"Kingfisher" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... broad-shouldered wildcat showed himself, coming out of a grove, and crossing the river on a flood-jamb of logs, halting for a moment to look back. The bird-like tamias frisked about my feet everywhere among the pine-needles and seedy grass-tufts; cranes waded the shallows of the river-bends, the kingfisher rattled from perch to perch, and the blessed ouzel sang amid the spray of every cascade. Where may lonely wanderer find a more interesting family of mountain-dwellers, earth-born companions and fellow-mortals? It was afternoon when I joined them, and ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... from the late resounding perch, Fly various, hushed their early song; and mark, Beneath the darkness of the bramble-bank That overhangs the half-seen brook, where nod The flowing rushes, dew-besprent, with breast Ruddy, and emerald wing, the kingfisher 80 Steals through the dripping sedge away. What shape Of terrors scares the woodland habitants, Marring the music of the dawn? Look round; See, where he creeps, beneath the willowy stump, Cowering and low, step silent after step, The booted fowler: ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... from the sun, and if used in hunting protect the nape of the neck from rain. The recent fashions of wearing the plumes or feathers of the ostrich, the cock, the capercailzie, the pheasant, the peacock, and the kingfisher, in the riding-hats of young ladies, in my humble opinion, ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... it, never travel alone, and above all, never go to Venice alone and without love! For young married people in their honeymoon, or a pair of lovers, the gondola is a floating boudoir, a nest upon the waters like a kingfisher's. But for one who is sad, and who stretches himself upon the sombre cushions of the bark, the gondola ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... lank black clivers (Plotus), exceedingly wild; the African roller (Coracias); halcyons of several species, especially a white and black kingfisher, nimble and comely; many swallows, horn-bills, and wild pigeons which made the bush resound; ardeine birds, especially a heron, like the large Indian "kullum;" kites, crows, "whip-poor-wills," and a fine haliaetus, which flies high and settles upon the loftiest branches. One of these eagles was ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... from Towha. This, with the hair and eye, was carried back to the priests. Soon after, Otoo sent to them another piece of feathers, which he had given me in the morning to keep in my pocket. During some part of this last ceremony, a kingfisher making a noise in the trees, Otoo turned to me, saying, "That is the Eatooa" and seemed to look upon it to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... rehearse The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whir, The rattle of the kingfisher; Saw bonfires of the harlot flies In the lowland, when day dies; Or marked, benighted and forlorn, The first far signal-fire of morn. These syllables that Nature spoke, And the thoughts that in him woke, Can adequately utter none Save to his ear the wind-harp lone. Therein ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... brilliant creature for his cabinet at every opportunity, and partly by those who have an inherent love for destroying every living object around them. Gamekeepers, too, are up in arms against him, because of his inordinate love of preying on the finny tribe. Where the Kingfisher now is seen is in the most secluded places, the author adds, where the trout streams murmur through the silent woods, but seldom trod by the foot of man; or in the wooded gullies down which the stream from the mountains far above ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... island Medoza the loon swam with his mate, occasionally uttering a cry of joy. Here and there the playful Hogan, the trout, sprang gracefully out of the water, in a shower of falling dew. As the maiden hastened along she scared up Wadawasee, the kingfisher, who screamed loudly. ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... Hawk and Crow. First Hawk would sit on the pole a while, then Crow would knock him off and sit on it himself. Thus they sat on the top of the pole above the water for many ages. At last they created the birds which prey on fish. They created Kingfisher, Eagle, Pelican, and others. They created also Duck. Duck was very small but she dived to the bottom of the water, took a beakful of mud, and then died in coming to the top of the water. Duck lay dead floating on the water. ...
— Myths and Legends of California and the Old Southwest • Katharine Berry Judson
... dry grass from the lining of the kingfisher's nest," he said; and immediately two ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston
... in holes or other dark places are white without markings of any kind, as illustrated by those of the Chimney Swift, Belted Kingfisher, and all Woodpeckers. In such instances Nature shows no disposition to be lavish with her colouring matter where it is ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... that the goldfinch and the kingfisher are not often seen except in picture-books; but our own little robin is a real beauty, is he not? And what can be gayer than the feathers of some of our cocks, which strut about so proudly? Then, the more you notice the songs of birds, ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... in leading him to where the prince of serpents lived, he invested the kingfisher with a medal and rumpled the feathers of its head in putting it on; hence all kingfishers have rumpled knots and white spots on their breasts. After slaying the prince of serpents he travelled all ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... gives a sharp feline mew. In a moment more he says very distinctly, who, who. Then in rapid succession follow notes the most discordant that ever broke the sylvan silence. Now he barks like a puppy, then quacks like a duck, then rattles like a kingfisher, then squalls like a fox, then caws like a crow, then mews like a cat. Now he calls as if to be heard a long way off, then changes his key, as if addressing the spectator. Though very shy, and carefully keeping himself screened when you show any ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... gobbled, splashed, and chattered; grebe and coot voices could be distinguished; king rails at times flashed into sight and out again; marsh wrens scolded and chattered; occasionally a kingfisher darted around the lake shore, rolling his rattling cry and flashing his azure coat and gleaming white collar. On a hollow tree in the woods a yellow hammer proved why he was named, because he carpentered industriously to enlarge the entrance to the home he was excavating in a dead ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... The brilliant little Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida), the most gay in colour of all our birds, may still sometimes be seen, darting about the only rivulet which we can boast of at Woodhall, and which rejoices in the unattractive name of “The Sewer,” {46b} although its water, welling up at its source near Well Syke Wood, ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... pair of young pickles I never hatched before!" said she to Mrs. Kingfisher, who came ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... for ages had listened To the rush of the pebble-paved river between, Where the kingfisher screamed and gray precipice glistened, All breathless with awe have I gazed ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... took his path, Spied what a nest the kingfisher hath, 290 Marked the fields green to aftermath, Marked where the red-brown field-mouse ran, Loitered a while for a deep-stream bath, ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... around with the boat, Burney came out with the drag-hooks. Shawn sat at the oars and they started up the stream. The white pebbles on the shore gleamed in the rosy sunlight. A kingfisher perched on a rock by the stream, tilted his head to the side in a quizzical way and watched the boat approach. The leaves from the tall sycamores and cottonwoods came tumbling down to the edge of the water as if seeking to embark upon a journey southward. A little creek came pouring ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... bird in shape and general appearance is like the Kingfisher. Instead however of living on fish, he contents himself with lizards, beetles, grasshoppers, etc., and amongst these he makes a great havoc. The range of this bird did not extend beyond the lat. ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... were so numerous in all the Western country. The river enters this park from the solitudes of Red Canyon, a splendid chasm, 25 miles long, 2500 feet deep, and abounding in plunging waters. The name is from the colour of the sandstone walls. Above it are three short canyons, Kingfisher, Horseshoe, and Flaming Gorge, aggregating about 10 miles. There are there no rapids worth mentioning, but the scenic beauty is entrancing. The walls are from 1200 to 1600 feet, in places extremely precipitous. Flaming ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... sorry; but she jumped along merrily in the water, as a kingfisher does, and scarcely even wondered where its ...
— The Waters of Edera • Louise de la Rame, a.k.a. Ouida
... a-hidin' it, er jes' a-not a-keerin':— Kingfisher gittin' up and skootin' out o' hearin'; Snipes on the t'other side, where the County Ditch is, Wadin' up and down the aidge like they'd rolled their britches! Old turkle on the root kindo-sorto drappin' Intoo th' worter like he don't know how it happen! Worter, ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... monarch. In privy council it had already been determined that our rights should be swept into the hands of some greedy official from the court.[100] In 1686 James II. sent Sir Edmund Andros to New England as a "Commissioner" to destroy the liberty of the people. He came to Boston in the "Kingfisher, a fifty gun ship," and brought two companies of British soldiers, the first ever stationed in this town to dragoon the people into submission to an unrighteous law. Edward Randolph, the most determined enemy of the colony, greedily caressing the despotic hands that ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... Halcyon, or Kingfisher, (Alcedo-irpedo).] Esteemed the most beautiful of our native birds; but its form is clumsy, and its bill very disproportionate to its size. It inhabits the banks of rivers and streams, where it will sit for hours, on a projecting branch, watching for its prey. The ancients relate many fabulous ...
— The Peacock 'At Home:' - A Sequel to the Butterfly's Ball • Catherine Ann Dorset
... country, as an industrious collector from Sydney, who spent nine months on the northern and middle islands, obtained nearly a hundred species of terrestrial and fluviatile mollusca. The scarcity of birds during our walk surprised me, for the only one which I saw on shore was a solitary kingfisher (Halcyon vagans): during our ascent of the Keri-Keri, however, many ducks (Anas superciliosa) flew past the boat, and gulls, terns, and two ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... the old brook that had frightened him?" he wondered. "Perhaps it was only the hedge-hog waddling along back from the brook to his hole in the ledge above, or it might be the kingfisher, who had tired of the bend of the brook a week before and had changed his thieving ground to the rapids above, where he terrorized daily a shy family of trout, pouncing upon the little ones with a great splashing and hysterical chattering as they darted about, panic-stricken, ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... begins to redden the sky, large flocks of ducks and of a small Amazonian goose may be seen flying towards the lake. Here and there we see a cormorant, seated alone on the branch of a dead tree; or a kingfisher poises himself over the water, watching for his prey. Numerous gulls are gathered in large companies on the trees along the river-shore. Alligators lie on its surface, diving with a sudden splash at the approach of the canoe. Occasionally a porpoise emerges from ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... vaguely over the lake and said nothing. If she fixed her eyes on anything, it was on the quivering balance of a kingfisher in the air. When with a flash of silver and blue he swooped, and, without seeming to have touched the water, went skimming away with a fish in his bill, her eyes wandered slowly back in ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... A kingfisher sat on a flagpole slim, And watched for a fish till his eye was dim. "I wonder," said he, "if the fishes know That I, their enemy, love them so! I sit and watch and blink my eye And watch for fish and passers-by; I must occasionally take to wing On ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... A Kingfisher sat on the edge of a boat that a young man had prepared for a fishing expedition. A box of bait and a bucket to hold the fish were on one of the benches, whilst a fishing-rod lay across the boat, and its long line had a float at the ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... however high they went, the desert still blossomed like the rose. The fields were burnished in sun and wind with the colour of kingfisher and parrot and humming-bird, the hues of a hundred flowering flowers. There are no lovelier meadows and woodlands than the English, no nobler crests or chasms than those of Snowdon and Glencoe. But Ethel Harrogate ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... stealing along the border of the brook where it lay open to the day or was merely fringed by shrubs and bushes. I see the bittern rising with hollow scream as they break in upon his rarely-invaded haunt; the kingfisher watching them suspiciously from his dry tree that overhangs the deep black millpond in the gorge of the hills; the tortoise letting himself slip sideways from off the stone or log on which he is sunning himself; and the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... underneath white, and belted with blue or rusty. Bill large and heavy. Middle and outer toes joined for half their length. Call-note loud and prolonged, like a policeman's rattle. Solitary birds; little inclined to rove from a chosen locality. Migratory. Belted Kingfisher. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... 'Student,' April 1870, p. 125.) It is also remarkable that birds which sing well are rarely decorated with brilliant colours or other ornaments. Of our British birds, excepting the bullfinch and goldfinch, the best songsters are plain-coloured. The kingfisher, bee-eater, roller, hoopoe, woodpeckers, etc., utter harsh cries; and the brilliant birds of the tropics are hardly ever songsters. (40. See remarks to this effect in Gould's 'Introduction to the Trochilidae,' 1861, p. 22.) Hence bright colours and the power of song seem to replace ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... cuckoo answers the call of her mate with an alluring laugh that excites him to the utmost, but it is long before she gives herself up to him. A mad chase through tree tops ensues, during which she constantly incites him with that mocking call, till the poor fellow is fairly driven crazy. The female kingfisher often torments her devoted lover for half a day, coming and calling him, and then taking to flight. But she never lets him out of her sight the while, looking back as she flies, and measuring her speed, and wheeling back when he suddenly gives up ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... Little Tim seated himself for his luncheon on a knoll carpeted with thick, tufted grass. A kingfisher, disturbed by his arrival, went rattling on his way upstream. And as the boy drew from his dingy blouse a scrap of brown paper, enclosing a bit of bread and cheese, and laid it down beside him, the ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... around for a moment, as if to assure herself that all humanity was out of view, then dexterously dropped backwards flat upon the pony's back, her head over its tail, her feet against its shoulders, and her eyes to the sky. The rapidity of her glide into this position was that of a kingfisher—its noiselessness that of a hawk. Gabriel's eyes had scarcely been able to follow her. The tall lank pony seemed used to such doings, and ambled along unconcerned. Thus she ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... camp up that way, since the Indian advised it. On account of the rise of the Penobscot, the water ran up this stream quite to the pond of the same name, one or two miles. The Spencer Mountains, east of the north end of Moosehead Lake, were now in plain sight in front of us. The kingfisher flew before us, the pigeon woodpecker was seen and heard, and nuthatches and chickadees close at hand. Joe said that they called the chickadee kecunnilessu in his language. I will not vouch for the spelling of what possibly was never spelt before, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... was the daughter of olus and wife of Ceyx. When her husband died she was changed into a bird,—the kingfisher,—and, floating over the sea, she still calls for the lost Ceyx in tones full of plaining and tears. And "whensoever she makes her nest, a law of nature brings round what is called Halcyon's weather—days distinguishable among ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... pushes out farthest toward Spain and Africa and the southern stars. Their leathery leafage had sprouted in advance of the faint mist of yellow-green around them, and it was of another and less natural green, tinged with blue, like the colors of a kingfisher. But one might fancy it the scales of some three-headed dragon towering over a herd ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... is nothing else but ice strongly congealed; that a diamond is softened or broken by the blood of a goat; that bays preserve from the mischief of lightning and thunder; that the horse hath no gall; that a kingfisher hanged by the bill showeth where the wind lay; that the flesh of peacocks corrupteth not;' and so on—questions, it may be, as pertinent as those learnedly discussed in half-crown magazines ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... "Betsey Malcolm to thunder!" and then he whistled. "Set a dog to mind a basket of meat when his chops is a-waterin' fer it! Set a kingfisher to take keer of a fish-pond! Set a cat to raisin' your orphan chickens on the bottle! Set a spider to nuss a fly sick with dyspepsy from eatin' too much molasses! I'd ruther trust a hen-hawk with a flock of patridges ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... tell me, do the serpents ever appear? when? and where? Tell me all about their habits." "Do you see that beautiful white sandy beach?" said the bird. "Yes!" he answered. "It is there," continued the Kingfisher, "that they bask in the sun. Before they come out, the lake will appear perfectly calm; not even a ripple will appear. After midday (na-wi-qua) you will ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... protection of a pelisse lined with fur, and a dog's skin bonnet, such as was worn by the peasants, I walked daily on the ramparts, or on a sort of public ground or garden, in which was a pond. Here I had no companion but a kingfisher, a beautiful creature that used to glance by me. I consequently became much attached to it. During these walks I composed the poem that follows, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... mounted a leaf, and allowed me to see his pale yellow iris. Except for this mark, recognizable almost as far as the bird could be distinguished at all, he looked exactly like our common New England towhee. Somewhere behind me was a kingfisher's rattle, and from a savanna in the same direction came the songs of meadow larks; familiar, but with something unfamiliar about them at the same time, ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... red jay; a tiny gold-crest perched on a thorn branch; a kingfisher gleaming with turquoise hues, poised ready for a dive upon a froth-lapped stone. He was no cultured critic, but he knew the ways of the wild creatures and saw that she had talent, for her representations of them were instinct ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... indeed. Yet the form of bill most in use is very simple—just a plain pair of forceps, long and sharp-pointed like scissors. This is evidently hard to beat, for birds of many sorts use it, handling it variously. The kingfisher plumps bodily down on the minnow from an overhanging perch; the solan goose, soaring, plunges from a "pernicious height"; the heron, high on its stilts, darts out a long and serpentine neck; the diver, with similar beak and neck, but different legs, pursues the fleeing shoals ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... Sir W. Pen to St. James's, but the Duke is gone abroad. So to White Hall to him, and there I spoke with him, and so to Westminster, did a little business, and then home to the 'Change, where also I did some business, and went off and ended my contract with the "Kingfisher" I hired for Tangier, and I hope to get something by it. Thence home to dinner, and visited Sir W. Batten, who is sick again, worse than he was, and I am apt to think is very ill. So to my office, and among other things with Sir W. Warren 4 ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... interposed with a speech from the college steps, while the president, roused from his bed, half naked, took refuge on the shore, wandering over the island in the night to the old Stuyvesant mansion, whence he was the next day finally removed from America in his Majesty's vessel, the Kingfisher. The royal governor, Tryon, took refuge ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... long, and a second rather larger one lay close by. From time to time we caught sight of parties of blacks hidden amongst the rank vegetation of the shores, and we saw some beautiful birds, particularly a brilliant blue kingfisher, flashing about like a jewel in the sunlight. There was another pretty little red-beaked bird; and an enormous black crane, about four feet high, with white tips to his wings, and a red and blue topknot, stalked about among the lotus-lilies. One part of the river banks was covered ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... of blossoms, line the banks, scattering their fragrance far and near. The rancorous cry of the catbird, and the rattling call of the kingfisher, that feathered spirit of the stream, are left behind; the clear flutelike notes of the meadow lark take their place, and the hills, covered with wild flowers, roll back from its margin, as if to make ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... as if they would take no more part in the symphony of the year. Then, as if by preconcerted signal, they joined in: Crows cawed anxiously afar; Jays screamed in the woods; a Partridge clucked to its brood, like the gurgle of water from a bottle; a Kingfisher wound his rattle, more briefly than in spring, as if we now knew all about it and the merest hint ought to suffice; a Fish-Hawk flapped into the water, with a great rude splash, and then flew heavily away; a flock of Wild Ducks went southward overhead, and a smaller party returned beneath ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... straw, with a wreath of artificial daisies round the crown. When the tempered sunshine fell upon her as she stood up to sing, she looked like something composed of vivid color, light, and life—like a flower glowing in a garden, a kingfisher hovering over a stream, a rainbow trembling on the crest of a hill. Dale, watching her, thought that in comparison the other maidens on ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... aquaticus, Bechstein. French, "Aquassiere," "Cincle plongeur."—The Dipper or Water Ouzel, though not very common, less so, indeed, than the Kingfisher, is nevertheless a resident species, finding food all through the year in the clear pools left by the tide, and also frequenting the few inland ponds, especially the rather large ones, belonging to Mr. De ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... Long Ditton I had the delight, a day or two since, to see a kingfisher. There is a quiet lane, and at the bottom, in a valley, two ponds, one in enclosed grounds, the other in a meadow opposite. Standing there a minute to see if there was a martin among the birds with which ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies
... teni, gardi, konservi. kernel : kerno. kettle : kaldrono, bolilo. key : sxlosilo, (piano) klavo. kick : piedfrapi. kidney : reno. kill : mortigi, bucxi, senvivigi. kind : speco; afabla, bonkora kingdom : regno, regxlando. kingfisher : alciono. kiss : kisi. knapsack : tornistro. knave : fripono; (cards) lakeo. knead : knedi. knee : genuo. kneel : genufleksi. knife : trancxilo. knight : kavaliro. knit : triki. knock : frapi. knot : nodo, (in wood) lignotubero know : (—"a fact"), scii; (as a person) koni. knuckle ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... weapons and a pacific mission should wish to bombard the walls in the sacred cause of civilisation. Then the view was lost in the date-palm forest, through which tiny tributaries of the Tensift run babbling over the red earth, while the kingfisher or dragon-fly, "a ray of living light," flashes over the shallow water, and young storks take their first lessons in the art of looking ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... been lying there a full hour wondering vaguely of my last night's adventure, listening to the spring-time chorus of the birds, lazily and listlessly watching a bough that bent and waved its fan of foliage across my face, or the twinkle of the tireless kingfisher flashing down-stream in loops of light, when a blackbird lit on a branch hard by my left hand, and, all unconscious of an audience, began to pour forth his rapture ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the sunshine by the wide mouth of the Green River, as the chart named the brook whose level stream scarce moved into the lake. A streak of blue shot up it between the banks, and a shrill pipe came back as the kingfisher hastened away. By the huge boulder of sarsen, whose shoulder projected but a few inches—in stormy times a dangerous rock to mariners—and then into the unknown narrow seas between the endless osier-beds and ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... way, a natural weathercock instead of the gilded vane, as defined by Brown, would have been a rara avis: "A kingfisher hanged by the bill, converting the breast to that point of the horizon whence the wind doth blow, is a very ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... as familiarly as he had done in the days before his marriage. In his strong, almost passionate nature, there was one great weakness; the love and admiration of women was a necessity to him. He could no more help trying to make women love him, than the kingfisher can help thrusting down his beak when the bright speckled sides of his prey flash through the water. It was from neither cruelty nor vanity, for Thorne had less of both traits than usually falls to the lot of men; it was rather ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... a-hidin' it, er jes' a-not a-keerin':— Kingfisher gittin' up an' skootin' out o' hearin'; Snipes on the t'other side, where the County Ditch is, Wadin' up an' down the aidge like they'd rolled their britches! Old turkle on the root kindo-sorto drappin' Intoo th' worter like he don't know how it happen! Worter, ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... spoken, and even before they are quite clear to myself. Sometimes, when we are talking together, some subject comes up on which I do not care to express my opinion. Eleanor fixes her clear, penetrating eyes upon me, and drags my thought out into the light, just as a kingfisher pounces upon and pulls a fish out of the water. Had I anything to conceal, any secret, I should be afraid of her; and as it is, I do not like this invasion of my personal kingdom,—though my thoughts often acquire new strength and beauty ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... any case of both sexes, more especially of the female, [being] more brightly coloured whilst young than when come to maturity and fit to breed? An imaginary instance would be if the female kingfisher (or male) ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... streams, and so we adopt as names Kingfisher Creek, Kingfisher Park, and Kingfisher Canyon. At night we camp at ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... partridges in abundance, and snipe and wild-fowl resorted to the river in winter. Thither also, at all seasons, repaired the stately heron, to devour the finny race; and thither came, on like errand, the splendidly-plumed kingfisher. The magpie chattered, the jay screamed and flew deeper into the woods as the horsemen approached, and the shy bittern hid herself amid the rushes. Occasionally, too, was heard the deep ominous croaking of ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... doorway, and see a priest pacing in the chequered sunlight. Again, the foliage closed so thickly in front that there seemed to be no issue; only a thicket of willows, overtopped by elms and poplars, under which the river ran flush and fleet, and where a kingfisher flew past like a piece of the blue sky. On these different manifestations the sun poured its clear and catholic looks. The shadows lay as solid on the swift surface of the stream as on the stable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... course of the stream continually shut out the scene behind us and revealed as calm and lovely a one before. We glided from depth to depth, and breathed new seclusion at every turn. The shy kingfisher flew from the withered branch close at hand to another at a distance, uttering a shrill cry of anger or alarm. Ducks that had been floating there since the preceding eve were startled at our approach and skimmed along the glassy river, breaking its dark surface with a bright streak. The ...
— The Old Manse (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... meadows where the milkmaids stand thick and pale, and those green courts where lords and ladies live, Jan added that world of pleasure open to those gifted with a keen sense of form and color. Strange gleams under a stormy sky, sunshine on some kingfisher's plumage rising from the river, and all the ever-changing beauties about him, stirred his heart with emotions that he ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Whirr! a kingfisher darts down with a quick splash, and back to his bough with a fish in his beak. The canoe moves on, slowly, noiselessly; here the water is only three inches deep, but the soft bottom yields as the strong young arms ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... Aught but weeds and waving grasses To view the river as it passes, Save here and there a scanty patch 100 Of primroses too faint to catch A weary bee. And scarce it pushes Its gentle way through strangling rushes Where the glossy kingfisher Flutters when noon-heats are near, 105 Glad the shelving banks to shun, Red and steaming in the sun, Where the shrew-mouse with pale throat Burrows, and the speckled stoat; Where the quick sandpipers flit 110 In and out the marl and grit That seems to breed them, brown ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... was the river, and Patricia willed that they walk along its banks that they might see the white mist lift, and the silver flash of fish rising from the water, and the swoop of the kingfisher. Landless agreeing, they went down to the river, and standing upon a rocky spit of ground which ran far out into the stream, they looked down the misty expanse, then turned involuntarily and looked up. At that moment ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... wonderful eyes! Her dress—Felix had scanned many a crank in his day—was not so alarming as it had once seemed to Clara; its coarse-woven, deep-blue linen and needle-worked yoke were pleasing to him, and he could hardly take his gaze from the kingfisher-blue band or fillet that she wore ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... This personal magnetism which Mr. LLOYD GEORGE radiates in the House he radiates no less in 10, Downing Street, where a special radiatorium has been added to the breakfast-room to radiate it. Imagine an April morning, a kingfisher on a woody stream, poplar-leaves in the wind, a shower of sugar shaken suddenly from a sifter, and you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... could not have had a colour more adapted to render them inconspicuous, and that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the rocks which so constantly crop up on hill sides. Even the brilliant blue of the Kingfisher, which in a museum renders it so conspicuous, in its native haunts, on the contrary, makes it difficult to distinguish from a flash of light upon the water; and the richly-coloured Woodpecker wears the genuine dress of a Forester—the green coat ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... by and by a couple of stray moorhens make their appearance in the pool—strange birds, coloured glossy olive-brown, slashed with white, with splendid scarlet and yellow beaks! If by some strange chance a shining blue kingfisher were to appear it could not create a greater excitement. So much attention do they receive that the poor strangers have no peace of their lives. It is a happy time for the children, and a good time for the busy housewife, who has all the water she wants for cooking and washing ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... just above the reeds," he went on to say. "I remember noticing that tree leaning over the water. A kingfisher was sitting on it, when we came along, and flew off with a screech. And, according to my mind, the reeds will show up just around that ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson
... wandered upon the shallows, and the may-flies flickered and rustled round him like water fairies, with their green gauzy wings; the coot clanked musically among the reeds; the frogs hummed their ceaseless vesper-monotone; the kingfisher darted from his hole in the bank like a blue spark of electric light; the swallows' bills snapped as they twined and hawked above the pool; the swift's wings whirred like musket-balls, as they rushed screaming past his head; and ever ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... shadows fall Like balm upon me from the boughs o'erhead. My coming strikes a terror on the scene. All the sweet sylvan sounds are hushed; I catch Glimpses of vanishing wings. An azure shape Quick darting down the vista of the brook, Proclaims the scared kingfisher, and a plash And turbid streak upon the streamlet's face, Betray the water-rat's swift dive and path Across the bottom to his burrow deep. The moss is plump and soft, the tawny leaves Are crisp beneath my tread, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... A kingfisher shot across above the golden surface of the buttercups, straight for the brook, moving, as it seemed, without wings, so swiftly did he vibrate them, that only his azure hue was visible, drawn like a line of peacock ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... then a heron, rising from the river, trailed its long legs across the sky, or a kingfisher sparkled in his own splash. Once a lonely fisherman down by the Avon started a wild duck from the sedge, and away it went pattering up-stream with frightened wings and red feet running along the water. And then a river-rat plumped into the stream beneath the willows, and left ...
— Master Skylark • John Bennett
... she gave him an account of her rides and walks, and told him about the cattle and the progress of the farm generally, of how she had seen a kingfisher or noticed that the trout were rising, or that she had startled a covey of partridges in the young wheat; to all of which he seemed scarcely ever to listen, nodding his head now and again and returning ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... still on the bank and watch things happening: perhaps a water-rat will swim along suspecting nothing, and then, seeing you make a movement, will dive and disappear, and suddenly come into view ever so far away on the other bank. Perhaps a kingfisher will flash by or settle on a branch overhanging the water. Kingfishers grow more rare every year, owing to the merciless and unthinking zeal with which they are shot; and maybe before long there will be no more to be ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... but, as the dawn began to redden the sky, large flocks of ducks, and of the small Amazonian geese, might be seen flying towards the lakes. Here and there a cormorant sat alone on the branch of a dead tree, or a kingfisher poised himself over the water, watching for his prey. Numerous gulls were gathered in large companies on the trees along the river-shore; alligators lay on its surface, diving with a sudden plash at the approach of our canoe; and occasionally ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... carefully as I have done, and which will give you wealth and happiness. Ten years ago, the same year that your father died and your mother also left us, I went out one morning before daybreak to surprise the crabs asleep in the sand. As I was stooping down, hidden by a rock, I saw a kingfisher slowly floating toward the beach. The kingfisher is a sacred bird which should always be respected; knowing this, I let it alight and did not stir, for fear of frightening it. At the same moment I saw a beautiful green adder come from a cleft of the mountain and crawl along the ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... willows, "what will become of us? what will they make of us? Ssshhh, ssshhh." But no one replied, chiefly because no one knew, excepting the kingfisher, and he was ...
— Punch, July 18, 1917 • Various
... morning, ending the severest frost experienced this winter anywhere in England, and the valley was alive with birds, happy and tuneful at the end of January as in April. Looking down on the stream the sudden glory of a kingfisher passed before me; but the sooty-brown water-ouzel with his white bib, a haunter, too, of this water, I did not see. Within a mile or so of Wells I overtook a small boy who belonged there, and had been to Shepton ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... made a pretence of fishing. The loneliness of the lake and the isolation of the boat suited his humor. He did not find it true that misery loves company. At least to human beings he preferred his companions of Lone Lake—the beaver building his home among the reeds, the kingfisher, the blue heron, the wild fowl that in their flight north rested for an hour or a day upon the peaceful waters. He looked upon them as his guests, and when they spread their wings and left him again alone he felt he had been ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... Having, with great fatigue, cut open one of these eggs, we let out a young one unfeathered, considerably larger than twenty full-grown vultures. Just as we had given this youngster his liberty the old kingfisher lighted, and seizing our captain, who had been active in breaking the egg, in one of her claws, flew with him above a mile high, and then let him drop into the sea, but not till she had beaten all his teeth out of ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... endeavouring to maintain their flickering vitality. He tries experiments and has a taste for dissection. He proves by the evidence of his senses, and believes them in spite of the general report, that a dead kingfisher will not turn its breast to the wind. He convinced himself that if two magnetic needles were placed in the centre of rings marked with the alphabet (an odd anticipation of the electric telegraph, ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... be the stream's white face browning into willow-droopers, or a wagtail on a water-lily leaf, or the fore-horse of an up-river barge at strain of legs, a red-finned perch hung a foot above the pebbles in sun-veined depths, a kingfisher on the scud under alders, the forest of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... kingfisher waits until the ice has left the ponds and streams. Then we can hear him sound his rattle-like voice and watch him fishing. What a sure aim he has! See him hovering over the water, waiting for some small ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... our child, bare-legged, watching the forbidden ground beyond the river. A fresh breeze was moving the trees and making the whole a dazzling mass of shifting light and shadow. He sat so still that a glorious violet and red kingfisher perched quite close, and, dashing into the water, came forth with a fish, and fled like a ray of light along the winding of the river. A colony of little shell parrots, too, crowded on a bough, and twittered and ran to and fro quite busily, as though they said to him, "We don't mind you, my ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various
... in this spectacle stretched before us. An hour ago it had been so softly peaceful, with the little brook picking its clean way in the sunlight through the morass, and the kingfisher flitting among the willows, and the bees' drone laying like a spell of indolence upon the heated air. Now the swale was choked with corpses! The rivulet ran red with blood, and sluggishly spread its current around barriers of dead men. Bullets whistled across ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... wait five months—an age in the new country—before approving the Organic Act. The district, which a short time before had been the Unassigned Lands, became the counties of Logan, Oklahoma, Cleveland, Canadian, Kingfisher and Payne. To these was added Beaver County which in Brick Willock's day had been called "No-Man's Land," and which the law-abiding citizens, uniting against bandits and highwaymen, had sought to ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... KINGFISHER.—This beautiful bird signifies the return of someone for whom you have been longing; if flying, news of a surprising ...
— Telling Fortunes By Tea Leaves • Cicely Kent
... strengthened with his strength, so that by the time he had completed his eighth year he was familiarly acquainted with the animals of that region, and had the most lively admiration for the more interesting specimens. He watched with delight the kingfisher, and loved to distinguish the voices of ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... grandmother; but, as she had come to us for the express purpose of dying in her daughter's society, and from illness had lived perfectly secluded, our nursery circle knew her but little, and were certainly more affected by the death (which I witnessed) of a beautiful bird, viz., a kingfisher, which had been injured by an accident. With my sister Jane's death (though otherwise, as I have said, less sorrowful than perplexing) there was, however, connected an incident which made a most fearful impression upon myself, deepening my tendencies to thoughtfulness ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... the guns had not spoken, and the first report which awoke the echoes of the forest of the Far West was provoked by the appearance of a beautiful bird, resembling the kingfisher. ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... kingfisher!" said Rose, laughing. "But I don't believe we ought to have picked his flower. This is certainly a fairy place! Move on, or he may cast a spell over us, and we shall turn into ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... starts up from his bed in the meadow there, Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew, And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue! The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and ...
— Poems • Oscar Wilde
... would take nobody else; and hot day as it was, Bessie had never had such a charming walk. She kept herself from making one single fuss; and in return, he gathered wild strawberries for her, showed her a kingfisher, and took her to look in at a very grand aquarium in the fishing-tackle maker's window, where she saw some gold-fish, and a most comical little newt. And going home, they had a real good talk about their ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge |
