"Moult" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moult at once. Look at the rum little beggar. Arn't he comic? Why, he arn't got no wings and no tail. Hi! Cocky, how did you get your beak bent that way? Look as if you'd had it caught in a gate. ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn
... birds when well cared for and will live to a great age. Some of these birds have been known to attain an age of seventy years, and one seen by Vaillant had reached the patriarchal age of ninety three. At sixty its memory began to fail, at sixty-five the moult became very irregular and the tail changed to yellow. At ninety it was a very decrepit creature, almost blind and quite silent, having forgotten its former abundant ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... migrating, being about as much of a continental as any other biped American. Nor is he like his cousins in changes of dress. Out of a dozen of the latter that may be brought down at a shot, you will scarcely find three exactly alike. They moult at the South, and the young pass gradually into adult plumage. The male redwing, up to his first autumn, is hardly distinguishable in dress from his mother. Here he dons his epaulettes, beginning with the threadbare worsted yellow of the private, and rising in grade to the rich ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... Yankee Eagle well might squeal and squawk At having licked the British bird (Lord) HAWKE. But when that HAWKE his brood had "pulled together," That Eagle found it yet might "moult a feather." Go it, ye friendly-fighting fowls! But know 'Tis only "Roosters" who ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various
... the little bird, "I'll moult all my feathers," so he moulted all his pretty feathers. Now there was a little girl walking below, carrying a jug of milk for her brothers' and sisters' supper, and when she saw the poor little bird moult all ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... pensay je mie, tant come j'avoy la vie. En terre avoy grand richesse, dont je y fys grand noblesse, Terre, mesons, et grand tresor, draps, chivalx, argent et or. Mesore su je povres et cheitifs, perfond en la terre gys, Ma grand beaute est tout alee, ma char est tout gastee Moult est estroite ma meson, en moy ne si verite non, Et si ore me veissez, je ne quide pas que vous deeisez Que j'eusse onges hom este, si su je ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers
... almost black, generally with a bluish tail, and a reddish colour on the inner webs of the primary wing feathers."[303] {161} Neumeister describes a breed of a black colour with white bars on the wing and a white crescent-shaped mark on the breast; these marks are generally rusty-red before the first moult, but after the third or fourth moult they undergo a change; the wing-feathers and the crown of the head likewise then become ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... contains certain minute solid bodies, known as otoliths, which in the same way play upon the nerve fibres. Sometimes these are secreted by the walls of the cavity itself, but certain Crustacea have acquired the remarkable habit of selecting after each moult suitable particles of sand, which they pick up with their pincers and ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... He was a bird of showy strut and plumage. One could not but admire his glorious feathers; but, as soon as he began to moult—and he had already moulted excessively by the time Watts-Dunton took him under his roof—one saw how very little body there was underneath. Mr. Gosse in his biography compared Swinburne to a coloured and exotic bird—a "scarlet and ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... Buff Rock is a layer, is the layer, maturing as she does about four weeks later than the Rhode Island Reds, and so escaping that fatal early fall laying with its attendant moult and eggless interim until March! On the other hand, the Buff Rock matures about a month earlier than the logy, slow-growing breeds, and so gets a good start before the ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... with the maids as 'tis with the fowls when they be come out from moult. They be bound to pick about this way and that in ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... Indians to the "Great Spirit," or God. marsh es: swamps. mer cy: pity, kindness. min is ter: a pastor, a clergyman. mis for tune: bad fortune. moc ca sin: Indian shoes. moor: to secure in place, as a vessel: a great tract of waste land. moult ed: shed feathers. ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... fourteen big Chinese junks (of which Marco, writing of the shipping of the Indian and China seas, has left an excellent description),[28] with the three envoys, the princess, a beautiful girl of seventeen, 'moult bele dame at avenant,' says Marco, who had an eye for pretty ladies, and a large suite of attendants. One version of Marco's book says that they took with them also the daughter of the king of Mansi, one of those Sung princesses who in happier days had wandered ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... during the second year piebald with white. A great breeder[87] says, that a Pencilled Brahma hen which has any of the blood of the Light Brahma in her, will "occasionally produce a pullet well pencilled during the first year, but she will most likely moult brown on the shoulders and become quite unlike her original colours in the second year." The same thing occurs with Light Brahmas if of impure blood. I have observed exactly similar cases with the ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... see the chickens on the 'midship-house. The poor, wretched creatures of instinct and climate! Behold, as they approach the southern mid-winter of the Horn, when they have need of all their feathers, they proceed to moult, because, forsooth, this is the summer time in the land they came from. Or is moulting determined by the time of year they happen to be born? I shall have to look into ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... In a subsequent moult the new limbs (maxillae, and anterior and intermediate maxillipedes) come into action, and in this way the Nauplius becomes a Zoea (Figure 29), agreeing perfectly with the Zoea of the Crabs in the number of the appendages of the body, although very different in form and mode of locomotion and even ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... le second volume de Merlin, qui est le premier livre de la table ronde, avec plusieurs choses moult recreative: aussi les Prophecies de Merlin, qui est le tierce partie et derniere: Lettres Gothiques, 2 tom. 4to., maroq. rouge, Paris, M.D.XXVIII. 1 ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... written in the French tongue," said Alleyne, "and in a right clerkly hand. This is how it runs: 'A le moult puissant et moult honorable chevalier, Sir Nigel Loring de Christchurch, de son tres fidele ami Sir Claude Latour, capitaine de la Compagnie blanche, chatelain de Biscar, grand seigneur de Montchateau, vavaseur ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... LAC, Vivienne le Fay. The lake was "en la marche de la petite Bretaigne;" "en ce lieu ... avoit la dame moult de ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... I believe that there are breeds which always come brown and mottled. Lastly, in the "prize-canaries," which have black wing- and tail-feathers during their first (?) plumage, what colours are the wings and tails after the first (?) moult or when adult? I should be particularly glad to learn this. Heaven have mercy on you, for it is clear that I have none. I am going to investigate this same point with all the breeds of fowls, as Mr. Tegetmeier will procure for me young birds, about two months old, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... qui comenca l'ordre des Freres Mineurs, si ot nom frere Francois ... vint en l'ost de Damiate, e i fist moult de bien, et demora tant que la ville fut prise. Il vit le mal et le peche qui comenca a croistre entre les gens de l'ost, si li desplot, par quoi il s'en parti, e fu une piece en Surie, et puis s'en rala en son pais." Historiens des Croisades, ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... Sing collected feathers to make a garment for his canary when it began to moult,'" replied Lin acquiescently. "The care of so insignificant a person as myself may safely be left to the Protecting Forces, esteemed. This matter touches your ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... enjoy a strange attire, and hate the foul monkhood. Last week, was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. On the eve we went to the Franciscans' church to hear the academical exercises. There were moult and moult clergy, about two dozen dames, that treated one another with illustrissima and brown kisses, the vice-legate, the gonfalonier, and some senate. The vice-legate, whose conception was not quite so immaculate, is a young personable person, of about twenty, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... development that it should first devour the egg on which it floats; it can at this period be nourished by no other food. In acting in this way it also frees itself from a voracious being who would require much food. This first repast lasts about eight days, at the end of which it undergoes a moult, takes another form, and begins to float on the honey, gradually devouring it, for at this stage it becomes able to assimilate honey. Slowly its development is completed, with extremely interesting details with which ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... tangled mass of twisted living rattan, is therefore, a sign that at some former period a large tree has fallen there, though there may be not the slightest vestige of it left. The rattan seems to have unlimited powers of growth, and a single plant may moult up several trees in succession, and thus reach the enormous length they are said sometimes to attain. They much improve the appearance of a forest as seen from the coast; for they vary the otherwise ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... knowe for trouthe 32 Que es lignes de cest aucteur That in the lynes of this auctour Sount plus de parolles et de raysons Ben moo wordes and reasons Comprinses, et de responses, Comprised, and of ansuers, Que[2] en moult daultres liures. Than in many othir ...
— Dialogues in French and English • William Caxton
... d'icelle librairie est moult richement orne et entaille par le bas de collunnes d'estranges facons, et par le hault de riches feuillaiges, pinacles et tabernacles, garnis de grandes ymaiges, qui decorent et embelissent ledict edifice. La vis, par ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... Fons and Gavache had capitulated, the inhabitants having sworn that they would remain English ever afterwards. 'But they lied,' observes Froissart. Arriving under the walls of Roc-Amadour, which were raised upon the lower rocks, the English advanced at once to the assault. 'La eut je vous dy moult grant assaust et dur.' It lasted a whole day, with loss on both sides; but when the evening came the English entrenched themselves in the valley with the intention of renewing the assault on the morrow. That night, however, ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... the king absolutely refused his request to see him during the fortnight that he remained in the fortress at Lyons. He received visits, however, from several of the king's ministers, who all remarked that if he had been guilty of some foolish actions his words were remarkably wise—"toutefois moult sagement parloit." Anger gave place to pity at the sight of this victim who had suffered so terrible a reverse of fortune, and the Benedictine chronicler, Jean d'Auton, deplores the sad fate of this unfortunate prince, who, after many golden days of wealth and prosperity, ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... times. You can always tell when it is going to moult, because it raises its head and remains still in that position as if asleep. When it has grown to the full size of its fourth skin it is ready to spin its cocoon. This is all very simple when you understand it; ...
— The Story of Silk • Sara Ware Bassett
... In the northern part countless herds of Reindeer, Elks, Foxes, and Wolverines make up for the poverty of vegetation by the rich abundance of animal life. 'Enormous flights of Swans, Geese, and Ducks arrive in the spring, and seek deserts where they may moult and build their nests in safety. Ptarmigans run in troops amongst the bushes; little Snipes are busy along the brooks and in the morasses; the social Crows seek the neighbourhood of new habitations; and when the sun shines in spring, one may even sometimes hear the ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... the sky like purple amethysts, while beyond the straits the western ocean stretched its pale molten gold to the sunset. Gresson waxed lyrical over the scene. 'This just about puts me right inside, Mr Brand. I've got to get away from that little old town pretty frequent or I begin to moult like a canary. A man feels a man when he gets to a place that smells as good as this. Why in hell do we ever get messed up in those stone and lime cages? I reckon some day I'll pull my freight for a clean location ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... as if they needn't all moult at the same time," said Peggy. "I do hope somebody will begin to lay before Thanksgiving, so we can have a Thanksgiving egg. Henrietta, don't you think you could give me just one egg ...
— Peggy in Her Blue Frock • Eliza Orne White
... Des pauvres pastoureaux Qui gardaient es montagnes Leurs brebis & aigneaux. |58| —Ceux-la m'ont visitee Par grande affection; Moult me ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... before they depart, and yet they return glossy again in the spring. Now, if they pursue the sun into lower latitudes, as some suppose, in order to enjoy a perpetual summer, why do they not return bleached ? Do they not rather perhaps retire to rest for a season, and at that juncture moult and change their feathers, since all other birds are known to moult soon after the ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... hind-quarters anchored to his throne, his head and fore legs raised from off the leaf, rigid and immovable. For three days he grew yellower and yellower. Then his skin split down his back, and he successfully accomplished his first moult. In his short span he passed through many changes, but never one more ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... litters, borne by two horses, first appeared; but these were uncovered, and used, only, by ladies of the court. Froissart describes Isabel, the second wife of Richard the Second of England, as having been borne "en une litiere moult riche, qui etoit ordonnee pour elle;" and this kind of vehicle, during the reigns of several succeeding Monarchs, appears to have been used by women of distinction in this country, but, only, it is to be observed, in cases of illness, or on occasions of ceremony. For example,—when Margaret, ...
— The Young Lady's Equestrian Manual • Anonymous
... In the French, humblement. In old French humblement means courteously. In Froissart there is a passage quoted by La Curne: "Li contes de Hainaut rechut ces seigneurs d'Engleterre, l'un apres l'autre, moult humblement."] ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... intermixed with the sand, as to form a component part of the beach. This countless number of quills gave me an insight into the cause why so many of the swans, though not young birds, were unable to fly: they moult their wing feathers, probably at stated periods, though not, I should think, every year. This sandy ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... birds moult their feathers, you know, every winter, and others grow in their place. But tell ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another, itself but temporary. Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained, and of such there have ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... manhood was strong in him. You may sneer at us, if you please, ladies. We have been educated in a theory, that when you lead off with the bow, the order of Nature is reversed, and it is no wonder therefore, that, having stript us of one attribute, our fine feathers moult, and the majestic cock-like march which distinguishes us degenerates. You unsex us, if I may dare to say so. Ceasing to be men, what are we? If we are to please you rightly, always ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... women molt and change their feathers, the establishment of "Mrs. Brunhilde Herdicker, Prop." at its opening rose to the dignity of a social institution. It was a kind of folk-mote. Here at this opening, where there was music and flowers and bonbons, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... 'joy the union-boon forthright: How many a stony wold for this I spanned; * How oft I waked when men kept watch o'night! To fare fro' another land for sight of you * Love bade, while length of way forbade my sprite: So by His name[FN387] who molt my frame, have ruth, * And quench the flames thy love in me did light: Thou fillest, arrayed with glory's robes and rays, * Heaven's stars with joy and Luna with despight. Then who dare chide or blame me for my love * Of one that can all ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... variation in color with season. In the series at hand, most specimens taken during the fall, winter, and spring are very slightly browner than those of summer, suggesting that the fresh pelage following the fall molt is a little brighter than is the pelage after being worn all winter and into the following summer. But at ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor
... ot o lui un saietaire Qui molt fu fels et deputaire: Des le nombril tot contreval Ot cors en forme de cheval: Il n'est riens nule s'il volsist Que d'isnelece n'ateinsist: Cors, chiere, braz, a noz semblanz Avoit, mes ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... same thing would happen to me that happened to the King of England (Charles I. had just been executed), and that, after he had been driven out, my turn would come." Grain had found its way into Paris during the truce; and when, on the 13th of March, the premier president, Molt;, and the other negotiators, returned to Paris, bringing the peace which they had signed at Ruel, they were greeted with furious shouts: "None of your peace! None of your Mazarin! We must go to St. Germain to seek our ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... his manly breast he beat; His hair all torn, about the place it lain: My heart so molt to see his grief so great, As feelingly, methought, it dropp'd away: His eyes they whirl'd about withouten stay: With stormy sighs the place did so complain, As if his heart at ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... ocellated tail coverts called the "train" are dropped about August and the birds assume more simple barred plumes, but the molt is very irregular; usually the full plumage is resumed in March or even earlier. The train is, of course, an ornament to attract the female and, when a cock is strutting about with spread plumes, he sometimes makes a most peculiar rustling sound ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews |
