"Claw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Holyrood There never squatted a more sordid brood Than that which now, across the clotted perch, Crookens the claw and screams ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... deformity may be combined with eversion of the foot, pes calcaneo-valgus, or with inversion, pes calcaneo-varus. When the instep is unduly arched, the terms pes cavus, pes arcuatus or hollow claw-foot are employed; while loss of the arch constitutes flat-foot, and eversion ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... who followed him about and was always ready for a frolic, playing in a very curious way. Whenever Martin would prepare to take a running leap, or a swift run down a slope, the animal, stealing quietly up behind, would put out a claw from his big soft foot—a great white claw as big as an owl's beak—and pull him suddenly back. At last Martin would lose his temper, and picking up a stick would turn on his playmate; and away the animal would fly, pretending to be afraid, ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... Gianbattista would come back to his old ways, to his old scorn of priests in general, of churches, of oppression, of everything that Marzio hated. He might marry Lucia then, and be welcome. After all, he was a finer fellow for the pretty girl than Gasparo Carnesecchi, with his claw fingers and his vinegar salad. That was only a farce, that proposal about the lawyer—the real thing was to get rid of Paolo. There could be no healthy liberty of thought in the house while this fellow was sneaking in and out at all hours. Tumble Paolo into ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... the whale's flukes is perhaps the grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature. Out of the bottomless profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the highest heaven. So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting forth his tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell. But in gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in the Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah, the archangels. Standing at the mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... of the cuddy was matted. Overhead, four or five old muskets were stuck into horizontal holes along the beams. On one side was a claw-footed old table lashed to the deck; a thumbed missal on it, and over it a small, meagre crucifix attached to the bulk-head. Under the table lay a dented cutlass or two, with a hacked harpoon, among some; melancholy old rigging, like a ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... Chinese plate looked very blue, And wailed, "Oh, dear! what shall we do!" But the gingham dog and the calico cat Wallowed this way and tumbled that, Employing every tooth and claw In the awfullest way you ever saw— And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew! (Don't fancy I exaggerate! I got my views ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... porphyry. There was nothing ecclesiastical about this vase; it was a plain straight Greek jar, with two handles at the sides. Suger treated it as the body of an eagle, making the head and neck to surmount it, and the claw feet for it to stand on, together with its soaring wings, of solid gold, and it thus became transformed into a magnificent reliquary in the form of the king of birds. The inscription on this Ampula of Suger is: "As it is our duty to present unto God ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... cat! hey, my pretty black cat! Go ye and sit on Goody Corey's breast, and claw her if she stirs. Do as I bid ye, my pretty black cat, and I'll sign ...
— Giles Corey, Yeoman - A Play • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... "Well, child, don't claw hold of a body so! Well, at any rate, I'll just let Joe Adams know that we hain't nothing more to ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... comfortable, we never stopped to think what other people were suffering before our eyes. None of us has understood. I'll hire the finest detective in Chicago, and we'll go to work together. This is nothing compared with things people do find out. We'll go at it, beak and claw, and we'll show you ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... call it—this afternoon for not cashing her cheque,, and she can turn me and my bank into the street to-morrow:' and then, of course, he shall see by my manner the velvet paw is offered as well as the claw. He is pretty sure to ask himself which will suit the ledger best—this cat's friendship and her fourteen thousand pounds, or—an insulted mother's enmity?" And Mrs. Placid's teeth made a little click just ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... pain. In Trenholme there was little vestige of that low type of will which we see in lobsters and in many wilful men, who go on clutching whatever they have clutched, whether it be useful or useless, till the claw is cut off. He had not realised that he had fallen from the height of his endeavours before he began to look about eagerly for something that he might sacrifice. But here he was met by the difficulty that proves that in the higher stages of human development honest effort after ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... of and lives in the shells of Whelks and Snails. Poorly protected behind by Nature, the homeless crab wanders about seeking a lodging. Presently he meets with an empty shell, and, after probing it carefully with his claw to be sure it is not tenanted, he pops into it back foremost in a twinkling, and settles himself in his new house. Often, too, he may be seen balancing the conveniences of the one he is in and of another vacant lodging he has found in his travels; and he even ventures ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... of the trained Rescue Party stood and took aim with the rocket-apparatus; his glance darted out and back again to measure the distance with the sharpness of a claw. "Ready!" said the others, moving to one side. "Ready!" he answered gravely. For a moment all was still, while he placed it in another ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... beneath the ruthless 'eel of the alien oppressor. It was this 'ero's genius—and, I may say—er—I may say genius—that, unaided, 'it upon the only way for removing the cruel conqueror from our beloved 'earths and 'omes. It was this 'ero who, 'aving first allowed the invaders to claw each other to 'ash (if I may be permitted the expression) after the well-known precedent of the Kilkenny cats, thereupon firmly and without flinching, stepped bravely in with his fellow-'eros—need I say I allude to our gallant Boy Scouts?—and dexterously gave what-for in no uncertain manner to ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... they were suffering the severest extreme of hunger and thirst, when behold, the sea waxed troubled and foamed and rose in high waves, and there came forth upon them a frightful crocodile,[FN407] which put out its claw and catching up one of the Mamelukes swallowed him. At the sight of this horror Sayf al-Muluk wept bitterly and he and the two men[FN408] that remained to him pushed off from the place where they had seen the crocodile, sore affrighted. After this ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... The favored one of twelve, arose. No warrior paint his tawny skin Bedecked, nor eagle plume, nor claw Of beast adorned his royal head— Base custom that of vulgar herd. He wore a girt of wampum, nor Need had he of other raiment; For form erect, and sinewy frame And kindling eye, ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... said Sanders rising, "I wish peace in this land, but there can be no peace between the leopard who has teeth and claws and the rabbit who has neither tooth nor claw. Does the leopard fight the lion or the lion the leopard? They live in peace, for each is terrible in his way, and each fears the other. I tell you this, that you live in love with your neighbours not because of your kindness, but because of ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... evil pair, Faithless to God—for laws without a care— One was the claw, the other one the will Controlling. Yet to mass they both went still, And on the rosary told their beads each day. But none the less the world believed that they Unto the powers of hell their souls had sold. Even in whispers men each other told The details of the pact which they had signed With ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... turn'st the rivers, thou the sea; Thou, on far summits, moist with wine, Thy Bacchants' tresses harmlessly Dost knot with living serpent-twine. Thou, when the giants, threatening wrack, Were clambering up Jove's citadel, Didst hurl o'erweening Rhoetus back, In tooth and claw a lion fell. Who knew thy feats in dance and play Deem'd thee belike for war's rough game Unmeet: but peace and battle-fray Found thee, their centre, still the same. Grim Cerberus wagg'd his tail to see Thy golden horn, nor dream'd of wrong, ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... one claw from the crumbling edge, raising his head delicately; and then the other. For an instant longer he waited, feeling his back heave uncontrollably. Then, dropping noiselessly on to the lead, he fled beneath the sheltering parapet, a noiseless shadow in the gloom; and his ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... have a wedding, too, dear little fish, I too; but no ecclesiastics will be at that wedding. The black crow will caw, instead of the pope, over me; the smooth field will be my dwelling; the dark blue clouds my roof-tree. The eagle will claw out my brown eyes: the rain will wash the Cossack's bones, and the whirlwinds will dry them. But what am I? Of whom, to whom, am I complaining? 'T is plain, God willed it so. If I am to be lost, then so be it!" and he ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... it, I mout a know'd they kudn't a killed him—not all the wolves on the parairies! Why thur ain't the scratch o' a claw on him! Whar did he come from anyhow? ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... here!" exclaimed the Russian. "But you shall fight like a gentleman for once in your life. I will not claw and scratch with you, like the women do, but with ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... with a bitter satire against the "madness" around him. "It is the people," he said, in words which must have startled his age,—"it is the people who build cities, while the madness of princes destroys them." The sovereigns of his time appeared to him like ravenous birds pouncing with beak and claw on the hard-won wealth and knowledge of mankind. "Kings who are scarcely men," he exclaimed in bitter irony, "are called 'divine'; they are 'invincible' though they fly from every battle-field; 'serene' though ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green
... bright and clear he saw The blessed going with their Lord to sup. But Satan clapped on his grudge a claw; Hell opened her ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... upon pillars, the commandments in sky-blue, clouds carved out of wood supporting angels, are some of the ideas recommended. Instead of a Norman font you can substitute one resembling a punch-bowl,[30] with the pedestal and legs of a round claw table; and it would be well to rear a massive pulpit in the centre of the chancel arch, hung with crimson and gold lace, with gilt chandeliers, large sounding-board with a vase at the top. A stove is always necessary. It can be placed in the centre of the chancel, and the stove-pipe can be ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... To disobey the mandate of a chief is at times to court instant death at his hands. At the present time the two most formidable chiefs of the Blackfeet nations are Sapoo-max-sikes, or "The Great Crow's Claw;" and Oma-ka-pee-mulkee-yeu, or "The Great Swan." These men are widely different in their characters; the Crow's Claw being a man whose word once given can be relied on to the death, but the other is represented ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... life seemed to have lost its charm. His spirits drooped, his appetite failed, and his song was hushed. Then his feathers grew out again, his spirit returned to him with his appetite, and he hopped about as good as new. To think that cat should have been able to thrust her villanous claw in far enough to clutch a handful of feathers of him before she upset the cage! I have heard that canaries sometimes die of fright. If so, I think Cheri would have been justified in doing it. To have a great overgrown ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... red-hot ball he talked about and see it all lyin' there, so cool and still, and the sun shinin' on it. I got to thinkin' 'bout it, days when I was sailin', and wondering if mebbe the Lord wa'n't gettin' folks ready jest the way he did the rocks—rollin' 'em over and havin' 'em pound each other and claw and fight and cool off, slow-like, till byme-by they'd be good sweet earth and grass and ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... council-chamber is a large billiard-room; the billiard-table is gone, but an ancient spinnet, with the prim air of an ancient maiden lady, and of a wheezy voice, is there; and in one corner stands a claw-footed buffet, near which the imaginative nostril may still detect a faint and tantalizing odor of colonial punch. Opening also on the council-chamber are several tiny apartments, empty and silent now, in ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... her hands, claw-like in their tenseness, went slowly to her temples. Her head drooped slightly forward, and a great shudder ran through her body. The coroner started forward, expecting her ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... shoulders of the juvenile Saul, and away they went at the heels of the deacon, to the depot; here Saul dashed down the "poor creturs" until their bones or shells rattled most piteously, and as the deacon handed a "three cent piece" to Saul, the long and wicked claw of one of the lobsters protruded out of the bag—opened and shut with a clack, ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... your chance off the next ship, mon garcon, but mine is passed. A woman, it is true—an old peasant out of the fields, with a face as yellow as a kite's claw. But Gaston, who threw a nine against my eight, got as fair a little Normandy lass as ever your eyes have seen. Curse the dice, I say! And as to my woman, I will sell her to you ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... time he had turned the trick. He managed to catch the lower frame with his claw, and, before the door sprang shut, to insert his nose. The rest was easy and he went silently down the hall. He stopped in the bedroom doorway. The boy was the centre of attention: he was sitting on his mother's lap; the spectacled man, satchel at ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... powerful preventives consist in a bit of old wood hung around their necks, or a stone, or a bone, or a beak or claw of a bird, or else a leather strap tied round their ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... woman!—not a bit of woman's wakeness in ye. Oh, my cat-o'-cats! let any man throw her from him, which way he will, she's on her legs and at him again, tooth and claw. ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... indigestion had him in its claw, and his tone gave warning that this was a bad moment Still Petro was bursting with his subject. He could not bear to postpone the fight. Instead of putting it off, he resolved to be exceedingly careful in ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... sat together opposite to him. Miss Garth had placed herself a little behind them, in partial shadow; and the lawyer's quiet face was seen in profile, close beside her. So the four occupants of the room appeared to Mr. Clare, as he sat apart in his corner; his long claw-like fingers interlaced on his knee; his dark vigilant eyes fixed searchingly now on one face, now on another. The dripping rustle of the rain among the leaves, and the clear, ceaseless tick of the clock on the mantel-piece, made the minute of silence which ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... into the groove already made by the saw on the hard palate, and the separation continued to the full extent backwards. A comparatively slight force exerted on the tumour either by the hand, or (when the tumour is small) by a pair of strong claw forceps, will suffice to break down the posterior attachments of the bone and remove it entire. The necessary laceration of the soft parts behind is so far an advantage, as it lessens the risk of haemorrhage from the posterior ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... his cage, and asked in a pleasant voice if Magdalen would show him to her, and tell her his name. Angela was glad enough to break off poor Susan's questioning, and come forward, with the child still clinging, to incite the bird to display the rose colour under his crest, put up a grey claw to shake hands, and show off his vocabulary, laughing herself and acting merriment as she did so, in hopes ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Point. "Grant, do you know what this reminds me of? Out in Springfield, Ill., there was a blacksmith who, not having much to do, took a piece of soft iron and attempted to weld it into an agricultural implement, but discovered that the iron would not hold out; then he concluded it would make a claw hammer; but having too much iron, attempted to make an ax, but decided after working awhile that there was not enough iron left. Finally, becoming disgusted, he filled the forge full of coal and brought the iron ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... the luncheon had arrived, but were not in the least prepared for use. A large basket showed a quantity of live crabs, which lay quietly enough, but a twitching claw here and there ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... at night and hunted the souls of sinful children through the town. With the growth of the picture the bright mailed angels thronged so close about the boy's bed that between their interwoven wings not a snout or a claw could force itself; and he would turn over sighing on his pillow, which felt as soft and warm as if it had been lined with down ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... name was Lorrito. It was a very human bird; I saw it eat some bread and milk from its tin one day and then sidle along a pole to a place where there was a towel hanging. It took a corner of the towel in its claw, wiped its beak with it, and then sidled back again. It would sometimes come and see me at breakfast; it got from a chair-back on to the table by dropping its head and putting its round beak on to the table ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... wanted victims. Sight of Lakelands had gripped him with the fell satiric itch; and it is a passion to sting and tear, on rational grounds. His face meanwhile, which had points of the handsome, signified a smile asleep, as if beneath a cloth. Only those who knew him well were aware of the claw-like alertness ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... plaguing bird: Proud of his love the beauteous dame With burning rage was all aflame. Now here, now there, again, again She chased the crow, but all in vain, Enraging her, so quick to strike With beak and wing and claw alike: Then how the proud lip quivered, how The dark frown marked her angry brow! When Rama saw her cheek aglow With passion, he rebuked the crow. But bold in impudence the bird, With no respect for Rama's word, Fearless again at Sita flew: Then Rama's wrath to fury grew. The hero of the mighty ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... the Honourable Hilary, "we must have Ham Tooting hurry 'round and fix it up with him as soon as he can talk, before one of these cormorant lawyers gets his claw in him." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... other undo him." The Leader, "Now, then, tell of the other sinners; knowst thou any one under the pitch who is Italian?" And he, "I parted short while since from one who was a neighbor to it; would that with him I still were covered so that I might not fear claw or hook." And Libicocco said, "We have borne too much," and seized his arm with his grapple so that, tearing, he carried off a sinew of it. Draghignazzo, also, he wished to give him a clutch down at his legs, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... the chance of obtaining and adding another pound or so of valuable fur to his stock on hand. To him, this small event, or one like it, as for instance, a fresh footprint, with its neatly defined claw-tracks, as moulded in the moistened earth or sand, was of a greater importance than the wonderful and striking workmanship exhibited in a dam; for, the latter might be old and deserted, whereas, the former was too recent ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... did a wonderful thing. She doubled her soft little arm into an inviting loop for Amelia's little claw of a hand. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... heels, rubbing dirt from gold and debating in just what manner he should rise up. He might rise up with a rush and claw his way out of the hole to meet whatever threatened on the even footing above ground. Or he might rise up slowly and carelessly, and feign casually to discover the thing that breathed at his back. His instinct and every fighting fibre of his ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... means, poor soul!" soliliquized the dame. "It is but little you know my gay master if you think he values a promise made to any woman, except to deceive her! I have seen too many birds of that feather not to know a hawk, from beak to claw. When I was the Charming Josephine I took the measure of men's professions, and never was deceived but once. Men's promises are big as clouds, and as empty ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... latter doing nothing but eye the cock, first with one eye, and then with the other. Once more the black cock stabbed the eagle, bringing blood, whereupon the eagle leaned forward, and as the cock thrust out its head, seized it with one claw, pressed it to the ground, and with the other tore off its head and began to eat it. This is what would happen if almost any nation really and seriously went to war with the United States. But the country was ill prepared for the war with Spain. If Cervera had reached the New England ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... on the cushion purrs No less when Soo-Ti barks and stirs. She blinks and blinks and lets you share Her bowl of milk, her fav'rite chair. For you she hides her cruel claw And taps you with a velvet paw; And, mastered by your lordly air, For you is meek and debonair. Even should you growl her hair stays flat: Be sure she thinks you half a cat. But you're a Dog and know your job: Oft have I seen you ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... in such comfortable and affable preaching is obvious; that there is not much truth in it is obvious, too. To what extent, and in what ways, nature, red with tooth and claw, indifferent, ruthless, whimsical, can be called the expression of the Christian God, is not usually specifically stated. In what way man, just emerging from the horror, the shame, the futility of his last and greatest ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... way he saw a Crow which was caught by the claw in a snare which some wicked boy had set for him. The poor Crow sought in vain to release himself from this trap which caused him cruel sufferings. Henry ran to him, cut the cord which bound him and set him at liberty. The poor Crow flew ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur
... darned grain of gold in that gravel; then like a fool I'd go back and dig for all I was worth. No chance of finding blue dirt down there! But I kept on. And to-day when my pick hit what felt like a soft rock—I looked and saw the gleam of gold!... You ought to have seen me claw out that nugget! I whooped and brought everybody around. The rest was a parade.... Now I'm embarrassed by riches. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... He waved his hand—Olivia thought it looked as much like a claw as like a hand. "It's a sky-scraper, but we build sky-scrapers overnight. Time and space used to be the big elements. WE practically disregard them." He followed this with a self-satisfied laugh and an emptying of his champagne ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... it—Moments when a ghastly wonder would come over me whether, if we were all stranded on a desert island with a shortage of food and water, it wouldn't be a case of fighting for bare existence and of Nature red of tooth and claw.' ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... CLAW, OR CLAW OFF, TO. To beat, or turn to windward from a lee-shore, so as to be at sufficient distance from it to avoid shipwreck. It is generally used when ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... Marianne and Lizette would slink away to the waiting beds. Nothing escaped this eye. If the poule sultane was gone lame, limping in the inner quadrangle, madame's eye saw the trouble—a thorn in the left claw, before the feathered cripple had had time to reach her objective point, her mistress's capacious lap, and the healing touch of her skilful surgeon's fingers. Neither were the cockatoes nor the white parrots given license to ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... like spur an' whip, Till Fraser brave did fa', man, Then lost his way, ae misty day, In Saratoga shaw, man. Cornwallis fought as lang's he dought, An' did the buckskins claw, man; But Clinton's glaive frae rust to save, He hung it to ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... the young woodsman. "When a gopher goes down his hole, he simply draws in his flippers and slides, but when he wants to get out he has to claw his way up. You'll see the first hole has the sand pressed smooth at the entrance, while the sand in the other hole shows the mark of the flippers. That third hole is easy, too; you can see the coon tracks if you look close, and you will notice ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Selection as contrasted with other attempts to explain the process of Evolution is the part played by the struggle for existence. All naturalists in all ages must have known something of the operations of "Nature red in tooth and claw"; but it was left for this great theory to suggest that vast extermination is a necessary condition of progress, and even of ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... pratensis), and the rock-pipit or sea-lark (Anthus obscurus) have each occupied a distinct place in nature to which they have become specially adapted, as indicated by the different form and size of the hind toe and claw in each species. So, the stone-chat (Saxicola rubicola), the whin-chat (S. rubetra), and the wheat-ear (S. oenanthe) are more or less divergent forms of one type, with modifications in the shape of the wing, feet, and bill adapting them ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... became distinct and separated itself into thoughts so that he could follow it, as if it were the separate parts of some great dragon come to twine its coils about him and claw and crush and strangle ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... I whyles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought; [sometimes] But man is a soger, and life is a faught: [soldier, fight] My mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch, [pocket] And my freedom's my lairdship nae ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... twinkling eyes, and so was her nose—at least at the point. But there was no help for it. I made up my mind to the worst, and allowed her to help me to a bit of fowl. The landlord, and the two other guests supped on fried codlings. She herself fastened upon a lobster's claw. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... jumped into Duval's lap, and he stroked it and talked to it. Then the animal began to claw at him. ...
— The Boy Allies in the Trenches - Midst Shot and Shell Along the Aisne • Clair Wallace Hayes
... has an old place to keep these things in, furnished with claw-footed chairs and black mahogany tables, and tall bevel-edged mirrors, and stately upright cabinets, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... circuit brought him back to the door, where the aroma was finest and strongest. There he tore at the lowest bar with tooth and claw, but it did not move. He had the aroma and nothing more, and no big, strong wolf can live on odors only. The vague disappointment grew into a positive rage. He felt instinctively that he could not reach the good things that the wonderful tree ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... watching the still green water, face to face with devilish shapes butting upon the glass, the friend of the horrid creatures which slimed upon the windows and crawled to their rocky haunts, or fought claw to claw in the sight of their enemy, man? Desperate as the plight was, I must stand a minute before the crystal panes and watch that changing spectacle of the sea's own wonders. The very water was so near that I thought I had but to ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... feet differ from those of the camel, but are equally adapted to the soil which they have to traverse; they are formed of two springy toes, each of which has a rough cushion underneath, and a strong, short hoof on the tip, pointed and hooked, like a claw. These take firm hold of the rapid and precipitous ascents and descents, which they encounter in travelling to and from the mines; in which journeys they carry 100 lbs. of metal over the rugged mountain passes, and perform a distance of about twelve miles during the day. At one time 300,000 ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... is not well, my father, for my baby cries and is alone in a little box in the ground. If I could claw my way to her with my hands—but my old mother ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... in front of his face he saw, amidst a flash of lightning, a curling, black claw, bristling with long, ragged hairs. Screaming hysterically he dropped the kid and fell forward into the door of the house. The latch gave way with his weight and he tumbled into ...
— The White Feather Hex • Don Peterson
... they are such, may be, that they were brought home by crusaders as specimens of dragons, just as Henry the Lion, Duke of Brunswick, brought from the Holy Land the antelope's horn which had been palmed upon {41} him as a specimen of a griffin's claw, and which may still be seen in the cathedral of that city. That they should afterwards be fitted with appropriate legends, is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 64, January 18, 1851 • Various
... switches and tightly sewn up in burlap.—One big fellow is selected for the bear. He has a school bag tightly strapped on his back, and in that a toy balloon fully blown up. This is his heart. On his neck is a bear-claw necklace of wooden beads and claws. ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... the rich man's garage—rooms warm, clean, and brightly lighted, with pictures, and crisp curtains, and a thick, rose-patterned rug in the parlor. In her kitchen was a great cookstove called "The Black Diamond," which seemed like some live thing, for it had four claw-shaped feet, and seven isinglass eyes ranged in a blazing row upon a flat face. Under the eyes were toothlike bars forming a grate. These seemed always to be grinning hotly. Often when the stove was fed with the ebony lumps that Aunt Sophie said it loved, its burning breath ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... the floor, and the black, who had apparently slipped from the vice of the teeth or parted with some ear—the scientific manager wondered which at the time—tried to throttle him. The scientific manager was making some ineffectual attempts to claw something with his hands and to kick, when the welcome sound of quick footsteps sounded on the floor. The next moment Azuma-zi had left him and darted towards the big dynamo. There was a splutter ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... will not tolerate banter and suggestive conversation among Christians, what would he say of the shameful backbiting which is heard whenever people meet, though but two individuals? Yes, what would be his judgment of those who in public preaching clinch and claw, attack ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... is waking out of a long deep sleep. The old ignorance is still defended with tooth and claw, but we have kings and nobles ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... a very graceful appearance; but fancy a Welsh Orpheus with a face all seamed and scarred by smallpox,—a short, fiery button in the middle of his countenance, serving for a nose,—a mouth awry and toothless,—and two long, dirty, bony hands, with claw-like fingers tipped with dark crescents,—and I do not think the picture will be a pleasant one. If the horrible-looking old fellow had concealed his ghastly eyes by colored glasses, the effect would not have been so disagreeable; but it was absolutely frightful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... mile from the shore a small brigantine, stripped to a lower topsail, storm-jib, and balance-reefed mainsail, was trying to claw off shore. She had small chance, unless the gale shifted or moderated, for she evidently could not carry enough sail to make any way against the huge sea, and to heave to would be sure destruction within ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... older school of novelists would have addressed you. Wake, Rose! Wake, pretty Rose! Queenly Rose, awake! Wake precious, virgin Rose! Squeal! scratch! bite! Claw those wicked hands descending into your pure bed! Spring like spotless maiden aroused to find ravisher at her couch! Spring, Rose, spring! Squawking news of outrage to all the house, bound wildly, Rose, about this room that else you shall not see until through searing ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... chuckled softly to himself as he scratched his left ear with his hind claw, but no one was paying much ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... them apart. Gray, coming in dirty and tired in the evening, after a long day's work in the hayfield or carting manure, was never too tired, nor for the matter of that too dirty, to take the baby, and let it dab its fat hands on his face, or claw at his grizzled whiskers or slobber open-mouthed kisses on ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... little calculated to encourage hope. By this time the Scud was within a mile of the shore, on which the gale was blowing at right angles, with a violence that forbade the idea of showing any additional canvas with a view to claw off. The small portion of the mainsail actually set, and which merely served to keep the head of the Scud so near the wind as to prevent the waves from breaking over her, quivered under the gusts, as if at each moment the stout threads which held the complicated fabric together ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... while he stuck the claws of the other into the flesh of his antagonist, and rolled with him on the ground. Glass managed to reach his knife, and plunged it several times into the bear, while the latter, with tooth and claw, tore his flesh. At last, blinded with blood and exhaustion, the knife fell from the trapper's hand, and he became insensible. His companion, who thought his turn would come next, did not even think of reloading his rifle, and fled to the camp, where others of his party were resting, to tell the ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... two in number, or the "false hoof" of the deer, sometimes also called the "nails." In dogs the dew-claw is the rudimentary toe or hallux (corresponding to the big toe in man) hanging loosely attached to the skin, low down on the hinder part of the leg. The origin of the word is unknown, but it has been fancifully suggested that, while the other toes touch the ground ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... unperceived the horse equipped came round, with even pace; a gallant steed, with all his jewelled trappings for a rider; high-maned, with flowing tail, broad-backed, short-haired and eared, with belly like the deer's, head like the king of parrots, wide forehead, round and claw-shaped nostrils, breath like the dragon's, with breast and shoulders square, true and sufficient marks of his high breed. The royal prince, stroking the horse's neck, and rubbing down his body, said, "My royal father ever rode on thee, and found thee brave ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... attention centred a second time upon the bearskin before my bed and, forgetting that I had already inquired about it, I demanded of him if he had killed the animal. "Sure," said he; "killed it with one shot just as it was going to claw me. It was an awful ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... present at the country dance in all his glory. He was attired in his master's old claw-hammer coat, a very buff vest, a high standing collar the corners of which stood out six inches from his face, striped pantaloons that fitted as tightly as a kid glove, and he wore number fourteen ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... one end, he began to hammer away at the orifices through which the stalk and root of the future tree make their way when the nut germinates. Having at length removed the filling up of these orifices, he inserted a claw, and actually split the strong inner shell, dividing it neatly into halves. At this stage of the proceedings, half a dozen greedy neighbours, who had been looking on, without offering a helping claw, shuffled nimbly forward to share the spoil, and it was ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... that spectacle inspire him! The outstretched arms lying helpless along the earth—the claw-like fingers now stiff and nerveless—he may be thinking how they once clutched a cowhide, vigorously laying it on his own back, leaving those ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... men's faces. It comes of practice. Now, just look at the roots of this tree; don't you see, on one side they run pretty nigh straight out from the trunk, while from the other they go down deep into the ground. That speaks for itself. The tree has thrown out its roots, to claw into the ground and get a hold, on the side from which the wind comes; while, on the other side, having no such occasion, it has dipped its root down to look ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... namely, from the end where the three eye-holes are, which you call the monkey's face, out of one of which you know, the young cocoa-nut tree would burst forth. And when he has got to the eye-holes, he hammers through one of them with the point of his heavy claw. So far, so good: but how is he to get the meat out? He cannot put his claw in. He has no proboscis like a butterfly to insert and suck with. He is as far off from his dinner as the fox was when the stork ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... savage who's 'way up in the picture kyards, an' who's called 'Crooked Claw' because of his left hand bein' put out of line with a Ute arrow through it long ago—gives his consent to Bill j'inin' that sem'nary. Crooked Claw can't he'p himse'f; he's powerless; the Great Father in Washin'ton is backin' ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... attachment to Marionetta. He condoled on the occasion with Mr Toobad; who said, that he had been too long accustomed to the intermeddling of the devil in all his affairs, to be astonished at this new trace of his cloven claw; but that he hoped to outwit him yet, for he was sure there could be no comparison between his daughter and Marionetta in the mind of any one who had a proper perception of the fact, that, the world being a great theatre of evil, seriousness ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... weeping mother waits thee, Queen Atossa waits to see Dire fulfilment of her troublous, vision-haunted sleep in thee. She hath dreamt, and she shall see it, how an eagle, cowed with awe, Gave his kingly crest to pluck before a puny falcon's claw. Haste thee! where the mighty shade of great Darius through the gloom Rises dread, to teach thee wisdom, couldst thou learn it, from the tomb. There begin the sad rehearsal, and, while streaming tears are shed, To the thousand ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... is afraid of no living man or beast. Moreover, these kings of the Northern forests are huge beasts, capable of smothering a strong man by falling on him and lying there—a death which has come to more than one daring hunter. The beast's favorite method of dealing with his foe is to claw him to death, or else hug him till his ribs are snapped and ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... finger, and heat it in the sauce till it steams. Put in a small half-teaspoonful of salt, a pinch of cayenne, and a squeeze of lemon. Do not put this in a large dish, but in small ones, buttered well, and serve at once. Stand a little claw up in ...
— A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl • Caroline French Benton
... so?" Captain Danny put out a hand like a bird's claw and hooked me by the cuff. "Wasn' there nothing in it about Execution Dock; nothing about ripe medlars—'medlars a-rottin' on the tree'? No?"—for I shook my head. "Well, then, I could be sworn I heard him singin' them words for ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... Gods! how the sponges open and take in, And shut again! look, look! is not he blest That gets a seat in eye-reach of him? more, That comes in ear, or tongue-reach? O but most, Can claw his subtle elbow, or with a buz ...
— Sejanus: His Fall • Ben Jonson
... set out through the forest northwards towards the marshes. For some hours he moved through the gloom of the forest, and when he emerged from it the sun was above the horizon shining on pools of water in the waste land. Presently he saw the claw-marks of Tharagavverug deep in the soil, and the track of his tail between them like a furrow in a field. Then Leothric followed the tracks till he heard the bronze heart of Tharagavverug before him, ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany
... recesses, and full of fears. One day Falk came upon a man gnawing a splinter of pine wood. Suddenly he threw the piece of wood away, tottered to the rail, and fell over. Falk, too late to prevent the act, saw him claw the ship's side desperately before he went down. Next day another man did the same thing, after uttering horrible imprecations. But this one somehow managed to get hold of the broken rudder chains and hung on there, silently. ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... thought,—rusty nails driven in unbelievable quantities in all the walls. She couldn't imagine how any one could have wanted to hang anything in some of the queer places where nails sprouted, and she longed to get at them with a claw-hammer. ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... glass and swallowed, choking, the absinthe. It did him good, for he sat up in bed, his greasy, torn nightgown huddled about him, and with long, claw-like fingers he uncovered the scanty breakfast. When he had finished it he wiped his mouth and ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... loudly, Sindbad was offering an unusually fervent welcome of his own. The Ranger went down on one knee, his hand out for Sindbad's inquiring sniff. Then the cat butted that dark palm, batted at it playfully with claw-sheathed paw. ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North
... be followed by a number of similar ones. When the paroxysm is coming on the face assumes an anxious expression, and the child runs to the nearest person or to some article of furniture and grasps him or it with both hands. It is so severe sometimes that the child will fall or claw the air, convulsively. In the severest and most dangerous types, a convulsion may come on in a moderate degree, the face is red or livid, the eyes bulge and when the paroxysm ends a quantity of sticky tenacious mucus is spit ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... vindicate Providence with the faint hope of the Deist. Modern science, prolonging the sufferings of living things over earlier millions of years, has made that problem one of the great issues of our age, and this dread spectacle of human nature red in tooth and claw brings it impressively before us. Is the work of God restricted to counting the hairs of the head, and not enlarged to check the murderous thoughts in the human brain? Nay, when we survey those horrid stretches of desolation in Belgium and Poland and Serbia, where the mutilated bodies ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... smallest but oldest edifices. My sitting-room is an old wainscoted chamber, with small panels and set off with a miscellaneous array of furniture. I have a particular respect for three or four high-backed, claw-footed chairs, covered with tarnished brocade, which bear the marks of having seen better days, and have doubtless figured in some of the old palaces of Little Britain. They seem to me to keep together and to look down with sovereign contempt upon their leathern-bottomed ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... knee-joint, whereas in the adult there is a shin followed by five, four, or at least three distinct tarsal segments. The foot of an adult beetle bears two claws at its tip, while the larval foot in the great majority of families has only one claw. In one section of the order, however, the Adephaga comprising the predaceous terrestrial and aquatic beetles, the larval foot has, like that of the adult, two claws. Some adephagous larvae, notably those of the large carnivorous water-beetles (Dyticus), often destructive ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... that bird from a neighbouring bush. 'I thought I should only be in the way if I kept close to you. But I longed to lend a claw in such good work. Can ...
— The Magic City • Edith Nesbit
... cold. They call 'em Injin Devils down our way; and I guess there ain't no kind uv devils make a wuss-soundin' noise. I jist shut my eyes, and lay low; for when I knowed that furce, wild creter wor within two foot uv me, and nothing ter keep him off but a karkiss that he'd claw ter pieces in ten minutes, I kinder wondered how I'd been sich a plaguy fool as to think uv the plan, and ter feel so pleased ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... a very kind old man, and he did his best, so we will not say anything about his antique instruments, or the number of times he tied a pocket-handkerchief round an awful-looking claw, and put both into Madam Liberality's ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... much encouraged, and taking Barton's hand in his own battered claw; "thank you. But why should we run only to modern authorities? All great inventions, all great ideas, have been present to men's minds and hopes from the beginning of civilization. Did not Empedocles forestall Mr. Darwin, and hit out, at a stroke, the hypothesis ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... and fearless. In appearance they resemble exactly a stout hen pheasant, without its long tail; but they belong to the apterix family, and have no wings, only a tiny useless pinion at each shoulder, furnished with a claw like a small fish-hook: what is the use of this claw I was never able to discover. When startled or hunted, the weka glides, for it can scarcely be called running, with incredible swiftness and in perfect silence, to the ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... shouted Eustace. "It's getting out now. It's climbing up the plug chain. No, you brute, you filthy brute, you don't! Come back, Saunders, it's getting away from me. I can't hold it; it's all slippery. Curse its claw! Shut the window, you idiot! The top too, as well as the bottom. You utter idiot! It's got out!" There was the sound of something dropping on to the hard flagstones below, and Eustace ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... The wild death-raven's might no more she fears; A gentle red bedecks her cheek again, And briny drops her eye no longer stain. "My Harrald stalks in manly size and strength; Swart bird of darkness, I rejoice at length; If thy curst claw could hurt my gallant son, Long, long, ere this, the ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... will give a good horse for an eagle in which he recognises capacity for training. Mr. Atkinson gives vivid descriptions and illustrations of this eagle (which he calls "Bear coote"), attacking both deer and wolves. He represents the bird as striking one claw into the neck, and the other into the back of its large prey, and then tearing out the liver with its beak. In justice both to Marco Polo and to Mr. Atkinson, I have pleasure in adding a vivid account of the exploits of this bird, as witnessed by one of my kind correspondents, the Governor-General's ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the ingredients; beat all to a smooth paste, and add a little of the spawn; divide the mixture into pieces of an equal size, and shape them like cutlets. They should not be very thick. Brush them over with egg, and sprinkle with bread crumbs, and stick a short piece of the small claw in the top of each; fry them of a nice brown in boiling lard, and drain them before the fire, on a sieve reversed; arrange them nicely on a dish, and pour bechamel in the middle, but not over ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... them could stir a step the savage alligator, who had escaped from the circus again, grabbed them, one in each claw, and then, holding them so that they couldn't get away, he sat up on the end of his big tail, and looked first at Susie and ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis
... Game-Cock was hard enough for the gallant Shake-bag of Sir John Boaster; although Sir John Boasters famous Shake-bag, but three weeks before, had fought against that incomparable Game-Cock of Squire Owls-eg, and claw'd him off severely. ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... the origin of the pseudo-Oriental legend which declares that the "crow of the wilderness" (raven) taught Cain to bury his brother by slaying a brother crow, and scraping a grave for it with beak and claw. The murderous bird then perched upon a palm-tree, whose branches, before erect, have ever drooped, and croaked the truth into Adam's ear: hence it has ever been of evil augury to mankind. The hoopoe, which the French absurdly call coq de montagne, also trotted by ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... figure and awful sound in the eyes and ears of those who would be as much puzzled to explain the terms so bandied about, as the liberal and pious indulgers in such epithets. Against such I can defend myself, or, if necessary, I can attack in turn. "Claw for claw, as Conan said to Satan and the deevil take ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... at it where it lay, with the action of a mother bird. They examined with minute interest the details of the curious little creature: its tiny finger-nails, fine and sharp, and its small queer fist doubled so tight, and closing on one's finger like a canary's claw on a perch; the absurdity of its foot, the absurdity of its toes, the ridiculous inadequacy of its legs and arms to the work ordinarily expected of legs and arms, made them laugh. They could not tell yet whether its eyes would be black like Marcia's, or blue like Bartley's; those ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... love of a set of andirons and a brass fender (to reproduce Josephine's description exactly), which had been discarded at the time we began housekeeping as too old-fashioned and peculiar. Of equal import was a disreputable-looking mahogany desk with brass handles and claw feet which had belonged to my great-grandmother before it was banished to the garret within a month after our wedding ceremony, on the plea that none of the drawers would work. They don't still, for that matter. A cumbersome, stately Dutch clock and a toast-rack ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... up on the bunk, which brought his head above the low eaves. He leaned and looked, and scraped away the caked mud. "Good glory! The kid's found a cache of some kind, sure as you live!" And he began to claw out what had been hidden ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... teeth gleamed bare behind the taut, white lips. The trapper's law knows neither hate nor love. You watched it paw, Frantic with lust of life, the yielding air And were amused. God's Image! Did you care, pitying one moment, see the swift hands claw For life and darkness, know and hate your trap? I saw your knuckles gleam, your hand swing free; A cry; The blind face crashed against the wall. Then death and stillness and—— You grinned. Mayhap, Snaring the blind mole of humanity, God made you ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... with my wheels in the air; spun by the same mysterious Miss. So that I must introduce a theory of Relativity. However, mostly, when I am awake and alive, she is in the saddle; or it is in the saddle, the mysterious force. And when it is in the saddle, then two subsidiary forces plunge and claw upon my two pedals, plunge and claw with inestimable power. And at the same time, a kind and mysterious force sways my head-stock, sways most incalculably, and governs my whole motion. This force is not a driving force, but a subtle directing ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... preceding ones, came within sight and scent of the al fresco kitchen, and that at the precise moment when the cook, either conceiving his olla to be sufficiently stewed, or desirous to ascertain its progress by actual inspection, had fished out by the claw one of the anomalous-looking bipeds whose feathers bestrewed the ground, and had placed it upon the reversed lid of the camp-kettle. Granuka, either unusually hungry, or imagining that the savoury morsel had been prepared expressly as a reward for his patience and docility ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... looked into his face as steadily as I could. He dropped one hand upon the table and I grasped it by the wrist. It was twisted like a bird’s claw, and upon the back was a ragged, ...
— The Man Who Would Be King • Rudyard Kipling
... was thin and cunning, with slanted rat's eyes. Ornate head-dress and stiffly inlaid robes denoted him to be the High Priest. He held a claw-like hand high. ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... as brown as a bun, And the sands are baking, it's very nice To feel as cool as a strawberry ice In one's own particular damp sea-cave, Dipping one's feelers in each green wave. It is good, for a very rapacious maw, When storm-tossed morsels come to the claw; And 'the better to see with' down below, To wash one's eyes in the ebb and flow Of the tides that come and the tides that go." So sang the Lobsters, thankful for their mercies, All but the hero of these simple verses. Now a hero— ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... sure sign his nest is not very near," said Rap; "for they never sing close by their nests." This Thrasher was clinging to the end of a slender branch, one claw above the other, so that his head, which was thrown back, looked straight up to the sky. He seemed to be half talking and half singing, as if giving directions to some unseen performer, then following these by two ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... details of the moving marine garden blend with the fringes and fur of the animal's rugged and misshapen figure and deformed limbs. As an artistic finish to a marvellous piece of mummery, in one of the crude green claws is carried a fragment of coral, green with the mould of the sea. It and the claw are indistinguishable until, in the faintest spasm of fright, the crab abandons the coral, and shrinking within itself becomes inanimate—as steadfast a patch of weeds as any other of the reef. Recovering slowly from its fright, ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... who never forgot a face, held out his hand, saying, 'Tartarus is no region of good omen for friendships, M. de Ribaumont, but, for lack of yonder devil's claw, here is mine. I like to meet a comrade who can strike a hearty blow, and ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... can always depend on a certain number of sore-heads to make fools of themselves here—you could depend on it in the old days; it's worse in these times when everybody is ready to pitch into a row and clapper-claw right and left simply because they're ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... Sir Pertinax. "A stable? Straw? This to me, thou filthy clapper-claw, Thou fly-blown cod's-head, thou pestiferous thing!" And, roaring, on the brawny ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... sent orders to the Chief Keeper to get the secret from Liang, lest it should die with him.—"How is it," said the Keeper, "that when you feed them, the tigers, wolves, eagles, and ospreys all are tame and tractable? That they roam at large in the park, yet never claw and bite one another? That they propagate their species freely, as if they were wild? His Majesty bids you reveal ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... rest of us, we don't call 'em nothin'. Thar's a sprightly look about 'em, which would shore jestify any semi-proodent gent in jumpin' sideways. Likewise, she's packin' a Colt's .45, an' clutchin' a winchester in her little claw, the same contreebutin' a whole lot toward makin' her ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis
... and cow musk-oxen at once form a close circle, with the calves and young stock in the centre. That deadly ring of lowered heads and sharp horns, all hung precisely right to puncture and deflate hostile wolves, is impregnable to fang and claw. The arctic wolves know this well. Mr. Stefansson says it is the settled habit of wolf packs of Banks Land to pass musk-ox herds without even provoking them to "fall in" ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... that in the Infantry Manual. But the corporal knows his job. When you're in a scrap you haven't time to think about the rules of the game; the automatic movements come all right, but in a clinch you've got to fight like a cat with tooth and claw, use your boots, your knee, or anything that comes handy. Perhaps that's why your lithe little Cockney is such a useful man with the bayonet. Now the Hun is a hefty beggar, and he isn't hampered by any ideas of playing the game, but he's as mechanical as a vacuum ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... performing thereon a rude mystery-play. The play thus improvised by a handful of troopers before this motley invading army: before the feudal cavalry of Burgundy, strange steel monsters, half bird, half reptile, with steel beaked and winged helmets and claw-like steel shoes, and jointed steel corselet and rustling steel mail coat; before the infantry of Gascony, rapid and rapacious with their tattered doublets and rag-bound feet; before the over-fed, immensely plumed, and slashed ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... Wiesbaden by a severe attack of gout, which seemed to please my Esculapius more than it did me; for when I showed him my misshapen scarlet claw of a foot, he rubbed his hands and said, 'Oh dat is a beautiful manifest podagra.' It came just at the same time as the Skelmersdales, and prevented my going about with them. Wasn't that ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... oh, my liver,—the law! How young you are, my boy! Oh, ho, oh ho!" And again she absorbed her mirthless laugh, and gave me an evil grin. Then she became grave again, and laid a claw on my sleeve. "Take my advice now, and ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott |
