"Wingless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... encased in a horny bill seem to be debarred from wearing noses. And yet there is one primeval fowl, most ancient of all the feathered families, which has come near it. I mean the apteryx, that eccentric, wingless recluse which hides itself in the scrub jungles of New Zealand. Its nostrils, unlike those of every other bird, are at the tip of its beak, which is swollen and sensitive; and Dr. Buller says that as it wanders about in the night it makes a continual sniffing and softly taps the walls ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... hail, or rain, or snow. The sun shone brightly. The birds seemed to know as well as the children that it was the first of May. The country village in which Mrs. Chilton lived was as noisy as a martin box, at break of day, when doubtless, though we poor wingless bipeds don't understand what the birds are chattering about, they are planning their work and their amusements for the ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen
... that by the rocky cliffs of the sea, halcyon,[144] dost chant thy mournful elegy, a sound well understood by the skilled, namely, that thou art ever bemoaning thine husband in song, I, a wingless bird, compare my dirge with thine, longing for the assemblies[145] of the Greeks, longing for Lucina, who dwells along the Cynthian height, and near the palm[146] with its luxuriant foliage, and the rich-springing laurel, and the holy shoot of ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... validity of this scheme, however, is disproved by the fact that males can transmit the female characters of their race, as in the case mentioned by Doncaster where a male Nyssia zonaria when crossed transmits the wingless character ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... customer was proof against his blandishments. He took Gilbert an evening paper, and then subsided into a pensive silence until the fowl appeared in an agreeable frizzling state, fresh from the gridiron, but a bird of some experience notwithstanding, and wingless. It was a very hasty meal. Gilbert was eager to return to those chambers in the Temple—eager to be listening once more for some chance words of meaning that might be dropped from John Saltram's pale parched ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... gave about Madeira, but I wish you had alluded to Lyell's discussion on land shells, etc.—not that he has said a word on the subject. The whole address quite delighted me. I hear Mr. Crotch[86] disputed some of your facts about the wingless insects, but he is a crotchety man. As far as I remember, I did not venture to ask Mr. Appleton to get you to review me, but only said, in answer to an inquiry, that you would undoubtedly be the best, or one of the very few men ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... guttered but didn't go out. A moth had flown down its chimney, was sizzling, charring, inside ... Paul lifted off the globe. Burnt his hands, but said nothing ... flicked the wingless, blackened body ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... guileless youth, Flies tow'rds her Love with trusting wing, Bruises her heart 'gainst broken truth, And falls, like thee, a crippled thing. How man in bacchanalian sphere Soars to the heat of Pleasure's sun, Then, by gradations dark and drear, Sinks low as thee, poor wingless one: How hearts from proud Ambition's height Have drooped to darkest, lowest hell— From blazing noon to pitchy night, With pangs a demon-tongue may tell: How aspirations glory-fraught Have gained the goal in dark despair; How golden hopes ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning |
