"Wagtail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... little children no more expect to find that peculiar exquisite charm of the girl-child which I have endeavoured to describe in the boy, than they would expect the music of the wood-lark and the airy fairy grace and beauty of the grey wagtail in Philip Sparrow. And yet, incredible as it seems, that very quality of the miraculous little girl is sometimes found in the boy and, with it, strange to say, the boy's proper mind and spirit. The child lover ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... his ruffled shirts, Or coats with water-wagtail skirts, Or trowsers in the place of smalls, Or those tight fits he wears at balls, Or pumps, and boots with tops, mayhap, Why we might pass for Snip and Snap, And shoot like blazes! fly or sit, And none would stare, unless we hit. But no—to make the more combustion, He goes ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... public bar of the Wagtail, in Wapping, four men and a woman were drinking beer and discussing diseases. It was not a pretty subject, and the company was certainly not a handsome one. It was a dark November evening, and the dingy lighting of the bar seemed but to emphasize the bleak exterior. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... have seen once before in this tale, but whom Hobb had never seen till then. And Jerry said, "Drat these losers of caps! will they NEVER be done with disturbing the newts and me? Tis the fifth in a summer. And first there's one with a step like a wagtail, and next there's one as bold as a hawk, and after him one as comely as a wild swan, and last was one as wise as an owl. And now there's this one with nothing particular to him, but he grips as hard as all the rest rolled into one. Drat ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... as a gypsy's, perceived a white 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
... foot in the grave!" answered Susan. "In fact you be peart as a wagtail on both feet—else you'd never have come over they slipper-stones in the dark so clever. And your hair's only white by a trick of nature, and ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... time when the animals spoke, a Wagtail laid her eggs on the ground. The little ones grew up. A Jackal and a Fox came to them. The Jackal said ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... under the sacred tree, sleeps the horned ram of Amon. In all directions the hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians pass to and fro, as though some old temple-inscription had come to life. The letter m, the owl, goes hooting past. The letter a, the eagle, circles overhead; the sign ur, the wagtail, flits at the roadside, chirping at the sign rekh, the peewit. Along the road comes the sign ab, the frolicking calf; and near it is ka, the bull; while behind them walks the sign fa, a man carrying a basket ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... the tail-feathers certainly give half the force to his leap. It is in this action that he is put among the motacillae, or wagtails; but the ornithologists have no real business to put him among them. The swing of the long tail feathers in the true wagtail is entirely consequent on its motion, not impulsive of it—the tremulous shake is after alighting. But the robin leaps with wing, tail, and foot, all in time, and all helping each other. Leaps, I say; and you check at ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... A faint column of smoke curled up into the still air, and as he spoke the lower rim of the setting sun met the edge of the moor. The evening seemed suddenly to become incredibly still, even the voice of the stream ceasing to be a sound distinct. A wagtail bobbing in the shallows fled into the waste. Overhead the smoke trembled upwards, a faint stain against a cloudless sky. The stillness seemed almost acute. It was as if the moor were waiting, and holding its breath while it waited. Then the twigs upon his altar crackled, and ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... thou has any; Tho' friends I fear there isn't many; But yet the dam for her, wi' Johnny, Will fret to-day, And think her watter-wagtail bonny Has ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright |
