire host exclaimed Oh! and Alas! And my prone father with out-stretched arms and lower limbs, appeared like a dropping bird. And him thus falling, O thou of mighty arms, O hero, the hostile warriors bearing in their hands lances and axes struck grievously! And (beholding this) my heart trembled! and soon regaining my consciousness, ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... beyond the sea, The swallow wanders fast and free; Oh, happy bird! were I like thee, I, too, ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... I gazed; but, lo! a cloud, Down-sweeping as a bird of night, O'erwhelmed me, and the phantasy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... Vatican; and twenty after the Battle of Constantine by Giulio Romano, besides many after Michael Angelo, Polidoro da Caravaggio, and others. The demand for his drawings and sketches was so great, that Luca, when obliged to take refreshments, did not retire from his work, but gaping like a young bird, gave notice to his father of the calls of nature, who, always on the watch, instantly supplied him with food, at the same time repeating, Luca, fa presto. The only principle which his father instilled into his mind was despatch." Probably no artist, not even Tintoretto, produced ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... no means deals in fiction; She gathers a repertory of facts, Of course with some reserve and slight restriction, But mostly traits of human things and acts. Love, war, a tempest—surely there's variety; Also a seasoning slight of lubrication; A bird's-eye view, too, of that wild society; A slight glance thrown on men ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... when the Sergeant reported us on suspicion of smoking in the bunkers. If I hadn't thought of buyin' the pepper and spillin' it all over our clothes, he'd have smelt us. King was gha-astly facetious about that. 'Called us bird-stuffers ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... looks at you and flashes the white spots on the outer corners of his tail. Again and again he does this. Why? That is his way of letting you know that he is a Robin. He is saying in signal code—flash and wig-wag—"I'm a Robin, I'm a Robin, I'm a Robin." So you will not mistake him for some bird that ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... and scientific training is it possible to produce that perfect type of manhood gifted with the best powers of what we are wont to call the 'lower orders of creation'—keen sighted and swift of motion as a bird, sharp-scented as a greyhound, faithful and acute as a dog, and full of sentient ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... So long was his tail, and so glossy his back, That good Mrs. B., who sat hatching her eggs, And only just left them to stretch her poor legs, And pick for a minute the worm she preferred, Thought there never was seen such a beautiful bird. ...
— The Adventures of A Brownie - As Told to My Child by Miss Mulock • Miss Mulock
... seeing everywhere the skinny, clawlike fingers of Mademoiselle Gamard ready to hook into his heart. The old maid, happy in a sentiment as fruitful of emotions as that of vengeance, enjoyed circling and swooping above the vicar as a bird of prey hovers and swoops above a field-mouse before pouncing down upon it and devouring it. She had long since laid a plan which the poor dumbfounded priest was quite incapable of imagining, and ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... time exceed two hundred and fifty men, received timely notice of his approach, and exerted himself for the removal of the stores into the strong country in his rear. Before this could be effected, Colonel Bird appeared; and M'Dougal, after setting fire to the remaining stores and barracks, retired into the strong grounds in the rear of Peekskill. The British detachment completed the conflagration, and returned to New York. During their short stay, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... obstinacy Soosie had offended tribal law. She had suffered. In the necessitous jungle animal food is never wasted, be it beast, bird, or reptile. ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... same language, write you at the order of King Ahasuerus this writing sealed with his signet, so that it may not be sent back, concerning the great eagle Israel. The great eagle had stretched out his pinions over the whole world; neither bird nor beast could withstand him. But there came the great lion Nebuchadnezzar, and dealt the great eagle a stinging blow. His pinions snapped, his feathers were plucked out, and his feet were hacked off. The whole world has enjoyed rest, cheer, and tranquillity ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME IV BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... and Mrs. Felina, the great, splendid, Maltese mother of three beautiful blue kittens; Jack and Gill, the gentle, soft-toned Java sparrows; and Ruby, the unwearying canary singer, always in loud and uninterpretable conversation with San Rosa, the mocking-bird. The birds hung in the broad, deep window of the sitting-room, in the shade of the jasmine and honeysuckle vines that embowered it and filled the air with delicious perfume. The dog and cat, when not inclined to active enjoyments, ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society
... year, not only in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, but throughout the whole of Syria. Where, indeed, could a butterfly or a bee find nourishment, while not a flower nor a blade of grass shoots up from the stony earth? And a bird cannot live where there are neither seeds nor insects, but must soar away across the seas to cooler and more fertile climes. Not only here, but throughout the whole of Syria, I missed the delightful minstrels ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... and stiff, he falls down into the water, unless some bark or ship intercept him, and dips them again for a second flight. This unhappy animal is not only pursued by fishes in his natural element, but attacked in the air, where he hopes for security, by the don, or sparkite, a great bird that preys upon fish; and their species must surely be destroyed, were not their increase so great, that the young fry, in one part of the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... goes he flings his book on the ground, stretching out his arms like a caged bird beating its ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... remember why his dream of bliss would never come to pass. Why did he not go away with Miette and aunt Dide? Then as he racked his memory, he heard the sharp crackling of a fusillade; he saw a standard fall before him, its staff broken and its folds drooping like the wings of a bird brought down by a shot. It was the Republic falling asleep with Miette under the red flag. Ah, what wretchedness! They were both dead, both had bleeding wounds in their breasts. And it was they—the corpses of his two loves—that now barred his path of life. He had nothing left ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... a minute, the first charge generally rendering one, and frequently both the combatants hors-de-combat, by inflicting on them mortal wounds. Then begins the most disgusting part of the scene. The owner of each bird takes him up, blows into his mouth and eyes, and uses every exertion to make the poor tortured victim give the last peck to his adversary. Failing this last peck, the battle is a drawn one. Bets are usually paid, particularly in the country, in gold ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... song of the warbling bird, the hum of the mountain bee, and the rustling of the leaves as they were stirred by the gentle summer breeze,—all making sweet melody in Nature's ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna
... Query did not escape the notice of Dr. Samuel Pegge. He says; "The cocks which Pancirollus (ii. tit. 1.) mentions as brought from America, were Turkey cocks, as Salmuth there (p. 28.) rightly observes. The French accordingly call this bird Coq d'Inde, and from d'Inde comes the diminutive Dindon, the young Turkey; as if one should say, 'the young Indian fowl.' Fetching the Turkey from America accords ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... conclusion of my stay, commence collecting the skins of birds, contenting myself with watching and noting their habits. I obtained the skins of ninety-two species only; but small as this collection was, it proved an important addition to the knowledge of the bird-fauna of Nicaragua. The eminent ornithologist, Mr. Osbert Salvin, published in the "Ibis" for July 1872 a list of seventy-three species that I had up to that time sent to England. Altogether, only one hundred and fifty species, including those that I had ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... love to your brother Robert, and "ax" him to put on his hat, and run, without delay to the inn, or place, by whatever bird, beast, fish, or man distinguished, where ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... observe when the lark is soared to the highest, and do crawl till they come to be just underneath them; and there they place themselves with their mouth uppermost, and there, as is conceived, they do eject poyson upon the bird; for the bird do suddenly come down again in its course of a circle, and falls directly into the mouth of the serpent; which is very strange. He is a great traveller; and, speaking of the tarantula, he says that ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... his ears. Amaze swallowed up for the moment every other sentiment. Mechanically he loosened his hold of Jessie, who fled off like a bird released. But evidently she thought of her new friend's danger more than her own escape; for instead of sheltering herself in her father's cottage, she ran towards a group of labourers who, near at hand, had stopped loitering before the public-house, ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Arabian form the ritual is of purely savage type; the danger to life that made it unsafe for a man to marry the woman was transferred in the most materialistic way to an animal, which it was believed generally died in consequence, or to a bird. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... lay across swift, brawling depths. The wilderness had no mystery for her, and no terrors, so she was ever at his side, or in advance, while her eyes, schooled in the tints of the forest, and more active than those of a bird, saw every moving thing, from the flash of a camp-robber's wing through some hidden glade to the inquisitive nodding of a fool hen where it perched high up against the bole of a spruce. They surprised a marten fishing in a drift-wood dam, but ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... feelings, not so well defined; She then reluctant grew, and thought it hard To sit and ponder o'er an ugly card; Rather the nut-tree shade the nymph preferr'd, Pleased with the pensive gloom and evening bird; Thither, from company retired, she took The silent walk, ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... Graeme, ghastly or flushed, and hear his low moaning or the broken words of his delirium, I think chiefly of the bright face bending over him, and of the cool, firm, swift-moving hands that soothed and smoothed and rested, and the voice, like the soft song of a bird in the twilight, that never failed to ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... next few days Theo was in no frame of mind to talk porcelain or any other serious subject, for his new crutches came, and after Dr. Swift had adjusted them the boy was like a bird freed from its cage. He could not, to be sure, go far from the house; but even to clump up and down the veranda and the plank walks that connected the cabins was a joy. How good it was to get about once more! But, alas, the pace at which the convalescent moved was a constant ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... probably refers to the quivering or vibration of the air; and to its power, whether as vital force, or communicated wave, over every kind of matter, in giving it vibratory movement; first, and most intense, in the voice and throat of the bird, which is the air incarnate; and so descending through the various orders of animal life to the vibrating and semi-voluntary murmur of the insect; and, lower still, to the hiss or quiver of the tail of the half-lunged snake and deaf adder; all ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... A bird began to sing overhead, and Jack thought it was the sweetest music he had ever heard, as he drew Madge to him and pressed a lover's first kiss on her lips. Side by side they sat there in the leafy retreat, heedless of time, ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... paid for it a month in advance of the starting of the herd. It was dated ahead, properly sealed, and all ready for filling in the brands and numbers. The herd was put up within a mile of where four counties cornered, and that inspector was a believer in the maxim of the early bird. The office is a red-tape one, anyhow, and little harm in taking all the advantage you can.—This item marked 'sundries' was DRY goods, I suppose? All right, Quirk; I reckon rattlesnakes ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... helmsman stood silent, clenching his teeth, till he saw a heron come flying mast high toward the rocks, and hover awhile before them, as if looking for a passage through. Then he cried, "Hera has sent us a pilot; let us follow the cunning bird." ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... continued Hawker, having waited a moment, "this dog knows nothing on earth but his master and the partridges. He is lost to all other sound and movement. He moves through the woods like a steel machine. And when he scents the bird—ah, it is beautiful! Shouldn't you like ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... in this region has a T-shape, the ilium forming the cross-bar of the T, and the femur or thigh-bone the downward limb. Huxley shewed that a large number of the Dinosaurs had this and other peculiarities of the bird's pelvis, and separated these into a group which he called the "Ornithoscelida," seeing in them the closest representatives of the probable reptilian ancestors of birds. While further work and the discovery of a still greater number of extinct ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... weird cry. He heard the strong pinions of the wood pigeon in the air, and then from the trees above his head came the soft call, "Take-two-cow-Taffy, take-two-cow-Taffy," with which that fair and false bird is said to have beguilled the hapless Welchman to the gallows. Presently, as he lay motionless, the timid and graceful little water-hens peered out from their doors in the rushes opposite, and, seeing no cause for fear, stepped ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... journeyed on his way too; and if he was merry before, he was now ten times more so. He had not gone far before he met an old miser: close by them stood a tree, and on the topmost twig sat a thrush singing away most joyfully. 'Oh, what a pretty bird!' said the miser; 'I would give a great deal of money to have such a one.' 'If that's all,' said the countryman, 'I will soon bring it down.' Then he took up his bow, and down fell the thrush into the ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... leaping, as if eager to destroy the little craft. No sooner did her head feel the force of the gale than off, like a sea-bird on the wing, she flew before it. The fore-staysail was now stowed, for, from the fury of the tornado, it would either have been torn out of the bolt-rope or run the vessel under water. On flew the little craft, the sea every instant getting up and ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston |
