"Covey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only new faces they had any chance of seeing were those of the two men who conveyed the annual winter packet of letters from the next station. Outside of the fort, all was a wide, waste wilderness for thousands of miles around. Deathlike stillness and solitude reigned everywhere, except when a covey of ptarmigan whirred like large snowflakes athwart the sky, or an arctic fox prowled stealthily through the ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... you might have seen your face; And over all, to frighten thieves, was hung Well clean'd, altho' but seldom us'd, my gun. Ah! that damn'd gun! I took it down one morn— A desperate deal of harm they did my corn! Our testy Squire too loved to save the breed, So covey upon covey eat my seed. I mark'd the mischievous rogues, and took my aim, I fir'd, they fell, and—up the keeper came. That cursed morning brought on my undoing, I went to prison and my farm to ruin. Poor ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... partridge, which as warder stood, Warned, and the covey sought the wood. But, ere she followed from her cover, Thus she discharged her mind ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... 'Tis a gentleman of quality, this; though he be somewhat out of clothes, I tell ye.—Come, AEsop, hast a bay-leaf in thy mouth? Well said; be not out, stinkard. Thou shalt have a monopoly of playing confirm'd to thee, and thy covey, under the emperor's broad seal, ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... faces, in every degree from apprehension to terror. Women were weeping and children crying, and all were going as fast as seemingly lay in their power, looking behind now and then as if pursued by some deadly enemy. At sight of Miller's buggy they made a dash for cover, disappearing, like a covey of frightened partridges, in the ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... do this sometimes, on very warm days in September; but let a man go out with his heavy gun and steady dog late in December, or the month preceding it, let him see thirty or more covies—as on good ground he may—let him see every covey rise at a hundred yards, and fly a mile; let him be proud and glad to bag his three or four brace; and then tell me that there is any sport in these Atlantic States so wild as English ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... a time there was a flourishing covey of fifteen: Pa Tridge, Ma Tridge, and thirteen little Tridges, all brown and speckled and very chirpy. They had been born in a hollow under some big leaves beside a hedge, and they now moved about the earth, pushing their way through the grass, all keeping close ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... valleys of yesterday. Here we found the salt-caravan, there being in this place abundance of room, herbage, and a large well, all necessary for such an assembly of people and beasts. On the road we put up a covey of partridges, and a splendid solitary bird, the hobara of Soudan. Footprints of the hares and of the gazelle ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... fair sport, considering that we were only going through outlying cover for cocks. I think that we had killed twenty-seven, a woodcock and a leash of partridges which we secured out of a driven covey. On our way home there lay a long narrow spinney, which was a very favourite "lie" for woodcocks, and generally held a pheasant ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... a freshman at Oxford, 1642, I was wont to go to Christ Church, to see King Charles I. at supper; where I once heard him say, " That as he was hawking in Scotland, he rode into the quarry, and found the covey of partridges falling upon the hawk; and I do remember this expression further, viz. and I will swear upon the book 'tis true." When I came to my chamber, I told this story to my tutor; said he, that covey ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... pretty strong he trotted on regardless of observation. The fog, however, abated none of its denseness even on the "Surrey side," and before they reached the "Elephant and Castle," Jorrocks had run against two trucks, three watercress women, one pies-all-ot!-all-ot! man, dispersed a whole covey of Welsh milkmaids, and rode slap over one end of a buy 'at (hat) box! bonnet-box! man's pole, damaging a dozen paste-boards, and finally upsetting Balham Hill Joe's Barcelona "come crack 'em and try 'em" ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... in a crowded street is great sport. A young man with a new revolver shooting at a mad dog is a fine sight. He may not kill the dog, but he might shoot into a covey of little ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... short time it took the plough to get to the end of the field and back, and is a remarkable illustration of devotion and ingenuity. Not for nothing indeed is the partridge a game bird, for it has been seen to attack cats, and even foxes, in defence of the covey; and I have seen, in the MS. notes of the second Earl of Malmesbury, preserved in the library at Heron Court, mention of one that drove off a carrion crow that menaced the family. Both partridge and landrail sit very close, particularly when the time of hatching is near, ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... electing him? Is that the sort of hold-up you stand for? Well, then, I tell you I'll never vote for him. I'd rather see these lakes and streams of ours dry up; I'd rather see the last pheasant snared and the last covey leave for the other end of the island, than buy off that Dutchman with a certificate ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... are dazzled by the glamour of a title—do not be too confident of his fealty. I know men better than you know them, my dear. Man loves beauty, but he does not always want to marry it. The rare white swan is admired, but the little brown partridge, clucking as she marshals her covey of chicks, is the type of the marrying woman. Again, no man is master of himself. That Strathay wishes to marry you, I can understand; but, perhaps, when he is not under the spell of your presence, he falls to wondering how you will pronounce the social shibboleths, ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... day in a young oak plantation, ankle-deep in oozy mud, moss, and dead fern, making havoc among the innocent birds. He was in so bloodthirsty a temper, that he felt as if he could have shot a covey of young children, had they come in his way, with all the ferocity ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... derided Hallam's surer sense of danger near at hand. So in the early hours their pickets came running in, all mixed up with German Askaris, and the ring of rifle and machine-gun fire told them that their time had come. Capsizing the tell-tale lamp, they scattered in the undergrowth like a covey of partridges, Hallam badly wounded in the leg and only able to crawl. The friendly shelter of the papyrus leaves beside the river-bank was his refuge; and as he plunged into the river the scattered ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... manner of out-of-the-way dodges,—sometimes these friends, odd specimens, old music-masters, rambling artists, seedy tutors, fencers, boxers, hunters, clowns, all light down together, and then the neighborhood rings with this precious covey: the rest of the year, may-be, he don't see an individual. One result of this isolation is, that freaks which would be very strange escapades in other people with him are mere commonplaces. Sometimes he goes over to the city there, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... day a-shooting with the gamekeeper; when happening to spring a covey of partridges, near the border of that manor over which fortune, to fulfil the wise purposes of nature, had planted one of the game-consumers, the birds flew into it and were marked (as it is called) by the two sportsmen in some furze bushes, about ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... off. Hautot Senior had fired. They all stopped, and saw a partridge breaking off from a covey which was rushing along at a single flight to fall down into a ravine under a thick growth of brushwood. The sportsman, becoming excited, rushed forward with rapid strides, thrusting aside the briers which stood in his path, and he disappeared in his turn into the thicket, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... or carpets, were of earthen tiles and worn into hollows where the feet of the palace-dwellers passed oftenest to and fro. A multitude of undraped windows opened like doors upon stone balconies, whither the inhabitants flew like a startled covey of birds every time the king and queen drove by in the street below, and upon which they passed always from room to room. The outer balcony looks down upon the Piazza Barberini and its famous Spouting Triton, with an horizon-line over the roofs broken by gloomy ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... places where the abrupt banks gave facilities for fording, and when a pig had broken fairly from the jungle, and was making for the river (as they very frequently did), you would see the cluster of horsemen scattering over the plain like a covey of partridges when the hawk swoops down upon them. Each made for what he considered the most eligible ford, in hopes of being first up with the pig on the further bank, and securing the much coveted ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... first in strict order of precedence. 'Mrs. Colonel Such an One;' 'Mrs. Doctor Such an One,' and so on. Toasts were de rigueur: no glass of wine was to be taken by a guest without comprehending a lady, or a covey of ladies. 'I was present,' says Lord Cockburn, 'when the late Duke of Buccleuch took a glass of sherry by himself at the table of Charles Hope, then Lord Advocate, and this was noticed as a piece of ducal contempt.' Toasts, and when the ladies had retired, rounds of toasts, ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... faults, nor is't unknown That harps and fiddles often lose their tone, And wayward voices at their owner's call, With all his best endeavours, only squall; Dogs blink their covey, flints withhold the spark, And double barrels ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... cypress told of the presence of water. In a nearby bunch of palmetto a pair of horns were visible; and a herd of wild cattle, incredibly thin and fleet, leaped with a snort into the open, stared an instant at the intruders and sprang out of sight with the speed of deer. A covey of small, brown quail broke close at hand and sailed away, skimming the top of the grass. Fox squirrels were to be seen through the hanging moss on the cypress trees. A great whooping crane waded into view and flapped away in clumsy fashion. A flock of teal duck, flying swift and true as an arrow, ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... out her way to her, prepared to return to his playmates. She thanked him, and gave him the smallest coin in her purse, which happened to be a shilling. He, in a transport at possessing what was to him a fortune, uttered a piercing yell, and darted off to show the coin to a covey of small ragamuffins who had just raced into view round the corner at which the public-house stood. In his haste he dashed against one of the group outside, a powerfully built young man, who turned and cursed him. The boy retorted passionately, and then, overcome by pain, began to cry. When ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... direction from that pursued by Oolibuck. A walk of a quarter of a mile, or less, brought them to another ravine, into which they turned, and the first thing that greeted them as they pushed their way through the stunted willows that thickly covered this gorge in the mountains was a covey of ptarmigan. These birds are similar in form and size to ordinary grouse, perhaps a little smaller. In winter they are pure white—so white that it is difficult to detect them amid the snow; but in summer their coats become brown, ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... lightning flickered and thunder growled,—watching through drowsy half shut lids the speckled broods of partridges scurrying with frantic haste through the wild poppies of ripe wheat fields, the brown covey of shy doves ambushed among purple morning glories swinging in the dense shade of rustling corn; listening as in a dream to the laughter of reapers, whetting scythes in the blistering glare of meadow slopes, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... went out without bringing home a few brace of grey grouse, which were exceedingly tame—so tame, indeed, that sometimes they did not take wing until two or three shots had been fired. On one occasion, after walking about for half an hour without getting a shot, we started a covey of seven, which alighted upon a tree close at hand. We instantly fired at the two lowest, and brought them down, while the others only stretched out their long necks, as if to see what had happened to their comrades, but did not fly away. Two more were soon shot; and while we were ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... ground, and ringing their heavy bells as they walked. Paul Astier, hearing the words as he came downstairs to the midday breakfast, felt his heart beat high with joy and pride. Four days ago the news of the Duke's death had startled Mousseaux as the report of a gun startles a covey of partridges, and had unexpectedly dispersed and scattered the second instalment of guests to various seaside and holiday resorts. The Duchess had had to set off at once for Corsica, leaving at the castle only a few very intimate ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... washed by the dew and caressed by the sun, revived, to fade again. Arctic petrels flew across the road with joyful cries; marmots called to one another in the grass. Somewhere, far away to the left, lapwings uttered their plaintive notes. A covey of partridges, scared by the chaise, fluttered up and with their soft "trrrr!" flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets, locusts and grasshoppers kept up their churring, ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... A covey of Uhlans entered the shambles, picking their way across the wreckage of the battle, a slim, wiry, fastidious company, dainty as spurred gamecocks, with their helmet-cords swinging like wattles and ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... part and parcel of the animal upon which she stood; and then we had a regularly Dutch-built lady, who amused us with a tumble off her horse, coming down on the loose saw-dust, in a sitting posture, and making a hole in it as large as if a covey of partridges had been husking in it for the whole day. An American black (there always is a black fellow in these companies, for, as Cooper says, they learn to ride well in America by stealing their masters' horses) rode furiously well and sprained his ankle—the attempt of a man in extreme ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... thing holds true of a dog. If the engineer has reason to suspect that the dog's mind is occupied with some engrossin' topic, he must stop the train. That case has been tested in this very state, where a dog was on the track settin' a covey of birds in the adjoinin' field. The railroad was held responsible for the death of that dog, because the engineer ought to have known by the action of the dog that his mind was on somethin' else beside railroad trains ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... 'The covey told me you were a charwoman; so I suppose you picked the envelopes out of waste-paper baskets, or such like, and then changed the addresses?' She nods again; still she dare not look up, but she is admiring his legs. When, however, he would cast ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... could adequately describe Daddy Jack's imitation of the flushing of a covey of partridges, or quail; but it is needless to say that it made its impression upon the little boy. The old African ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... fullest crimson that fall. The poplars were clear amber and the hickories russet and the oaks a deep burgundy. Lean hogs began to fill and fatten with their banqueting on beechnuts and acorns. Scattered quail came together in the conclave of the covey, and changed their summer call for the "hover" whistle. Shortly, the rains would strip the trees, and leave them naked. Then, Misery would vindicate its christener. But, now, as if to compensate in a few carnival days of champagne sparkle and color, ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... himself that breeze in the still air for which you are panting. You close your eyes, and smile to think that such a little thing as a karoo-blended lizard can interest you. A sound catches your ear: it is the upbraiding note of the bustard. Again and again you hear it. A covey of these birds must have been raised. As the clatter of their cry dies away, you distinguish the muffled strokes of a galloping horse. This is significant. No man in his senses would gallop in this heat unless his mission was serious. ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... was a heavy splash as a large silvery fish flung itself completely out of the water and then fell back, while the noise it made startled a covey of ducks, which went fluttering and paddling ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... sort of thing I should like to work at," exclaimed Harry. "It should be a thoroughly marine grotto. I see that there is a covey of flying fish already finished. You might have Neptune and his car and attendant tritons at the further end, dolphins and swordfish and other inhabitants of the sea on either side. I must compliment the artist who executed those flying fish. ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... camp at the head of the glacier we saw ptarmigan on several occasions, and heard their unmistakable cry on several more, and once we felt sure that a covey passed over the ridge above us and descended to the other glacier. It was always in thick weather that these birds were noticed at the glacier head, and we surmised that perhaps they had lost their ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... during those shining autumn days their first vision of Gibraltar "grand and grey," with its covey of German prizes in harbour, and of the Mediterranean, then free of the submarine, and who half feared that the War would be over while they were still buried in the African desert, only a small number survive unscathed. ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... round a reach of the canal where we were anchored, and we, that is the gunroom-officers, all except the second lieutenant, who had the watch, and the master, now got into our own gig also, rowed by ourselves, and away we all went in a covey; the purser and doctor, and three of the middies forward, Thomas Cringle, gent., pulling the stroke oar, with old Moses Yerk as coxswain;—and as the Dragon-flies were all red, so we were all sea-green, boat, oars, trousers, shirts, and night-caps. The strain was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various
... the doctrine thus: True government is by example; given the true ruler, and he will have the means of ruling at his disposal, and they will be altogether different from physical force. 'Example' does not covey it either: his thought was much deeper. There is a word li—I get all this from Dr. Lionel Giles—which the egregious have been egregiously translating 'the rules of propriety'; but which Confucius used primarily for a state of harmony within the soul, which ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... hawk in spirit, was proved on an occasion of almost equal interest. A neighbour had sent us a very fine specimen of the smaller horned owl (Strix brachyotus,) which he had winged when flying in the midst of a covey of partridges; and after having tended the wounded limb, and endeavoured to make a cure, we thought of soothing the prisoner's captivity by a larger degree of freedom than he had in the hen-coop which he inhabited. No sooner, however, had our former acquaintance, the hawk, got sight ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... saved, and we were cracking on cheerily, my mind full of my recent promotion, when, scur, scur, scur, we stuck fast on the bank. Our black boatmen, being little encumbered with clothes, jumped overboard in a covey like so many wild—ducks, shouting, as they dropped into the water, "We must all get out,—we must all get out;" whereupon Mr Callaloo, a sort of Dominie Sampson in his way, promptly leaped overboard up to his waist in the water. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... over the tree-tops, a big covey of them in a long, straggling line, travelling at I know not what speed, for a fierce gust from the rising gale had caught them. I fired at the first bird, which fell at my feet. I fired again, and another fell behind me. I snatched up the second gun and ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... glad the old covey left me all his money. I don't care a d—— red cent why you love me, only I must be sure that it's a fixed fact. Now I'll go ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... glasses was looking to the south-eastward for signs of them. But at last, when they had almost been given up, the first one suddenly reappeared in the midst of a snow squall. He was hoisted in, and within the next ten minutes the whole covey, except ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... Brilliana cried, in an ecstasy, and as the loyal syllables died on her lips there came a trampling of near feet, and then through the yawning doorway rushed a covey of young gentlemen waving their drawn swords and yelling their cry, "The King! The King!" As they flooded into the room, bright foam on the wave of victorious loyalty, Brilliana knew them all. Sir Rufus Quaryll, her neighbor and hot lover; the Lord Fawley, who had vainly wooed her for wife; ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... arroyo, he saw a covey of the blue desert quail with their white crests erect, darting among the rocks and cactus on the hillside. It was still the close season, but he never thought of that. In an instant he was all hunter, like a good dog in sight ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... the Boers, returned. We now traversed a fine open grassy country, very desolate, with no human habitation. The only signs of life were various fine "pows"[24] stalking sedately along, or "korans," starting up with their curious chuckle rather like the note of a pheasant, or a covey of guinea-fowl scurrying across the road and losing themselves in the waving grass. Meanwhile the driver kept up an incessant conversation with the mules, and I found myself listening to his varying epithets with stupefied curiosity. During that four hours' drive we only met two ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... night—arms up. They whimpered as they came, and on and on they came out of shadows. Hirondelle stated that he began to think the Crown Prince's army was surrendering to him. At last, when the procession stopped, he—and his mythical sixteen—marched the entire covey, without any objection from them, only abject obedience, ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... surrounded by a full squadron of little abbes, just as a general is by a covey of young officers. This is what that charming Saint Francois de Sales calls somewhere "les pretres blancs-becs," callow priests. Every career has its aspirants, who form a train for those who have attained eminence in it. There is no power ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... refuse to hang out a minute longer. Seems like I c'n just get a whiff of the steak a sizzling on the gridiron at our house; and say, when I think of it, I get wild. I'm as hungry as that bear that came to our camp, and sent us all up in trees like a covey ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... was not of books that he had spoken much to-day. He had not spoken at all. He had bade her listen to the meadow-lark, when its song fell upon the silence like beaded drops of music. He had showed her where a covey of young willow-grouse were hiding as their horses passed. And then, without warning, as they sat by the spring, he had spoken ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... continued their sport till late; and returning, loaded with game, had nearly reached the palace, when Corny, who had marked a covey, quitted Harry, and sent his dog to spring it, at a distance much greater than the usual reach of a common fowling-piece. Harry heard a shot, and a moment afterwards a violent shout of despair;—he knew the voice to be that of Moriarty, and running to the spot from whence it came, he found ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... sprang a covey of guinea-fowls, and at some springs in a valley I shot several couple of sand-grouse, darker in plumage than any I ever saw in Africa or India, and not quite so big as the Tibet bird. The chief of the village ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... often been out upon Haldon, To look for a covey with Pup: I've often been over to Shaldon, To see how your boat is laid up: In spite of the terrors of Aunty, I've ridden the filly you broke; And I've studied your sweet, little Dante, In the shade of your favourite oak: When I sat in July to Sir Lawrence, I sat in your love of a shawl; And ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... cornfield is to-night; By an intenser glow the evening falls, Bringing, not darkness, but a deeper light; Among the stocks a partridge covey calls. ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... be seeing death, friend Louis" he snorted. "There are a couple of rogues in that covey who would spit you or split you or slit you for ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... hang around here? The last idea in their heads would be the possibility of our ever drifting in alive. Hogan has gone back to Chicago to make a report to Hobart, and the rest have scattered like a covey of partridges. Not one of them has a thought but that we went down in the Seminole. Now they'll pull off their graft, ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... firelight; beyond that—blackness, and, so far as he could tell, a silence of death. Just behind them a passing puff of wind lifted a single leaf, looked at it, then laid it softly down again without disturbing the rest of the covey. It seemed as if a million invisible causes had combined just to produce that single visible effect. Other life pulsed ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... my men, may God bless 'em! I've loved 'em ever since then: They fought like the shining angels; they're the pick o' the land, my men. And the trench was a reeking shambles, not a Boche to be seen alive— So I thought; but on rounding a traverse I came on a covey of five; And four of 'em threw up their flippers, but the fifth chap, a sergeant, was game, And though I'd a bomb and revolver he came at me just the same. A sporty thing that, I tell you; I just couldn't ...
— Rhymes of a Red Cross Man • Robert W. Service
... the silver whistle of a partridge, and Christopher, lifting his head, noted involuntarily the direction of the sound. A covey was hatching down by the meadow brook, he knew—for not a summer mating nor a hidden nest had escaped his eyes—and he wondered vaguely if the young birds were roaming into Fletcher's wheatfield. Then, with a single vigorous movement as if he were settling his thoughts upon him, he crossed the ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... spruce forest. Then he came to a shallow, roaring river. The horses drank the water, foaming white and amber around their knees, and then with splash and thump they forded it over the slippery rocks. As they cracked out upon the trail a covey of grouse whirred up into the low branches of spruce-trees. They ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... legs at some attractive garbage beyond. This peril over, we encounter at the next turning a mad dog, who makes a passing snap at our toga as he darts into a neighbouring blind alley, whither we do not care to follow his vagaries among a covey of young Roman street Arabs. Before we reach home a mumping beggar drops before us as we turn the corner, in a well-simulated fit of epilepsy or of helpless lameness. 'Quoere peregrinum'—"Try that game on country ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... Scalding Alley (anciently called Scalding House, or Scalding Wike). The pluckers and scorchers of the feathered fowl occupied the shops between the Stocks' Market (now the Mansion House) and the Great Conduit. Just before Stow's time the poulterers seem to have taken wing in a unanimous covey, and settled down, for reasons now unknown to us, and not very material to any one, in Gracious (Gracechurch) Street, and the end of St. Nicholas flesh shambles (now Newgate Market). Poultry was not worth its weight ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... confines of the wood when he was startled by a loud whirr, which he recognized as the flight of a covey of partridges from a cover close at hand. What had startled them? Glancing fearfully around him he saw, or thought he saw, the crouching figure of a man in one of the bypaths of the wood, partly hidden by the thick branches which ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... hand, the guyser's bannock. At the very next door, Meg Johnston was in the act of being "smecked oot" by a covey of twelve devils, who had inserted into every cranny a horn, and were blowing, with puffed cheeks, a choking death in every blast. One kept watch, to give the concerted signal when Meg should appear with her stick. On which occasion they were ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... nothing at all to him. But, considered as a member of a household, she had this value, viz., that she, if caught and murdered, perfected and rounded the desolation of the house. The case being reported, as reported it would be all over Christendom, led the imagination captive. The whole covey of victims was thus netted; the household ruin was thus full and orbicular; and in that proportion the tendency of men and women, flutter as they might, would be helplessly and hopelessly to sink into the all-conquering hands of the mighty ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... Command and take charge. We have to assume that there may be a Merlin, we have to assume that it may be dangerous, and we have to assume that Kurt Fawzi and his covey of Merlinolators are just before digging it up. Your job is to see that whatever it is ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... in that camp. Each man was busy within and without the conical-walled tents in which the troopers lie like the spokes of a wheel, with heads out like a covey of partridges. Before one tent sat the tall soldier—Abe—and the boy, his comrade, whom Crittenden ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... desperately to regain his feet. At last he managed to get erect, and came spluttering for the bank with such a mixture of godly ejaculations and of profane oaths that, even in our terror, we could not keep from laughter. Rising from under his feet like a covey of wild-fowl, we scurried off across the fields and so back to the school, where, as you may imagine, we said nothing to our good master of ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... enable him to understand how there came to be a poet called Wordsworth. Meadow-larks were singing in the grass, and once in an old hedgerow over-grown with sweet-smelling wild honeysuckle I saw a covey of young quails. These hedgerows of locust and cedar are broken now, but along the old road to the mill and Pohick Church and between fields the scattered trees and now and then a bordering ditch are evidences of the ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... the forest with him, and said, "To-day shall you make your trial shot, so that I may release you from your apprenticeship, and make you huntsmen." They went with him to lie in wait and stayed there a long time, but no game appeared. The huntsman, however, looked above him and saw a covey of wild geese flying in the form of a triangle, and said to one of them, "Shoot me down one from each corner." He did it, and thus accomplished his trial shot. Soon after another covey came flying by in the form of the figure two, and the huntsman bade the other also ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers
... sitting around watching the clock. That's where it is your solemn duty to envy Homeburg if you never have done it before. And that's why I would be homesick to-day if you had fed me four dinners, Mrs. Jim, and had been a whole covey, or bevy, or flock, or constellation of angels—whichever ...
— Homeburg Memories • George Helgesen Fitch
... add one word about the genesis of the book. Some time ago I wrote a number of short tales of an allegorical type. It was a curious experience. I seemed to have come upon them in my mind, as one comes upon a covey of birds in a field. One by one they took wings and flew; and when I had finished, though I was anxious to write more tales, I could not discover any more, though I beat the ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... to the —," "generally said of a goshawk when, having 'put in' a covey of partridges, she takes stand, marking the spot where they disappeared from view until the falconer arrives to put them out to her" ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... pretty face—there are too many pretty faces; so it is the woman who strikes some high note of conspicuousness who attracts attention. But you're like a flock of cooing doves, you Washington girls. You're as natural and frank and unaffected as a—a covey of partridges. I believe I am almost jealous of your Mary ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... a whirr. A covey of partridges, with wings glistening in the sun, were straggling out across the adjoining field of mustard. They soon settled in the old-maidish way of partridges, and began ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... woods; but it was a hunting country, and the havoc made by foxes was found to be so great that he gave up preserving in disgust, and so, growing lazy, made that an excuse for dropping the other field shooting, which passed into different hands. So now there was no partridge-shooting, unless a stray covey chose to light in the park, and there were very few pheasants, though ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... had caught nothing, and he had to kill a pied Partridge, which he had tamed for a decoy. The bird entreated earnestly for his life: "What would you do without me when next you spread your nets? Who would chirp you to sleep, or call for you the covey of answering birds?" The Birdcatcher spared his life, and determined to pick out a fine young Cock just attaining to his comb. But the Cock expostulated in piteous tones from his perch: "If you kill ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... bird no sooner perceived than she flew back to us, settled just before the dog's nose again, and by rolling and tumbling about, drew off his attention from her young, and thus preserved her brood a second time. I have also seen, when a kite has been hovering over a covey of young partridges, the old birds fly up at the bird of prey, screaming and fighting with all their might to preserve their brood." Partridges should be chosen young; if old, they are valueless. The young ones are generally known by their ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... a large covey was seen to rise abeam close to the ship. They flew high into the air, and in an instant the deck was covered with their floundering bodies; their wings, dried by the heat of the sun, no longer spread out, they looked like ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston
... struck me most in Joshua's domain was the quantity and the tameness of the game. The hen partridge scarce abandoned the roost, at the foot of the hedge where she had assembled her covey, though the path went close beside her; and the hare, remaining on her form, gazed at us as we passed, with her full dark eye, or rising lazily and hopping to a little distance, stood erect to look at us with more curiosity than apprehension. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... black-capped heads, dove-grey backs and silvery-white breasts. They were very nervous of the ship, rising in great numbers when it had approached within a few hundred yards. One startled bird would fly up, followed by several more; then a whole covey would disturb the rest of the flock. Hamilton managed to shoot two of them from the fo'c'sle, and, after much manoeuvring, we secured one with ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... translucent tentacles, plus anemone with grassy tufts from the genus Zoantharia; and to complete the illusion, minnows flitted from branch to branch like a swarm of hummingbirds, while there rose underfoot, like a covey of snipe, yellow fish from the genus Lepisocanthus with bristling jaws and sharp scales, flying gurnards, and ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... entrance of the Brockhurst woods. Over these hung a soft, bluish haze, making them appear vast in extent, and upraising the dark ridge of the fir forest, which crowns them, to mountain height against the western sky. A covey of partridges ran up the sandy road before Richard's horse; and, rising at last, with a long-drawn whir of wings, skimmed the top of the bank and dropped into the pale stubble field on the other side of it. He paused at the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... all the dread of an invasion by the French could reconcile the people of these coasts to the necessity of impressment. Fear and confusion prevailed after this to within many miles of the sea-shore. A Yorkshire gentleman of rank said that his labourers dispersed like a covey of birds, because a press-gang was reported to have established itself so far inland as Tadcaster; and they only returned to work on the assurance from the steward of his master's protection, but even then begged leave to sleep on straw in the stables or outhouses belonging ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... near until, in the midst of our play, we saw an immense buffalo coming at full speed directly toward us. Our mimic buffalo hunt turned into a very real buffalo scare. Fortunately, we were near the edge of the woods and we soon disappeared among the leaves like a covey of young prairie-chickens and some hid in the bushes while others took refuge in ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... said Florry Meldrum, watching a shoal of them that rose from the water just like a covey of white larks, and which, after skimming past the Nancy Bell, again settled in the sea, quite tired out with their ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... one's eccentricities through a hot-pressed octavo. Not that they are, generally speaking, very formidable shots—they often bring down a different bird from the one they aimed at, and sometimes shut their eyes and blaze away at the whole covey; which last is, after all, the best way. Their coming here to pick out individuals is needless trouble. Do you know the modern recipe for a finished picture of fashionable life? Let a gentlemanly man, with a gentlemanly ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... to you, my lord," said Monkbarns, "body and soul: give him leave to crack off his birding-piece at a poor covey of partridges or moor-fowl, and he's yours for everI will enchant him by the intelligence. But O, my lord, that you could have seen my phoenix Lovel!the very prince and chieftain of the youth of this age; and not destitute of spirit neitherI promise you he gave my termagant ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... back at las', my comrade! Ha—old solemncholy! You thought the bird of passage, he come not back at all! But the birds return! So does Louis! He decoy-duck the whole covey! You generous? No more not generous than the son of a seigneur, mine enemy! You give life? He give life! You give liberty! So does Louis! You help one able help himself? Louis help one not able help himself! Ha! Tres bien! Noblesse oblige! La Gloire! She—near! She here! She where I, Louis ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... However, as soon as they began to get warm to their work, things improved, and we rattled along merrily. We were spinning away at about twelve miles an hour when, just as we were getting clear of the town, we came suddenly upon a covey of juvenile blackguards who were manufacturing dirt pies right in the centre of the road. As soon as I saw them I sung out to them to clear the course, but before they had time to cut away we were slap into the middle of them. Well, I thought it was to be a regular case of Herod, ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... the chaser, Tires me to death; and the adorer of buzzards. They talk of covey and hawk, And never of ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... through woods they started a covey of partridges. The small brown and white shapes vanished in a skurry of dead leaves. "No doubt, no doubt!" said the soldier of fortune. "At any rate, I have rubbed off particularity in such matters. Live and let live—and each man to run the great race according to his ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... Stephen, with flashing eyes; 'I know where he's keeping a covey of birds up against game day—nineteen of them. I've seen them every day, and I could go to the place in ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... from him like a covey of frightened quail. The fence was cut. For a hundred yards or more along the hilltop it was cut at every post, making ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... Hungarian partridge opened on August 20th. These were shot over dogs in the stubble and in the potato fields. After a few weeks partridges became very wild and we then shot them with a kite. When we had put up a covey out of range and marked where they went down in a potato patch or field, perhaps of lucern or clover, a small boy would fly a kite made in the form of a hawk over the field. This kept the partridges from flying and they would lie while the dogs pointed until ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... day a shooting with the gamekeeper; when happening to spring a covey of partridges near the border of that manor over which Fortune, to fulfil the wise purposes of Nature, had planted one of the game consumers, the birds flew into it, and were marked (as it is called) by the two sportsmen, in some furze bushes, about ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... the word of command the dog rushed forward; the covey rose with a mighty whir, and the hunter fired both barrels, and the dog looked in vain for a dead bird, and then ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever |
