"Reptile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have undergone a wonderful Metamorphosis: Formerly you were a Horseman, and now of a Centaur, you are become a Kind of semi-reptile Animal. ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... promptly to attack the crocodile, if it rises to the surface; but there is small chance of rescue. If the victim has sufficient presence of mind and strength to thrust his thumbs against the eyes of the reptile it may release him, escape in this way is not unknown. In the case of a fatal issue, the men of the village turn out to avenge the outrage, and, in the case of the seizure of an important person, those of neighbouring villages will join them. All available boats ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... mouth, and that the frog would sit at the edge of an ant-hill and throwing out the tongue with its sticky point, would pick off the ants one by one as they came out. When I learnt all this, I began to watch such a curious reptile; my fears vanished, and like Kingsley's little daughter, who had been wisely led to care for all living things and came running to show her father a "dear delightful worm" she had found! so I, too, have been led all through my life to regard every created thing, ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... turned it bottom up, while four of them placed their heads beneath and rested the gunwales upon their capote-bepadded shoulders. As they carried it off, one was reminded of some immense antediluvian reptile crawling ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... mail-coat of gold that was found among them, and he put on the Helmet of Dread, which had once been the terror of the mid-world, and the like of which no man had ever seen; and then he gazed with greedy eyes upon the fateful ring, until he, too, was changed into a cold and slimy reptile,—a monster dragon. And he coiled himself about the hoard; and, with his restless eyes forever open, he gloated day after day upon his loved gold, and watched with ceaseless care that no one should come near to despoil him of it. This was ages and ages ago; and still he wallows among ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... standard theologian of the evangelical party, declared: "We have no reason at all to believe that the animal had a serpentine form in any mode or degree until its transformation; that he was then degraded to a reptile to go upon his belly imports, on the contrary, an entire loss and alteration of the original form." Here, again, was a ripe result of the theologic method diligently pursued by the strongest thinkers in the Church during nearly two thousand years; but this ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... swear, while his eyes flashed like the fires of an orthodox perdition. We have heard him hiss, and seen him writhe his body like the serpent when crawling, and dart out his tongue, and play it exactly like that reptile. These exhibitions were intermingled with the ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... Eliaures fell under the influence of a wicked woman, who, to satisfy her pique against Caradoc, persuaded the enchanter to fasten on his arm a serpent, which remained there sucking at his flesh and blood, no human skill sufficing either to remove the reptile or alleviate the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... been of some light colour, but had changed to a greenish hue. It was bound to the waist by a sash or belt of a darker shade. Her bosom was bare, and bore the same sickly hue of pale green; her face was placid; the eyes were open; but one of the balls had been extracted by some reptile of the deep; her long hair flowed among the weeds; and, hanging from the lobe of the left ear, I saw a clear gem that shone with the brightness of the stone called aqua marina. One of the arms had been taken off a little above the ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... eyes closed and the reptile began to move backward with incredible swiftness, lashing about on the ground before us with other tentacles similar to the one that ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... saw that far behind rose the tufted tail of the king of the forest. From the two great eyes of the gigantic reptile shone dazzling streams of white light, like the rays of a mariner's beacon, and everywhere twinkling yellow lights were moving about the face of the great rock, across the platform whereon the colossal figure rested, even to the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... wronged the dame Were base as spotted infamy! "And if they dare deny the same, My herald shall appoint a week, And let the recreant traitors seek 440 My tourney court—that there and then I may dislodge their reptile souls From the bodies and forms of men!" He spake: his eye in lightning rolls! For the lady was ruthlessly seized; and he kenned 445 In the beautiful lady the ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... empties itself into Clew Bay. A grand range of mountains rises around, the pyramidal form of Croagh Patrick dominating the quay. It was from the summit of this magnificent height that Saint Patrick sent forth the command which banished from the Green Isle the whole of the reptile tribe. "The Wicklow Hills are very high, An' so's the hill of Howth, Sir; But there's a hill much higher still, Aye, higher than them both, Sir! 'Twas from the top of this high hill Saint Patrick preached ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... the good burghers a severe jolt. They had a seven-headed serpent that was one of the wonders of the town. The keen sight of the young naturalist detected the fraud at once; the heads were weasels' heads, covered with serpent's skin and cunningly sewed on the head of the reptile. The shape of the jaws betrayed the trick. But the Hamburgers were not grateful. The serpent was an asset. There was a mortgage on it of ten thousand marks; now it was not worth a hundred. They took it very ill, and Linnaeus found ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... antithesis. Amphibious thing! that acting either part, The trifling head or the corrupted heart, Fop at the toilet, flatterer at the board, Now trips a lady, and now struts a lord. Eve's tempter thus the Rabbins have exprest, A cherub's face, a reptile all the rest; Beauty that shocks you, parts that none will trust; Wit that can creep, and pride that licks the dust. Not fortune's worshipper, nor fashion's fool, Not lucre's madman, nor ambition's tool, Not proud, ...
— English Satires • Various
... distinguishable double star, of which each component was visible to the naked eye. And very, very far away he heard the beastly yellings he knew must be the outlaws, the Ragged Men, feasting horribly on half-scorched flesh torn from the quivering, yet-living flanks of a monstrous reptile. ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... circles of flame, and all at once lifted themselves up as if in angry surprise. Then for the first time thrilled in Mr. Bernard's ears the dreadful sound that nothing which breathes, be it man or brute, can hear unmoved,—the long, loud, stinging whirr, as the huge, thick bodied reptile shook his many-jointed rattle and adjusted his loops for the fatal stroke. His eyes were drawn as with magnets toward the circles of flame. His ears rung as in the overture to the swooning dream of chloroform. Nature was before man with her anaesthetics: the cat's first shake stupefies the mouse; ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... my time here?" said I, starting up, and seizing my hat. "The reptile is at work. Where lives Sir Reginald?—my demon— like double may be there before me. He may personate me long enough to kill my father and rifle his hoards. I must away—but, ere I go, know that, with these ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... Katula Rekula Poda, No. 7 of Russell,") on which he was on the point of treading, and which, in commendable gratitude for its forbearance; he allowed to glide off unharmed by his fowling-piece; "but he was the first reptile that ever escaped without the chance of losing his life at my hands." On the road to Kalingur he had an interview with a petitioner, who offered him 400 rupees in cash, or a large diamond, for his interest in a certain case then pending before the judge at Bandah; "but I explained ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... current, and monkeys and dragons inspired similar terror. Of this superstition there was born an evil custom, the sacrifice of human beings to appease the hostile spirits. The Kami of Chusan in Mimasaka province was believed to be a giant ape, and the Kami of Koya, a big reptile. The people of these two districts took it in turn to offer a girl at the shrines of those Kami, and in the province of Hida another colossal monkey was similarly appeased. There were ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... a beautiful purple life, went to sleep under a tree in the forest. Jove sent a huge serpent to destroy him. The man awakened as the reptile drew near. ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... girls, with a good deal of pluck, I think, rushed into the shallow water and grabbed hold of their comrade. The snake did not let go, but the dress was torn from her body by the wrestle between the strength of the reptile and that of the four girls. I know one of the sisters quite well. She's an old woman, now, but she lives in Sangre ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... reposing himself in the hay, A reptile concealed bit his leg as he lay; But, all venom himself, of the wound he made light, And got well, while the ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... Go by science into nature, and there's no proof of it; God never forgives what seems to be the mistake of even a reptile!" ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... If reptiles became hairy mammals, we would expect fossils of thousands, if not millions, in the transition state. If some reptiles were changed into the 12,000 species of birds, we would expect countless fossils, part reptile, part bird. Only one is claimed, the archaeopteryx (ancient bird), two specimens of which are known, which had a feathered tail, and which is only a slight modification of other birds. Many other birds ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and present work from the throne, has broken the power of evil in its central hold. He has crushed the serpent's head, his heel is firmly planted on it, and, though the reptile may still 'swinge the scaly horror of his folded tail,' it is but the dying flurries of the creature. He was manifested 'that He might destroy the works of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... possesses four of such glands; they vary in size according to the age of the reptile, but they are generally about as large as a hazel-nut, when dried. Two glands are situated in the groin, and two in the throat, a little in advance of the fore-legs. I have noticed two species of crocodiles throughout all the rivers of Abyssinia, ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... not touch a toad. It was true that the beast had amused him, and that he had chatted to it; but, after all, this was a piece of childish folly—an unmanly way, to say the least, of relieving the tedium of captivity. What was Monsieur Crapaud but a very ugly (and most people said a venomous) reptile? To what a folly he had been condescending! With these thoughts, Monsieur the Viscount steeled himself against the glances of his topaz-eyed friend, and when the steps of the men were heard upon the stairs, he did not move from the window where he had placed himself, ...
— Melchior's Dream and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... speak from his monument, and the Iron Duke from his equestrian statue, and forbid the degradation of their country. But there stood the Confederate messenger, delivering the mandate of a foreign power to the House of Commons, describing England as a crawling reptile, exalting the Government he professed to represent, as controlling the Continent, and fearing lest the Imperial Eagle alone should swoop down upon his prey. And such language, such sentiments! Was I in Billingsgate, that ancient ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... because we dread to see its loathly length, and to rouse it to lift its malignant head, and to strike with its forked tongue. But sooner or later—may it not be too late—we shall be set face to face with the dark recess, and discover the foul reptile that has all the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... without paying for it, until he discovered a mode (slightly immoral, perhaps, though some think not) of murdering the old fraudulent jockey, and so circuitously of unhorsing him.] changed the relations between the animals. The mode of escaping from the reptile he showed to be not by running away, but by leaping on its back booted and spurred. The two animals had misunderstood each other. The use of the crocodile has now been cleared up—viz., to be ridden; ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... glance at the humble thing, That received with a silent gratitude From the mulberry-leaf her simple food; And shrunk, half scorn, and half disgust, Away from her sister child of the dust; Declaring she never yet could see Why a reptile form like this should be;— And that she was not made with nerves so firm, As calmly to stand ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... should say, began to assert themselves. That is to say, there was an emergence of backboned animals which were free from water and relinquished the method of breathing by gills, which Amphibians retained in their young stages at least. The unhatched or unborn reptile breathes by means of a vascular hood spread underneath the egg-shell and absorbing dry air from without. It is an interesting point that this vascular hood, called the allantois, is represented in the ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... birds. The drawings are of the first order—the attitudes of the birds of the most animated character, and the situations appropriate; one of a snake attacking a bird's nest, while the birds (the parents) peck at the reptile's eyes—they usually, in the long-run, destroy him, says the naturalist. The feathers of these gay little sylphs, most of them from the Southern States, are most brilliant, and are represented with what, were it [not] connected with so much spirit in the attitude, I would call ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... clearness what a precious treasure this charming creature would be to a man to whom she gave herself in love for his very own; and the less he doubted that she had just spoken the simple truth, the more did his heart rise in passionate wrath at the miserable reptile who was abandoned enough to drag this precious pearl ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... conception of the nineteenth century, the Ballyhack railroad. The idea that Buzzardville was to be left off at one side originated in their own fulsome brains—or rather in the settlings which they regard as brains. They had better, swallow this lie if they want to save their abandoned reptile carcasses the cowhiding they so ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... extraordinary degree of arrogance, by dictating to future parliaments, and prescribing to future ministers a mode of action to be adopted some thirty years hence. He remarked:—"None but a novice, a sycophant, a mere reptile of a minister, would allow this act to prevent him doing what, in his own judgment, circumstances might require at the time; and a change in the situation of the country might render that which is proper at one time inapplicable at another. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Moors started up suddenly, and in an instant, taking his shoe, lying beside him, struck something down with a great smack on the floor; it turned out to be an immense scorpion! I felt a chill start through all my blood. The smashed reptile looked hideous in the dim light of the Ramadan lamp. This is the third scorpion within a fortnight the Rais has killed in his own house; one of enormous size he killed a few days ago. The Rais called for more coffee, and said coolly and ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the Lias, marked by distinct Fossils, without Unconformity in the Stratification, or Change in the Mineral Character of the Deposits. Gryphite Limestone. Shells of the Lias. Fish of the Lias. Reptiles of the Lias. Ichthyosaur and Plesiosaur. Marine Reptile of the Galapagos Islands. Sudden Destruction and Burial of Fossil Animals in Lias. Fluvio-marine Beds in Gloucestershire, and Insect Limestone. Fossil Plants. The origin of the Oolite and Lias, and of alternating Calcareous ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... symbolic ring of pure gold. It has the image of a serpent, whose head, in relief, set with a ruby, is connected by a fine chain with a tiny circlet which fastens the jaws of the reptile." ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... cycle depending upon the activities of an entity at first vaguely conceived of as the 'Luck of the Year,' the Eniautos Daimon. This Being, at one stage of evolution theriomorphic—he might assume the form of a bull, a goat, or a snake (the latter, probably from the close connection of the reptile with the earth, being the more general form)—only gradually, and by distinctly traceable stages, assumed an anthropomorphic shape.[3] This gives to the study of Greek antiquity a special and peculiar value, since in regard to ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... gave a hunter's verdict on the age of the print. He, too, eyed those buildings. To meet a snake-devil in the open was one thing, to play hide-and-seek with the cunning monster in a warren such as this was something else again. He hoped that the reptile had been heading for the open, but he doubted it. This mass of buildings would provide just the type of shelter which would appeal to it for a lair. And snake-devils did not ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... running directly upon it. Something behind him occupied all his thoughts, and he did not see the alligator at all; for, although his brothers shouted to warn him, he ran on; and, stumbling over the hideous body of the reptile, fell flat upon his face—his gun pitching forward out of his hands as he fell. He was not hurt, however, but, scrambling to his feet again, continued his race, shouting, as he emerged half breathless out of the ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... of thy home Blessed the path thy race had trod, Kneeling in the temple dome To a reptile god; Where the shrine of Isis shone Through the veil before its throne, And the priest with fixed eyes Watched his human sacrifice; And the priestess knelt in prayer, Like some ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... gone away, so as not to get any more hard words, wherefore he had heard nothing. Hereupon I, as Dom. Consul afterwards told the pastor of Benz, clenched my fists and answered, "What, thou arch-rogue, didst thou not crawl about the room in the shape of a reptile?" whereupon he would hearken to me no longer, thinking me distraught, nor would he make the constable take an oath, but left me standing in the midst of the room, and got into ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... that burst from Nugget's lips would have done credit to a Sioux warrior. It scared the snake half out of its wits, and the reptile ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... myself the trouble, for not a single person called. Not one solitary invitation to dinner, not a picnic, not a breakfast, no, nor even a tea-party, was heard of. Barmouth, at the time I speak of, was just in that transition state at which the caterpillar may be imagined, when, having abandoned his reptile habits, he still has not succeeded in becoming a butterfly. In fact, it had ceased to be a fishing village, but had not arrived at the dignity of a watering-place. Now, I know nothing as bad as this. You have not, on one hand, the quiet retirement of a little ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... hold of little Ilbrahim's hand, relinquished it as if he were touching a loathsome reptile. But he possessed a compassionate heart which not even religious prejudice could harden into stone. "God forbid that I should leave this child to perish, though he comes of the accursed sect," said he to himself. "Do we not ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... mallauxdi. Reprimand riprocxo, mallauxdo. Reprisals revengxo. Reproach riprocxo. Reproachful riprocxa. Reprobate malaprobi, riprocxi. Reproduce reprodukti. Reproduction kopiajxo, reproduktajxo. Reproof riprocxo. Reprove malaprobi, riprocxi. Reptile rampajxo. Republic respubliko. Republican respublikano. Repudiate nei. Repugnance antipatio—eco. Repugnant antipatia. Repulse repusxi, repeli. Repulsive malbelega. Reputable estimebla, sxatinda. Reputation famo, sxato, ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... parts of the cave, where darkness prevailed, and locomotion was only possible on the lowest reptile principles, M. announced that she could see clear through the ice-floor, as if there were nothing between her and the rock below. I ventured to doubt this, for there was an air of immense thickness about the whole ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... and white gown Miss Weasel's so pert We are very afraid she's a gay little flirt; She is fearful of no one—beast, reptile or man, Just winks and cries gaily: "Catch me, ...
— Animal Children - The Friends of the Forest and the Plain • Edith Brown Kirkwood
... For this great reptile was more than green, he was a green so vivid that it put the colours of the forest to shame. A bright, glittering green and along the centre of his broad back ...
— Bones - Being Further Adventures in Mr. Commissioner Sanders' Country • Edgar Wallace
... to it, they had a new assurance of congeniality in the aversion which each perceived that the other felt towards Blandois of Paris; an aversion amounting to the repugnance and horror of a natural antipathy towards an odious creature of the reptile kind. ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... who has such a mother! Safe and blessed! His foot shall tread upon the serpent that lies hidden beneath the tempting flowers in his path, ere the reptile can sting him; his hand shall resolutely put away the cup of pleasure from his lips when there is poison in the chalice; he shall walk through the fire of evil lusts unscathed! No laurel that wreaths his brow shall render it too feverish, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... books of the seventeenth century. Recently it has obtained a reputation as a febrifuge, but its value as an antidote to the bites of snakes and scorpions is universally believed, and the inhabitants carry a seed with them in all their journeyings; if they happen to be bitten by any venomous reptile they scrape about two grains of the seed in brandy or water and apply it to the wound, at the same time taking a like dose internally. This neutralizes the most ...
— Catalogue of Economic Plants in the Collection of the U. S. Department of Agriculture • William Saunders
... surrounding country. The stone was draped with scarlet cloth, to allure and excite the creature to a furor, scarlet being a colour most intolerably hateful and provoking to it. It was studded with iron spikes, that the reptile might wound or kill itself by beating itself against it. Its destruction, it is alleged, was effected by this artifice. It is said to have had two lurking places in the neighbourhood, which are still called Nant-y-Wiber, one ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... it advanced; the bright lamps grew wan, and flickered restlessly as at the breath of its presence. Its form was veiled as the face, but the outline was that of a female; yet it moved not as move even the ghosts that simulate the living. It seemed rather to crawl as some vast misshapen reptile; and pausing, at length it cowered beside the table which held the mystic volume, and again fixed its eyes through the filmy veil on the rash invoker. All fancies, the most grotesque, of monk or ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... punished in the ordinary way it will only make matters worse, as the Mudir says. Something's needed that will play our game and turn the tables on the reptile too." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... city through the yielding air, "Before the sacred portal lays it down. "If of stupendous wonder aught ye find "In this, hyaenas must your wonder move; "Alternate changing, females now they bear; "And annual alter unto males again: "That reptile too, which feeds on wind and air; "And what it touches, straight its hue assumes. "India by cluster-bearing Bacchus gain'd, "Lynxes upon the conquering god bestow'd: "And, (so they tell) whate'er their bladders void, "Concretes to gems, and hardens in the air. "Thus too, the coral hardens to a stone; ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... grace of a wanton little curl that floated over her ear as she moved her head. Something was said to her, and she turned smiling tolerantly to the man beside her, a little man in foolish raiment knobbed and spiked like some odd reptile with pneumatic horns—the ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... to be converted into soup and steaks. Johnny mourned over the impracticability of making any attempt at his capture, and heaved a sigh which seemed to come from the bottom of his heart, as the unsightly reptile disappeared among the mazes of the submarine shrubbery. The hardship of the case, seemed to be greatly aggravated in his eyes, as he contrasted it with the better fortune of Robinson Crusoe and the Swiss Family, the former of whom, as he reminded us, caught "any quantity of turtles" on the beach ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... desert whose wearisome stillness was so unvarying elsewhere. Serpents were numerous and some were seen of a species apparently peculiar to this river. Here they invariably took to it, and one beautiful reptile in particular, being of a golden colour with red streaks, sprang from under my horse's feet and rode upon the strong current of the boiling stream, keeping abreast of us and holding his head erect, as if in defiance and without once attempting ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... Tom, and Garrison, who had his shoes on, did so. Then Tom caught the reptile by the tail and ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... the dogs sometimes made prizes of rabbits and hares, which are plentiful here, and numbers of which we often shot for our dinners. Among the other animals there was a reptile I was not so much disposed to find amusement from, the rattlesnake. These snakes are very abundant here, especially during the spring of the year. The latter part of the time that I was on shore, I did not meet with so many, but for the first two months we seldom ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... waters flowed past them with swelling undulations, from the direction of the mountains. Oceaxe knelt down on the bank, and peered into the depths. Presently her look became tense and concentrated; she dipped her hand in and pulled out some sort of little monster. It was more like a reptile than a fish, with its scaly plates and teeth. She threw it on the ground, and it started crawling about. Suddenly she darted all her will into her sorb. The creature leaped into the air, and fell ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... religion : religio. remain : resti. remedy : kuracilo, rimedo. remember : memori. remove : translogx'igxi, -igi. rent : luprezo. repeat : ripeti, rediri. repent : penti. report : raporti; famo; (official) protokolo. represent : reprezenti. reptile : rampajxo. republic : respubliko. repugnance : antipatio. require : bezoni, postuli. resemble : simili. reserve : rezervi. resign : eksigxi. resignation : resignacio; eksigxo. resin : rezino. "-wood," keno. resolve : decid'i, -o; solvi. respect : respekti. responsible : (for), ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... countless numbers of those men for whose redemption he was entering upon the painful way of the Cross. At first I but seldom saw the serpent: soon, however, it made its appearance, with a crown upon its head. This odious reptile was of gigantic size, apparently possessed of unbounded strength, and led forward countless legions of the enemies of Jesus in every age and of every nation. Being armed with all kinds of destructive weapons, they sometimes tore one another in pieces, and then renewed their attacks ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... making a turn for tumid metaphor and the love of display necessary ingredients in the character of its votaries, extirpating from among them that simplicity which was so fatal an obstacle to the progress of Newton,—and turning the newly discovered joint of an antediluvian reptile into a theme of perennial and ambitious declamation; nothing is said about those discussions on baptismal fonts, those discoveries of trochees for iambics, or the invention of new potatoe boilers, which in the days of Hegel, Berryer, Schlosser, Savigny, and Cousin, are the glory ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... Reptile developed a wide variety of monsters in the central regions of the continent from Montana to the Gulf of Mexico. The dinosaurs of the Triassic and Jurassic periods sometimes had gigantic size, the Brontosaurus attaining a length ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we may be well, yet not pure. The other day I picked ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... real market is for the skins of the little fellows, which are made up into all sorts of alligator leather bags. Most of that stuff is imitation, but still quite a lot of it is real. It's plenty of fun catching the little 'gators, because even the smallest of them can give you quite a nip and a reptile three feet long is a handful. I did well enough out of it, because in addition to the sport I had, my brother-in-law let me have the skins of all those I caught myself. Some people, too, want to have baby ones as pets, but I don't think I'd ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... had a famous embroglio between our chaouch and the marabout. The latter had caught a waran, or large species of lizard, and skinned it to dispose of the skin. The chaouch impudently swore he had been eating the flesh of the reptile—a direful accusation. A tremendous war of words ensued; and not of words only, for presently the holy man came in for a gratification of ropes' end. All the Fezzanees rushed forward to save the honour of the marabout; and the chaouch retreated to my tent ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... Quick as only a reptile can be, he canted, to remedy the error, but the impetus of his ten-foot bulk was still upon him; it carried him by. You cannot stop ten feet of bulk and five-feet-seven of girth of flesh and bone and muscle and armor-plates, going at Old Nick may ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... have liked to knock down that reptile Landsberg. But that would only have caused a scandal, which, for the dear ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... did not form an attractive object in the lovely landscape surrounded by hills, in and out amongst which the Reptile River ran, for a building hastily raised of corrugated iron never was ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... of organism and perfection in mechanism and precision, the inoculatory apparatus of the venomous reptile excels the most exquisite appliances devised by the surgical implement maker's art, and it is doubtful whether it can ever be rivaled by the hand of man. The mouth of the serpent is an object for the closest study, presenting as it does a series of independent actions, whereby the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 421, January 26, 1884 • Various
... one day, his mother, happening to go out, saw him seated on the ground eating his porridge in company with an adder, who, however, instead of hurting the child, merely supped up the milk. When the reptile edged a little nearer to the boy than was quite equal, Douglas slapped the adder on his head with his horn spoon, saying, "Keep yer ain side o' the ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... with the Philadelphia Institute expedition in the Bad Lands under Professor Cope, hunting mastodon bones, and I overheard him say, his own self, that any plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium that hadn't wings and was uncertain was a reptile. Well, then, has this dog any wings? No. Is he a plantigrade circumflex vertebrate bacterium? Maybe so, maybe not; but without ever having seen him, and judging only by his illegal and spectacular parentage, I will bet the ...
— A Horse's Tale • Mark Twain
... elegant foliated capitals, copied from natural objects; on these capitals stand a series of angels bearing instruments of the passion—cross, crown of thorns, nails, spear, &c., and each having under his feet a dragon or other reptile, typical of the triumph over Satan by the Sacrifice of the Atonement. The lower part of each compartment is occupied by quatrefoils ornamented with ball-flowers, and filled in with mosaic work of verd antique, rosso antico, gialo antico, and lapis lazuli: above these are panels containing ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... with myself, where no one would be a penny the wiser. I got a couple of days' leave—by way of seeing a pal at Tonghoo—and I went up the river and away into the Jungles, and wandered about looking for some venomous reptile to put an end to me in a natural way! But, if you'll believe me, sir, divil a bite could I get—not after searching for half a day; and, av coorse, had I been looking without intention, I'd have ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... degraded in their turn. And this degradation increases with the frequency of the spectacle. Persons in such habits are apt to lose sight of the dignity of mankind, and to consider them as made for administration to their pleasures, or in an animal or a reptile light. But the Quakers, who know nothing of such spectacles, cannot, at least as far as these are concerned, lose either their own dignity of mind, or behold others lose it. They cannot therefore view men under the degrading light of animals for ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... bird, not an insect, not even a reptile to be seen, the solemn, melancholy silence is unbroken by the voice of any living creature." From the summit of these hills the commander saw New Bay, that known as Admiralty, which communicates by a current with that in which the Astrolabe ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... then explained: "The dinosaur was a prehistoric reptile," adding modestly, "I once had the pleasure of helping ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... track upon my face, and entangling itself in the tresses of my wild and matted hair: Often have I at waking found my fingers ringed with the long worms which bred in the corrupted flesh of my Infant. At such times I shrieked with terror and disgust, and while I shook off the reptile, trembled with all a ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... lips move! Her eyes are directed to his! She is conversing with him, and at her ease, while I am racked by all the terrors that jealousy can raise! What, can she not cast one look this way? Is she fascinated by a reptile? Is there no instinctive sympathy, that should make her tremble to betray the dearest interests of love in the very presence of the lover! Does she act complacency, and sit calm and unruffled! Has she no foreboding that I will dart upon that insect; ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... the deadly little reptile room and floundered forward a prey to exhaustion, melancholy, and red-bugs. A few buzzards kept pace with me, their broad, black shadows gliding ominously over the sun-drenched earth; blue-tail lizards went rustling and leaping ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... species of poisonous serpents and one poisonous lizard; eighteen species of these are true rattlesnakes; the remaining nine are divided between varieties of the moccasin, copperhead or the viper. The poisonous lizard is the Texan reptile known as the "Gila Monster." In all these serpents the poison fluid is secreted in a gland which lies against the side of the skull below and behind the eye, from which a duct leads to the base of a hollow tooth or fang, one on each side of the upper ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... often, with him, but a symptom of fear. As he spoke, a poor toad, who had sate quite aloof In a hovel of earth, with a stone for a roof, Now slowly, on tiptoe, crept out of his hole, And into the midst of the company stole; The quadrupeds gazed as the reptile drew nigh, Half afraid of his looks, though they could not tell why. Mouse's hair stood on end, and, still stranger to say, Miss Chameleon changed colour, and fainted away. Poor bufo confess'd, as he sate in the dark, He had listen'd to porcupine's brilliant remark, And had thought it was due to ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... me in my own eyes. I felt as if I could not hold up my head. I had spoken to no one of what had passed within me, and I trusted it had not been noticed; but all my joy was gone. It was as if I stood helpless while a noisome reptile coiled its ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... know, a plump high-fed face, if I may be allowed the expression. You, I know, will forgive me for this liberty of speech sooner than I can forgive myself: Yet how can one be such a reptile as not ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... daughter is a reptile; I'm worth a dozen of her, I'd have you know. If you don't want Bonnebault for a son-in-law, it is high time for you to tell him to go and play billiards somewhere else; he's losing a ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... Duke of Burgundy, accompanied by another from the University of Paris, praying that Joan of Arc might be delivered up to the keeping of Mother Church as a sorceress and idolatress. That terrible engine, the Inquisition, had, like some mighty reptile scenting its prey near, slowly unfolded its coils. Whether Bedford had or had not caused these letters to be sent the Duke is not known, but the Regent had both in the Church and the University of Paris the men he wanted—instruments by whom his vengeance could be worked on Joan of Arc; and ...
— Joan of Arc • Ronald Sutherland Gower
... was every part of the visible surface of the island swept, in anxious and almost alarmed search for the abodes of inhabitants. Nothing of this sort, however, could be discovered. The island was unquestionably without a human being, our young man alone excepted. Nor could he see any trace of beast, reptile, or of any animal but birds. Creatures gifted with wings had been able to reach that little paradise; but to all others, since it first arose from the sea, had it probably been unapproached, if not unapproachable, until that day. It appeared ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... coiling itself up into a circle of twists, an enormous serpent was on my breast. When I tell you that the whole of my chest, and even the pit of my stomach, were covered with the cold, scaly proportions of the reptile, you will own that it must have been one of ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... as suddenly as if further progress were obstructed by some dangerous reptile. He was terrified at ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... recovered from their surprise. The scorn which flamed from her eyes, her pale brow, her disdainful lips, were even more insulting than the haughty action which treated Corentin as though he were a venomous reptile. Old d'Hauteserre felt himself once more a cavalier; all his blood rushed to his face, and he grieved that he had no sword. The servants trembled for an instant with joy. The vengeance they had called down upon these men had come. But their joy was driven ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... people. In descending at a sharp angle from the side of a fallen tree, his fore-feet just scraped the end of the tail of a nine-foot carpet snake, whose colouring was vivid and fresh. Before Finn knew what had happened, one coil of the sinuous reptile's body was about his left hind-leg, and, as the startled Wolfhound wheeled in his tracks, the big snake's head rose at him with a forbidding, long-drawn "Ps-s-s-s-t!" of defiance. The rapidly tightening pressure about his muscular lower thigh produced something like panic in Finn's breast; but, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... the structure brave, the manifold music I build, Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work, Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk, Man, brute, reptile, fly—alien of end and of aim, 5 Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed— Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name, And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved! Would it might tarry like his, the beautiful building of mine, ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... said Crauford; and as he saw that it was no longer possible to feign, the poison of his heart broke forth in its full venom. The fiend rose from the reptile, and stood exposed in its natural shape. Returning Glendower's stern but lofty gaze with an eye to which all evil passions lent their unholy fire, he repeated, "Is it so? then you are more penetrating ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mile in two minutes, nearly one hundred feet in length, as large as the body of a man, with a head like a turtle, but carried high out of the water, with the body of a snake, but with the vertical motion of a caterpillar, and of a dark-brown color, this enormous reptile brought such fear to the honest fisherman as induced him to make a rapid retreat ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... and father came to my rescue, despatching the reptile with his stock-whip. He had been smoking, and dropped his pipe on the ferns. I picked it up, and the glowing embers which fell from it burnt my dirty little fat fists. Hence the noise with which my ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin
... some myself, you damned reptile," he muttered under his breath. "You won't get me again, if that's what you've ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... snakes in the cave?" was Blanka's first and most natural inquiry. Every woman in her place would have put the same question. Ever since Mother Eve's misadventure with the serpent in Paradise, women have cherished a deadly enmity toward the whole reptile family. ...
— Manasseh - A Romance of Transylvania • Maurus Jokai
... its blood be dried upon a plate or in a gourd, the person next eating or drinking from the contaminated vessel will soon become the unwilling landlord of a reptilian tenant. There are other avenues, too, by which the reptile may gain admittance; but when expelled by the conjure doctor's arts or medicines, it always leaves at the point where it entered. This belief may have originally derived its existence from the fact that certain tropical insects ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... and is called blood. In all the higher animal types it is of a red color, although redness is not one of its essential qualities. Some tribes of animals possess true blood, which is not red; thus the blood of the insect is colorless and transparent; that of the reptile yellowish; in the fish the principle part is without color, but the blood of the bird is deep red. The blood of the mammalia is of a bright scarlet hue. The temperature of the blood varies in different species, as well as in animals ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... hunting knife I carried, and with one chop took off the dangerous reptile's head. Then picking it up I opened the jaws and showed him the two keen, hollow, poisonous fangs which rose erect when ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... brushed the little reptile away; but it was quite a moment before he assumed an erect position, and I saw two or three quick shudders pass over his frame, such as I had not seen since, many a long year before, I witnessed the horrible tortures of a strong man stricken with hydrophobia. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... need to be proved only by a bare perusal of this hateful bill, by which the meanest, the most worthless reptile, exalted to a petty office by serving a wretch only superiour to him in fortune, is enabled to flush his authority by tyrannising over those who every hour deserve the publick acknowledgments of the community; to intrude upon the retreats of brave men, fatigued and exhausted by honest industry, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... two days and nights; entering the woods, where he may be secure from interruption, he seeks some quiet nook, and stretching his length upon the ground, remains in that position until he dreams of his medicine. During this time he abstains from food and water. When in his dreams the bird, reptile, or animal, that is to act as his guardian angel through life appears to him; or rather he imagines it does. As soon as he has learned what to seek for, he retraces his steps and joins his family again, who receive him with demonstrations of great joy; a feast is made in his honor, ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... Its place, above the red sandstone, shews the recurrence of circumstances favourable to animal life, and we accordingly find in it not only zoophytes, conchifera, and a few tribes of fish, but some faint traces of land plants, and a new and startling appearance—a reptile of saurian (lizard) character, analogous to the now existing family called monitors. Remains of this creature are found in cupriferous (copper-bearing) slate connected with the mountain limestone, at Mansfield and Glucksbrunn, in Germany, which may ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... serpents of India, the cobra di capello holds foremost rank, though it is claimed that a still more deadly reptile has been found in the interior, and I believe the British Museum has one of these terrible creatures, whose bite brings death with the suddenness of the lightning stroke. However, the cobra has been ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... an aquatic reptile allied to the salamander in its structure, and which lives in the dark subterranean waters of deep caves, has, like the Aspalax, only vestiges of the organs of sight—vestiges which are covered and concealed ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... facing Prim, who sat with his hands spread upon the desk in front of him, his elbows sticking out, his hair bristling, his mouth sucked in, and his eyes spitting venom. He looked like a reptile about to spring, and Acres had much the expression of a rabbit facing the reptile, slowly ...
— The Co-Citizens • Corra Harris
... help feeling alarmed at the sight of this horrible reptile lying in his path, for he must either turn back or walk right over its body. He was a brave man, however, and putting aside all fear went forward dauntlessly. Crunch, crunch; he stepped now on the dragon's body, now between its coils, and without even ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... cars? What forced three rail trains from the tracks and shot down engineers with their hands on the valves? Communism. For hundreds of miles along the track leading from the great West I saw stretched out and coiled up the great reptile which, after crushing the free locomotive of passengers and trade, would have twisted itself around our republican institutions, and left them in strangulation and blood along the pathway of nations. The governors ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... heart beat fast as he watched the bold swimmer and the savage reptile. There could be little doubt that the creature weighed a hundred pounds. It is the strongest for its size and the fiercest of all reptiles. Its jaws, though toothless, have cutting edges, a sharp beak, and power to the ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... all their damning profusion. The Doctor stepped back dramatically. "Hardbake!" he gasped; "wine, pots of strawberry jam! Oh, Bultitude, this is a revelation indeed! So I have nourished one more viper in my bosom, have I? A crawling reptile which curries favour by denouncing the very crime it conceals in its playbox! Bultitude, I was not prepared for such ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... was too profound to permit of such a sentiment as hatred—one can scarcely hate that which one scorns—but whenever he came near her with his tobacco and spirit-laden breath, she was conscious of an inward shudder which closely resembled that with which she passed through the reptile house ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... begin we then; His wand's a modern author's pen; The serpents round about it twin'd 45 Denote him of the reptile kind; Denote the rage with which he writes, His frothy slaver, venom'd bites; An equal semblance still to keep, Alike too both conduce to sleep. 50 This diff'rence only, as the god Drove souls to Tart'rus with his rod, With his goosequill the scribbling elf, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... Zoological Garden. At least this is not an unfair deduction from the scheme to instal a huge python in the neighbourhood of Hyde Park Corner. I do not profess to know much about snakes, but I believe the python is a most dangerous reptile, and I see it stated that the pythons which have just arrived at Regent's Park are "large and vigorous, already active and looking for food." Surely this monstrous suggestion, threatening the safety of the peaceful frequenters of the Park, calls for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... completely formed and healthy individual. Animals, too, such as polyps or zoophytes, and many beautiful and elaborate worms, multiply by "fission," dividing into two or more parts, each of which becomes a complete animal. This process is not seen in any fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, or mammal, nor in molluscs, nor in insects, crustaceans, myriapods, and arachnids (spiders and scorpions). It is almost wholly confined to lower animals (worms and polyps) and to plants, and hence is often called "vegetative reproduction." The most remarkable case of its appearance ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... From the reptile to the bird is no great distance. Then the Wood-pigeon's iridescent hues, the eyes on the Peacock's tail, the Kingfisher's sea-blue, the Flamingo's carmine are more or less closely connected with the urinary ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... instant it would have sprung. Smash on its head went my valiant frying pan and struck a deadly blow, although the thing managed to get from under it. I recaptured my weapon and again it descended upon the reptile's head, settling it this time. Feeling safe, I now took hold of the handle to finish it more quickly. Oh, that tail—that awful, writhing, lashing tail! I can stand Indians, bears, wolves, anything but that tail, ...
— A Woman Tenderfoot • Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson
... hook-like termination, the acromion (acr.). There is also a process overhanging the glenoid cavity (g.) wherein the humerus articulates, which process is called coracoid (co.); it is ossified from two separate centres, and represents a very considerable bone in the bird, reptile, and frog. Along the dorsal edge of the scapula of the rabbit is unossified cartilage, which is called the supra-scapula (s.sc.). In man there runs from the acromion to the manubrium of the sternum a bone, the collar-bone or clavicle. This is represented by a very imperfectly ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... am truly known, will be succeeded with an adequate derision:—Could I but say I was descended from honest, tho' mean parents, I would not murmur at my fate, but I have none,—none to own me;—I am a nothing,—a kind of reptile in humanity, and have been shewn in a genteel way of life only to make my native misery ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... Surveyors had enter'd the Dismal, they had laid Eyes on no living Creature: neither Bird nor Beast, Insect nor Reptile came in View. Doubtless, the Eternal Shade that broods over this mighty Bog, and hinders the sun-beams from blessing the Ground, makes it an uncomfortable Habitation for any thing that has life. Not so much as a Zealand Frog cou'd endure ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... work, a Christian's! What does the reptile who painted this know of the mother, the Virgin, the stainless lily, the thornless rose, the path by which God came to men, the mother of sorrow, who bought the world with her tears, as Christ did with His sacred blood. I have seen enough, more than enough! Escovedo ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... regularly commissioned vessel-of-war. This flag was of bunting, showing a pine-tree on a plain white ground, with the words "Liberty Tree" and "Appeal to God" prominently displayed. This flag was chiefly used until the adoption of the stars and stripes. The "rattlesnake flag," with a reptile in the act of striking, and the legend "Don't tread on me," was largely used by ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... land-baby to turn into a water-baby, ask him if he ever heard of the transformation of Syllis, or the Distomas, or the common jelly-fish, of which M. Quatrefages says excellently well—"Who would not exclaim that a miracle had come to pass, if he saw a reptile come out of the egg dropped by the hen in his poultry-yard, and the reptile give birth at once to an indefinite number of fishes and birds? Yet the history of the jelly-fish is quite as wonderful as that would be." Ask him if he knows about ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... feels an impulse to kill his neighbor, lest he be first killed by him. Revenge and retaliation follow. And all this, as before said, may be among honest men only. But this is not all. Every foul bird comes abroad and every dirty reptile rises up. These add crime to confusion. Strong measures deemed indispensable, but harsh at best, such men make worse by maladministration. Murders for old grudges, and murders for pelf, proceed under any cloak that will best cover for the occasion. These causes amply ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... animals that crawl, as snakes, liz-ards, etc. Re-coil', to start back, to shrink from. 2. Co'bra, a highly venomous reptile inhabiting the East Indies. In-fest'ed, troubled, annoyed. 3. Sub'tile, acute, piercing. In-fus'es, intro-duces. 4. Ob-structs', hinders. De-lir'i-um, a wandering of the mind. 5. Ran'kle, to rage. Par'ox-ysm, a fit, a convulsion. ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... the soothing softness of a mother's lullaby to a tired child, and as the liquid notes quavered delicately on the otherwise deep stillness, the formidable reptile began to coil itself ascendingly round and round the ebony rod, . . higher and higher,—one glistening ring after another,—higher still, till its eyes were on a level with the "Eye of Raphon" that flamed on Lysia's breast, . . there it paused in ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Selina Jemima Townsend as she appeared when afraid. Afraid—of what? Why, a poor tiny reptile, a harmless frog, that had jumped into her hat full of daisies, with a croak, as much as to say—"How do you do? Good morning, Lady Townsend; I am glad to see you down in the country." But what do you think she did? ...
— The Royal Picture Alphabet • Luke Limner
... he did often enough to fill up the time, his hand shook so as almost to spill his wine. Seeing him so nervous, she began to experience a kind of pity for him—some such complex feeling as a very humane person might have for a reptile he has been taught to loathe and fear when seeing it in pain—and at length surprised him by asking if he lived in Kingston. He replied that he usually spent the summer months there for the sake of the boating; and then, as if afraid that they would ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... quick—quite quick. You know Val. He said between his teeth: 'Look out, Snow Devil, you Injin dog, or I'll have your heart. Do you think a white girl is like a redskin woman, to be sold as you sell your wives and daughters to the squaw-men and white loafers, you reptile?' Then the Injin said an ugly word about Val's sister, and Val shot him dead like lightning.... Yes, that is good to swear, Galbraith. You are not the only one that curses the law in this world. It is not Justice that fills ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Mammalia) we have almost always a placental mode of reproduction, i.e. the blood of the foetus is placed in nutritive relation with the blood of the mother by means of vascular prominences. No trace of such a structure exists in any bird or in any reptile, and yet it crops out again in certain sharks. There indeed it might well be supposed to end, but, marvellous as it seems, it reappears in very lowly creatures; namely, in certain of the ascidians, sometimes called tunicaries ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... down, and everything felt cold and clammy to the touch. It seemed just the night when it befitted such a being as the Jew to be abroad. As he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved: crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... is a reptile unknown in Ireland, but its name sounds disgusting. The crowd began to get very angry, and surged threateningly towards the platform. Sergeant Colgan felt that a great opportunity had arrived. He had all his life ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... Forms might be worshipp'd on the bended knee, And still the second dread command be free; Their likeness is not found on earth, in air, or sea! Mansions that would disgrace the building taste Of any mason reptile, bird or beast: Fit only for a doited monkish race, Or frosty maids forsworn the dear embrace, Or cuifs of later times, wha held the notion, That sullen gloom was sterling, true devotion: Fancies that our guid Brugh denies protection, And soon may they expire, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... the rapidity of a single bullet the whole contents of the automatic's magazine poured out and every missile took effect in the reptile's huge head. In its death agony it straightened out its folds and Frank's senseless body dropped from ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... of wood. Yuranigh did the same, both missed it, when it unexpectedly turned upon us, took a position on higher ground beside a large tree, then descended with head erect, moving nimbly towards the horses, and the rest of the party. The deadly reptile glided straight to the forefeet of my horse, touched the fetlock with his head, but did not bite; then passed to the hind legs and did the same, fortunately the horse stood quietly. The snake darted thence towards one ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... Spirit said: 395 'When Luxury and Lust's exhausted stores No more can rouse the appetites of kings; When the low flattery of their reptile lords Falls flat and heavy on the accustomed ear; When eunuchs sing, and fools buffoonery make, 400 And dancers writhe their harlot-limbs in vain; Then War and all its dread vicissitudes Pleasingly agitate their stagnant hearts; Its hopes, its fears, its victories, its defeats, Insipid Royalty's ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... and Queries for May 24, 1851, furnishes two remedies then in use at Withyam, Sussex. "A common snake, held by its head and tail, is slowly drawn by someone standing by nine times across the front part of the neck of the person affected, the reptile being allowed, after every third time, to crawl about for awhile. Afterwards the snake is put alive in a bottle, which is corked tightly, and then buried in the ground. The tradition is, that as the snake decays, the swelling vanishes. The second mode of treatment is ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... to throw, while the doctor and Walter held their spears prepared for action. Nub drew nearer and nearer; the reptile opened one of its eyes, and then the other, and moved its tail slightly. In a moment the noose was dexterously thrown over its head, when Nub gave a violent pull before it had time to grasp the branch with its claws, and hauled it to the ground. "Now, Massa ...
— The South Sea Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... unsatisfactory dealings with a man of the same unusual type in a faraway past, and the transmitted hate had suddenly sprung into the conscious area. I do know that you can keep a secretary-bird away from snakes till it grows old, but the first reptile it sees it immediately starts out to beat him up. I had the inherited hate that makes the secretary-bird rush madly at a snake that may be the first of its species that it has ever seen, and I guess that Leith had no ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... was a chuckle from the other side of the bed and up popped Tommy who had been crouching on the floor there. And if you'll believe it, there was the reptile that had so scared the children around ...
— Dew Drops Vol. 37. No. 17, April 26, 1914 • Various
... a word as to diet. A general scavenger, the Burying-beetle refuses nothing in the way of cadaveric putridity. All is good to his senses, feathered game or furry, provided that the burden do not exceed his strength. He exploits the batrachian or the reptile with no less animation, he accepts without hesitation extraordinary finds, probably unknown to his race, as witness a certain Gold-fish, a red Chinese Carp, whose body, placed in one of my cages, was instantly considered an excellent tit-bit and buried according ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... petty perfidy, Have I not seen what human things could do,— From the loud roar of foaming calumny, To the small whispers of the paltry few, And subtler venom of the reptile crew, The Janus glance of whose significant eye, Learning to lie with silence, would seem true, And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh, Deal round to happy fools its speechless ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... primitive notions of the Shokas, that inside the earth lives in a torpid condition an evil spirit in the shape of a gigantic reptile. The rumbling preceding an earthquake is, to the Shoka mind, nothing else than the heavy breathing of the monster previous to waking, whereas the actual shock is caused by the brute stretching its limbs. When fully awake ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... present, even by the showing of Brady himself, the men were afraid to use any such phrase. They implored their landlord's assistance to help them to rid the country of him; to frighten him off; to make the place too hot to hold him. As I told that wretched reptile, whilst in the chair, they would have no more dared to propose a scheme of murder to young Macdermot, even in his drunkenness, than they would have ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... length before me undisguised— Of all earth's grovelling crew, the most accursed. Thou worm! thou viper!—to thy native earth Return! Away! Thou art too base for man To tread upon! Thou scum! thou reptile! ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... the pathway, there was a double curve some inches back of its head, which, merely by the potency of its lines, made the man feel with tenfold eloquence the touch of the death-fingers at the nape of his neck. The reptile's head was waving slowly from side to side and its hot eyes flashed like little murder-lights. Always in the air was the dry, ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... who lived here was disoriented, dwelling in that unending abjection produced by everlasting, irremediable poverty; many sloughed their occupations as a reptile its skin; others had none; some carpenters' or masons' helpers, because of their lack of initiative, understanding and skill, could never graduate from their apprenticeship. There were also gypsies, mule and dog ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... then we must regard Catherine's European correspondence as at least in some measure the result of political calculation. Its purposes, as has been said, were partly those to which in our own times some governments devote a Reptile-fund. There is a letter from the Duchesse de Choiseul to Madame du Deffand, her intimate friend, and the friend of so many of the literary circle, in which the secret of the relations between Catherine and the men of letters is very plainly told. "All that," she writes—protection ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... rain-swept mountain the prostrate rider had regained his senses and now was crawling painfully towards the road-house. Seen through the dark he would have resembled some misshapen, creeping monster, for he dragged himself, reptile-like, close to the ground. But as he came closer the man heard a cry which the wind seemed guarding from his ear, and, hearing it, he rose and rushed blindly forward, staggering like a ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... longer walks, it hobbles; it limps on the crutch of the Court of Miracles, a crutch metamorphosable into a club; it is called vagrancy; every sort of spectre, its dressers, have painted its face, it crawls and rears, the double gait of the reptile. Henceforth, it is apt at all roles, it is made suspicious by the counterfeiter, covered with verdigris by the forger, blacked by the soot of the incendiary; and ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... she went on. "I have supplanted Eunice in Philip's affection. She was once engaged to marry him; I am engaged to marry him now. She is resolved that he shall never make me his wife. He will die if I delay any longer. He will die if I don't crush her, like the reptile she is. She comes here—and what does she do? Keeps him prisoner under her own superintendence. Who gets his medicine? She gets it. Who cooks his food? She cooks it. The doors are locked. I might be a ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... symbolically, was the origin of all that was bright and glorious in the soul of man,—and in the midst of it, behold a little reptile, sporting with evident enjoyment of the fervid heat! It ...
— A Virtuoso's Collection (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... built on the same general plan; the same backbone of thought runs through them; and between them all there is no greater divergence than that which in the physical realm separates mammal from bird, or bird from reptile. It is inevitable to conclude that even the most recently discovered folk-tale of them has come to us from a distant period when our forefathers were in the same rude state as Dyaks and South Sea Islanders. No actual adventure of Wild Edric or Raymond of Lusignan gave rise to these stories. English ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... both in Malay and Hindu mythology, differing somewhat in details, but always relating to some monster reptile. In the Manek Maya, one of the ancient epics of Java, Anta Boga, the deity presiding over the lowest region of the earth, is a dragon-like monster with ninety nostrils. The same conception is found also among ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... hissing and rattling became louder, and presently a large rattlesnake glided out with raised head and threatening jaws, and made for the door. Snap stood near the entrance, as if transfixed by fear, his tail between his legs, and trembling in every limb. Uncle John aimed a blow, but the irritated reptile darting forwards bit the poor dog in the throat. Before, however, Snap's yelp of agony had died away, the stick fell on the creature's head, and it ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... to this; I am about to leave you forever, and yet you shrink from me as if I were a reptile," cried Jameson. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 2 August 1848 • Various
... right, mum," in a cringing tone, and left. She was a determined-looking woman, and Alligator's yellow eyes glared unpleasantly—besides, the dog's chawing-up apparatus greatly resembled that of the reptile he ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson
... titles which they stain, And, mean themselves, are of their fathers vain; Who would a bill of privilege prefer, And treat a poet like a creditor; 150 The generous ardour of the Muse condemn, And curse the storm they know must break on them! 'What! shall a reptile bard, a wretch unknown, Without one badge of merit but his own, Great nobles lash, and lords, like common men, Smart from the vengeance of a scribbler's pen?' What's in this name of lord, that I should fear To bring their vices to the public ear? Flows not ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... enough to paralyse the bravest heart, and for a few minutes Gray clung to the roots of the tree beside him, feeling sick and giddy, and as if some reptile was only waiting for his next ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... S. bufonia, as its name implies, is marked like the back of the reptile from whence it has its name; it flowers in December ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... creation. These mysteries belong to the wondrous Creator, and to him only. We attempt to theorize upon them, and to reduce them to law, and all nature rises up against us in our presumptuous rebellion. A stray splinter of cone bearing wood—a fish's skull or tooth—the vertebra of a reptile—the humerus of a bird—the jaw of a quadruped—all, any of these things, weak and insignificant as they may seem, become in such a quarrel too strong for us and our theory—the puny fragment in the grasp of truth forms as irresistible ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... one piece of advice that William's friends should give him—not to restore the sixty millions of Guelph money to the Duke of Cumberland. This ultra-modern young Emperor will very soon have greater need of the services of the reptile Press than even Bismarck himself; for every one of his latest rescripts adds new public difficulties to the number of those secret ones which the ex-Chancellor, with his infinite capacity for intrigue, ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam |
