"Canary bird" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Canary bird this morning, January 28, 1772, at the house of Mr. Harvey, near Tutbury, in Derbyshire, I was told it always fainted away, when its cage was cleaned, and desired to see the experiment. The cage being taken from the ceiling, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... good, Phil. He is like a cat watching a canary bird beyond his reach. I don't think he will ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... were only remarkable for their ugliness and curious costumes. The little girl usually wore soiled silk gowns, and had her hair tied up with bits of twine. The boy appeared in a suit of yellow calico spotted with black, looking very much like a canary bird who had fallen into an inkstand. On festival occasions he wore white cloth raiment, with red ribbons stuck here and there, and high ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... dull, idiotic happiness of the barnyard. The men who do things in the world, the men worthy of admiration and imitation, are men constitutionally incapable of any such pecksniffian stupidity. Their ideal is not a safe life, but a full life; they do not try to follow the canary bird in a cage, but the eagle in the air. And in particular they do not flee from shadows and bugaboos. The alcohol myth is such a bugaboo. The sort of man it scares is the sort of man whose chief mark is that he ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... Frogman, beating him down with its great wings whenever he attempted to rise. The thick, tough skin of the big frog was not easily damaged, but Dorothy feared for her champion and by again using the transformation power of the Magic Belt she made the dove grow small, until it was no larger than a canary bird. ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... any player ever possessed a more wonderfully trained mechanism; the smallest details were polished and finished with the utmost care, the scales marvels of evenness, the shakes rivaling the trill of a canary bird. His arpeggios at times rolled like the waves of the sea, and at others resembled folds of transparent lace floating airily with the movements of the wearer. The octaves were wonderfully accurate, and the chords appeared to be struck by steel mallets ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... furnishes, can only perform acts of imitation with their vocal organ; this organ, by their habitual efforts to render the sounds, and to vary them, becomes in them very perfect. Thus we know that several birds (the parrot, starling, raven, jay, magpie, canary bird, etc.) ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... over his paper, but said nothing. The canary bird, however, hanging in Mrs. Potter's bedroom window where he was supposed to bask in the afternoon sun, could have told that Pop Potter awkwardly kissed Mom Potter good-night, something he had not done for years. And in the darkness Mom Potter was far too happy to sleep, ...
— The Boy Scouts on a Submarine • Captain John Blaine
... have it with him. When he said I was a terror to cats I thought what fun there is in cats, and me and my chum went to stealing cats right off, and before night we had eleven cats caged. We had one in a canary bird cage, three in Pa's old hat boxes, three in Ma's band box, four in valises, two in a trunk, and the rest in a closet ...
— Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa - 1883 • George W. Peck
... "I'll help all I can to put you right in with the others that have done jest what you have—openly set our laws at defiance. But if I know myself I won't help a tiger cat to hold a canary bird or a wolf to guard a sheep pen. I won't help a felon up on the seat of justice to make laws for ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... dressed and brushed and washed, and so free from defects that she was rather irritating, began to sing, then people listened. Karl von Rosen listened. She really had a voice which always surprised and charmed with the first notes, then ceased to charm. Leila MacDonald was as a good canary bird, born to sing, and dutifully singing, but without the slightest comprehension of her song. It was odd too that she sang with plenty of expression, but her own lack of realisation seemed to dull it for ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... [Suddenly breaking out.] Oh, Loretta, if you only knew how I've suffered. That first night I didn't sleep a wink. I haven't slept much ever since. [Hudges chair forward.] I walk the floor all night. [Solemnly.] Loretta, I don't eat enough to keep a canary bird alive. Loretta . ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... is, that you don't understand my motives," complained Billy. "Personally, I dislike food, and, if I had my way, would make a canary bird look like a heavy eater. But I feel that it's my duty to eat a lot so that I can keep up my strength and continue to be a terror to all Germans. Uncle Sam expects this of me, and I refuse ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall
... question, let out a howl of indignation and answered, "Am I very badly wounded, what bloody cheek; no, I'm not wounded, I've only been kicked by a canary bird." ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... look at the beak, and think how many things a Sparrow has to do with it. He has no hands or paws, and so he must pick up everything he eats with his beak. He has no teeth, and so he must bite his food with his beak. He feeds on seeds like a Canary bird; so his beak comes to a sharp point, because seeds are small things to pick up; and it is very strong and horny, because seeds are hard to crack, to get at the kernel. Notice, too, children, that his beak is in two halves, an upper half and a lower half; when these halves are held apart ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues |
