"Perch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... every one forgets that anything so fascinating can ever be other than good. When she is naughty the case is exactly reversed. This baby's proper name is Lullitha, which means Playfulness, and illustrates a side of her character undiscovered by the visitor who only sees the Owlet sitting on her perch with serious, watchful, unblinking eyes, regarding the intruder. But most babies are complex characters, and are not known in ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... thought twice before setting sail, when I was quite ready to do so; and as for Plymouth Rock, I should have sternly resisted the blandishments of those twin sirens, Starvation and Cold, who beckoned the Puritans shoreward, and as soon as ever I came in sight of their granite perch should have turned back to England. But it is now too late to repair these errors, and so, on one of the hottest days of last year, behold my obdurate bridal pair, in a Tenth or Twentieth Avenue horse-car, setting forth upon ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... melodiousness, these days, (last of April and first of May) from the blackbirds; indeed all sorts of birds, darting, whistling, hopping or perch'd on trees. Never before have I seen, heard, or been in the midst of, and got so flooded and saturated with them and their performances, as this current month. Such oceans, such successions of them. Let me make a list of those I ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... game-region ever visited by white men. From some who had made the trip I had heard wonderful stories of Nature's prodigality. There were roads made through tangled thickets by immense herds of buffaloes smashing their way five abreast. Deer were too innumerable to estimate. To perch a turkey merely required that one step a rod or two from the cabin door. Only the serious nature of my business, resulting from the very serious nature of the times, held ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... direction of their post, which was south of the crag. The infantrymen, tramped their fastest and the mounted men kept pace with them. They were evidently off on their wild- goose chase. As they came into sight below me, after passing my perch, I watched them double-quick northwards and wheel to their right into the first crossroad. They were barely out of sight among the forested hills when I saw momentarily, on the Highway, fully four miles to northward, ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... we are both undone," said Varney. "She has of late been casting many a backward look to her father's halls, whenever her lordly lover leaves her alone. Should this preaching fool whistle her back to her old perch, we were but ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... night a little child go singing 'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church, O bella liberta, O bella!—stringing The same words still on notes he went in search So high for, you concluded the upspringing Of such a nimble bird to sky from perch Must leave the whole bush in a tremble green, And that the heart of Italy must beat, While such a voice had leave to rise serene 'Twixt church and palace of a Florence street: A little child, too, who not long had been By mother's finger ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... an eddy of Yale or Princeton undergraduates swirled and tossed at command of the dancing dervish of a leader at the edge of the field below; the bright, buoyant aspect of the multitude as viewed en masse. Seeley leaned against the railing of his lofty perch and gazed at this pageant until a sporting editor, long in harness, nudged his elbow ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... some of the things that have puzzled you about me. Oh! I know they did; you needn't look apologetic. I don't wonder, or blame you. I am a very queer bird for the perch I have lit on; I know that as well as anybody. The only wonder is that you ever took the trouble to try to lime me. Now have another glass of toddy. Why! it is near twelve. I must have one pipe and turn in. No ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... his own offspring to sink into the same ashes; but he snatched the child from the flames and from the womb of his mother, and carried him into the cave of the two-formed Chiron. And he forbade the raven, expecting for himself the reward of his tongue that told no untruth, to perch any longer among the ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... many a church Uprise the prayer and supplicating psalm That Heaven would keep our spreading Eagle calm Upon his perch. ...
— The Battle of the Bays • Owen Seaman
... away Kyral laughed. "You've slipped the wrong hawk, Dallisa. The catmen killed him." His skean flicked loose. He climbed to a perch near the rope at my ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... did not; I could—I almost think I could be upon my oath he did not," she answered, gazing at Lord Hartledon with frightened eyes and white lips, which, to say the truth, rather puzzled him as he gazed back from his perch. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... cart was just starting homewards from the door of the Magpie and Stump. Joshua, reins in hand, and closely buttoned up to the chin, stood ready to mount to his perch, saying a few last words to the landlord, who was a crony of his; Tim was already in his place. From where he sat he could see something which interested and excited him a good deal, and this was an old woman close by who was selling ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... 'fool hen' or mountain grouse comes out and bobbles her head at the passing packtrain. A whistling marmot pops up from the rocks and pierces the stillness. Redwings and waxbills pick crumbs from every camp meal; and occasionally a bald-headed eagle utters a lonely raucous cry from solitary perch of dead ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... child. The asphalt burns. The garrulous sparrows perch on metal Burns. Sing! Sing! they say, and flutter with their wings. He does not sing, he only wonders why He is sitting there. The sparrows sing. And I Yield to the strait allure of ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... feeling for that pathetic little notch, to be made by herself, below middle C. She loathed this individual who could make a pun on the subject of Garth's blindness, and, in the back of her mind, Tommy seemed to join the duchess, flapping up and down on his perch and shrieking: "Kick him out! Stop ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... martens, and ermines, and fitchets, which in hard winter were caught in snares or gins. But of the kind of fish and fowl which bred therein, what can I say? In the pools around are netted eels innumerable, great water wolves, and pickerel, perch, roach, burbot, lampreys, which the French called sea-serpents; smelts, too; and the royal fish, the turbot [surely a mistake for sturgeon], are said often to be taken. But of the birds which haunt around, if you be ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... an eye they had made a complete volte-face, the waggon was lying on its side across the fairway, and its burden of logs had been distributed with a dull crash upon about a square perch of cobbles. ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... tiptoe, walked towards the shed, fumbled at the hasp and opened the door. It was pitch dark within and silent, till something rustled uneasily. There was a note of alarm and indignation. The cook tripped on a stone, and only saved himself from falling by clutching at a perch which a dozen fowls instantly vacated with loud and frenzied appeals for assistance. Immediately the shed was full of flapping wings and agitated hens darting wildly between his legs as he made for the door again, only to run into the arms of a man who came ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... thy delight, All sorrows at thy presence take their flight. For true it is, as in principio, Mulier est hominis confusio. Madam, the meaning of this Latin is, That woman is to man his sovereign bliss. 420 For when by night I feel your tender side, Though for the narrow perch I cannot ride, Yet I have such a solace in my mind, That all my boding cares are cast behind; And even already I forget my dream. He said, and downward flew from off the beam; For daylight now began apace to spring, The thrush to whistle, and the lark to sing; ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... suppose?" said the scout leader, nodding his head approvingly. "Making a little fireplace where he can perch his kettle, and have the hottest part of his fire under it. Note also that the opening is in the direction of the breeze. That allows the flame to be fanned. Wallace will never have to blow out his cheeks and puff to keep ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... as it were established his footing in the family, the negro removed the parrot to his perch, receiving a powerful bite of gratitude in the act, and invited the wife of Spotted Tiger to join the breakfast-party. This he did by the express order of Lawrence, for he would not himself have originated such a piece of condescension. Not knowing the dialect of that region, however, he failed ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... cesspools; the utter want of form, colour, life, in the whole place, crushed me down, without my being able to analyse my feelings as I can now; and then came over me that dream of Pacific Islands, and the free, open sea; and I slid down from my perch, and bursting into tears threw myself upon my knees in the court, and prayed aloud to God to ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... corncrakes were trilling in the meadow; it was very, very early.... My wife and I walked down to the pool and drew up the bow-net that Stiepan had put out in our presence the day before. There was one large perch in it and a crayfish angrily stretched ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... everything with a soft, mild radiance; and the trees, with their tracery of bough and twig, stood out distinctly. Before we could discover the creature, it flew with noiseless wing from a maple near the door to another perch up the lane, and again uttered its ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... of Holyrood There never squatted a more sordid brood Than that which now, across the clotted perch, Crookens the claw and screams ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... the quantity of fat it contains, fish may be divided into two classes: (a) dry, or lean fish, and (b) oily fish. Cod, haddock, smelt, flounder, perch, bass, brook trout, and pike are dry, or lean fish. Salmon, shad, mackerel, herring, eel, halibut, lake trout, and white fish are oily fish. (This latter group contains from 5 to ...
— School and Home Cooking • Carlotta C. Greer
... incontinently remarking: "Time alone can disclose what may be the end of this frivolity and talk!" After the flowery season of summer was gone, and the black time of winter was come, thorns took the station of the Rose, and the raven the perch of the Nightingale. The storms of autumn raged in fury, and the foliage of the grove was shed upon the ground. The cheek of the leaf was turned yellow, and the breath of the wind was chill and blasting. The gathering cloud ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... plate V shows him standing on three boxes and reaching upward, and figures 22, 27 and 28 show various modes of handling the boxes and of reaching from them. He was not at all particular as to the stability of his perch, and often mounted the boxes when it seemed to the experimenter inevitable that they should topple over and precipitate him to the floor. Only once, however, during the several days of experimentation did ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... is very amusing. One sees a little of everything here. Le monde qui passe—it makes life more diverting; it helps to kill the time. I look out from my perch, like a bird—a very old one, and caged"—and he shook forth a great laugh from ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... of my escape with amazement, saying, "You fell into the hands of the Old Man of the Sea, and it is a mercy that he did not strangle you as he has everyone else upon whose shoulders he has managed to perch himself. This island is well known as the scene of his evil deeds, and no merchant or sailor who lands upon it cares to stray far away from his comrades." After we had talked for a while they took me back with them on board their ship, where the captain received me kindly, and we soon set sail, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... And what do you think he did? He stood on the floor underneath the little Red Hen and twirled round in a circle after his own tail. And as he spun, and spun, and spun, faster, and faster, and faster, the poor little Red Hen got so dizzy watching him that she couldn't hold on to the perch. She dropped off, and the old Fox picked her up and put her in his bag, slung the bag over his shoulder, and started for home, ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant
... Willie slid from his exposed perch and safely gained the concealing shelter of the lower tree tops before the spy straightened up again. Willie climbed on down the tree and joined Roy at ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... along the gutters of the roof, Tom managed to reach the motor controls. He pulled out the electrical switch, and with a sort of cough and groan the motor stopped. The big propellers ceased revolving, and the aviator could leave his perch in safety. ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... laughs of free urchins. The sun warmed their plumage, the sweet poverty of the church captivated them. They felt at home there, as in some barn whose shutters had been left open, and screeched, fought, and squabbled over the crumbs they found upon the floor. One flew to perch himself on the smiling Virgin's golden veil; another, whose daring put the old servant in a towering rage, made a hasty reconnaissance of La Teuse's skirts. And at the altar, the priest, with every faculty ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... without difficulty, I found, as I had expected, that my lofty perch afforded a magnificent outlook over the plain in every direction. The ostriches whose movements I particularly desired to watch were now in plain view, and with the aid of my telescope I could not only distinguish the cocks from the hens, but could also perceive that the plumage of the former ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... I was safe; for had I even been seen by the officers in attendance, it would have been impossible to get me out again. I saw near me a large pyramidal stove, which, fortunately, had but little fire in it, and on which I forthwith clambered, until I had attained a secure perch, from which every part of the hall could be deliberately and distinctly surveyed. Depend upon it, I made ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... for the animals!" he shouted, in a voice so loud that the words were distinctly heard by Fred Munson from his perch in the tree. ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... piombo ai piedi, Per farti mover lento, com' uom lasso, Ed al si ed al no, che tu non vedi; Che quegli e tra gli stolti bene abbasso, Che senza disfcinzion afferma o nega, Nell' un cosi come nell' altro passo; Perch' egl' incontra che piu volte piega L' opinion corrente in falsa parte, E poi l' affetto lo intelletto lega. Vie piu che indarno da riva si parte, Perche non toma tal qual ei si move, Chi pesca per lo vero e noil ha l' ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... this season, therefore, the sportsman provides himself with tame pigeon, which he fastens by a string to the cimeaux, in such a manner that the poor bird is obliged to keep perpetually on the wing, not being allowed rope enough to reach a perch. After three or four Sundays passed in this manner, the unfortunate decoy dies of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... support of which he appealed to me. I was saved from deciding the question by the entrance of the father and mother. My old friend knew me at once, and presented his pretty wife to me with the same look of exultation with which he used to hold up a string of trout or an uncommonly fine perch of his own catching for my admiration, and then looking round on his fine family of children, two more of which he had brought home with him, seemed to say to me, "There! what do ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... trough, formed to contain flowers, the outer side of which is painted blue, to imitate water, with boats floating upon it. The wall behind this is painted with pillars, between which are balustrades of various forms. Cranes and other birds perch upon these, and there is a back ground of reeds and other vegetables, above which the sky is visible. The greater portion of the eastern side of the street is occupied by a row of shops with a portico in front of them. It is flanked on either side by footpaths, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... finished with a kiss, as she had begun, and the parrot moved uneasily on his perch at being disturbed with conversation at so late an hour, and the Java sparrows twittered a little; and I rose to go, only ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... squat, uncouth, stretching away on either side of the veranda-fronted store and "gambling hell" which formed a sort of center-piece around which revolved the whole life of the village. It was a poor, mean place, shapeless, evil-smelling in that pure mountain air. It was a mere shelter, a rough perch for the human carrion lusting for the orgy of gold which the time-worn carcass of earth should yield. What had these people to do with comfort or refinement? What had they to do with those things calculated to raise the human mind to a higher spiritual plane? Nothing. All that might ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... suddenly from her lofty perch. "I couldn't write a line of poetry if I tried from ...
— Betty Wales, Sophomore • Margaret Warde
... the wheel, a splendid figure of matchless energy and courage. Aloft the topmasts bent like whips; Stumpy's voice came down in ever-increasing fear as his perch grew shakier; the great expanse of canvas, which should have been treble-reefed even in a floating ship going forward, tore at boom-tackles and earrings, tacks, and mast-hoops, shaking the vessel to the keel and filling ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... cheerless, arid scene. The narrow, irregular streets are roughly paved; but the clouds of dust which one encounters in the dry season are almost suffocating. Now and then a few potted flowers in front of a low cabin, a bird cage with its chirping occupant, a noisy parrot on an exposed perch, a dozing cat before the door, all afford glimpses of domesticity; but, on the whole, this mining town, rich in native silver, gave us in its humbler portions the impression of being mostly composed of people half clothed and seemingly ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... made matters very hard for Simon. Simon had no sooner seated himself comfortably when Solomon Owl moved to a perch behind him. ...
— The Tale of Dickie Deer Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... came home, Dick was so much better that he had managed to fly up on his perch, and was eating seeds quite gayly. "Poor Dick!" said Carl, "A leg and a stump!" Dick imitated him in a few little chirps, "A ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... air was full of leather hats, spinning as the water struck them. Every now and then the hosemen elevated the nozzle and gave Colonel Gideon Ward his share. A half-dozen times he nearly fell off his perch and flapped out like a rag ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... of the youngsters marched out, Dick Haddon remained on his high perch. Kitty Grey, who brought up the tail of the procession, turned at the door and walked back to the master timorously and with downcast eyes; and Dick felt that a plea was to be made on his behalf, but ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... hearth, and the mother took her spectacles and read aloud out of a large book, and the two girls listened as they sat and spun. And close by them lay a lamb upon the floor, and behind them upon a perch sat a white dove with its head ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... deposited on shelves, forming a library of reference to the individual whose sanctum we are now describing: it was apparently undisturbed by any living occupant save a huge raven, now roosting on a wooden perch, his head buried under a glossy tissue of feathers, and to all appearance immovable as the grinning and hideous things that surrounded him. A magpie, confined in a cage above the door, was taught to salute ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... upon the ledge. For there was no iron fire escape outside; the nearest one came down the wall of the building to the kitchen window of the Gamboni family, to the left. And so Johnnie denied himself a perch on his sill—a dangerous position, as both Mrs. Kukor and Cis ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... chanak (gymnotus); ikan gajah (cepole); ikan karang or bonna (chaetodon), described by Mr. John Bell in Volume 82 of the Philosophical Transactions. It is remarkable for certain tumours filled with oil, attached to its bones. There are also the ikan krapo, a kind of rock-cod or sea-perch; ikan marrang or kitang (teuthis), commonly named the leather fish, and among the best brought to table; jinnihin, a rock-fish shaped like a carp; bawal or pomfret (species of chaetodon); balanak, jumpul, and marra, three fish of the mullet ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... forward. It curled again, hung suspended for the fraction of a moment, then licked along the sweating flanks, and horses and mules, bowed in a supreme effort, wrenched the wagon upward. Susan slid from her perch, feeling a sudden apathy, not only as from a tension snapped, but as the result of a backwash of disillusion. David was no longer the proud conqueror, the driver of man and brute. The ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... ashamed of myself—I really do," said a white cockatoo, as he sat on his perch one day. Then he gave himself a good shake, and after walking up and down once or twice, he continued, "I think it vexes the boy, and I can see he means to be kind. And, oh dear, dear! I see now I brought the troubles ...
— The Cockatoo's Story • Mrs. George Cupples
... birds, like sparrows, and perch on the roofs or chimneys—there are generally some on the roof of the Eglise Reformee Francaise, a church situated in a much-frequented part. It is amusing to see a black rook perched on a red tile chimney, with the smoke coming up around him, and darkening with soot his dingy plumage. ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... brought the car in triumph to the door and jumped down from her perch, her yellow curls on end in the wind, her hat flapping on her back, and the fur capes of her little coat standing up straight round her ears. She threw away the reins and ran to the horse's head, putting her cheek against his nose, petting him with her hands, and pouring ...
— Terry - Or, She ought to have been a Boy • Rosa Mulholland
... Stuck up there so stiff like a side of coarse leather. In fact, about him there's not one natural feather." Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch, The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic, And then fairly hooted, as if he should say, "Your learning's at fault this time, anyway; Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray. I'm ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... humming-bird. It had wings, white as the wings of the sea-gull, and as large over as a small lake. When it had come near the shore, its many wings were drawn up and hidden, and in their stead three tall poles were displayed, with many short ones crossing them, to one of which the Little Man jumped from his perch on the tree. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... was advancing with nervous strides along the gravel path which leads to the bronze doors of the Lethal Chamber. He paused a moment before the "Fates," and as he raised his head to those three mysterious faces, the pigeon rose from its sculptured perch, circled about for a moment and wheeled to the east. The young man pressed his hand to his face, and then with an undefinable gesture sprang up the marble steps, the bronze doors closed behind him, ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... comfortable, it was so narrow. The He imp would alight on the rail, about ten feet in front of her, and pretend to be very sick, squawking feebly and drooping his black wings with a struggling flutter, as if it was all he could do to keep his perch. The cat, her narrow eyes opening very wide, would start to creep up to him. The She imp would then alight on the rail behind her and nip her sharply by the tail, and go hopping clumsily off down the rail. ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... burrowing after statistics, gathers them with the industry of an insect, and serves them up on any one who will listen. Just now, while he wields his figures like weapons, the sharp ridges and angles and triangles that make up the paltry face where perch the double discs of his glasses, are contracted with vexation. He climbs to the firing-step (made in the days when this was the first line), and raises his head angrily over the parapet. The light touch of a little shaft of cold sunlight that ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... Richard was all but penniless. The pious, nonconformist soul of Sir Geoffrey Lupton—the wealthy uncle from whom he had had great expectations—had been so stirred to anger by Richard's vicious and besotted ways that he had left every guinea that was his, every perch of land, and every brick of edifice to Richard's half-sister Ruth. At present things were not so bad for the worthless boy. Ruth worshipped him. He was a sacred charge to her from their dead father, who, knowing the stoutness ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... circumstances that had already transpired, I might have taken it for such. Far different, however, was the impression it made upon me. I knew well why was that gathering around the house of Gayarre. I knew well the game they were about to pursue. I lingered but a moment upon my perch—long enough to perceive that the hunters were all mounted ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... the trouble that Seneca gives himself to fortify himself against death; to see him so sweat and pant to harden and encourage himself, and bustle so long upon this perch, would have lessened his reputation with me, had he not very bravely held himself at the last. His so ardent and frequent agitations discover that he was in himself impetuous ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... might have the pleasure of knocking him down. She is like a little songbird, sir,—a tremulous, fluttering little linnet that you would take into your hand, pavidam quaerentem matrem, and smooth its little plumes, and let it perch on your finger and sing. The Sherrick creates quite a different sentiment—the Sherrick is splendid, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the observation towers like on the Masonic Temple and the Wrigley Building. I headed for them right away, figuring to take a sandwich or so along and spend the day leisurely giving the city the once over from my eerie perch. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... sands no night-born dews distil, 460 Stay'd with vindictive hands the scanty rill.— Loud o'er the camp the Fiend of Famine shrieks, Calls all her brood, and champs her hundred beaks; O'er ten square leagues her pennons broad expand, And twilight swims upon the shuddering sand; 465 Perch'd on her crest the Griffin Discord clings, And Giant Murder rides between her wings; Blood from each clotted hair, and horny quill, And showers of tears in blended streams distil; High-poised in air her spiry neck she bends, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... Fire away, and don't miss!" cried Seth, hastily following Sol, who had climbed to the top of the dresser as a good perch from which to view ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... him perch, Quickened with guilty lightnings—there It shall in vain for terror search, Where a child's eyes beneath bloody hair Gaze purely through the ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... of King Charles II. a Sparrow-hawk escaped from the perch, and pitched on one of the iron crowns of the white tower, and entangling its string in the crown, hung by the heels and died. Not long after, another hawk pitched on one of the crowns. From Sir Edward ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... way-side pool, splashing and fluttering, with their long wings expanded like butterflies, keeping poised by a constant hovering motion, just tilting upon their feet, which scarcely touch the moist ground. You will seldom see them actually perch on anything less airy than some telegraphic wire; but, when they do alight, each will make chatter enough for a dozen, as if all the rushing hurry of the wings had passed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... encroachment of salt water. There was a general exodus of the finny tribes from the whole lower part of the river; it was like the spring and fall migration of the birds, or the fleeing of the population of a district before some approaching danger: vast swarms of cat-fish, white and yellow perch and striped bass were en route for the fresh water farther north. When the people along shore made the discovery, they turned out as they do in the rural districts when the pigeons appear, and, with small gill-nets let down through holes in the ice, captured them in ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... history of all the odd litter about the room, and how it came there. I wondered whether the two swollen faces were of Mr. Jaggers's family, and, if he were so unfortunate as to have had a pair of such ill-looking relations, why he stuck them on that dusty perch for the blacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving them a place at home. Of course I had no experience of a London summer day, and my spirits may have been oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... and markets, its life as a whole as I saw it in imagination, greatly attracted me. Just such a village was right on the other side of our garden wall, but it was forbidden to us. We had come out, but not into freedom. We had been in a cage, and were now on a perch, but the ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... The biggest of these amiable companions had to take their chance of seeing what they could through the forest of human legs; but every one that was portable was snugly lodged in the bend of an elbow, and from this safe perch scores and scores of small serious muzzles, blunt or sharp, smooth or woolly, brown or grey or white or black or brindled, looked out on the scene with the quiet awareness of the Paris dog. It was certainly a good sign that they had not ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... coral fragments torn off by the violence of the waves, which talus might, in course of time, become high enough to bring its upper surface within the limits of coral growth, and in that manner provide a sort of factitious sea-bottom upon which the coral embryos might perch. If, on the other hand, the level of the sea were slowly and gradually lowered, it is clear that the parts of its bottom originally beyond the limit of coral growth, would gradually be brought within ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... pallor; he sat down on the arm of the old chair, as, in old days, Jolyon himself used to sit beside his own father, installed in its recesses. Right up to the time of the rupture in their relations he had been wont to perch there—had he now reached such a moment with his own son? All his life he had hated scenes like poison, avoided rows, gone on his own way quietly and let others go on theirs. But now—it seemed—at the very end of things, he had a scene before him more painful than any he had avoided. He drew a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the Bluebottle and the Flesh-fly perch on the trellis-work, make a short investigation and then decamp. Throughout the summer season, for three whole months, the apparatus remains where it is, without result: never a worm. What is the reason? Does the stench of the meat not spread, coming from that ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... But the bird is in her manner. There's something tranquilly alert in her manner that's like a bird; like a bird that lingers on its perch, looking at you over its shoulder, if you come up behind. That trick of the heavily lifted, half lifted eyelids,—I wonder if it's a trick. The long lashes can't be; she can't make them curl up at the edges. Blood,—Lurella Blood. And she wants to know." ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... fishing tackle. When she saw her six schoolmates going about the work of tolling the finny denizens of Lake Dunkirk onto the bank, she began to be jealous of the fun they were having. White perch, and roach, and now and then a lake ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... overgrown ape a mirror, and the poor wretch spent its time staring at its image, neglecting its food and snarling at its companions. The beast would catch the reflection of another ape in the glass and quickly bound to a more remote perch. The keeper told me that for a week his charge had barely eaten. It slept with the mirror held tightly in its paws. Now, what did the mirror mean to the animal! I believe"—here she became very vivacious—"I really believe that it was developing self-consciousness, and in time it would ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... head should not disturb its equilibrium. The size and form of the feet, of the leg, and of the thigh prove that they could hold themselves erect with firmness, their wings folded, and move about in this way like birds, just as More describes them as doing. Like birds they could also perch on trees, and could crawl like bats and lizards along the rocks ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... holding the piece of branch in one hand, the bird in the other. He glanced at us to see if we were watching him, and then smoothing the feathers quickly, he began to buzz and whirr like a beetle, as cleverly as a ventriloquist. Next he made the dead bird he held dart from its perch, and imitated the quick flight of one chasing a large beetle through the air, catching it, and returning to its perch, where with wonderful accuracy he went through the movements of it swallowing its prey, and then ruffling itself up again ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... be somewhat crowded. A house 24 feet long, 10 feet wide, 5 feet high behind and 8 feet in front, and having four roosting poles, all on a level and only a foot from the floor, will hold 60 to 80 fowls. This manner of arranging the roosts prevents a good deal of quarreling to get on the top perch. ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... considerable degree a leading quality of his race—somnolency. Many an hour could the family of Washington see the canoe fastened to a stake, with the old fisherman bent nearly double enjoying a nap, which was only disturbed by the jerking of the white perch caught on his hook. But, as we just said, the domestic duties of Mount Vernon were governed by clock time, and the slumbers of fisher Jack might occasion inconvenience, for the cook required the fish at a certain hour, so ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... attempt to entice a star To perch upon my finger; or the wind To follow me like a dog—as try to make Some people ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... all being ready for the start, Ung Jerry climbed slowly to his perch on the cart's edge, gave a jerk to the rope bridle, and Rachel moved off, closely followed by Drive, who, conscious of egg-sucking and fearful of its consequences, had prudently ensconced himself beneath the cart, from whence he eyed, suspiciously, ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... will, Aunt Kitty. There are obstacles in the way. You must be granny, and mother, and sister and wife, and all my womankind, a little longer, if you please.' And he sat down fondly at her feet, on a footstool which had been his childish perch. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that she did not reciprocate his manner, and he was speedily engaged in a discussion as to the best method of preserving the eagle in the most life-like attitude. After a general family council it was decided that his future perch should be in a corner of the parlor, and within a few days he occupied it, looking so natural that callers were often startled by his ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... ever of a contented spirit. I mind her, when she was a tiny child; if no one would play with her, she would sit by the hour talking with her dolls, till someone could spare time to perch her on his shoulder, and take ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... in one of the upper branches of the same tall maple. This robin had always recognized the right of the oriole parents to their share of the tree, but the young one was a stranger, and he fell upon him accordingly. He knocked him off his perch; the unfortunate little fellow fell a few feet, then gathered himself, fluttered and caught at the outside of a clump of leaves on the end of a twig, where after frantic struggling he managed to secure a hold. Perhaps the ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... pompous Crevel. "Madame la Baronne, I throw myself at your feet! Good Heavens, how the children grow! they are pushing us off the perch—'Grand-pa,' they say, 'we want our turn in the sunshine.'—Madame la Comtesse, you are as lovely as ever," he went on, addressing Hortense.—"Ah, ha! and here is the best of good money: Cousin Betty, the ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... passion for fishing, which he usually indulged whenever the season and business permitted. One day, when reports had been coming in relating to the bass and perch, he announced his intention of making a two or three days' visit to the lakes. He was going down, he said, to Reedy Lake with Judge Archinard, ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... kingfisher dived for him, missed him by a hair's-breadth, and flew back, scolding and chattering, to his perch on an old stub that leaned far out over the water. And once he had a horrible vision of an immense loon close behind him, with long neck stretched out, and huge bill just ready to make the fatal grab. He dodged and got away, but it frightened him about as badly as anything can frighten a creature ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... the bird whose mode of life habituates it to perch on trees, and which is born of individuals who have all contracted this habit, has necessarily the digits of the feet longer and shaped in another way than those of the aquatic animals which I have just mentioned. Its claws, after a while, became elongated, pointed, ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... was not to be denied, however, that he had barked; and the strange sound—it was part bark, part growl, and in part a bloodhound's bay—brought Finn from the near-by orchard, and Betty Murdoch from the morning-room, and the Master from his study, and the Persian cat from her perch on the hall mantelshelf; so Master Black-and-Gray had no lack of audience, and, indeed, received an almost embarrassing amount of congratulation, in the course of which he made shift to get a good sniff at Desdemona's legs and satisfy himself that ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... for Flabeau's boy (they never knew his name); for, as if the wedding had flown to his head, he lost his youthful heart to one of the lively damsels who invaded his perch. Such tender glances as his China-blue eyes cast upon her; such grins of joy as he gave when she spoke to him; such feats of agility as he performed, leaping down to gather flowers, or hurling himself over thorny hedges, to point out a dolmen or a menhir (they never could ...
— Shawl-Straps - A Second Series of Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... had his reward in the look of dumb gratitude Rupert gave him when a roomy carriage had been secured, and they were all packed in as tight as sardines in a tin, with Don and Billykins sharing the driver's perch, and making shrill ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... another world to fatten round their feet. There are humble and modest plants, too, here—and those some of the loveliest—which have long since cast away all ambition, and are content to crouch or perch anywhere, if only they may be allowed a chance ray of light, and a chance drop of water wherewith to perfect their flowers and seed. But, throughout the great republic of the forest, the motto of the majority is—as it is, and always has been, ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... "eu" and a French "i." These words I am told mean, "Drunk again to-day also?" the "anc'uei" being a Piedmontese patois for "ancora oggi." The bird repeated these words three or four times over, and then turned round on its perch, to all appearance terra cotta again. The effect produced upon the drunkard was such that he could never again be prevailed upon to touch wine, and ever since this chapel has been the one most resorted to by people who wish to ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... that the least touch is enough to hold the object. I find Midges, Plant-lice and Ants caught in it, as well as tufted seeds which have blown from the capitula of the Cichoriaceae. A Gad-fly, as big as a Blue bottle, falls into the trap before my eyes. She has barely alighted on the perilous perch when lo, she is held by the hinder tarsi! The Fly makes violent efforts to take wing; she shakes the slender plant from top to bottom. If she frees her hinder tarsi she remains snared by the front tarsi and has to begin all over again. I was doubting ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... curious coincidence: three grosbeaks—two males and a female—had dropped out of a tree into the undergrowth; and then, five minutes later, three crossbills—two males and a female—had risen out of the same undergrowth, and taken almost the very perch which the others had quitted! Had this strange thing happened? Or had my eyes deceived me? This was my dilemma, on the sharp horns of which I tried alternately for the next eight days to make ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... the plain, and straightway, from various quarters of the heavens, you will see little specks which grow and float, and circle and grow, until they assume the ugly form and huge proportions of unclean vultures, which will perch on the carcass, and make away with it in a remarkably short space of time. It was only the skin and bones of the ox which rendered themselves obnoxious at Smith's. Vultures had cleared out of it every morsel ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... have all the four wings of my birds to trim your hats with, Brown-Eyes," said Maurice, as he clambered dripping into the boat. "Neal will stuff his bird for you and perch him on a stone. You shall have him to set on the top of your new bureau, the one Aunt Estelle sent you when she escaped from Paris without having her ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... the mighty Saskatchewan. Beyond that, drowsing in a pale blue haze, lay the broad valley, and beyond that again the vast purpling panorama of rolling prairie and black pinewoods until earth and sky were merged in indistinctness and became one. It resembled a perch on the side of the world, a huge eyrie with cliffs above and cliffs below, with apparently only that little passage, the old creek bed, by which one might get there. Dorothy realised that people might ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie
... could get across the room to look, Mr. Birdie had hopped off its new perch, and the experiment had ...
— Hoodie • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... bird, hath perch'd upon a spray For thee and me to hearken what he sings. Contented, he forgets to fly away; But hush!... remind ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... to that date there had been allowances made to tenants at the rate of about 1,000l. per annum. Yet when I took up the estate there was not one drain made by a tenant, not one slated house, not a perch of road, not a yard of sub-soiled land. I then adopted the system of making all improvements myself, charging interest of the outlay upon the occupier according to the circumstances and increased value of the farm. The result has been that in five-and-twenty ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... beside a long, heavy wagon, such as is used in the Eastern States for drawing wood, springless, with boards laid across for seats, and with no means of access save the clumsy wheels. Upon an elevated perch in front sat the driver, grinning over his shoulder at the scrambling crowd of passengers, most of whom were now loaded upon the wagon, while a circle of disappointed aspirants danced wildly around it, looking for a yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... than just calling attention to the nondescript gilt monster, with its riveted wings and forked tongue and tail, which glares down on us from its perch above the Town Hall, in the High Street; or to a "cigar" vane (over 2 ft. long and as thick as a bludgeon), large enough to give Verdant Green's famous "smoke" many points, hoisted over an enterprising tobacconist's a little lower down; or to the skewered and unhappy-looking ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... lesser number: how, for instance, could a pouter be produced by crossing two breeds unless one of the parent-stocks possessed the characteristic enormous crop? The supposed aboriginal stocks must all have been rock-pigeons, that is, they did not breed or willingly perch on trees. But besides C. livia, with its geographical sub-species, only two or three other species of rock-pigeons are known; and these have not any of the characters of the domestic breeds. Hence the supposed aboriginal stocks must either still exist in the ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... great, mean, brown bird in the Zooelogical Gardens, which sits so tame on its perch, and droops and slouches like a drowsy duck! That is the great and soaring eagle. Who would believe it, to look at him? Yet all he wants is to be put in his right place instead of his wrong. He is not himself in man's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... mottled, carp, turbot, tench, perch, fresh sturgeon with whelks, porpoise roasted, memis fried, crayfish, prawns, eels roasted with lamprey, a leche called the white leche flourished with hawthorn leaves and red haws, and a march pane, garnished with figures of angels, having among them an image of St. Katherine ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... flew down from his perch and said, "Cock-a-doodle-do" three times and a half, and after that the owl flew away. "That was very kind of you," said the little rabbit. "Oh, don't mention it," said the red rooster, "but there is one thing you can do for me." "What's that?" asked Billy Bunny. "Take me Luckymobiling," ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah, sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and grey)—a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... sport!" tapping the parrot on the back with the perch which he used as a baton. Blinking and muttering, the bird performed his tricks, and was duly rewarded and returned to his home of iron. "She'll be wanting to take you home with her, ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... and one of these proved an attractive bait. The line was no sooner cast into the water, than the hook was seized, and many were the brilliant specimens of sun-fish that our eager fishermen cast at Catharine's feet, all gleaming with gold and azure scales. Nor was there any lack of perch, or that delicate fish commonly known in these waters ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... straight to her through the maze of old and young trees and had the exquisite joy of seeing her flush with surprise and pleasure at sight of him. Here indeed she felt was the one addition to her day that she needed. She did not descend from her perch, and it was his hand which steadied her there when excitement ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... pounds of grossness to boil down before making track weight, but the opening spring handicap was five months off, and Crimmins believed in the "slow and sure" adage. Major Calvert, his old weather-beaten duster fluttering in the wind, took his accustomed perch on the rail, while Garrison prepared ...
— Garrison's Finish - A Romance of the Race-Course • W. B. M. Ferguson
... very many may appear as potent as any of the preceding reasons,—I had in my boyhood a strange fancy for church-belfries and liberty-poles. This fancy led me, in school-vacations, to perch my small self for hours on the cross-beams in the old belfry, and to climb to the very top of the tall pole which still surmounts the little village-green. In my youth, this feeling was simply a spirit of adventure; but as I grew older it deepened into a reverence for what those old ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... This perch of Ann Gossaway's was the eyrie from which she swept the village street, bordered with a double row of wide-spreading elms and fringed with sloping grassy banks spaced at short intervals by hitching-posts and horse-blocks. Her ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... last words of this unique duet had died on the ear, Comical Codman on his distant perch straightened up, and, triumphantly clapping his sides like the boastful bird whose crowing he could so wonderfully imitate, raised his shrill, loud, and long-drawn kuk-kuk-ke-o-ho in a volume of sound that thrilled through the forest and sent its repeating ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... bird of the groves and bushy fields, where his bright song may be heard all through the long summer day. I hear it in the dry and parched August when most birds are silent, sometimes delivered on the wing and sometimes from the perch. Indeed, with me its song is as much a midsummer sound as is the brassy crescendo of the cicada. The memory of its note calls to mind the flame-like quiver of the heated atmosphere and the bright glare of the meridian ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... good; the days are hot and summer-like. Yesterday in the press of bad smells I got a whiff of a hedgerow in bloom. The birds perch on the trees over our heads and twitter away as if there was nothing to worry about. Bonfire is still well. I do hope he ...
— In Flanders Fields and Other Poems - With an Essay in Character, by Sir Andrew Macphail • John McCrae
... what he himself thought of the importance of taking Richmond. That, no doubt, would be a great advantage, but the loss of a recognized seat of government, with its diplomatic and other traditions, would have been of vastly more fatal consequence to us than the capture of their provisional perch in Virginia would have been to the Rebel authorities. It would have brought foreign recognition to the Rebels, and thrown Maryland certainly, and probably Kentucky, into the scale against us. So ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... to the door. Morning and night comes the stage-coach, and we inspect the outside passengers, almost face to face with us, from our parlor-windows, up one pair of stairs. Little boys, and J——- among them, spend hours on hours fishing in the clear, shallow river for the perch, chubs, and minnows that may be seen flashing, like gleams of light over the flat stones with which the bottom is paved. I cannot answer for the other ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had leaped down from her high perch, and was now taking a drink from a little sparkling mountain rill which flowed through ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... on his high perch; and it was not until the shrill voices of the Wanderer and his Wife warned him, that he realized that he was home at last and that another rainstorm ...
— Master Sunshine • Mrs. C. F. Fraser
... stand on the air And no sun shining? How can you hold yourself so still On raindrops sliding? They change and fall, they are not steady, But you do not know they are gone. Is there a silver wire I cannot see? Is the wind your perch? Raindrops slide down your little shoulders . . . They do not wet you: I think you are not real In your green feathers! You are not a humming-bird at all Standing on air above the garden! I dreamed you the way I dream fairies, Or the ...
— Poems By a Little Girl • Hilda Conkling
... has him," answered the Little Colonel, laughing hysterically now that her temper had spent itself. "You girls look too funny for any use. Come down off your perch on that wardrobe, Joyce. It was only an old pet that the boys bought from a tramp one time. They keep it up at 'Fairchance,' the home that Mr. MacIntyre founded for little waifs and strays. I s'pose that is what Malcolm meant ...
— The Little Colonel's House Party • Annie Fellows Johnston
... according to its different significations, often has a different origin; as, to bear a burden, from fero; but to bear, whence birth, born, bairn, comes from pario; and a bear, at least if it be of Latin original, from fera. Thus perch, a fish, from perca; but perch, a measure, from pertica, and likewise to perch. To spell is from syllaba; but spell, an inchantment, by which it is believed that the boundaries are so fixed in lands that none ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... and his outbursting beam Touched tower and tree and pasture hills aboon; The stars were quenched, and vanished was the moon; Loud lowed the herds and the glad partridge' cry Made corn-fields musical as groves at noon; Birds left the perch, bee following bee hummed by, And gladness reigned on earth and brightness ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... as she spreads her hand, th' aerial guard Descend, and sit on each important card: First Ariel perch'd upon a Matadore, Then each, according to the rank they bore; For Sylphs, yet mindful of their ancient race, 35 Are, as when women, wondrous fond of place. Behold, four Kings in majesty rever'd, With hoary whiskers and a forky beard; And four fair Queens whose hands sustain a flow'r, ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... turf, and spread some of it on the side of the road for the donkey. While he did so a woman who wore a white cap, a grey bodice, a thick woollen red petticoat, under which her bare lean legs showed, came to the door, waving the yellow hen off her perch. ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... From their perch on this rocky wall these great birds would soar away, looking like a cloud in the sky, to seize a reindeer from a passing herd and bring it to their young. Or, again, they would circle out with a noise like thunder from their shaking wings, and drop down upon a fisherman in his kayak on the ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... one of her young ones. Having done so, for some time, with a great deal of grief and sorrow, and the Fox continuing still to demand it of her, she, at last, made her complaint to the Raven, who chanced to come and perch herself on the same tree; grievously bemoaning her fate, that she, like a good mother, to provide for her children, was at last obliged to make them a sacrifice to such a villain. But the Raven, who was not so ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... an upside-down bucket for a seat. Nothing more uncomfortable for a fat man can be imagined, yet Cheon sat on his rickety perch, for the most part chuckling and happy. Perhaps, like Mark Tapley, he felt it a "credit ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... man, however (if all tales be true), who determined to cure the filthy habits of his hogs by making them roost upon the branches of a tree, like birds. Night after night the pigs were hoisted up to their perch, and every morning one of them was found with its neck broken, until at last there were none left.—And quite as witless, surely, was the device of the men of Belmont, who once desired to move their church three yards farther westward, so ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... old gentleman, having finished his oration, settled himself on a great bench inside the chimney, and put his hawk on a perch over his head, while his cockers coiled themselves up close to the warm peat-ashes, and his son set to work to pull off his father's boots, amid sundry warnings to take ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... that I contrived, straightened its little leg, warmed the injured bone by sucking it, and strapped it to little wooden splints. And behold it really set: the bird got quite well and fluttered about the workshops again as sound as before, and whenever it saw me it would perch upon my shoulder and peck very gently at my hair ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... overshadowing masses of oak, which give to Monmouthshire, and its neighbouring county of Glocester, that rich and majestic appearance which so decidedly marks the character of those counties. However, we are now at the inn at Pont Ouilly. A dish of river fish, gudgeons, dace, and perch, was speedily put in requisition. Good wine, "than which France could boast no better!" and a roast fowl, which the daughter of the hostess "knew how to dress to admiration" ... was all that this humble abode could afford us." "But ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... once who was versed in book-lore, but, worse luck to him, he could not bind a wheat-sheaf or weed a perch of parsnips, and the result—bankruptcy; failure. ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... sap, and everyone seemed interested in the great bales of dried raw rubber, while questions, opinions, and discussions were many regarding this little known raw product. Even the great scarlet and blue macaw, from his high perch overhead, joined in with wild screeches when ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... the golden blackbird standing on a wooden perch, but as stiff and rigid as if he was dead. And beside, was the beautiful cage, the ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... to the tower of the church, Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, To the belfry-chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Masses and moving shapes of shade— Up the light ladder, slender and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the quiet town, And ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... riding. Young girls giggle, mature ladies squeal, middle-aged men grab hold of something firm and say nothing, while impenitent sinners often express themselves in terms that cannot properly be published. The acute trouble takes place just after mounting the beast and just before leaving the lofty perch occupied by passengers on his back. A saddle is placed upon his upper deck, a sort of saw-horse, and the lower legs stretch at an angle sufficiently obtuse to encompass his breadth of beam. This saw-horse is lashed to the hull with ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... side of the willowy stream; And he talked and told me tales of the war unwaged as yet, And the victory never won, and bade me never forget, While I walked on, still unhappy, by the home of the dark-striped perch. Till at last, with a flash of light and a rattle and side-long lurch, I woke up dazed and witless, till my sorrow awoke again, And the grey of the morn was upon us as we sped through the poplar plain, By the brimming streams and ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... moonshine, of his mistress's eyes; The steed is dreaming, in his stall, Of one long breathless leap and fall; The hawk hath dreamed him thrice of wings Wide as the skies he may not cleave; But waking, feels them clipped, and clings Mad to the perch 'twere mad to leave: The child is dreaming of its toys; The murderer, of calm home joys; The weak are dreaming endless fears; The proud of how their pride appears; The poor enthusiast who dies, Of his life-dreams the sacrifice, Sees, as enthusiast ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... a villa on the Brenta Where the statues, white as snow, All along the water-terrace Perch like sea-gulls ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... and the archbishop's despair at the catastrophe—and feeling the while a proud personal interest in it all. Ah, what good days those were, roaming about knee-deep in heather, catching the rare moths, chasing the squirrels that whisked up the fir stems and mocked us from their high perch, searching the hollow trees for woodpeckers' nests, eating the beech-nuts or pricking our fingers as we tried to open the husks of the Spanish chestnuts that grew by the lake! From among the bulrushes ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... when all the rest of the world lay in the fierce glare of the scorching sun, who could blame the children for choosing to perch themselves on the old garden wall, where it was so cool, and shady, and enticing? And who, as Kitty often asked tragically in the days and weeks that followed, could have known that by doing so "they were altering their ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... myself quieted me for a time, and I felt a certain joy when I saw the bird slowly descend, and having spied my uncomfortable boat, perch heavily on the other end of it. He did not do so until he had looked at me with evident alarm; and, worn out as he was, and his heart beating as though it would burst through his yellow coat, he still kept his eyes ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... hives are governed by a long lever in the shape of a hen-roost, so that the hives may all be closed seasonably and regularly, by the crowing and cackling tribe, when they go to bed at night, and opened at once when they fly from their perch, to greet the merry morn. Alas! that so much ingenuity should be all in vain! Chickens are often sleepy, and wish to retire sometime before the bees feel that they have completed their full day's work, and some of them ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth |
