"Magpie" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... energies are unwontedly increased. Horstius relates the case of a young nobleman living in the Citadel of Breslau, who used to steal out of his window during his sleep, muffled up in a cloak, and, by great muscular exertion, ascend the roof of the building where, one night, he tore in pieces a magpie's nest, wrapped up the little ones in his cloak, and then returned to bed; and, on the following morning, related the circumstances as having occurred in a dream, nor could he be persuaded of its reality until the magpies in the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... moon is unbelievable. It is a figment of dream. The metal-silver ball that hung at the top of the Christmas tree, or, earlier still, the shining thing, necklace or spoon, the thing the baby leans to catch ... the magpie in us.... ...
— A Diary Without Dates • Enid Bagnold
... came, "I cannot understand what sadness can be found in our topic, nor what can burden your mind, but one thing I can see, that today you all are like a herd of thoughtless sheep with whom nothing can be done. Kaetheli, you magpie, can you stop a moment and listen to what I am saying? You all are going home. I have had enough, and everyone—do you understand?—everyone takes home some home-work for punishment. As you go out, come to my desk, one after the other, and each ...
— Erick and Sally • Johanna Spyri
... could be immediately applied to practical improvements in the arts, or how they could lead to the solution of any of the great problems in science. Here we must again observe, that judgment saved the labour of memory. A person, who sets about to collect facts at random, is little better than a magpie, who picks up and lays by any odd bits of money he can light upon, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... barber in Rome, could imitate very perfectly almost everything it heard. Some trumpets happened one day to be sounded before the shop, and for a day or two afterward the magpie was quite mute, and seemed sad and melancholy. All who knew it supposed that the sound of the trumpets had so stunned it as to rob it at once of both ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... agitation, and induced her to shut up one of her own shrivelled hands in closing the drawer, with a force that made her cry aloud, and, when released, wring it with agony, that drew some words in the vernacular. "What makes you suppose Miss Monfort wants to hear your chattering, old magpie that you are?" continued Mrs. Clayton, throwing off her mask. "Now walk very straight, or the police shall have you next time you steal from a companion. Remember who rescued you on the Latona, and on what conditions, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... knew my father, and HE believed the story. He believed in it so strongly that— well—that's why he denounced my sister and me as traitors. He dug up our entire premises, but he didn't find it." Esteban chuckled. "Don Esteban, my father, was cunning: he could hide things better than a magpie. It remained for ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... piping of the solitary curlew, the saucy burr of the grouse, the screech of the owl, the croaking of the raven, the flight of the magpie, the slowly flying heron, the noisy cock, the hungry seagull, the shrill note of the woodpecker, the sportive duck, all ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... borough of Lathanplaster, is the founder of the district and his own fortune. The Pocklington Estate Office is in the Square, on a line with Waddil—with Pocklington Gardens I mean. The old inn, the "Ram and Magpie," where the market-gardeners used to bait, came out this year with a new white face and title, the shield, &c. of the "Pocklington Arms." Such a shield it is! Such quarterings! Howard, Cavendish, De Ros, De la Zouche, all ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... left the house with tearful eyes and touzled beard; on the bough of a tree, in front of the hut, perched a magpie, ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... to chatter to, eh, Mr. Magpie! Well, it need not be so! There's Nace Grimshaw, and his set—extravagant fools!—going up to the city to flaunt among the fashionables. You can go as they go, and chatter to the other monkey, Jacquelina—and make Old Nace mad with jealousy, so that he shall go ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... gentlemen would sweep by on horseback, with hawk and hound, and followed by servants in splendid liveries; for the baron was fond of hawking and hunting, and frequently took those diversions in the neighboring forests. Now, it so happened, that in one of the tall trees behind the cottage, there lived a magpie: not by any means an ordinary magpie, but a bird that had seen a good deal of the world; indeed, at one time of her life, she had, as she took care to inform every body, lived in the service of the Countess Von ...
— Tales From Catland, for Little Kittens • Tabitha Grimalkin
... the hideous, unearthly cry of the laughing-jackass, called often the bushman's clock; the screaming cry of thousands of parrots flying here and there through the forest; there was the cackle of the wattle-bird, the clear notes of the magpie, and the confused chattering of thousands of leather-heads; while many other birds added their notes to the discordant chorus, and speedily banished sleep from the eyes of their hearers. The stockmen started to their feet, and hurried off to bring in the oxen and horses; ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... chattering like a magpie about the swell villas and places we could see here and there white against the dark trees, but I wasn't paying much attention, and at last he ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... "Ah! a magpie, and alone!" cried Kenric, seeing the bird in his path. "That is ill luck indeed! Give me some salt from your wallet, Lulach, for if this sign reads true then it were unwise in me to go farther without some salt ...
— The Thirsty Sword • Robert Leighton
... rings with mirth and joy, Among the hills the Echoes play A never, never ending song To welcome in the May. The Magpie chatters with delight; ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... were four in number, one on each side of the door and two just under the roof. The door was made of two transverse parts, the upper half of which was open. On one side was a basket-like cage containing a magpie, and on the other, a cat lay extended on a bench, dozing in the warmth of the sun. The blue smoke, curling upwards from a crooked chimney, afforded proof of some one ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... a leather tanner, whom Jo's baby magpie mistook for its parent, as he fed it at intervals every morning. A Czech in typhus cloths spent his days down in the disinfecting, operating and bathrooms. He had been an overseer in a factory and had added to his income by writing ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... bestowed upon her sloes, and dew-berries, and hazel-nuts "brown as the squirrel whose teeth crack 'em," but caught for her the squirrel itself. He brought her a whole litter of dormice, and tamed for her diversion a young magpie, whose first effort at flattery ...
— Jesse Cliffe • Mary Russell Mitford
... Nutcrackers of Nutcracker Lodge The History of Tip-Top Miss Katy-Did and Miss Cricket Mother Magpie's Mischief The Squirrels that live in a House Hum, the Son of Buz Our Country Neighbours The Diverting History ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... representation, closes one open and easily accessible avenue of instruction and emolument against the students of the fine arts. It was not yet permitted to write upon the plastered doorway of an alehouse, or the suspended sign of an inn, "The Old Magpie," or "The Saracen's Head," substituting that cold description for the lively effigies of the plumed chatterer, or the turban'd frown of the terrific soldan. That early and more simple age considered alike the necessities of all ranks, and depicted ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... between us; but whenever the thunder rolled, Mrs. James became ghastly pale. Mr. James explained that this was his birthday, and that they were on a pleasure excursion. He conciliated me by anecdotes of a pet magpie or raven who stole spoons. At last, the thunder-storm and the G. P. R. ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... is uncomfortable, wherever she is. I think with satisfaction that I helped to make her life uneasy when I was young, and worse later on. She gave away to the idle poor some of her small income, and hid the rest, like a magpie, in her Bible or rolled in her stockings, or in even queerer places. The worst of her was that she could tell what people said by looking at their lips; this I hated. But as I grew and became intelligent, her ways of hiding her money proved useful, ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... Magisterial majstrata. Magistrate magistrato. Magnanimous grandanima. Magnet magneto. Magnetise magnetizi. Magnetism magnetismo. Magnificent belega. Magnify pligrandigi. Magnitude grandeco. Magpie pigo. Mahogany mahagono. Mahomet Mahometo. Mahometan Mahometano. Maid frauxlino. Maiden virgulino. Maidenly virga. Maid-servant servistino. Mail posxto. Mail (armour) masxo. Maim vundegi. Mainly cxefe. Maintain subteni. Maintain (assert) pretendi. Maintenance ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... connected with the Hotel before he could set off and search for his cousin at his usual haunts. At last the two met and Pierre related all the events of the morning to Morin. He said the note off word by word. (That lad this morning had something of the magpie look of Pierre—it made me shudder to see him, and hear him repeat the note by heart.) Then Morin asked him to tell him all over again. Pierre was struck by Morin's heavy sighs as he repeated the story. When he came the second time to the note, Morin tried to write the words down; but either ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... The play was desir'd for the next night of acting, when an actress fitted a crape to his face, with an opening proper for the mouth, and shap'd in form for the nose; but, in the first scene, one part of the crape slip'd off. 'And zounds!' said he (he was a little apt to swear), 'I look'd like a magpie. When I came off, they lamp-black'd me for the rest of the night, that I was flayed before it could be got ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... You can do everything. That'll do, Potapych! You're used to saying over other people's words like a magpie; but just ...
— Plays • Alexander Ostrovsky
... now and then; how piquant is a temper in a woman. William is a dear old stupid, how lovable stupid men can be—especially when wise enough to love us. William does not shine in conversation; how we hate a magpie of a man. William's chin is what is called receding, just the sort of chin a beard looks well on. Bless you, Oberon darling, for that drug; rub it on our eyelids once again. Better let us have a bottle, Oberon, to keep ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... Mary had eaten much since Alora's disappearance, but they took Josie in to dinner, realizing it would be impossible to get her to talk seriously or to listen to them until she was quite ready to do so. And during the meal Josie chattered away like a magpie on all sorts of subjects except that which weighed most heavily on their minds, and the little thing was so bright and entertaining that they were encouraged to dine more heartily than they otherwise ...
— Mary Louise Solves a Mystery • L. Frank Baum
... one for the defence!" said the Swallow, quite delighted, as were all the other creatures, at the Magpie's accomplishment; "you must save the prisoner from the jury ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... to work," Rowdy admonished. "You make me think of a magpie." All the same, he looked after him with smiling lips, and eyes that forgot their gloom. He even whistled while he helped round up the scattered herd, ready ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... a disease that develops as civilisation grows old and dogs it to the grave: it is saprophytic. The rarity-hunter may be called a "collector" if by "collector" you do not mean one who buys what pleases or moves him. Certainly, such an one is unworthy of the name; he lacks the true magpie instinct. To the true collector the intrinsic value of a work of art is irrelevant; the reasons for which he prizes a picture are those for which a philatelist prizes a postage-stamp. To him the question ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... The American magpie talks beautifully; but I regret to say that I do not understand a word of its language. One summer we had several fine specimens in the great flying-cage, with the big and showy waterfowl, condor, griffon vulture, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... what all doctors had but I'll tell you what my old uncle had 'cause I seen it lots of times. [At this point another Indian entered the house, obviously curious, and my informant stopped talking until the visitor left.] He had eagle feathers and magpie feathers. He had a rattle with six or eight cocoons on a stick wrapped in weasel skin and humming bird feathers. He had a tobacco pouch of tree-squirrel hide. He also had a stone. It looked like a big tooth with a cavity in it. He told me how he got that stone. He was walking to town [Genoa, ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... happened to find a child, a little girl, lying on the footway of the Rue Saint Denis, near the corner of the market. Judging by the little one's size, she seemed to be a couple of years old, but she could already chatter like a magpie, murdering her words in an incessant childish babble. Old Mother Chantemesse after a time gathered that her name was Cadine, and that on the previous evening her mother had left her sitting on a doorstep, with instructions to wait till ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... replied Nancy, mimicking the Irishman, "and I'll be as silent as a magpie, any how. And, Mr Fitzpatrick, you'll just be plased to keep your two eyes upon your prisoner, and not be staring at me, following me up and down, as you do, with ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... superstitions are owing to bad observation, to the post hoc, ergo propter hoc; and bad observers are almost all superstitious. Farmers used to attribute disease among cattle to witchcraft; weddings have been attributed to seeing one magpie, deaths to seeing three; and I have heard the most highly educated now-a-days draw consequences for the sick closely ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... up," answered a Magpie, who hopped about from morning till night in Lilla's garden, ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... is gentle will make a kind wife; The magpie that prateth will stir thee to strife: 'Twere better to tarry, Unless thou canst marry To ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... Hogarth the subject of the Hudson's Bay Company's porters going to dinner; they at that time, as they still do, frequenting the house. This picture represents Fenchurch-street as it appeared more than a century ago, with the old Magpie and Punch Bowl public-house in the distance, which house has not long since been taken down. The Elephant public-house was taken down and rebuilt in 1826, and is now occupied by Mrs. Eaton, in whose family the business has ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 365 • Various
... known—which was, of course, to let the poor wretches go on their way, and be hanged elsewhere); how they passed a strange island, half black, half white, which the wild people called Raghary, but Cary christened it "the drowned magpie;" how the Sta. Catharina was near lost on the Isle of Man, and then put into Castleton (where the Manx-men slew a whole boat's-crew with their arrows), and then put out again, when Amyas fought with her a whole day, and shot away ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... and the Australian "magpie'' or piping crow (Gymnorhina) are to be found in New Zealand, but only ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... home, and its ruddy woods, lay spread around him in the quiet sunshine of a beauteous autumn day; the nest of the stork was empty, but ripe fruit still clung to the wild apple tree, although the leaves, had fallen; the red hips gleamed, and the magpie whistled in the green cage over the window of the peasant's cottage that was his home; the magpie whistled the tune that had been taught him, and the grandmother hung green food around the cage, as he, the grandson, had been accustomed to do; and the daughter ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... to the Italians for the idea of newspapers. The title of their gazettas was, perhaps, derived from gazzera, a magpie or chatterer; or, more probably, from a farthing coin, peculiar to the city of Venice, called gazetta, which was the common price of the newspapers. Another etymologist is for deriving it from the Latin gaza, which would colloquially lengthen into ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... horses loaded with the best of the meat to the fort 44 miles Distant, the remaining meat I had packed on the 2 Slays & drawn down to the next point about 3 miles below, at this place I had all the meat Collected which was killed yesterday & had escaped the wolves, Raven & Magpie, (which are verry noumerous about this Place) and put into a close pen made of logs to secure it from the wolves & birds & proceeded on to a large bottom nearly opposit the Chisscheter (heart) River, in this bottom we found but little game, Great ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... at her whimsically. "I hope I'm a credit to your training! Two new pets is quite a modest demand. I've known her to have a dozen or two at a time. One summer she had twin lambs, a magpie, a lizard, bunnies—" ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... at either entrance to the bower is large enough to fill half a bushel. As these objects are of no use to the bird, its only motive for accumulating them must be an art-lover's hobby. Our common Magpie has similar tastes: any shiny thing that he comes upon he picks ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... the horse and cart, setting his face for the police barrack, which could be seen shining in the distance in the plumage of a magpie. The two men who stood by came over, and from the other side another man and three old women. With Mac-an-Ward, Mrs. Mac-an-Ward, and the three young Mac-an-Wards, they grouped themselves around Festus Clasby, and he was vaguely conscious ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... that in Scotland the number of magpies one sees is of infinite significance: that one means sorrow; two, mirth; three, a marriage; four, a birth, and we now recall as corroborative detail that we saw one magpie, our first, on the afternoon ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... go away leaving it in that exposed place on the turf, to be found a little later by a magpie or carrion crow or fox, and devoured. Close by there was a small round hillock, an old forsaken nest of the little brown ants, green and soft with moss and small creeping herbs—a suitable grave for a wheatear. Cutting out a round piece of turf from the side, I made ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... found in his Discreto under the heading Hombre de ostentacion. He describes all the birds as meeting together and conspiring against the peacock, because of his magnificent feathers. If, said the magpie, we could only manage to put a stop to the cursed parading of his tail, there would soon be an end of his beauty; for what is not seen is as good as ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... the time Cargrim recovered from such brusque treatment was half-way down the avenue, fuming and fretting at his inability to understand the attitude of Bishop Pendle. Dr Graham loved a secret as a magpie does a piece of stolen money, and he was simply frantic to find out what vexed his friend; the more so as he believed that he could help him to bear his trouble by sympathy, and perhaps by advice do away with it altogether. He could not even make a guess at the bishop's hidden ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... deadened by the impassive dulness of the other. Pope confessed his own pain by his anger; but he gave no pain to those who had provoked him. He was able to hurt none but himself; by transferring the same ridicule from one to another, he reduced himself to the insignificance of his own magpie, who from his cage calls ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... well known. At one time, according to Lady Hesketh, he had besides two dogs, two goldfinches, and two canaries, five rabbits, three hares, two guinea-pigs, a squirrel, a magpie, a jay, and a starling. In addition he had, at least, one cat, for Lady Hesketh says, "One evening the cat giving one of the hares a sound box on the ear, the hare ran after her, and having caught her, punished her ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... some minutes, still half asleep, gazing at the black face, which seemed to be somehow connected with his dreams and with the soft sweet piping of the magpie crows, which were apparently practising their scales prior to joining in the morning outburst of song, while the great kingfishers—the laughing jackasses of the colonists—sat here and there uttering their discordant sounds, like coarse, harsh ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... A handsome magpie, and, of course, a contingent of crows, made up the fascinating party; while in the background, among the neem trees and the flaming "gold mohurs," the minahs and green parrots sustained an incessant and ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... of the day and in the freedom with which they flew through space. Myrtle had chosen to sit in the back seat, and lolled happily among rugs and wraps, keeping a keen eye out on the road ahead and chattering away like a magpie to Leslie, telling her what a darling she was—she pronounced it "dolling"—and how this ride was just the one thing she needed to recuperate from her violent study of the night before, incident to an examination that morning. Myrtle professed ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... no scandal while you dine, But honest talk and wholesome wine, And only hear the magpie gossip Garrulous, under ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... call back man and house again Is that now on a beech-tree's tip I see As then I saw—I at the gate, and he In the house darkness,—a magpie veering about, A magpie like a weathercock ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... between the ogre's daughters with his eyes shut, he recognizes his love by the loss of her little finger. The giant's daughter, in a West Highland tale, makes a ladder with her fingers for her lover to climb a tree to fetch a magpie's eggs; and, in the hurry, she leaves her little finger at the top. This accident arises sometimes, as in the Marquis of the Sun, from the dropping of a piece of flesh on the ground when the hero cuts up his beloved; or, according to ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... again until one of us is considerate enough to fall ill and give her a real chance of nursing and feeding us. Then the only thing to do is to forget you ever had a will of your own, and just to open your mouth and be fed like a young magpie, and Brownie's ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... spoke given as well as that of M. le Duc? And how much more telling it would have been had M. le Duc been served well and faithfully by a clerk like Perker's Mr. Lowten, fresh, very fresh, from a carouse at the "Magpie and Stump," or even by one of Messrs. Dodson and Fog's young men who enjoyed themselves so much when "a twigging" ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 14th, 1891 • Various
... called the "Magpie and Stump," referred to in the twenty-first chapter of Pickwick,—where that hero spent an interesting evening on the invitation of Lowten (Mr. Perker's clerk), and heard "the old man's tale about the queer client,"—is supposed to have been "The old George ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... with happiness; he, the silent man, chattered like a magpie, gazed admiringly at his Frantz and remarked upon his growth. The pupil of the Ecole Centrale had had a fine physique when he went away, but his features had acquired greater firmness, his shoulders were broader, and it was a far cry from the tall, studious-looking ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... magpie has flown away, O that 'twere brought to me again: In yonder covert 'Twas mine at will, 65 With its dark-brown eyes And its golden bill. O that 'twere brought to me again! By Heaven in fine trim to-day Our Serra ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... his head on one side like a great wise magpie, and "H'm—ha!" said he whimsically, "aho! Gabord the soldier, Gabord, thou hast a good heart—and the birds fed the beast with plums and froth of comfits till he died, and on his sugar tombstone they carved the words, 'Gabord ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... you were a magpie; now you are becoming a tortoise! Come and give some water to these ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... the observation of the instinct of birds. There are many superstitions of the vulgar owing to the same source. For anglers, in spring, it is always unluckly to see single magpies; but two may always be regarded as a favourable omen; and the reason is, that in cold and stormy weather, one magpie alone leaves the nest in search of food, the other remaining sitting upon the eggs of the young ones: but, when two go out together, it is only when the weather is mild and warm, and ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... home only for week-ends now; it was too slow a journey to make every morning and evening. She stayed during the week at a hotel called the Red House, in Magpie Alley, off Bouverie Street. It was a hotel kept by revolutionary souls exclusively for revolutionary souls. Gerda, who had every right there, had gained admittance through friends of hers who lodged there. Every evening at six o'clock she went back through the rain, as she did this evening, ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... shape, plumage, and voice. They meet at Shiraz, a place which possesses a climate so temperate and equable as to bring together the birds and fruits of the East and West, North and South; for there I saw and heard the Indian bulbul and the hoopoe, the European nightingale, the cuckoo, and the magpie, and I know that the fruits range ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... probability, they are continually harassed by the natives, perhaps to eat them as food, certainly to get possession of their feathers, which they use as ornaments. Those which frequent the woods, are crows and ravens, not at all different from our English ones, a blueish jay or magpie, common wrens, which are the only singing bird that we heard, the Canadian or migrating thrush, and a considerable number of brown eagles, with white heads and tails, which, though they seem principally to frequent ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... but that pair of chattering magpies appeared to be debating whether to continue their work or move elsewhere. One would hop down to the place where the shell had hit and, cocking his head this way and that, would let loose a flow of magpie talk that would bring his mate to him and then they would both investigate, flying to the shattered place, clinging to the bark and picking out splinters and pieces of wood. Then they would go up ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... furniture was dusty, stove untidy, and the carpet looked as if crumbs had been scattered to chickens who declined their breakfast. Boo was sitting on the sofa, with his arm through a hole in the cover, hunting for some lost treasure put away there for safe keeping, like a little magpie as he was. Molly fancied she washed and dressed him well enough; but to-day she seemed to see more clearly, and sighed as she thought of the hard job in store for her if she gave him the thorough washing he needed, and combed out that curly mop ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the most boyish-looking man in the force. He had a perfectly smooth face, ruddy complexion, and fair hair. He was of middle height, and was rather inclined to stoutness. He was so fond of talking that his comrades nicknamed him "Magpie." A colonist by birth, he could speak the Kaffir language ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... The magpie, lighting on the stock, Stood chattering with incessant din: And with her beak gave many a knock, To rouse and warn the ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn," pipes Grandfather Smallweed then; "I did business with him. I was useful to him, and he was useful to me. Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. He was own brother to a brimstone magpie—leastways Mrs. Smallweed. I come into Krook's property. I examined all his papers and all his effects. They was all dug out under my eyes. There was a bundle of letters belonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid away at the back of a shelf in the side of Lady Jane's bed—his ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... fire our gun, or run and be shot at. It was really a hang choice. As I stood swithering and shaking, the laddie flew to the door, and, thrawing round the key, clapped his back to it. Oh! how I looked at him, as he stood for a gliff, like a magpie hearkening with his lug cocked up, or rather like a terrier watching a rotten. "They're coming! they're coming!" he cried out; "cock the piece, ye sumph;" while the red hair rose up from his pow like feathers; "they're coming, I hear them tramping ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... systems of construction. First in dignity, as in age, stands the cottage or old English style, claiming descent from the heavy Tudor mansions of rude stone, rough hewn timber, and white concrete filling, usually termed "magpie work," from the startling contrast between their white panels and tarred timbers. Of these old mansions numerous examples still remain: they were, for the most part, erected during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but in a few instances a much earlier date ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... the observation of the instincts of birds. There are many superstitions of the vulgar owing to the same source. For anglers, in spring, it is always unlucky to see single magpies,—but two may always be regarded as a favourable omen; and the reason is, that in cold and stormy weather one magpie alone leaves the nest in search of food, the other remaining sitting upon the eggs or the young ones; but when two go out together, it is only when the weather is warm and mild, and favourable ...
— The Rain Cloud - or, An Account of the Nature, Properties, Dangers and Uses of Rain • Anonymous
... us of a magpie, belonging to a barber at Rome, which could imitate to a nicety almost every word it heard. Some trumpets happened one day to be sounded before the shop, and for a day or two afterwards the magpie was quite mute, and seemed pensive and melancholy. ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... found him two days later he lay with his head pillowed upon his left arm, his right hand outspread upon the pine leaves—palm upward as if to show its emptiness. A bird—the roguish gray magpie—had stolen away the phial as if in consideration of the dead man's wish, and no sign of his last despairing act was visible to those who looked into his face. His going was well planned. Self-murder was never written opposite the name of ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... seventy bosom and particular friends, and talked to them at the top of her voice in faulty German, Italian, which she spoke fluently, or slangy English. [277] In the insipid conversation of this "magpie sanhedrin," "these hen parties," as he called them, Burton did not join, but went on with his work as if no one was present. Indeed, far from complaining, he remarked philosophically that if the rooms had been lower down probably 140 visitors instead of 70 would have looked in. The Burtons usually ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... observe everything, or try to. We could spend our lives looking on. Consider our museums for instance: they are a sign of our breed. It makes us smile to see birds, like the magpie, with a mania for this collecting—but only monkeyish beings could reverence museums as we do, and pile such heterogeneous ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... suggested that the birds carry the nuts for the four-footed people, but they answered that they had all they could do to feed themselves and couldn't spare the time. And Grandmother Magpie said she wouldn't carry nuts for anybody, even if she had all the time that was wasted every day by some people right there ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... open windows a magpie in the magnolia tree was carolling as though he knew it was a special morning, and that he had a special message to deliver. The linen blinds were rolled tight up, and she could see him near one of the great creamy blossoms, each big enough for his bath; ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... old hen had hatched out her various sort of eggs. We expected that her motley brood would afford us some fun. Here we expected to see a young hawk, and there a goslin, and next a strutting turkey, and then a dodo, a loon, an ostrich, a wren, a magpie, a cuckoo, and a wag-tail. But the old continental hen has now set so long, that we conclude that her eggs are addled, and incubation frustrated. During all this time, the Gallick cock is on his roost at Elba, with ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... old chattering magpie would hold his tongue!" exclaimed Isel, going to the door to empty the bowl in which she had been washing the cabbages for supper. "He makes more mischief than any man within ten miles of ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... between the gregarious man and the man who lives closest to nature. Toussaint Louverture, after he was caught, died without speaking a word. Napoleon, transplanted to a rock, talked like a magpie—he wanted to account for himself. Z. Marcas erred in the same way, but for our benefit only. Silence in all its majesty is to be found only in the savage. There is never a criminal who, though he might let ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac
... before he left for Normandy? I was afraid she wouldn't go, as M. Bradamanti expects the lady who came last night; I couldn't see her, but this time I'll try to unmask her. But who can this lady of M. Bradamanti's be? A lady or a common woman? I'd like to know, for I am as curious as a magpie. It is not my fault—I'm made so. It is my character. Ah, hold! an idea, a famous one too—to find out her name! I'll try it. But who comes there? Ah! it is my prince of lodgers. Hail, Mr. Rudolph," said Mrs. Pipelet, putting herself in the attitude of carrying ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... obtained; on the contrary, it is more likely that the litter will consist of some whole-coloured blacks, and some whole-coloured whites. Miss Hamilton's Mafeking of Rozelle, and Mrs. Vale Nicolas's Shelton Novelty, are the two most prominent specimens at the present time, although Mrs. Harcourt-Clare's Magpie and Mr. Temple's Leyswood Tom Tit were perhaps better known ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... distraction, while traveling as fast as possible—for he was anxious to be in Paris by the twenty-third—stopped from time to time to fly the magpie, a pastime for which the taste had been formerly inspired in him by de Luynes, and for which he had always preserved a great predilection. Out of the twenty Musketeers sixteen, when this took place, rejoiced greatly at this relaxation; but the other four cursed it heartily. D'Artagnan, ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... western magpie, which seemed a 'verry butifull' bird to them. Also again, on September 5th, they had seen their first blacktail deer, which now, until they got into the Mandan and Yellowstone country, was to outnumber the whitetail, which they called the 'common deer,' because ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... went along a magpie fluttered out of the hedge and sate on a branch in front of him, and chuckled and laughed as magpies do. "What are you ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... the 'very fastidious lady entirely ignored the invitation to give them some little Italian thing out of the last opera.' A somewhat original plea for refusing to sing when asked is given by the chairman of the musical gathering at the Magpie and Stump (P.P.). When asked why he won't enliven the company he replies, 'I only know one song, and I have sung it already, and it's a fine of glasses round to sing the same song twice in one night.' Doubtless he was deeply ...
— Charles Dickens and Music • James T. Lightwood
... 'if I were the knight to whom the charger belongs, I would part with him instantly, even if, at the same time as I drowned him, I must throw into the Gave my sword and golden spurs: don't you see that spiteful-looking magpie, which has just started up before him, after having chattered in his very face? What awful signs of evil are these! and on such a morning, at the rising of the sun! * * * May the bon Dieu, the Holy Virgin, and the white ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... Or, take as an example the web-footed family: Do not all the geese and the innumerable host of ducks quack? Does not every member of the crow family caw, whether it be the jackdaw, the jay, or the magpie, the rook in some green rookery of the Old World, or the crow of our woods, with its long, melancholy caw that seems to make the silence and solitude deeper? Compare all the sweet warblers of the songster family—the nightingales, the thrushes, the mocking-birds, the robins; they differ ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... a contract was also let by the Government to excavate a tank of 15,000 yards, to a man named Collins. He quickly commenced operations with his plant at Magpie Gully, about half-a-mile from the town. When he had made a hole of about 12 feet deep, a very heavy thunderstorm filled the excavation with water. Previously, he had to cart his water nearly three miles, ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... land where the sun shines nearly every day Where the skies are ever blue. Where the folks are as happy as the day is long And there's lots of work to do. Where the soft winds blow and the gum trees grow As far as the eye can see, Where the magpie chaffs and the cuckoo-burra laughs Australia is ...
— A Minstrel In France • Harry Lauder
... the Withers Place, and so forth,—not of much use, but labelled and kept. An old trunk with letters and account-books, some of them in Dutch,—mere curiosities. A year ago or more, I remember that Silence sent me over some papers she had found in an odd corner,—the old man hid things like a magpie. I looked over most of them,—trumpery not worth ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... little lady. Trembling with joy, and with heart fluttering more than the bridge of wings, she crossed the River of Heaven and was in the arms of her husband. This she did every year. The husband stayed on his side of the river, and the wife came to him on the magpie bridge, save on the sad occasions when it rained. So every year the people hope for clear weather, and the happy festival is celebrated alike ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... Ptolemy's left, is headed by Achillas, the general of Ptolemy's troops. Theodotus is a little old man, whose features are as cramped and wizened as his limbs, except his tall straight forehead, which occupies more space than all the rest of his face. He maintains an air of magpie keenness and profundity, listening to what the others say with the sarcastic vigilance of a philosopher listening to the exercises of his disciples. Achillas is a tall handsome man of thirty-five, with a fine black beard curled ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... I shall see." And the fellow to whom I addressed myself stepped forward, and began to squint into the muzzle of one of the fieldpieces, slewing his head from side to side, with absurd gravity, like a magpie peeping into a marrow—bone. "Him most be load— no daylight come troo de touch—hole—take care make me try him." And without more ado he shook out the red embers from his pipe right on the touch—hole of the gun, when the fragment ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... and becoming wayward. At fifteen years old she had expanded like a calf, white-skinned and very fat; so plump, indeed, you might have called her a pincushion. Yes, such she was—fifteen years old, full of figure and no stays. A saucy magpie face, dipped in milk, a skin as soft as a peach skin, a funny nose, pink lips and eyes sparkling like tapers, which men would have liked to light their pipes at. Her pile of fair hair, the color of fresh oats, seemed to have scattered gold dust over her temples, freckle-like as it ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... non-migratory birds are really, for the most part, strangers acclimatized by long sojourn. Some of them—the turtledove, the magpie, the kingfisher, the partridge, and the sparrow-may be classed with our European species, while others betray their equatorial origin in the brightness of their colours. White and black ibises, red ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and with a coronet on the top, silvered, while the vehicle itself was, melon-like, fluted, alternately black, with silver figures, and white with black landscapes; and with white draperies, embroidered with black and silver, floating from the windows. Four lacqueys, in the same magpie-colouring, stood behind, and outriders followed; but as the cavalcade approached the group by the road-side, one of the horsemen paused, saying lightly, 'Over near the walls from an affair of honour! Has he caught it badly? Who ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... contrast: the public functionary was forty-two years of age and seemed no more than thirty, whereas the soldier was thirty, and seemed forty at the least. Both wore the red rosette of the officers of the Legion of honor. A few spare locks of black hair mixed with white, like the wing of a magpie, escaped from the colonel's cap, while handsome brown curls adorned the brow of the statesman. One was tall, gallant, high-strung, and the lines of his pallid face showed terrible passions or frightful griefs. The other had a face that was brilliant with health, and jovially worth of an epicurean. ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac
... foot, a great pontiff of science, speaking but in brief sentences and in an oracular tone; but here I am not obliged to play my role, and by a natural reaction, finding myself alone in the woods with a man of sense and heart, my tongue unloosens like a magpie's. Let us see; if I tell you my history do ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... rate so turned out that Mr. Corkscrew's letter was read in full conclave in the board-room of the office, just as he was describing the excellence of his manoeuvre with great glee to four or five other jolly souls at the 'Magpie and Stump.' ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... went to the Babylonian. We know your guilt. And now the good gods have stricken you mad and delivered you to justice." She waved her bony fists in the prostrate man's face. "Run, Phormio! don't stand gaping like a magpie. ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... my heart's bird! Slight and small the lovely cry Came trickling down, but no one heard. Parrot and cuckoo, crow, magpie Jarred horrid notes and the jangling jay Ripped the fine threads of song away, For why should peeping chick aspire To challenge their loud ...
— Country Sentiment • Robert Graves |
