"Moulting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... there, while a hen tied by its leg was walking about near the table pecking among the dirt. In the unheated oven stood a broken pot with some kind of milky liquid. On the top of the oven a falcon was screeching and trying to break the cord by which it was tied, and a moulting hawk sat quietly on the edge of the oven, looking askance at the hen and occasionally bowing its head to right and left. Daddy Eroshka himself, in his shirt, lay on his back on a short bed rigged up between the wall and the oven, with his strong legs ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... hollow in the middle showing that the spring had "gone;" the centre-table was adorned by several well-known religious books arranged at regular intervals. A cage containing a canary hung between the curtains in the window, and the bird, a wretched-looking animal—it was moulting—woke up at their entrance and shrilled in the hateful manner peculiar to canaries. This depressing room was lit by one gas-burner, which only permitted Ida to take in all that had been described but vaguely ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... After moulting, the birds feathered out beautifully, and their spirits rose in proportion. They delighted in flight, making long, sweeping circles around the room, again and again, without stopping. A few weeks later, as spring approached, they grew somewhat belligerent towards the other inhabitants ...
— In Nesting Time • Olive Thorne Miller
... fair one, evidently. I could see a gleam of curl-papers over a sallow face,—of a dusky nightcap flapping over the curl-papers,—but these were hidden by a lace veil and a huge velvet bonnet, of which the crowning birds-of-paradise were evidently in a moulting state. She was encased in many shawls and wrappers; she put, hesitatingly, a pretty little foot out of the carriage—Pogson was by her side in an instant, and, gallantly putting one of his white kids round her waist, aided this ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... cliffs, but, without staying to spend our time and shot upon these, we proceeded on, and presently found sport enough, for in the south side of the island were abundance of geese. It happened to be the moulting season; and most of them were on shore for that purpose, and could not fly. There being a great surf, we found great difficulty in landing, and very bad climbing over the rocks when we were landed; so that hundreds of the geese escaped us, ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... Andalusia, where they can be no ways influenced by any defect of heat; or, as one might suppose, defect of food. Are they regulated in their motions with us by a failure of food, or by a propensity to moulting, or by a disposition to rest after so rapid a life, or by what? This is one of those incidents in natural history that not only baffles our searches, but almost ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... and chickens! I don't think I have spent more than L50 above what I should have done in London, owing to the necessity of fitting up chicken-runs and buying a conservatory for my wife, who is passionately fond of flowers. Unfortunately my chickens are now moulting, and decline to lay again before next March; so I bring back fresh eggs from town, and, as my conservatory is not yet full, flowers from Covent Garden; and I can assure you that, until you try it, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... are among the shyest of God's creatures. They fly so rapidly, unless when beating against the wind, that it requires a practised shot to hit them on the wing. Even when moulting their feathers, or when young, they can escape—fluttering over the surface of the water faster than ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... they climbed, and by stairways beside the singing falls. In a pool below one of these falls they surprised a great loon that had resorted here to live solitary through his moulting-season. He rose and winged away with a cry like an inhuman laugh; and they recognised a sound which had often been borne down the gorge—once or twice at night, to ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... creaking of a rusty sign on a windy day! Not more than two thirds of any of the flocks which they fell in with could fly, the rest could do no more than flap along upon the surface of the water, being either moulting, or not yet come to their full feather and growth, which they require two years to attain. They swam and flapped alternately, and went along surprisingly fast. It was some times a long chase, but the boat generally tired them out. When in danger, and speed makes no part of their escape, they immerse ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... to Cambridge the next morning. Term had not begun, but he went; a Robin with all the briskness gone out of him, and if still with something of the bird left only of a bird that is moulting. His father was mildly surprised, but applauded the apparent desire for solitary study. His mother was violently surprised, and tried hard to get at his true reasons. She saw with the piercing eye of a relation—that ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim |
