"Bird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unallowed and secret worships were naturally still more popular. As early as Cato's time the Chaldean horoscope-caster had begun to come into competition with the Etruscan -haruspex- and the Marsian bird-seer;(16) star-gazing and astrology were soon as much at home in Italy as in their dreamy native land. In 615 the Roman -praetor peregrinus- directed all the Chaldeans to evacuate Rome and Italy within ten days. The same fate at the same time befel the Jews, who ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... his best days, amid the vivid greens. Fresh with unnumber'd rills, where ev'ry gale Breathes the rich fragrance of the neighb'ring vale. Smiles not his wife, and listens as there comes The night-bird's music from the thick'ning glooms? And as he sits with all these treasures nigh, Blaze not with fairy-light the phosphor-fly, When like a sparkling gem it wheels illumined by? This is the joy that now so plainly speaks In the warm transient flushing of his cheeks; For ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... creature. She was devoted to Mrs. Smith, to Mr. Smith, to their dogs, cats, canaries; and as to Mrs. Smith's grey parrot, its peculiarities exercised upon her a positive fascination. Nevertheless, when that outlandish bird, attacked by the cat, shrieked for help in human accents, she ran out into the yard stopping her ears, and did not prevent the crime. For Mrs. Smith this was another evidence of her stupidity; on the other hand, her want of charm, ...
— Amy Foster • Joseph Conrad
... car stopped at a little gate leading into a pine wood, and they descended, bade the driver good night, and went through it. In the path through the dark wood Eglantine lost her air of competent and excited leadership. She was timorous, held Pollyooly tightly by the arm, and when a bird, or an animal, rustled in the bushes, ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... the song of a bird to the call of a star, As the sun to the eye, As the anvil of man to the hammers of God, As the snow to the north Is my word unto Thy word—to Thy word! The night is far spent and the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... studies the properties of animals, stones, and plants, a little from nature and a little from books; now he talks as Euphues will do later, and his natural mythology will cause a smile; and now he speaks as one country-bred, who has seen with his own eyes, like Burns, a bird build her nest, and has patiently watched her do it. Sometimes the animal is a living one, that leaps from bough to bough in the sunlight; at others, it is a strange beast, fit only to dwell among the stone foliage of a ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... she surrendered herself, and was amazed at the swift relief that came to her. It was like the rolling away of an immense weight, and immediately she seemed to float upwards, upwards, like a soaring bird. ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... Ravello lured not, throned on high And filled with singing out of sun-burned throats! Nor yet Minore of the flame-sailed boats; Nor yet—of all bird-song should glorify— Assisi, Little Portion of the blest, Assisi, in the bosom of the sky, Where God's own singer thatched his ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody
... ([t]ihaba, in [|C]egiha; tcuehaba, tcuehuba, in Kansa), so the Kansa call a small spoon, tcuehaba jinga. Spoons of buffalo horn had their handles variously ornamented by notches and other rude carving, often terminating in the head of a bird, the neck or handle of each being elevated at an angle of 50 deg. or 60 deg. with the bowl, which, was about 3 inches in width by about 5 in length. As the handle of such a spoon usually terminates in a head or hook, it was impossible for it to slip into the bowl when the hook rested on the ...
— Omaha Dwellings, Furniture and Implements • James Owen Dorsey,
... Charts, and that's what I say!" From the nodding of heads and the murmurs of assent that followed, I could see that Captain Trent had established himself in the public mind as a gentleman and a thorough navigator: about which period, my sketch of the four men and the canary-bird being finished, and all (especially the canary-bird) excellent likenesses, I buckled up my book, and ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... each day usually brought extreme fatigue. This, too, although my only companion was slow—slower than the poor proverbial snail or tortoise—and I would leave her half a mile or so behind to force my way through unkept hedges, climb hills, and explore woods and thickets to converse with every bird and shy little beast and scaly creature I could discover. But mark what follows. In the late afternoon I would be back in the road or footpath, satisfied to go slow, then slower still, until—the snail in woman shape ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... at the sheet with fingers as fleshless as the feet of a bird, moving her lips, vainly at first, and suddenly jerked herself up with a strength no doctor would have ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... will even testify expressly in what deep waters he had waded, and swum struggling for his life;—as what man like him ever failed to have to do? It seems to me a heedless notion, our common one, that he sat like a bird on the bough; and sang forth, free and offhand, never knowing the troubles of other men. Not so; with no man is it so. How could a man travel forward from rustic deer-poaching to such tragedy-writing, and not fall-in with sorrows by the way? Or, still better, how could a man ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... "For a bird of the air shall carry the voice." This text hath a difficult (meaning). And now (for so much is expressed) whence is ...
— Hebrew Literature
... spot, when his piping Flags; and his pipes outworn breaking and casting away, Fits new reeds to his mouth with the weird earth-melody in them, Piercing, alive with a life able to mix with the god's. Then, as he blows, and the searching sequence delights him, the goat-feet Furtive withdraw; and a bird stirs and flutes in the gloom Answering. Float with the stream the outworn pipes, with a whisper,— "What the god breathes on, the god never can wholly evade!" God-breath lurks in each fragment forever. Dispersed by Penus Wandering, ...
— In Divers Tones • Charles G. D. Roberts
... delinquent, crook, hoodlum, hood, criminal, thug, malefactor, offender, perpetrator, perp [coll.]; disorderly person, misdemeanant[Law]; outlaw; scofflaw; vandal; felon[convicted criminal]; convict, prisoner, inmate, jail bird, ticket of leave man; multiple offender. blackguard, polisson[obs3], loafer, sneak; rapscallion, rascallion[obs3]; cullion[obs3], mean wretch, varlet, kern[obs3], ame-de- boue[Fr], drole[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... work delayed, of time and energy wasted, of insecure precautions against scandal and exposure. Disappointment is almost inherent in illicit love. I had, and perhaps it was part of her recurrent irritation also, a feeling as though one had followed something fine and beautiful into a net—into bird lime! These furtive scuffles, this sneaking into shabby houses of assignation, was what we had made out of the suggestion of pagan beauty; this was the reality of our vision of nymphs and satyrs dancing for the joy of life amidst incessant sunshine. ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... tents an old woman knelt beside a bed of live coals, turning a browning water-fowl upon a pointed stick. She was a consummate cook, and the bird was fat and securely trussed. Now and again she sprinkled a pinch of crude salt on the embers to suppress the odor of the burning drippings, and lifted the fowl out of the reach of the pale flames that leaped up thereafter. Presently she removed ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... you may laugh, but you didn't know yon preacher Barraclough—a little white-faced chap, wi' a voice as 'ud wile a bird off an a bush, and a way o' layin' hold of folks as made them think they'd never had a live man for a friend before. You never saw him, an'—an'—you never seed 'Liza Roantree—never seed 'Liza Roantree.... Happen it was as much 'Liza as th' preacher and her ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... within his room (the same that he had occupied in his early youth), he felt as if the load of years were lifted from his bosom. The joyous, divine elasticity of spirit, that in the morning of life springs towards the Future as a bird soars into heaven, pervaded his whole sense of being. A Greek poet implies that the height of bliss is the sudden relief of pain: there is a nobler bliss still,—the rapture of the conscience at the sudden release ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of tears relieved her tight-bound heart; and gazing on the picture, she saw the dove-like eyes of the Blessed Virgin assume the tenderest and most encouraging expression, and in her ears were whispered words welcome as the dew to the thirsty ground; sweet as the notes of the bird when the storm has subsided: "Be not afraid; I ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... "I have a peculiar way of cooking that game, and if you recognise it for a sea bird I'll consent never to kill another ...
— The English at the North Pole - Part I of the Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... not, in a single instance, hear one good, hearty expression of Unionism, but our "Southern brethren and their rights," and this "wicked war," &c., &c., were the topics of conversation, and it was safe to set it down, that this was the Peace wing of that most remarkable bird,—Democracy of 1864. ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... storks were held in peculiar reverence in Holland and that the bird figured upon the arms of the capital. He had noticed cart wheels placed upon the roofs of Dutch cottages to entice storks to settle upon them; he had seen their huge nests, too, on many a thatched gable roof from Broek to The Hague. But it was winter now. The nests were empty. No greedy ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... at his tears, 'Sandy would sure take a man by the mit and lead him to the spot, only just then a big bird, size of half a dozen ostriches, flops down and sinks its claws into that there bull calf and flies right straight over the moon with it! Ain't that ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... surround the cage while the bird is still within. These strange rumours concerning the Abbe ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... could bear it no longer; the end of it all came. She stole out over the bodies of the sleeping watchmen, out into the dusty road under the palms, down to the waterside, to the Nile—the path leading homewards. She must go down the Nile, hiding by day, travelling by night—the homing bird with a broken wing-back to the but where she had lived so long with Wassef the camel-driver; back where she could lie in the dusk of her windowless home, shutting out the world from her solitude. There she could bear the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and wip-ed both, And set to their dinere; Bread and wine they had enough, And numbles of the deer; Swans and pheasants they had full good, And fowls of the rivere; There fail-ed never so little a bird, That ever was ...
— A Bundle of Ballads • Various
... relic of its kind; the other a view of a small apartment with dressers and shelves, and with plates and accessories hung round, in which a cook, perhaps the identical Master Robert aforesaid, is plucking a bird. The fireplace is in the background, and the iron vessel which is to receive the fowl, or whatever it may really be, is suspended over the flame by a long chain. The perspective is rather faulty, and the details are not very ...
— Old Cookery Books and Ancient Cuisine • William Carew Hazlitt
... It is important to note that the Greek word {oionos}, a solitary or lone-flying bird, also means an omen. "It was a mighty bird and ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... possible, having regard to our inadequate numbers and to the limitations of our technique of the period. Bombing used at this time to be practised by small sections in each battalion, who occupied dangerous salients called "bird-cages" in the fire trenches. Here in our Battalion, G. Ross-Bain and W.H. Barratt among the officers, S. Clough and T. Hulme among the N.C.O.'s—all valiant men—won a modest measure of fame. On one occasion Hulme picked up a live bomb thrown by the enemy and saved his comrades' lives by ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... "Sweet Bird, you cannot believe this thing of me!" The Singer-Lady raised her bright head from Dick's shoulder, and met, ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... time, he further expounded to his young attendants, how extremely honourable and extremely pure were the two words representing woman, that they are more valuable and precious than the auspicious animal, the felicitous bird, rare flowers and uncommon plants. 'You may not' (he was wont to say), 'on any account heedlessly utter them, you set of foul mouths and filthy tongues! these two words are of the utmost import! Whenever you have occasion to allude ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... they lived quietly in the Malay village. The people instructed them in the use of their blowguns, in which they are wonderfully skilful; being able to bring down a bird, sitting on a lofty bough of a tree, with almost an unerring accuracy. They also taught them to shoot with the bow and arrow, and they found that the natives used the roots of various kinds of plants for food. The time did not pass unpleasantly ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... bird on the linden tree, From which November leaves were falling, Sweet were its notes, and wild their tone; And pensive there as I paused alone, They spake with a mystical voice to me, The sunlight of vanish'd years recalling ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... laugh; "and it seems to me like enough we can help each other. You miss a young lady; and we miss a young gentleman. When I used to go out into the marshes a-shooting with the Marchese, we used to be sure, when we had put up the cock bird, that the hen was not far off; or, if we got the hen, we knew we had not far to look for the cock. Do you see, Signora? Two to one the pair of runaways are together; and they'll come home safe enough when they've had their fun out. I dare say the Signor Marchesino ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... dear cheaile, sufficiently well. The people are all so good, trying me with every little thing, like a bird; here is cafe—Mrs. Rusk-a, poor woman, I try to swallow a ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... I would like to say one word about the curly walnut. In Maine, not long ago, I saw a young man who had bought a bird's eye maple, perhaps fifty years of age, that he paid $1,500 for. I asked him why he didn't graft one million ordinary maples from that tree and sell the stock at $200 per tree, and then he would have $200,000,000 at just about the time of life when ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... individual heart and soul and finds expression through energies completely devoted to his service. These laws required strict justice, but more than that, mercy and practical charity toward the weak and needy and afflicted. Even the toiling ox and the helpless mother-bird and her young are not beyond the kin of these wonderful laws. Under their benign influence the divine principles of the prophets began to mould directly the character and life of the Israelitish race. The man who lives in accord with their spirit and injunctions ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... the world groans beneath weight of unmerited burdens. Under fairest skies gleam sacrificial blades. Balmiest airs minister to altar-fires. Bird-carols and zephyr-murmurs are but medley variations to minor ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... thick silky curls: her face he couldn't see, and she couldn't see him. And, perhaps, not quite awake to what he did, but attracted like a child to a candle, at last he proceeded from staring to touching; he put out his hand and stroked one curl, as gently as if it were a bird. He might have stuck a knife into her neck, she started round in ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... The Cardinal-bird was carolling his mating song when the members of this little New England colony watched my departure down the Wadmelaw the next morning. The course was for the most part over the submerged phosphate beds of South ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop
... conflict that had disturbed the souls of Brooke and Talbot, for Ashby had been prompt in decision, and had taken all responsibility from Dolores. She meekly acquiesced in his decision, was all the happier for it, and prepared with the briskness of a bird to carry out their purpose of flight. She led Ashby down by the same way through which she had formerly conducted "His Majesty," starting from that lower room in which Ashby had been confined. Had she ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... of Natural History of Paris have just been enriched with a magnificent, perfectly adult specimen of a species of bird that all the scientific establishments had put down among their desiderata, and which, for twenty years past, has excited the curiosity of naturalists. This species, in fact, was known only by a few caudal feathers, of which even the origin was unknown, and which figured in the galleries ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... rooster?" begged the colored man. "He's a fine bird, an' maybe dem folks on Mars nebber seed a real rooster. I suah does ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood
... and its accomplishment greater. After we have studied Caesar for some years, the name comes to represent the epitome, the bird's-eye view of a great man. A similar thing is true of our study of other men and movements and things. Single words come to represent a multitude of experiences. Then these words become associated and organized in accordance ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... 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 and framed by ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... chanct. That tumblebug Miller is one fishy proposition, and his sidekick Doble—say, he's the kind of bird that shoots you in the stomach while he's shakin' hands with you. They're about as warm-hearted as a loan shark when he's turnin' on the screws—and about as impulsive. Me, I aim to button up my pocket when them ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine
... for hours, in perfect solitude; very rarely in the day was this happy stillness broken by a footfall, a voice, or the rumbling of a peasant's cart. A bird twittered, a breeze whispered in the branches; ever and ever the water kept its ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... is 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 ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... and women who were hurrying joyously towards the Pont Saint-Michel, in the hope of still arriving in time to see the witch hung there,—pale, wild, more troubled, more blind and more fierce than a night bird let loose and pursued by a troop of children in broad daylight. He no longer knew where he was, what he thought, or whether he were dreaming. He went forward, walking, running, taking any street at haphazard, making no choice, only urged ever onward away from the Greve, the horrible ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... overlooked, and he would appreciate it if the author could so far unbend as to outline his experience in this business. Whereupon the Head Examiner proceeded with his writing and left the author, in a state of coma, facing an expectant assistant examiner, who resembled some predatory bird only waiting for life to be extinct before falling upon the victim. Somewhat to his own surprise, however, the victim showed signs of returning animation, and began to utter strange, semi-articulate ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... flesh of upwards of fifty ostriches cured, as well of that of other birds, the size of the former being equal to legs of mutton. They discovered also the device by which the ostriches were captured. This consisted of the head, neck, and plumage of the bird fixed to the end of a pole, with large feathers sticking out behind sufficient to conceal a man's body. With these the ostriches were stalked and driven either into some neck of land, or against large and strong nets, with the assistance ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... musicians of the place in time; regulates the watch and the watches, and plays a solo a la Dragonetti upon the double bass. Sam Swan is another choice spirit, who sings a good chant, lives well respected, and sails down the stream of time as pleasantly as if he was indeed a royal bird. ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... him with all the virulence of malice. She asked, if he were come to butcher his brother, to insult his father's corpse, and triumph in her affliction? She bestowed upon him the epithets of spendthrift, jail-bird, and unnatural ruffian; she begged pardon of God for having brought such a monster into the world; accused him of having brought his father's grey hairs with sorrow to the grave; and affirmed, that were he to touch the body, it would ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... sharp and bright and they roared to expectation. But I do not complain when lions take possession of the cage, for it reduces the general liability of talk, and a common man, if he be industrious, may pluck his bird down to ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... word of God," whether preached by Christ or by his followers, falls on hearts which are pictured by the hard-trodden footpath which runs through the field of grain. No possible impression can be made. The Word finds no entrance and Satan snatches it away as a bird picks up the grain which falls by the wayside. Faith and salvation ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... was responsible for the department in Parliament—a mere politician, perfectly raw in official routine, who had the good taste and better sense to surrender himself blindly to the guidance of Mr. Faulks. What could a bird of passage know of the deep mysteries of procedure it took ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... he was tall and wiry with a thin face and hooked nose that suggested the bird-man. His name on the roll was Walter Edmund Byrne, but his bony ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... Agrippa stood in his bonds before the royal palace, and leaned on a certain tree for grief, with many others, who were in bonds also; and as a certain bird sat upon the tree on which Agrippa leaned, [the Romans call this bird bubo,] [an owl,] one of those that were bound, a German by nation, saw him, and asked a soldier who that man in purple was; and when he was informed that his name was Agrippa, and that ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... over the hills, accustomed to go and come at his will—as though it were the last indignity and affront to fetter those lithe and supple limbs, and place them under constraint. Ah, it is little short of a sin to encage a wild bird, beating its heart against the bars of its narrow cage, when the sun calls it to mount up with quivering ecstasy to the gates of day; but what a sin to bind the preacher of righteousness, and imprison him in sunless vaults—what ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... and violas. It is answered by gracefully drooping melody of strings and harps topped by the oboes, that lightly descends from the heights with a cadence long delayed, like the circling flight of a great bird before he alights. Straightway begins a more pensive turn of phrase (of clarinet and lower strings) in distant tonal scene where now the former (descending) answer sings timidly in alternating groups. The pensive melody returns for a greater reach, blending with the original ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... shy look up at him; she seemed unaccustomed to such kindness and unable to say anything in reply. Reinhard opened the door, and lighted her way, and then the little thing like a bird flew downstairs with her cakes and out of ...
— Immensee • Theodore W. Storm
... possibility have expressed it better than the look, voice, manner of the Reader. "'Will you let me in, Fred?' Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off." The turkey that "never could have stood upon its legs, that bird," but must have "snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax!"—the remarkable boy who was just about its size, and who, when told to go and buy it, cried out "Walk-ER!"—Bob Cratchit's trying to overtake nine o'clock with his pen on his arriving nearly twenty minutes afterwards; ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... it's so smooth. And look up into the leaves; how pretty they are! and every one of them is trembling a little; not one of them is still, Nora. How beautiful the green is, with the sun shining through! Wouldn't you like to be a bird ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Dutch, amongst whom there are very severe penalties for those who are convicted of killing this bird. They are kept tame in almost all their towns, and particularly at the Hague, of the arms of which they make a part. The common people of Holland are said to entertain a superstitious sentiment, that if the whole ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... an invalid chair toward the gang-plank. By its side walked a gentlewoman whom fanciful little Anne likened to a partridge. In fact, with her bright eyes and quick movements, she was not unlike a plump, brown-coated bird. ...
— Honey-Sweet • Edna Turpin
... left the royal belt behind, and only a plain band encircled his round little body as he trotted along, his four legs making almost no sound. His double pair of thin arms and the bird-like head on his long neck bobbled excitedly in time to his steps. Once he stopped to glance across the black stone buildings of the city as they shone in the dull red of the sun, toward the hill where his ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... GEORGE. A jay bird in peacock's feathers, that's what 'tis. And she's took you all in, the every one ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... embassy: 172 Herbert P. O. Box 3340, Harare telephone: Flag description: seven equal horizontal bands of green, yellow, red, black, red, yellow, and green with a white isosceles triangle edged in black with its base on the hoist side; a yellow Zimbabwe bird is superimposed on a red five-pointed star in the ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... at Grierson, and conceived an intense aversion for him. I wondered how I had ever been able to stand him, to work with him. I saw him in a sudden flash as a cunning, cruel bird of prey, a gorged, drab vulture with beady eyes, a resemblance so extraordinary that I wondered I had never remarked it before. For he had the hooked vulture nose, while the pink baldness of his head was relieved by a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... attempted to mould seventeen millions of human souls in one shape, and make them all do one thing. Take away your restrictions, open all doors, leave women at liberty to go where they will. The caged bird forgets how to build its nest. The wing of the eagle is as strong to soar to the sun as that of her mate, who never says to her, "back, feeble one, to your nest, and there brood in dull inactivity until I give you permission to leave!" But when her duties ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the writer has endeavoured to follow the same general plan as in "Famous Singers," viz., to give a "bird's-eye view" of the most celebrated violinists from the earliest times to the present day rather than a detailed account of a very few. Necessarily, those who have been prominently before the public as performers are selected in preference ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... his Rambler[728], against the notion that the brute creation is endowed with the faculty of reason: 'birds build by instinct; they never improve; they build their first nest as well as any one they ever build.' GOLDSMITH. 'Yet we see if you take away a bird's nest with the eggs in it, she will make a slighter nest and lay again.' JOHNSON. 'Sir, that is because at first she has full time and makes her nest deliberately. In the case you mention she is pressed to lay, and must therefore make ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... said that he would call someone to argue the matter and he went away meaning to get some men from the next village: but he lost his way in the jungle and as he went along a night-jar flew up from under his feet; he called out to it to stay as he was in great distress, and the bird alighted and asked what was the matter, and Sona told it his trouble. Then the night-jar said that it would argue the matter for him but it must have a colleague and it told Sona to go on and ask the first living being ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... of 22 ships, with a landing force under the command of the Earl of Estren, appeared before San Juan and demanded its surrender. Before a formal attack could be made a furious hurricane wrecked the fleet on Bird Island, and everybody on board perished excepting a few soldiers and marines, who escaped a watery grave only to be ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... slowly. "I reckon that's 'most the only thing you can ask your dad for that he won't give you." He continued unsteadily, looking at the picture in the palm of his hand. "Lady-Bird I called her, son. She used to fill the house with music right out of her heart. . . . Fine as silk and true as gold. Don't you ever forget that your mother was a thoroughbred." His voice broke. "But I hadn't ought to have let her stay out here. She belonged where folks ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine
... following note of this bird's nidification in the neighbourhood of Pind Dadan Khan and Katas in the ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... the opinion of Pythagoras concerning wild fowl? Mal. That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit a bird. Clown. What thinkest thou of his opinion? Mal. I think nobly of the soul, and no way approve of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... moments When the heart is not one's own, When we fain would clip its wild wing's tip, But we find the bird ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... showed grey, his face was seamed with lines, but there was in every word the freshness and simplicity of a nature that age had not touched. In his usual place on the upper bench beside his brother, he poured out his words with the flow and passion of a bird's song. He was out of the sphere of argument; but the whole experience of a long and honourable lifetime was vibrant in that utterance. He spoke from his heart. All that had gone to make his faith, all the inmost convictions of his life were implicit—and throughout all ran ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... hand? His name was unknown. Birmingham was as ignorant as Tamfield as to his origin or the sources of his wealth. Robert McIntyre brooded languidly over the problem as he leaned against the gate, puffing his blue clouds of bird's-eye into ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... heard them, he began to make similitudes, and offer reasons which were not like those which he had spoken the first day, for he said to them, I ask of ye, whether it is weil that I should be left without men? for if I were without them, I should be like unto one who hath lost his right arm, or to a bird that hath no wings, or to one who should do battle and hath neither spear nor sword. The first thing which I have to look to is to the well-being of my people, that they may live in wealth and honour, so that they may be able to serve me, and defend my honour; for since it has pleased God to give ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... hiding something from your mother. I think I know what it is. You were very much pleased with the bird's skin you got to-day. (Ljot is silent.) The winter your father asked me in marriage there came to my home a man who used to go from farm to farm doing odd carpenter jobs. One evening I carried his coffee to him where he was at work. ...
— Modern Icelandic Plays - Eyvind of the Hills; The Hraun Farm • Jhann Sigurjnsson
... hath given thee,' she took it from the saying of God the Most High, 'Till, whenas they rejoiced in that which they were given, we took them suddenly and lo, they were confounded!'[FN88] As for her saying, 'God increase thee in elevation!' she took it from the saying of the poet, 'No bird flieth and riseth up on high, but, like as he flieth, he falleth.' And as for her saying, 'Indeed, thou hast done justice and wrought equitably,' it is from the saying of the Most High, '[If ye deviate[FN89] or lag behind or turn aside, verily, God of that which ye do is aware;'[FN90] ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... yet Fresh from chisel, pictures wet From brush, she saw on every side, Chose rather with an infant's pride To frame those portents which impart Such unction to true Christian Art. Gone, music too! The air was stirred By happy wings: Terpander's bird (That, when the cold came, fled away) Would tarry not the wintry day,— As more-enduring sculpture must, Till filthy saints rebuked the gust With which they chanced to get a sight Of some dear naked Aphrodite They glanced a thought above the toes of, By ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... begin from the very beginning—the hatching out of the eggs. Frogs' eggs and birds' eggs are really not so unlike as they seem at first sight, for though the frog's eggs have no shell, yet, just as in the bird's egg, there are two essential parts to be distinguished—the formative material out of which the young frog grows and the yolk on which the growing animal feeds. By the untrained eye nothing more can be seen in the frog's egg than a small black ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... Hansel, opened the little stable-door, and cried: "Hansel, we are free; the old witch is dead." Then Hansel sprang like a bird out of a cage when the door is opened. How they rejoiced, and fell on each other's necks, and jumped for joy, and kissed one another! And as they had no longer any cause for fear, they went in the old hag's house, and here they found, in every ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... that valley they pass o'er Who go to Corinth from Cenchreas' shore; And rested at the foot of those wild hills, The rugged founts of the Peraean rills, And of that other ridge whose barren back Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack, South-westward to Cleone. There she stood About a young bird's flutter from a wood, Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread, By a clear pool, wherein she passioned To see herself escap'd from so sore ills, While her robes flaunted with ...
— Lamia • John Keats
... Catholics, feathers mean to a Hopi. Flocks of turkeys are kept in the village for the purpose of making "bahos," or prayer sticks. These little pleas to spirits are found stuck all over the place. If a village is particularly blessed, they have a captive eagle anchored to a roof. And this bird is carefully fed and watered in order that its supply of ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... bird and cage they both were his: 'Twas my son's bird; and neat and trim He kept it: many voyages This singing-bird hath gone with him; When last he sailed he left the bird behind; As it might be, perhaps, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... boys about the "great country." When a fellow needs a bird's eye. A toboggan slide that might reach to Asia. Pony Rider ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... chiefs gave him in return a buffalo's skin with the head and feathers of an eagle painted on the inside of it "The eagle," said the chief, "signifies swiftness; and the buffalo strength. The English are swift as a bird to fly over the vast seas, and as strong as a beast before their enemies. The eagle's feathers are soft and signify love; the buffalo's skin is warm and means protection; therefore love ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... anchovy, the two livers of pigeons, half a grated nutmeg, a quarter of a pound of butter, a very little thyme, a little pepper and salt, and sweet marjoram shred. Mix all together, and into each bird put a piece of the size of a walnut, after sewing up the vents and necks, and, with a little nutmeg, pepper, and salt, strewed over them, broil them on a slow charcoal fire, basting and turning very often. Use rich gravy or melted butter ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... unknown in Nature: and is the first mark of man. Referring only to human civilisation, it may be said with seriousness that in the beginning was the Word. The vow is to the man what the song is to the bird, or the bark to the dog; his voice, whereby he is known. Just as a man who cannot keep an appointment is not fit even to fight a duel, so the man who cannot keep an appointment with himself is not sane enough even for suicide. It is not easy ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
... spectacles must in some mysterious way have affected my ears too. The professor's voice certainly did sound very curious—very much like the croak of some bird that had learned human language, but had no notion of what he was saying. The case was really getting serious. I threw the paper away, stared my teacher full in the face, but was so covered with confusion that I could ...
— Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... few preliminary words of introduction, I produced the jewellery for Madame Combrisson's inspection. She was a small wiry woman, with hard, covetous grey eyes, grizzled hair screwed up in a tight knot on the top of her head, a nose like the beak of a bird of prey, and thin blue lips. Her eyes lit up as her hands turned over the little diamond brooch and finely-chased gold bracelet which I ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... bird among the evergreens uttered a shrill, plaintive cry, rather than song—a sound which the thrush occasionally makes in the winter, and which seems to express something of fear, and pain, and impatience. "What does she say?—can you ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... purloined from me in like manner, and several other heroes: at length I fix upon 'Epaminondas', as a 'learned Theban' of so philosophical a cast of character, that even the French had not thought of him for the boards. I form my plot, and begin con amore, when I am told that Dr. Bird has written a 'Pelopidas' and an 'Epaminondas,' comprehending the whole ...
— The Indian Princess - La Belle Sauvage • James Nelson Barker
... or any other of those ingenious products of the human mind belonged peculiarly to them, and such religious and scientific ideas as they were the means of conveying to the Hellenes were scattered by them more after the fashion of a bird dropping grains than of the husbandman sowing his seed. The power which the Hellenes and even the Italians possessed, of civilizing and assimilating to themselves the nations susceptible of culture with whom they ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... storage and cold storage. Both are about equally available, but the latter is too expensive for the small grower. There is always a question as to the advisability of the small grower storing his fruit. Storage means a degree of speculation. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," especially when the bird is a good one. So far as rules can be laid down, the following are pretty safe ones to keep in mind: It is safest to store apples when they are of the highest ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... asked me in her mirth: "Where are you from? Why are you come?" .... The questions beat like tapping of a drum; And how could I be dumb, I who have bugles in me? Fast The answer blew to her, For all my breath was worth.... "As a bird comes by grace of spring, You are my journey and my wing— And into your heart, O Celia, My heart has flown, to sing Solemn and long ...
— The New World • Witter Bynner
... joys, She cometh to him once more: Once, with her dainty foot a-poise, She drives the bird with a merry noise From her lifted battledoor, And tosses back, with impatient air, The ruffled glory ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... loose in his boat, the Merry Maid, and hoisted his sail. In a few minutes he was skimming gaily down the bay. The wind was fair and piping and the Merry Maid went like a bird. Natty, at the rudder, steered for Blue Point Island, a reflective frown on his face. He was feeling in no mood for Victoria Day sports. In a very short time he and Ev and Prue must leave Blue Point lighthouse, where they had lived all their lives. To ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... or shape, or a large tree, is generally the national Fetish. The king's is usually the largest tree in his country. They who choose or change one, take the first thing they happen to see, however worthless—a stick, a stone, the bone of a beast, bird, or fish, unless the worshipper takes a fancy for something of better appearance, and chooses a horn, or the tooth of some large animal. The ceremony of consecration he performs himself, assembling his family, washing the new object of his devotion, and sprinkling them with the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... is not my place in the roll of existence, the place for which either my temper or my understanding has prepared me! To what purpose serve the restless aspirations of my soul, but to make me, like a frighted bird, beat myself in vain against the enclosure of my cage? Nature, barbarous nature! to me thou hast proved indeed the worst of step-mothers; endowed me with wishes insatiate, and sunk me ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... an indiscriminate mixture of the powder of the dried pods of many species of capsicums, especially of the bird pepper, which is the hottest of all. As it comes to us from the West Indies, it changes the infusion of turnsole to a beautiful green, probably owing to the salt, which is always added to it, and the red oxide of lead, with which it is said to be adulterated." ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee with the right hand of my righteousness!" Leaving all thy false props and refuges, be this thy resolve: "In the Lord put I my trust: why say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?" ...
— The Faithful Promiser • John Ross Macduff
... by the gate at the end of the lawn. No one was with him, for Ann the maid was just gone away, and she had told him to wait till she came back. The gate was half open, so he went to peep into the lane. He saw a bird hop on the path, and its wing hung down on one side as if it had been hurt. John did not mind what Ann had said, that he must wait for her at the gate, and he ran to take hold of the bird. Then it flew away, but not far, and John ran after it down the road. He put out his hand to catch ...
— Pretty Tales for the Nursery • Isabel Thompson
... rapidity of the gesture of his mind as in that of his body: in his being attracted here and there, watching this and that suddenly, like a bird. ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... There is a sense of spring in the wind to- day,—something that makes one think of the bourgeoning of Northern woods, when naked trees first cover themselves with a mist of tender green,—something that recalls the first bird- songs, the first climbings of sap to sun, and gives ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... no need to waste your pity on me, Sir Dreamer, for I need it not," retorted Dick. "Doubtless you take joy of your fancies; but realities are good enough for me, at least such realities as these. Look at that bird hovering over yonder flower, for instance; smaller, much smaller, than a wren is he, yet how perfectly shaped and how gloriously plumaged. Look to the colour of him, as rich a purple as that of your sunset cloud, with crest and throat like gold painted green. And then, the ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Captain Cook's Voyages, and within was like a hay-stack scooped out. It was circular, with a dome-like roof, a seat all round fixed to the wall, and a table in the middle,—seat, wall, roof and table all covered with moss in the neatest manner possible. It was as snug as a bird's nest; I wish we had such a one at the top of our orchard, only a great deal smaller. We afterwards found that huts of the same kind were common in the pleasure-grounds of Scotland; but we never saw any that were so beautifully wrought as this. It had, ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... one other officer—the falconer. Falconry was the favourite pastime of the kings and nobles of the time; indeed, everybody found it very exciting to watch the long struggle in the air between the trained falcon and its prey, as each bird tried every skill of wing and talon that it knew. The falconer was to drink very sparingly in the king's hall, for fear the falcons might suffer; and his lodging was to be in the king's barn, not in the king's hall, lest the smoke from ...
— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards
... It is absurdly true, when one comes to think of it, this beneficent influence of penguins, stuffed penguins, at that, which cannot even waddle. I dare say few readers ever thought of this peculiar bird (if it is a bird) in just that light before Mr. Ruskin's letter came to view; I'm sure I never did. But few readers will fail to recall at a first reading of the words that picture of a penguin which used to adorn the ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... fascination in it; there is a magnetism stronger than that of the rock which drew the nails from Sindbad's ship. You are like a bird let out with a string tied to the foot to flutter a little way and return again. It is not business, for you may have none, in the ordinary sense; it is not "society," it is not pleasure. It is the presence of man in his myriads. ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... while Sam vainly tried to get acquainted with old Turk; Yan made notes on some bird wings nailed to the wall, and Guy got out the latest improved edition of his exploits in Deer-hunting and Woodchuck killing, as well as enlarged on his plans for gloriously routing ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... detail the appearance of the single organisms, some remarkable modifications show themselves in the course of their appearance and growth. We have heretofore mentioned the possibility of the appearance of the mammalia before the bird. Another fact which deserves attention is, that frequently the lowest representatives of a class or an order do not at first appear where the highest representatives of the next lower class or order are in existence, but ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... them was singularly devoid of life. Probably on account of the swell remaining from the hurricane there were no fishing-boats afloat save one, with a long white lateen sail running up into the air like the pointed wing of some sea-bird gliding over ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... track team 'll be on the lookout for you when you get to Plato. Course you're going to go there. The U. of Minn. is too big.... You'll do something for old Plato. Wish I could. But all I can do is warble like a darn' dicky-bird. Have a cigarette?... They're just starting to dance. Come on, old man. Come ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... with favour on virtuous things; infamy must be represented upside down, because its works are contrary to God and move towards hell. Fame should be depicted covered with tongues instead of with feathers and in the form of a bird. ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... which is casuistically vulnerable. Let it be: all the same it shows that Tenderness, Pity and Love, were traits which adorned the most sanguinary exploits of the samurai. It was an old maxim among them that "It becometh not the fowler to slay the bird which takes refuge in his bosom." This in a large measure explains why the Red Cross movement, considered peculiarly Christian, so readily found a firm footing among us. For decades before we heard of ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... I, well! He was a kind lad to bird and beast alike. There is my old cat, which another boy would have tormented according to the nature of all boys where poor cats are concerned; but Eric loved it, and petted it like myself! Many a time I see Mouser looking up at that model of his ship there, blinking his ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the soil of the law of prescription, turn up the principle which regulated tailzies under the second part of the act 1617, and bury Traquair's right to Coberston. No sound but the flutter of a bird, or the moan of the breaking waves of the Frith of Forth, could there interfere with his train of thought. Away he sauntered, ever turning his gold-headed cane, and driving his head farther and farther into the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... baskets were loads of three-inch unexploded shells, apparently about to be served to the gunners. Wanton, ruthless devastation everywhere! In a field was a wrecked aeroplane, a white and yellow taube, with its right wing reaching into the air, looking like some gigantic, wounded bird. Towards sunset, an automobile passed along the road through this terrible desolate valley of death. In it sat Monseigneur Marbeau, the venerable Bishop of Meaux—the successor of Bossuet, the famous "Eagle of Meaux"—who ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... issued from the portico of the station and heard, instead of the usual cab-drivers' pandemonium, only the soft lapping of waves against the marble steps—"Do come with us, Penelope, and let us enter 'dangerous and sweet-charmed Venice' together. It does, indeed, look a 'veritable sea-bird's nest.'" ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... soie ne lin ne laine." Jerome Cardan looked in vain, he says, for hair on the Salamander! Albertus Magnus calls the incombustible fibre pluma Salamandri; and accordingly Bold Bauduin de Sebourc finds the Salamander in the Terrestrial Paradise a kind of bird covered with the whitest plumage; of this he takes some, which he gets woven into a cloth; this he presents to the Pope, and the Pontiff applies it to the purpose mentioned in the text, viz. to cover the holy napkin of ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... well-conducted youth, of whom two very good things are known: first, that his father was jealous of him; secondly, that he was the friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, languishing through all those years in the Tower, and often said that no man but his father would keep such a bird in such a cage. On the occasion of the preparations for the marriage of his sister the Princess Elizabeth with a foreign prince (and an unhappy marriage it turned out), he came from Richmond, where ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... Heath, was deprived of Gloucester for heresy and marriage, and, being a dangerous person, was committed on the 1st of September to the Fleet. Ferrars, of St. David's, left in prison by Northumberland for other pretended offences, was deprived on the same grounds, but remained in confinement. Bird, having a wife, was turned out of Chester; Archbishop Holgate out of York. Coverdale, Ridley, Scory, and Ponet had been already disposed of. The ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... to town for an afternoon stroll in Ceramicus, reflecting as I went on the parsimony of Mnesitheus. When the ship was driving against the cliff, and already inside the circle of reef, he had vowed whole hecatombs: what he offered in fact, with sixteen Gods to entertain, was a single cock—an old bird afflicted with catarrh—and half a dozen grains of frankincense; these were all mildewed, so that they at once fizzled out on the embers, hardly giving enough smoke to tickle the olfactories. Engaged in these thoughts I reached the Poecile, and there found a great crowd gathered; there were ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... to cover Gwendolyn's mouth. But not to smother mirth. A startled cry had all but escaped her. A little bird! She knew of that bird! He had told things against her—true things more often than not—to Jane and Miss Royle. And now here he was chattering about ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... vulture would have capitally typified many of the wars of the state, their sole purpose being so many carcases—whilst, for the courts of law, the magpie would have been the very bird of legal justice and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 14, 1841 • Various
... knowing![FN86]) that there was a King of the Kings of Fars, who was fond of pleasuring and diversion, especially coursing end hunting. He had reared a falcon which he carried all night on his fist, and whenever he went a chasing he took with him this bird; and he bade make for her a golden cuplet hung around her neck to give her drink therefrom. One day as the King was sitting quietly in his palace, behold, the high falcaner of the household suddenly addressed ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... where. Among the embellishments, there is a good one of this animal leaping upon a tomb and licking it—as containing the mortal remains of his master. Fourth: a series of German stanzas, sung by birds, each bird being represented, in outline, before the stanza appropriated to it. In the whole, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... already pecking at Ranulph's pointed scarlet shoe for a grain lodged there. The troubadour bent down, held out his hand, and the bird walked into it. He had played with birds often enough in his vagabond early years to know their feelings. But now a wave of merry voices broke ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey |
