"Quadruped" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Australasia was remarkable for its many and curious departures from the accepted laws governing these species of tubercles, but that in his opinion Nature's fondness for dabbling in the erratic was most notably exhibited in that curious combination of bird, fish, amphibian, burrower, crawler, quadruped, and Christian called the Ornithorhynchus—grotesquest of animals, king of the animalculae of the world for versatility of character ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... not numerous. The most common is said to be one resembling our fox-dog, which is sometimes eaten for food. It runs wild in the woods, and is described by Savage as usually of a black and white skin, with pricked up ears, and the hair rather long. But it may perhaps be doubted if even this quadruped is a ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... surprise, rose on his hind legs and walked up to him—a sure sign that he was quite undaunted, and had made up his mind to give battle. As for La Roche, the instant he cast his eyes on the ferocious-looking quadruped, he uttered a frightful yell, bounded towards a neighbouring tree, and ceased not to ascend until its topmost branches were bending beneath his weight. Meanwhile the bear walked up to Bryan, but not meeting with the anticipated grapple of an enemy, and ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... inclinations. But I could have easily vindicated humankind from the imputation of singularity upon the last article, if there had been any swine in that country (as unluckily for me there were not), which, although it may be a sweeter quadruped than a Yahoo, cannot, I humbly conceive, in justice, pretend to more cleanliness; and so his honour himself must have owned, if he had seen their filthy way of feeding, and their custom of wallowing and sleeping in ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... could not make out what it was. These days the dung was more abundant, and the people told me what it was. The people about here do not hurt them, their spears being useless against the hide of this great quadruped; the hunters, however, entangle the smaller animals—gazelles, &c.—by means of a great wheel made of cane. The animals put their feet in the middle, which gives in, and holds them, whilst the top is secured by ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... arguments no further, for I will not support the sophisms of that school which supposes that living nature has undergone gradual changes by the effects of its irritabilities and appetencies; that the fish has in millions of generations ripened into the quadruped, and the quadruped into the man; and that the system of life by its own inherent powers has fitted itself to the physical changes in the system of the universe. To this absurd, vague, atheistical doctrine, ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... man has hands with which to use weapons, but a helpless quadruped has not. Though if a sufficient number of these bats attacked a man at the same time, he would have small chance to escape alive. Their bites, too, may be poisonous ...
— Tom Swift in the Land of Wonders - or, The Underground Search for the Idol of Gold • Victor Appleton
... his jackass, let me recommend him, instead of beating it, to slay and eat it. Donkey is now all the fashion. When one is asked to dinner, as an inducement one is told that there will be donkey. The flesh of this obstinate, but weak-minded quadruped is delicious—in colour like mutton, firm and savoury. This siege will destroy many illusions, and amongst them the prejudice which has prevented many animals being used as food. I can most solemnly assert that I never wish to taste ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... rudimental forms, and rose to the more complex as fast as the earth was fit for their dwelling-place,—and that the lower perish, as the higher appear. Very few of our race can be said to be yet finished men. We still carry sticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped organization. We call these millions men; but they are not yet men. Half-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music that can be brought to disengage him. If Love, red Love, with tears and joy,—if ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... intended to portray the head of the same animal in a front view, the hands being laid upon each other, with thumbs extending on each side to represent the ears. In each case the thumbs are generally moved forward and back, in the manner of the quadruped, which, without much apparent reason, has been selected as the emblem of stupidity. The sign, therefore, means stupid, fool. Another mode of executing the same conception—the ears of an ass—is shown ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... down amidst the symbols of the late revel. While they lay stretched on the floor, surrounded by the ruins of the table and the fragments of glass, both bleeding and bruised, the landlord made his appearance; and after removing the astonished quadruped to more congenial quarters, the frolicsome and sportive inebriates separated for ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... Asia and Africa. The elephant is the largest quadruped now in existence; it is extremely sagacious, docile and friendly: in the countries where they live they are trained to useful labor, and by their great strength are enabled to perform tasks which a man or horse could not accomplish: among the native princes they were, and even still are, ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... Ground-mole said it did not require very sharp eyes to see into the future, and it would just end in bringing down the price of real estate in the whole vicinity, so that every decent- minded and respectable quadruped would be obliged to move away;—for his part, he was ready to sell out for anything he could get. The bluebirds and bobolinks, it is true, took more cheerful views of matters; but then, as old Mrs. Ground-mole observed, they were a flighty set,—half ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... army depended upon his private exertions. I respected this style of mule; and, had I possessed a juicy cabbage, would have pressed it upon him, with thanks for his excellent example. The histrionic mule was a melodramatic quadruped, prone to startling humanity by erratic leaps, and wild plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then falling flat, and apparently dying a la Forrest; a gasp—a squirm—a flop, and so on, till the street ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... Minny?" she said, stooping in answer to some whimpering of that small quadruped, and lifting his glossy head against her pink cheek. "Did you think I was going without you? Come, then, let us go ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... made me magical medicine That is true! Being of mystery,—grown in the water— He gave it to me! To the face of our Grandfather stretch out your hand; Holding a quadruped, stretch ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... disastrous expedition of his he had reckoned on slipping into his house incognito. But the presence of this burdensome quadruped rendered the thing impossible. What kind of a triumphal entry would he make? Good heavens! not a sou, not a lion, nothing to show for ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... incurably insane for many years before his accession to the crown, and whose dementia takes that peculiar form, which is described in the Bible as having overtaken Nebuchadnezzar. King Otto of Bavaria imagines himself to be alternately a quadruped or a bird, and when he is not browsing on leaves and grass in the gardens of his prison palace at Fuerstenried, under the impression that he is a sheep or goat, he will stand on one leg in the centre of a shallow pond, firmly convinced that he is a stork, occasionally ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... which teaches that when Allah was engaged in the work of creation, he tempered the lightning with the south wind, and thus created the horse. Whimsical as is this idea, it yet suggests the swiftness, the fire, the mettlesome, generous, but plastic temperament of our favourite quadruped—the only one of our dumb servants in whose spirit we can rouse at will the utmost emulation, the keenest desire for the approval of its lord. Even the countenance of this animal denotes most of the qualities we affect to esteem in the human race—courage, docility, ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Cave-dweller, a contemporary of Mastodons and Mammoths; I am pleistocene and neolithic, and full of the lusts and terrors of the great pre-glacial forests. But that's nothing; I am millions of years older; I am an arboreal Ape, an aged Baboon, with all its instincts; I am a pre-simian quadruped, I have great claws, eyes that see in the dark, and a long ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... "Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth: namely, 10 twenty-four grinders, four eyeteeth, and twelve incisors. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... loft where a Japanese cat, a large monkey, and sundry other creatures lived. I did not take to the kangaroo rat, he was too large and formidable to be pleasant, and was by no means tame, but to be pulled out of the cage by his long tail was, I confess, enough to scare the mildest quadruped. At length I was shown some Peruvian guinea-pigs. Wonderful little creatures! With hair three or four inches long, white, yellow and black, set on anyhow, sticking out in odd tufts, one side of their heads white ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... we write of, "Old Crutch," too, with his scaffolding under his arm, and disabled limb dangling like a loose girth from his rosinante's side, a quadruped equalling the Dollar's mount in beauty,—might have been seen side by side with Lord Chesterfield, on his thoroughbred, and addressing him in all the Timbobbinish horrors of his frightful vernacular. My lord was then in the zenith of his good looks and humour, ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... opportunity is found of killing game, which always requires time to approach it with caution. Although we passed through what appeared to be excellent cover for various species of wild animals, we reached our first camp without having ruffled either hair or feathers. In fact, neither bird nor quadruped had been seen, although almost every one of the party had been on the look out for game ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... or steinbok, is an Alpine animal remarkable for the development of its horns, which are sometimes more than three feet in length, and of such extraordinary dimensions that they appear to a casual observer to be peculiarly unsuitable for a quadruped which traverses the craggy regions of Alpine precipices. Some writers say that these enormous horns are employed by their owners as "buffers," by which the force of a fall may be broken; and that the animal, when leaping from a great height, will alight ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... debates, newspapers, and pamphlets of the time. The Federalists, as Mr. Clay observed in one of his speeches, compared Napoleon to "every monster and beast, from that mentioned in the Revelation down to the most insignificant quadruped." The Republicans, on the contrary, spoke of him always with moderation and decency, sometimes with commendation, and occasionally he was toasted at their public dinners with enthusiasm. Mr. Clay himself, ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... he might as well take the pony there himself. It would trot along beside his horse. Sydney saved him part of the charge. Sydney would at all times walk back any distance for the sake of a ride out, on whatever kind of saddle, or almost any kind of quadruped. He was in waiting at the farrier's gate, when Miss Young returned from her ride; and having assisted her into the house, he threw himself upon her pony, and rode three miles and a half on the Dingleford road before he would dismount, and deliver his bridle into Mr Hope's ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... are very deceptive. The attributes added must be definite qualities, like whiteness, and must in no way involve a comparison. From 'A horse is a quadruped' it may seem at first sight to follow that 'A swift horse is a swift quadruped.' But we need not go far to discover how little formal validity there is about such an inference. From 'A horse is a quadruped' it by no means follows that 'A slow horse is a slow quadruped'; for even a slow horse is ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... remember that Gellert, not long after, did get a Horse; two successive Horses; both highly remarkable. The first especially; which was Prince Henri's gift: "The Horse Prince Henri had ridden at the Battle of Freyberg" (Battle to be mentioned hereafter);—quadruped that must have been astonished at itself! But a pretty enough gift from the warlike admiring Prince to his dyspeptic Great Man. This Horse having yielded to Time, the very Kurfurst (grandson of Polish ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... an easy one and caused him no anxiety. All was going well, when his first shock of alarm came with the discovery that a wild animal was following him. His first thought was that it was one of the Indians, but a glimpse, on the edge of a slight clearing, showed that it was a quadruped. ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... is n't," said Squeers. "A horse is a quadruped, and quadruped's Latin for beast, as everybody that's gone through the grammar knows, or else where's the use of having ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... how little was the difference between man and beast. It was only in its objective. The manner was much the same. Yes, and the very means employed created in him an impression favorable to the hapless quadruped. Surely their battle for existence ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... Province, in which the Governor is the only Englishman, and his cow almost the only quadruped, deserves to be more frequently visited by tourists, as it is perfectly unique in its way. It also merits the study of English politicians. This island rock is the Gibraltar of the North Sea. With a few companies of infantry and casemated batteries, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... quadruped, not yet furnished with wings, were suddenly inspired with the instinct of a bird, and precipitated itself from a cliff, would not the descent be hazardously rapid?" Doubtless the animal would be no better supported than the objection. But Darwin makes very little indeed of voluntary efforts ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... issue forth from the door of the alehouse, then to lead a very showy looking horse from the stable, and then to mount him and take his way over the hill. The poacher had never possessed a more dignified quadruped than a dog or a donkey in his life; so that it was evident the horse could not be his. That he was not engaged in the congenial but dangerous occupation of stealing it, was clear from the fact of the owner of the beast gazing quietly at him out of the window while he mounted; ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... of particular moment occurring. Belle drove the little cart containing her merchandise about the neighbourhood, returning to the dingle towards the evening. As for myself, I kept within my wooded retreat, working during the periods of her absence leisurely at my forge. Having observed that the quadruped which my companion drove was as much in need of shoes as my own had been some time previously, I had determined to provide it with a set, and during the aforesaid periods occupied myself in preparing them. As I was employed three mornings ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... have been no other than the Plesiosaurus, one of the most wonderful animals that has ever existed. Imagine a thing with the head of a lizard, the teeth of a crocodile, the neck of a swan, the trunk and tail of a quadruped, and the fins of a whale. Imagine a whale with its head and neck consisting of a serpent, with the strength of the former and the malignant fury of the latter, and then you will have the plesiosaurus. It was an aquatic animal, yet it had to remain near or on the surface ...
— A Strange Manuscript Found in a Copper Cylinder • James De Mille
... began to chop the block under his feet. He screeched and she chopped; he screeched and she chopped; until he became an old man again and made the enigmatical confession: "I have transformed myself not once nor twice only. I was first a fish, then I became a bird, an ant, and a quadruped, and now I have once more made trial of being a human being. It isn't better thus than being among the ants; but among human beings—it isn't worse!" Here the chopping was evidently a threat to kill. Nor, if we may trust the stories, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... of wagons, lorries, guns and despatch riders. Nearly decided to take up hunting, when the time came for me to settle in England once more. However, as I neared the outskirts of Nieppe, and saw the flood of interlacing traffic, I decided to leave well alone—to tie this quadruped of mine up at some outlying hostelry and walk the short remaining distance into the town where the cashier had his office. I found a suitable place and, letting myself down to the ground, strode off with a stiff bandy-legged action to the office. Having got my 100 francs all right ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... it to-morrow morning," replied Phoebicius with perfect indifference, but with an evil smile on his flaccid lips. "So many two-legged lovers make themselves free to my house, that I do not see why I should share your affections with a quadruped into the bargain. How came this sheepskin here?" Sirona vouchsafed no answer to this last question, but she exclaimed in great excitement, "By God—by your God—by the mighty Rock, and by all the gods! if you do the little beast a harm, it will ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... our enthusiastic Nimrod went at everything, and feared nothing! Well was it for him that he had arranged to follow Tom Stoutheart, else assuredly he would have run Slapover at fences which would have taxed the temerity even of that quadruped, and insured his destruction. Tom, seeing his condition, considerately kept him out of danger, and yet, being thoroughly acquainted with the country, managed to keep him well up ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... a ridiculous position, and tired, sore from the spear-grass, and annoyed as I was, I could not refrain from a hearty laugh at our predicament before attempting to extricate my unhappy quadruped; this I succeeded in doing with some difficulty, and found him, with the exception of some few scratches, ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... a pad and pencil from his pocket, and drew two pairs of wheels, and then put a wagon on them, and drew a quadruped hitched to it, and a Svant with a stick walking beside it. Sonny looked at the picture—Svants seemed to have pictoral sense, for which make us thankful!—and then caught his mother's sleeve and showed it to her. Mom didn't get it. Sonny took the pencil and drew ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... to join his friends; for the fact that he had fired into a stump, under the belief that it was a bear, was no proof that the dreaded quadruped was not ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... used to you yet, sir," said Jeeves, regarding the bally quadruped in an admiring sort of way. "He is ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... people had won the use of the animal, and when they only knew the creature by chance encounters with enemies who were mounted upon them. Although the naturalist of to-day perceives the impossibility of there ever having been on this earth a form uniting the trunk and fore-limbs of a quadruped to the upper part of a man's body, such scientific conceptions are a part of our modern, recently acquired store of knowledge. To the Greeks of the myth-making age the creature, half man, half horse, added but one ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... as they started, with an old shoe in her hand, which she delivered with such good (or bad) effect that it hit the horse on the ear, and made it shy. Happily, it was a sedate old quadruped, not given to giddy ways, and quickly ...
— The Gold that Glitters - The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender • Emily Sarah Holt
... the lost animal. It is even said that one servant lass, in her ardour of search, was found looking under the bed in an upstairs room—scarcely a likely grazing ground for any four-footed animal (unless perhaps it might be a night-mare). But whether she expected to find there the lost quadruped, or the man guilty of its abduction, tradition says not. At any rate, all that any of the searchers found—and that not till broad daylight—was the print of the good mare's hoofs in some soft ground over which she had been ridden fast. And no one had heard even so much as ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... quadrupeds and birds do not in propelling themselves exert their force in a direct line with the plane of their motion, but at an angle to it, the same principle would, if applied to a steamship, increase its speed. But let us look at the subject from another standpoint. The quadruped has to support the weight of his body, and propel himself forward, with the same force. If the force be applied perpendicularly, the body is elevated, but not moved forward. If the force is applied ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... American agriculture is to feed our beasts. Approximately nine tenths of the proceeds of American agriculture goes to nourish the quadruped, and man eats the remaining one tenth; therefore, if we want to get clear of the possibility of a crop being overproduced, let us grow something the beast can eat. To say that we will never overproduce food crops for man is ridiculous. It ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Fourth Annual Meeting - Washington D.C. November 18 and 19, 1913 • Various
... all the vices of the age He manfully did battle; His chickens were a biped breed, And quadruped his cattle. ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... has, in some respects, served as a model to subsequent inquirers. This "Pygmie," Tyson tells us "was brought from Angola, in Africa; but was first taken a great deal higher up the country"; its hair "was of a coal-black colour and strait," and "when it went as a quadruped on all four, 'twas awkwardly; not placing the palm of the hand flat to the ground, but it walk'd upon its knuckles, as I observed it to do when weak and had not strength enough to support its body."—"From the top of the ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... worth killing. The snow lay fifteen inches deep, and made the travelling grievously painful and toilsome. At length they came to an immense plain, where no vestige of timber was to be seen, not a single quadruped to enliven the desolate landscape. Here, then, their hearts failed them, and they held another consultation. The width of the river, which was nearly a mile, its extreme shallowness, the frequency of quicksands, and various other characteristics, had at length made them sensible ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... required. The illusion will be heightened by characteristic scenery and mephitic exhalations. M. Sax visited the pool in the Bois de Boulogne, known as the Maree d'Auteuil, and brought back many useful ideas in reference to the quadruped with whose vocal powers he desired to become acquainted. The frog voices will be a series of eight, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... prairie. The east wind tempered the spring warmth; wool-white clouds flying in from the Mexican Gulf hindered the direct rays of the April sun. Sam sang songs as he rode. Under his pony's bridle he had tucked some sprigs of chaparral to keep away the deer flies. Thus crowned, the long-faced quadruped looked more Dantesque than before, and, judging by his countenance, seemed to ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... time-honoured title of 'Jacko'; but by a series of exploits in which the monkey distinguished himself at the expense of every member of the household in turn, it became evident that only one name would fit a quadruped of his peculiar disposition; and that was 'Tricky.' Tricky, therefore, he was called, and as Tricky ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... stately portico appeared, with Corinthian columns, affording an inviting termination of the view. The grounds bore evidence of neglect in the grass growing knee-high and rank with weeds; the flower beds almost obliterated; a corn-crib sunk to one side like a quadruped gone weak-kneed; and the stream that struggled vainly through the leaves and rubbish barring its passage across the estate. The fence resembled the "company front" of an awkward squad, each picket being more or less independent of its neighbor, with here and ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... long when he saw proof of what the captain had told him: the animals were restless, or rather one of them was. The quadruped thus affected was Hercules, his own mule, who, although lying down, twice rose to his feet, shifted his position and lay down again. Then he sniffed as if the air contained an odor that ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... appreciate and admire each other. So long as they are different and yet supposed to be the same, there can be nothing but a divided mind and a staggering balance. It may be that in the first twilight of time man and woman walked about as one quadruped. But if they did, I am sure it was a quadruped that reared and bucked and kicked up its heels. Then the flaming sword of some angel divided them, and they fell in love ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... his horse, he himself keeps an anxious look-out, watching the undulating motion of the grass, and ever ready with his rifle or pistols in the event of his being confronted with bears, pumas, or any other ferocious quadruped. If he is attacked, he can fight, and only few accidents have ever happened in these encounters, as these animals always wander alone, with the exception of the wolf, from whom, however, there is but little to fear, as, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... judgment," said the Irishman, deferentially, "and would suggist that the sooner the same quadruped is procured the better all round. I hope the thing won't be delayed, as me aunt obsarved when the joodge sintenced ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... delusion that food for the entire army depended upon his private exertions. I respected this style of mule; and had I possessed a juicy cabbage, would have pressed it upon him, with thanks for his excellent example. The historical mule was a melo-dramatic quadruped, prone to startling humanity by erratic leaps, and wild plunges, much shaking of his stubborn head, and lashing out of his vicious heels; now and then falling flat and apparently dying a la Forrest: a gasp—a squirm—a flop, and so on, till the street was well blocked up, ...
— Hospital Sketches • Louisa May Alcott
... serpents, or those whose feet are too short to lift them far from the ground, as the lizard and tortoise. But since certain animals, as deer and goats, seem to fall under none of these classes, the word "quadrupeds" is added. Or perhaps the word "quadruped" is used first as being the genus, to which the others are added as species, for even some reptiles, such as lizards and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... and entire from end to end, not mixing or intermingling. Fish, birds, quadrupeds—some had died out indeed, but no creature mentioned in the earliest records showed the smallest sign of approximating or drawing near to any other creature; no bird had lost its wings or gained its hands; no quadruped had deserted instinct for reason. Bees were a case in point. They were insects of a marvellous wisdom. They had a community, a government, almost laws. They knew their own business, and followed it with intense enthusiasm. Yet in all the centuries during which they had ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... then went off into various inarticulate sounds, which I recommend to the particular study of the new philosophers: they cannot have been invented after speech; that would be retrogression; they must be the vocal remains of that hairy, sharp-eared quadruped, our Progenitor, who by accident discovered language, and so turned Biped, and went ahead of all the other hairy quadrupeds, whose ears were too long or not sharp enough ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... cattle-fairs of London; but a stalking-horse whose paces are sufficiently showy and imposing—a high-stepper, of thoroughbred appearance, and a mouth sensitively alive to the lightest touch of the curb, easy to ride or drive, warranted neither a kicker nor a bolter—is a quadruped of rare excellence, not to be met with every day. Just such a stalking-horse was Captain Paget; and Mr. Sheldon lost no time in putting him into action. It is scarcely necessary to say that the stockbroker trusted his new acquaintance only so far as it was absolutely ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title Lord of the White Elephants above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... and would not take great delight in seeing them. There are also whales. I saw no beasts on the land of any kind, except parrots and lizards. A boy told me that he saw a large serpent. I saw neither sheep, nor goats, nor any other quadruped. It is true I have been here a short time, since noon,[120-1] yet I could not have failed to see some if there had been any. I will write respecting the circuit of this island after ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... tickets, because he was too shrewd; but he made endless calculations upon the probability of drawing prizes,—provided the tickets were really all sold, and the wheel fairly managed. A dice-box was always at hand upon the mantel. He had portraits of celebrated racers, both quadruped and biped, and he could tell the fastest time ever made by either. His manipulation of cards was, as his friends averred, one of the fine arts; and in all the games he had wrought out problems of chances, and knew the probability of every contingency. A stock-list ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... of discovery, among other animals of less note, was presented "a quadruped with an amazingly long neck, head like a sheep, bearing two long spiral horns, white as polished ivory, and standing in perpendiculars parallel to each other. Its body was like that of a deer, but its forelegs were most disproportionately ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... one, Whether quadruped or gun, Or a mother's wayward son Given to disaster, Harry's gun was rather quick; And it had a naughty trick,— It would snap itself, and kick ...
— The Youth's Coronal • Hannah Flagg Gould
... coming far more gently, the mule having tucked its hind legs close beneath it, and slid steadily down, while by means of his ice-axe Melchior regulated his pace to that of the quadruped, till they, ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... as the swiftest quadruped native in America. It is a small creature, less than a common deer; a fair-sized buck weighs about one hundred pounds. It is known by its rich buff color with pure white patches, by having only two hoofs on each foot, and by the horns which are of true horn, ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... dumb beast, the finest exhibition of instinct they could call to mind; but the master said, with vehemence, "It's far above instinct; it's REASON, and many a man, privileged to be saved and go with you and me to a better world by right of its possession, has less of it that this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to perish"; and then he laughed, and said: "Why, look at me—I'm a sarcasm! bless you, with all my grand intelligence, the only think I inferred was that the dog had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the beast's intelligence—it's REASON, I tell you!—the ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... In the horse the hairy covering serves to some extent to mask the symptoms, and hence the nonprofessional man is tempted to apply the term "mange" to all alike, and it is only a step further to apply the same treatment to all these widely different disorders. Yet even in the hairy quadruped the distinction can be made in a way which can not be done in disorders of that counterpart and prolongation of the skin—the mucous membrane, which lines the air passages, the digestive organs, the urinary and generative apparatus. Diseased processes, therefore, which in these organs it might be ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... to a money-lender, who has left me, instead of the classical stuffed crocodile, a trained horse which he had just taken from an insolvent circus. I mounted the noble animal to go to the Bois, but at the Place de la Concorde he began to waltz around it, and I was obliged to get rid of this dancing quadruped at a considerable loss. So your contribution to La Guepe would have to be gratuitous, like those of all the rest. You will give me the credit of having saluted you first of all, my dear Violette, by the rare and glorious title of true poet. You will let me reserve the pleasure ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Gummiferae, with bi-pinnate leaves, growing to a height of fifteen or twenty feet. The branches and trunk are covered with strong curved spines, set in pairs, from which it receives the name of the bull's-horn thorn, they having a very strong resemblance to the horns of that quadruped. These thorns are hollow, and are tenanted by ants, that make a small hole for their entrance and exit near one end of the thorn, and also burrow through the partition that separates the two horns; so that the one entrance serves for both. Here they rear their young, ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt
... quadruped, the female suffers very little handicap from the functions peculiar to her sex, except when actually carrying her young or nursing them. When she stands erect, however, the support for the special organs of reproduction is far from ideal; heavy ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... can reasonably be drawn from this strange fact is that we are here dealing with a fossilized structure, a functionless survival. It leads irresistibly to the inference that man has descended from a quadruped ancestor, and that when his body took the upright position the structure of the veins, not being seriously detrimental, remained unchanged. Those which had been vertical became horizontal, and retained their now useless valves; ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... ostrich-feathers with a disc between its horns, broadening its back to receive the sleeper upon a thin red mattress, and stiffening by way of feet its black legs ending in green hoofs, while its curled-up tail was divided into two tufts. This quadruped bed, this piece of animal furniture, would have seemed strange in any other country than Egypt, where lions and jackals are also turned into beds by the ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... him he smiled an ambiguous smile, and jumped down once more upon Trumpington soil. A wave of great friendliness for the unhappy quadruped swept over me. "Persecute," I thought; "not likely." I went indoors and, after a short consultation with Harriet, came out again carrying a small round fish-cake on a spoon. I lobbed it far and wide over the wall, and it fell noiselessly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... his foot from the stirrup, and, relaxing the rein, still stood gazing at her over his horse's back. That placid quadruped, whose years had been spent in these pleasant by-ways and were too many to warrant an exhibition of coltish surprise, promptly lowered his head and resumed his occupation of grass-nibbling, making a little crunching noise which Miss Renwick might have ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... Doan't mind me," went on the colored man. "It was mah fault fer gittin in de road. But dat mule Boomerang am suttinly de most outrageous quadruped dat ever circumlocuted." ...
— Tom Swift and his Motor-cycle • Victor Appleton
... Dobbin: oats in full measure if thou wilt. "Hlunh, No—thank!" snorts Black Dobbin; he prefers glorious liberty and the grass. Bay Darby, wilt not thou perhaps? "Hlunh!"—Gray Joan, then, my beautiful broad-bottomed mare,—O Heaven, she too answers Hlunh! Not a quadruped of them will plough a stroke for me. Corn-crops are ended in this world!—For the sake, if not of Hodge, then of Hodge's horses, one prays this benevolent practice might now cease, and a new and better one try to begin. ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... coarse bristles than hair, and with respect to size, I have seen many a Westphalian hog quite as tall. I was not altogether satisfied with the idea of exhibiting myself on the back of this most extraordinary quadruped, and looked wistfully on the respectable animal on which my guide had thought proper to place himself; he interpreted my glances, and gave me to understand that as he was destined to carry the baggage, he was entitled to the best horse; a plea too well grounded on reason for ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... XV the ladies sought a little more comfort, and followed the equipage sitting in a sort of hamper-like, diminutive basket, hung from the broad back of a sturdy quadruped. Dresses became more fanciful, both in materials and colours. From this it was but a step to even more elaborate toilettes which necessitated a conveyance of some sort on wheels, but the most intrepid still clung to the traditionally ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... the air were necessary for the decomposition of water, and the conversion of it into saccharine matter, which would have been not only cumberous but totally incompatible with the locomotion of animal bodies. For how could a man or quadruped have carried on his head or back a forest of leaves, or have had long branching lacteal or absorbent vessels terminating in the earth? Animals therefore subsist on vegetables; that is, they take the matter so far prepared, and have organs to prepare it ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... don't you come and shake off this silly gloom? To tell you the plain truth, Oddity, your mind really requires opening, and there is nothing like travelling for that. You are, I am afraid, not a well-informed quadruped. I insist upon your embarking with us to-night, and we'll make a rat of ...
— The Rambles of a Rat • A. L. O. E.
... before me." "This scene occurred just at that period of the morning when the grazing animals retired from the open patena to the cool shade of the forest: doubtless, the leopard had taken my approach for that of a deer, or some such animal. And if his spring had been at a quadruped instead of a biped, his distance was so well measured, that it must have landed him on the neck of a deer, an elk, or a buffalo; as it was, one pace more would have done for me. A bear would not have let his ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... he, responding to a host of memories, to shake them off, 'no more of the quadruped man! You tempt him—may I tell you that? Why, now, this moment, at the snap of my fingers, what is to hinder our taking the short cut to happiness, centaur and nymph? One leap and a gallop, and we should be into the morning, leaving night to grope for us, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... chaise was ready—an announcement which the vehicle itself confirmed, by forthwith appearing before the coffee-room blinds aforesaid." Subsequently, as they prepare to start, "'Wo-o!' cried Mr. Pickwick, as the tall quadruped evinced a decided inclination to ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes
... the masked battery on the Bench is uncurtained to bellow forth anti-Nationalist shrapnel. Irish Judges, in fact, are very like the horse in the schoolboy's essay: 'The horse is a noble and useful quadruped, but, when irritated, ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... said his companion. "Thick-headed, muddy-brained brute; more like a quadruped than a man! The Kaffirs are gentlemen to some of these up-country farmers, and yet ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... where the knife-blades had wandered in search of their prey; Their tops were as duskily spattered as if they drank ink every day. The square stove it puffed and it crackled, and broke out in red flaming sores, Till the great iron quadruped trembled like a dog fierce to rush out-o'-doors. White snowflakes looked in at the windows; the gale pressed its lips to the cracks; And the children's hot faces were streaming, the while they ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... had made a meal upon it; but there was one thing I had particularly noticed, and that was the eyes. I should rather say the places where the eyes had been; for the eyes themselves were quite gone, and the sockets cleaned out to the very bottom. Now, I reasoned that no quadruped could do this. The holes were too small even for a jackal to get his slender snout into. The work must have been done by the beak of a bird; and what sort of bird. Why, a ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... "The Mysteries of the Great Submarine Grounds," thus to see, at first hand, the life which I had only been able to speculate on before. We captured many rare specimens, and shot a fine sea-otter, the only known quadruped that inhabits the rocky depths of the Pacific. It was five feet long, and its skin was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... would not do that." The pony was now the only quadruped kept for the countess's own behoof; and the young earl's hunter was the only other horse in the Desmond Court stables. "I wouldn't do that, mamma; Mary and Emmeline will not mind ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... porcupine, Hystrix pilosus. A nocturnal rodent quadruped, armed with barbed quills, his chief defence when ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... "The quadruped to whom circumstances and the wants which they have created have given for a long period, as also to others of its race, the habit of browsing on grass, only walks on the ground, and is obliged to rest there on its four feet the greater part of its life, moving ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... worry and confuse his mother, to which occupations he applied himself with a degree of diligence worthy a better object. During a fearful commotion consequent upon the discovery of the cat's nose in the cream-jug, into the commission of which delinquency Freddy had contrived to inveigle that amiable quadruped by a series of treacherous caresses, I could not help remarking to Miss Saville (next to whom I happened to be seated) the contrast between this evening and those which we ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... result of that morning's work were to be extended in one unbroken length, they would reach exactly from Plummer's desk to the late Hector's kennel. Hector again! Every one's thoughts veered round to the unlucky quadruped and the storm that was brewing over his ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... elevated in the middle, and the windows are placed to look to the south: the entry can only admit a person to crawl in; on one side of it is placed the kitchen, and on the other the dog-kennel, but no partition separates the biped from the quadruped inhabitant. If constrained to travel in winter, or to remain at a distance from their usual homes, they build houses of snow, which afford them a tolerably comfortable temporary abode. These habitations are very ingeniously constructed; ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... unequivocal by the introduction of a picture of a horse; third, temati, wings, though spelled elaborately, has pictures of wings added; and fourth, tatu, quadrupeds, after being spelled, has a picture of a quadruped, and then the picture of a hide, which is the usual determinative of a quadruped, followed by three dashes ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... walk round the island, I found several cocoa-nut shells, the remains of an old wigwam, and the backs of two turtle, but no sign of any quadruped. One of my people found three ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... custom, still adhered to, in nearly all works on Egyptology. But we know from ancient evidence that the cucupha was a bird, perhaps a hoopoe; the sceptre of the gods, moreover, is really surmounted by the head of a quadruped having a pointed snout and long retreating ears, and belonging to the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... by sunset, which would give them twelve good hours for exploration, as it was the month of July, and the days were long. After their departure Mrs. P. put things to rights about the house, and barring the door against intruders, whether biped or quadruped, took her gun and fishing-tackle and went out for a little sport in ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... art, truth, or sense to fuse a cow, a horse, and a critic into one undistinguishable quadruped, with six legs, then it will be art to melt an ash, an elm, and a lime, things that differ more than quadrupeds, into what you call abstract trees, that any man who has seen a tree, as well as looked at one, would call drunken stinging-nettles. You, who never look at nature, how can you judge ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... Returning to the higher animals, let us consider the remarkable fact of the rarity of white colouring in the mammalia or birds of the temperate or tropical zones in a state of nature. There is not a single white land-bird or quadruped in Europe, except the few arctic or alpine species, to which white is a protective colour. Yet in many of these creatures there seems to be no inherent tendency to avoid white, for directly they are domesticated white varieties arise, ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... Lamantin, Trichechus Manatas Australis, Southern Manati, or Fish-tailed Walrus of naturalists. This singular amphibious animal, or rather aquatic quadruped, inhabits the southern seas of Africa and America, especially near the mouths of rivers, pasturing on aquatic plants, and browsing on the grass which grows close to the water. It varies in size from eight to seventeen feet long, and from 500 to 800 pounds weight, and the flesh is said ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... than does "shoulder lameness," yet diagnosis of almost any condition that may be classed under the head of "hip lameness" is not easy except in cases where the cause is obvious, as in wounds of the musculature and certain fractures. To the complexity which the gait of the quadruped contributes, because of its being four-legged, there is added the complicated manner of articulation of the bones of the hind leg. This involves the hip in the manner of diagnostic problems and because of the inaccessibility of certain parts, owing to the bulk ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... Albany Captain Glazier pursued his journey alone, and rode the same horse through the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska, as far as Omaha. Thence he proceeded on whatever quadruped of the equine species he could obtain, which was capable of shaking the dust from its feet nimbly. That he was fortunate in this respect is proven by the fact that he rode from Omaha to San Francisco, a distance of nineteen hundred and eighty-eight ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... Horticultural Exhibition at Earl's Court. Laid out as three acres, through which JESSE COLLINGS might be expected to lead the cow. But, as SQUIRE OF MALWOOD (a great authority on stock matters) says, the esteemed quadruped is dead, abandoned by its protector at time of disruption of Liberal Party. Exists now only in the form of carcass, to be found rather in butchers' shops than on quiet pastures. Pity, this. Difficult to imagine any better arrangement for what theatrical people call "properties" than the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 21, 1892 • Various
... organisation to another part, and to the conditions of life, and of one distinct organic being to another being, been perfected? We see these beautiful co-adaptations most {61} plainly in the woodpecker and missletoe; and only a little less plainly in the humblest parasite which clings to the hairs of a quadruped or feathers of a bird; in the structure of the beetle which dives through the water; in the plumed seed which is wafted by the gentlest breeze; in short, we see beautiful adaptations everywhere and in every part of ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... impressed with this apparent opportunity of bridging the seemingly impassable gulf between Etrurian Religion and the comparatively clear and comprehensible systems of the Pelasgo- Phoenician peoples. That Kad or Kab can refer either (as in Quatuor) to a four-footed animal (quadruped, "quad") or to a four- wheeled vehicle (esseda, Celtic cab) I cannot for a moment believe, though I understand that this theory has the support of Schrader, Penka, and Baunder. {10} Any information which your learning can procure, and your kind courtesy can supply, will be warmly ...
— Old Friends - Essays in Epistolary Parody • Andrew Lang
... before, lies 8 or more miles west-by-north of Freyberg and the Spittelwald, and is about as far straight south from Hainichen, Gellert's birthplace, who afterwards got the War-horse now coming into action,—I sometimes think, with what surprise to that quadruped! ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the only really formidable quadruped of our continent. He is the favorite theme of the hunters of the far West, who describe him as equal in size to a common cow and of prodigious strength. He makes battle if assailed, and often, if pressed ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... we have just referred consisted of three individuals, with their servants, biped and quadruped, from whom their masters derived the requisite assistance during their useful and arduous exploits—the results being conspicuous in the death of some dozen or two of silly grouse or red game, with which these hills are tolerably ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Dampier," and, in corroboration of the hippopotamus story, mentions that Bailly, when exploring the Swan River, "heard a bellowing much louder than that of an ox from among the reeds on the river side, which made him suspect that a large quadruped lay somewhere near him." It is remarkable that in the several accounts of the early Dutch visits to the northern coast no mention is made of alligators, although they are so common to all the inlets and rivers of ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... animal, observes Dr. Harwood, is I think, doubtless, of greater proportionate magnitude than in any other quadruped, and not only does it exhibit in its countenance, the appearance of sagacity, but its intelligence is in reality far greater than in most land quadrupeds: hence its domestication is rendered much easier than that of other animals, and it is susceptible of more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... body as it rose in the air, and, turning a complete somersault, landed on the ground all in a heap. One of the dogs, in his eagerness to do something grand, had approached a little too close to the mule's heels—an impertinence which that sagacious quadruped promptly resented by kicking out with both hind feet and knocking his would-be assailant into a cocked hat. The dog was not killed, but he was terribly demoralized, and his howls of anguish did much ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon
... rat and a rabbit, and supposed by Mr Buffon to be the same with the aperea of Brazil, was the largest viviparous quadruped in St. Domingo. This species seems never to have been very numerous; and the dogs and cats of the Spaniards are said to have long ago almost entirely extirpated it, as well as some other tribes of a still smaller size. These, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... viper, eft; asp, aspick^. [amphibians] frog, toad. [fishes] trout, bass, tuna, muskelunge, sailfish, sardine, mackerel. [insects] ant, mosquito, bee, honeybee. [arthropods] tardigrade, spider. [classification by number of feet] biped, quadruped; [web-footed animal] webfoot. flocks and herds, live stock; domestic animals, wild animals; game, ferae naturae [Lat.]; beasts of the field, fowls of the air, denizens of the sea; black game, black grouse; blackcock^, duck, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... singular variety of brilliant plumage. The animals he met with were all of the monstrous kind; they had eyes like orbs of fire, and claws like hooks of steel, and could step over the top of an Indian lodge. He told of a serpent he had seen, which had hair on its neck like a mane, and feet resembling a quadruped; and if one were to take his own account of his exploits and observations, it would be difficult to decide whether his strength, his activity, or his ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... canine quadruped was under suspicion of having obliterated by a process of mastication that article of sustenance which the butcher deposits at our ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... swings exalted in the village of Langdirdum; and I am ready to depone upon the oath that what has been idly mistaken or misrepresented as being the fifth leg of the horse, is, in fact, the tail of that quadruped, and, considered with reference to the posture in which he is delineated, forms a circumstance introduced and managed with great and successful, though daring, art. The nag being represented in a rampant or rearing posture, the tail, which is prolonged till it touches ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... as splint bones, combined with the canon in a single solidly morticed piece. But in the pre-Glacial horses the splint bones still generally remained quite distinct, thus pointing back to the still earlier period when they existed as two separate and independent side toes in the ancestral quadruped. In a few cave specimens, however, the splints are found united with the canons in a single piece, while conversely horses are sometimes, though very rarely, born at the present day with three-toed feet, exactly resembling those of their ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... except in such a coarse way as stunting or enlarging—e.g. no increase of cold on the spot, or change of individual plant from hot to cold, will induce said individual plant to get more woolly covering; but I suppose a series of cold seasons would bring about such a change in an individual quadruped, just as rowing will harden hands, etc.") I fancied a bud lived only a year, and you could hardly expect any change in that time; but if you call a tree or plant an individual, you have sporting buds. Perhaps you ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... suffer by the very circumstance of their life, being what they [24] were. It was something like a fear of the supernatural, or perhaps rather a moral feeling, for the face of a great serpent, with no grace of fur or feathers, so different from quadruped or bird, has a sort of humanity of aspect in its spotted and clouded nakedness. There was a humanity, dusty and sordid and as if far gone in corruption, in the sluggish coil, as it awoke suddenly into one metallic spring of pure enmity ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... mischief, and I have never seen one in harness that looked unhappy. Traces must help a dog to grow in his own esteem, and to work out his ideal of the high destiny reserved for him; or why does he, when tied under a cart to which a larger quadruped is harnessed, invariably try to persuade himself and others that he is pulling the load up the hill, and that the horse or donkey ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... broke camp at an early hour, and moved bag, and baggage, to the place where "Alex Taylor" had shot the deer the preceding afternoon. Notwithstanding my sore feet and tired limbs, I took a load on my shoulders out of sheer shame, for without that I would have been the only one, old or young, biped or quadruped, without something, so I made a martyr of myself. Just after leaving the spot where "Alex" and I had cached the skins yesterday afternoon, "Sam" dropped his burden from his shoulders, grasped his rifle, and, with the single word "tuk-too," started over the ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... party had been filling the ruts of the outer roadway, was one never made by government horse or mule. In half a dozen places within a dozen rods, plain as a pikestaff, was the print of a bar shoe, worn on the off fore foot of just one quadruped at the post—Hay's ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... especially which I had climbed in the rain and fog of early morning. A reckless path goes across its face with a sharp pitch to the ocean. It was so slippery and the wind so tugged and pulled to throw me off, that although I endangered my dignity, I played the quadruped on the narrower parts. But once on top in the open blast of the storm and safe upon the level, I thumped with desire for a plot. In each inlet from the ocean I saw a pirate lugger—such is the pleasing word—with a keg of rum set up. Each cranny led to a cavern ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... consummation of his wishes without delay. This, as may be believed, was so consonant with Will's own opinion that he accepted it at once, and acted upon it then and there, as far as was possible, by plying whip and spur so vigorously that his steed skimmed over the plain more like a swallow than a quadruped. ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne |
