"Starling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... he replied, 'I shall never be killed except by a Prince called Lionheart; nor by him unless he can find the solitary tree, where a dog and a horse keep sentinel day and night. Even then he must pass these warders unhurt, climb the tree, kill the starling which sits singing in a golden cage on the topmost branch, tear open its crop, and destroy the bumble bee it contains. So I am safe; for it would need a lion's heart, or great wisdom, to reach the tree and ...
— Tales Of The Punjab • Flora Annie Steel
... extremely abundant on the undulating, grassy plains around Maldonado. There are several species of a family allied in structure and manners to our Starling: one of these (Molothrus niger) is remarkable from its habits. Several may often be seen standing together on the back of a cow or horse; and while perched on a hedge, pluming themselves in the sun, they sometimes attempt to sing, or rather to hiss; the noise being very ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... said the woman. "He says you are teaching him to speak just as if he were a starling, and we are very much ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... people say," the mother returned. "But we simply name them according to their characteristics. This one," nodding to the girl who had just gone back to her seat, "we call Starling, because she talks so much, and her sister there is Dove, because she is so gentle. Squirrel is the nimblest of them all and he is never still a minute. See him wiggling round now! This little one," reaching out a hand to the smallest of the four, "is Lark. because ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... hearing sharpened, the old familiar sounds returned, the chirping of the titmice, the starling's discord, the sniggering of the robin, the squirrel's bullying cough. How he had hated the squirrel—a midget incarnation of mischief, whose whole life was spent in practical joking. How often had he heard that hateful cough shot into his ear, as My Lady Shadowtail ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... That for years with ceaseless din, Hath reverst the starling's ditty, Singing out "I can't ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... not answer this question; so we got the Bible Dictionary and read there that a great many of our smaller birds, such as the starling, linnet, goldfinch, blackbird, lark, wagtail, and thrush, are found in Palestine, and that the Tree-sparrow has been seen in great numbers on Mount Olivet; while another kind, the Rock-sparrow, is often found perched upon a large stone, all ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... but his thoughts were always wandering. Learning did not interest him. He had other things to think about: would the last leaves in the garden have fallen when he got home from school at noon? And would the starling, for whom he had nailed the little box high up in the pine-tree, come again next spring? It had picked off all the black berries from the elderberry, and had then gone away screaming; if it did not find any more elderberries, what ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... the surface, this may arise from their having been at some former period under cultivation.—The prevailing trees on the surrounding heights are firs, Pinus pendula and cedroides. No fish are to be seen in the river. The birds are the raven, white-necked starling, bullfinch, crimson and yellow shrikelets, blue tomtits, lesser ditto with two stripes on the head, white-rumped waterchat, red-tailed ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... the Air The Withered Rose Wrecks of Life Eleanor New Year's Bells The Vase and the Weed A Riddle To a Fly Burned by a Gaslight To a Friend Retribution The Three Graces The Last Rose of Summer The Starling and the Goose The Heroes of Alma A Kind Word, a Smile, or a Kiss Dear Mother, I'm Thinking of Thee The Heron and the Weather-Vane The Three Mirrors The Two Clocks Sacrifical: on the Execution of Two Greek Sailors at Swansea Wales to "Punch" Welcome! Change False as Fair Heads and Hearts ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... domestic than ours; a much larger number build about houses and towers and outbuildings. The titmouse with us is exclusively a wood-bird; but in Britain three or four species of them resort more or less to buildings in winter. Their redstart also builds under the eaves of houses; their starling in church steeples and in holes in walls; several thrushes resort to sheds to nest; and jackdaws breed in the crannies of the old architecture, and this in a much milder climate ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... pursuing a middle course, saves his life and his master's honour. In the Panjabi legend Raja Rasalu, who was very frequently from home on hunting excursions, left behind him a parrot and a maina (hill starling), to act as spies upon his young wife, the Rani Kokla. One day while Rasalu was from home she was visited by the handsome Raja Hodi, who climbed to her balcony by a rope (this incident is the subject of many paintings in fresco on the panels of palaces and temples ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... that it touches except snow, Whether on mountain side or street of town. The south wall warms me: November has begun, Yet never shone the sun as fair as now While the sweet last-left damsons from the bough With spangles of the morning's storm drop down Because the starling shakes it, whistling what Once swallows sang. But I have not forgot That there is nothing, too, like March's sun, Like April's, or July's, or June's, or May's, Or January's, or February's, great days: And ...
— Poems • Edward Thomas |
