"Bats" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... peculiarities of the seamen. I remember nothing corresponding at all to the extravagances instanced in my early reading of Colburn's; such as a frigate's watch—say one hundred and fifty men—on liberty in Portsmouth, England, buying up all the gold-laced cocked bats in the place, and appearing with them at the theatre. Many, however, who have seen a homeward-bound ship leaving port, the lower rigging of her three masts crowded with seamen from deck to top, returning ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... man had named; here, too, serpents great and small, of wonderful colorings, and the dull and loathsome moccasin sliding warily off the dead tree; in dimmer recesses the cow alligator, with her nest hard by; turtles a century old; owls and bats, raccoons, opossums, rats, centipedes and creatures of like vileness; great vines of beautiful leaf and scarlet fruit in deadly clusters; maddening mosquitoes, parasitic insects, gorgeous dragon-flies and pretty water-lizards: the blue heron, the snowy ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... and cold. Pop Clark had to crawl through a chair today. he went through so fast old Francis only hit him 2 bats. Tady Finton and Nigger Bell both got licked. Tady dident cry or holler a bit, but Nigger hollered just like a girl. i supposed Nigger was more ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... are meant thereby. So "air-population" must be the equivalent of "fowl" in verse 20, and "every winged fowl after its kind," verse 21. I suppose I may take it for granted that by "fowl" we have here to understand birds—at any rate primarily. Secondarily, it may be that the bats and the extinct pterodactyles, which were flying reptiles, come under the same head. But whether all insects are "creeping things" of the land-population, or whether flying insects are to be included under the denomination of "winged fowl," is a point for ...
— The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature - Essay #4 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... Choo (for that was their leader's name) stretched himself. With his drooping sleeves and foot-long fingernails, he looked like the bats that sail under the trees in the twilight and nest, so they say, in people's hair. He gazed out over the tea-fields and saw not a soul, for every mother's son and mother's daughter, too, was hiding tight under ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... creatures, dimly visible by moments under the gloomy sky, were enemies whom I well knew by experience. Many a fine insect specimen have I lost, when the bats were near me in search ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... towers spring; a bare and dilapidated den, whose badly plastered walls are ornamented here and there, at the present day, with some wretched yellow engravings representing the facades of cathedrals. I presume that this hole is jointly inhabited by bats and spiders, and that, consequently, it wages a double war of extermination ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... on a hill-top, and climbing the difficult ascent, looked forth into the surrounding obscurity more hopefully than hitherto. The light revealed objects unseen before—mountains, gleaming lakes, glimpses of a creation among the chaos; but also, as was unavoidable, it attracted bats and owls and the whole host of night birds, which flapped their dusky wings against the gazer's eyes, and sometimes were mistaken for fowls of angelic feather. Such delusions always hover nigh whenever a beacon-fire of truth ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... the genus Artibeus reach their northern limits on the lowlands of the eastern and western coasts of Mexico. Recent students have placed the species of Mexican Artibeus in two groups; one includes bats of small size and one includes bats of large size (Dalquest, 1953:61; Lukens and Davis, 1957:6; and Davis, 1958:163). Three of the small species (A. cinereus phaeotis, A. aztecus, and A. turpis nanus) and three of the large species (A. hirsutus, A. jamaicensis ...
— Neotropical Bats from Northern Mexico • Sydney Anderson
... explained, and it was there that he and Miss Philippa used to play and sing together. "The same piano stands in the morning-room now. I have so many things that were his. My lady told me to throw away his bats and racquets and such things, but I couldn't do it. And some of them he himself asked me to take care of for him, many years ago in his school-days. He probably forgot all about them, but they were safely kept. Will you come one day and see ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... Bats are skinned out from the back or front according to the position it is required to show them in. A thin piece of wire is doubled; each end is then pulled out at right angles for a certain distance up its length, and pushed into ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... flames lighted this evening would continue to burn, and to cast henceforth their cheerful glow on meadow, fields, and woods; and as they doubted whether the new order of things had strength enough to endure, the smoke drove the bats from their home in the chimney, and they came flapping down stupefied on the summit of the tower, while the owls in its crevices shook their round heads and hooted in ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... old drum creaks, and the shadows shiver As the wind sweeps by, and the hut doors close, And the bats dip down in the shaft or quiver In the ghostly light, round the grey horse goes; And he feels the strain on his untouched shoulder, Hears again the voice that was dear to him, Sees the form he knew — and his heart grows bolder As he works his shift ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... Radcliffe type it was, With ruined halls and crumbling rooms And windows graven by the claws Of Goya's bats that ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... on it too much," one of the older women said. "You never can take menfolks' opinions on such matters. I am sure any of us would know with half an eye, if we saw them together, how matters stood; but as for men, they are as blind as bats in such matters. Still, the fact that he took the young countess down, instead of our lady, goes ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... intoxication of her first gold and turquoise day at Monte Carlo. A sense of loneliness—such as a solitary dove might feel in a wilderness of evil bats—oppressed her. Had she not been aware that she was a remarkably attractive woman and the object of innumerable glances, she would have cried. And twenty louis pitched into unprofitable space! Yet she stood half fascinated by the rattle of the marble on the revolving disc, the glitter of the ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... must draw a veil. The church of God itself was not spared during the saturnalia of lust and violence. His temple was profaned, and His altars desecrated. What British ruthlessness had left scathed and prostrate, was soon looked upon with neglect. The moles and the bats held their revels undisturbed within its once hallowed courts, and the "obscene owl nestled and brought forth in the ark of the covenant." The church in which our fathers worshipped, stabled the horse and stalled the ox. The very tombs of the dead, sacred in all lands, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... the cord alone told us that anything was going on below. At last the rope ceased shaking and a faint shout came rumbling up the well, announcing Ali's safe arrival. Then, far below, a tiny star of light appeared. He had lit the candle, thereby disturbing hundreds of bats that flitted up in an endless stream and as silently as spirits. The rope was hauled up again, and now it was my turn; but, as I declined to trust my neck to the hand-over-hand method of descent, ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... lodge. These things were told me by a man who loved the woods for their own sake and not for the sake of slaughter—a quiet, slow-spoken man of the West, who came across the drifts on show-shoes and refrained from laughing when I borrowed his foot-gear and tried to walk. The gigantic lawn-tennis bats strung with hide are not easy to manoeuvre. If you forget to keep the long heels down and trailing in the snow you turn over and become as a man who fails into deep water with a life-belt tied to his ankles. If you lose your balance, do not attempt ...
— Letters of Travel (1892-1913) • Rudyard Kipling
... a nest left to swing upon a bough when the bird is flown: these are uses to which we cannot without a mixture of spleen and contempt behold the human carcass reduced. We string up dogs, foxes, bats, moles, weasels. Man surely deserves a ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... an unfortunate effect upon the intellectual faculty. Too much wine—though it must have required an inordinate quantity in certain mendacious periods—was regarded as provocative of truth; and too many books as clearly put bats in a man's belfry. The explanation is of course simple enough. If one overweights the head the whole structure is apt to become unbalanced. This is the reason why we hold scholars in such light esteem. They are an unbalanced lot. And after all, why should they get paid ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... singled out, on account of his being the ring-leader, in what the poor called a conspiracy to lessen the size of the bushel, and at the same time to keep up the price of corn. The mob, as they pelted his carriage with brick bats, as his horses galloped, or rather fled, through the town, intimated that if he came the next week they would serve him still worse. This was a great offence, and which was not to be borne. To pelt 'Squire Dyke, the gallant cornet of the Everly troop, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... It is as cowardly as the jaguar of the lowlands is ferocious. It is a very silent animal, uttering no cry even when wounded. Its flesh, which is very white, and remarkably like veal in taste, is eaten in Patagonia. Squirrels, hares, bats (a small species), opossums, and a large guinea-pig (Cuye del Monte), are found in the ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... to point to the fresh tracks of a panther. We are in the winding gorge of a watercourse; and presently, at a turn, in a semicircle facing south, we see in the cliff the long line of caves. As we enter the first an intolerable odour meets us, and a flight of bats explains the cause. Gradually our eyes accustom themselves to the light, and we become conscious of a square hall, the flat roof resting on squat pillars elaborately carved, fragments of painting on the walls and ceiling, ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... But I guess I'd sooner slog it where there's jest the scent o' pine And over'ead an 'eap o' little stars; The lights o' Charin' Cross and Piccadilly, I'd swop 'em for the silver of the streams, When the summer moon is lit and the bats begin to flit And ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, July 25, 1917 • Various
... such a fellow as you are, Hargate. Here's the opening match of the season, and you, who are one of our best bats, poking about after birds and snakes. Come along; Thompson sent me and two or three other fellows off in all directions to find you. We shall be half out before you're back. Wilson took James's wicket the ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty
... the wakeful eye, That drives the ghosts to realms of night or day, Points out the long uncomfortable way. Trembling the spectres glide, and plaintive vent Thin hollow screams, along the deep descent. As in the cavern of some rifty den, Where flock nocturnal bats and birds obscene, Cluster'd they hang, till at some sudden shock, They move, and murmurs run through all the rock: So cowering fled the sable heaps of ghosts; And such a scream fill'd all ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... targets, say the bells of St. Marg'-ret's; Brick-bats and tiles, chime the bells of St. Giles'; Halfpence and farthings, ring the bells of St. Martin's; Oranges and lemons, toll the bells of St. Clement's; Pancakes and fritters, say the bells of St. Peter's; ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... that the women merely have their heads and faces wrapped in a light muslin veil; they wear also a kind of mantilla of black silk, which gives them a peculiar appearance. When they came riding along, and the wind caught this garment and spread it out, they looked exactly like bats with outstretched wings. ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... was over, the conduct of the Bats was discussed at the peace conference. Such deceit was unpardonable, and Birds and Beasts made common cause to drive out the Bats. And since then the Bat family hides in dark towers and deserted ruins, flying out ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... the bank of the lake. For a space it was hard going through the interwoven bushes and briers that tore even Menard's tough skin. The moon was in the sky, and here and there he caught glimpses of the lake lying still and bright. They saw no signs of life save for the flitting bats, and the owls that called weirdly through the reaches of the forest. After another hour they found a trail which led them down close to the water, and at last to a half-cleared space, rank and wild with weed and thistle, ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... fruit for sowing.—NOVEMBER. Stake up all trees planted for standards, or the winds will rock them at the bottom, and the frost will be let in and destroy them. Throw a good quantity of peas straw about them, and lay on it some brick bats or pebbles to keep it fast: this will mellow the ground, and keep the frost from the roots. Continue to prune wall fruit-trees, and prune also at this time the apple and pear kinds. Pull off the late fruit of figs, or it will decay the branches.—DECEMBER. ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... track. The remaining four companies therefore left the cars and started to march. They soon met the mob, flying a secession flag. A melee ensued. The troops moved double-quick toward the Washington depot, surrounded by a seething mass of infuriated secessionists filling the air with their brick-bats and stones, while bullets whizzed from sidewalks and windows. The troops returned the fire, and several in the crowd fell. The chief of police with fifty officers appeared on the scene, who, by presenting ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... that little cry! Light is dying, Bats are flying, Bees to-day with work have done; So, till comes the morrow's sun, Let sleep kiss those bright ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... secret from all the rest Safely buttoned within his vest; And in the loft above the shed Himself he locks, with thimble and thread And wax and hammer and buckles and screws, And all such things as geniuses use;— Two bats for patterns, curious fellows! A charcoal-pot and a pair of bellows; An old hoop-skirt or two, as well as Some wire and several old umbrellas; A carriage-cover, for tail and wings; A piece of harness; and straps and strings; And a big ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For • Various
... notions! Tell your Gotham friends that if they are speaking of a ruinous brick wall, they must say dilaterated, from 'later,' a brick, and not 'dilapidated,' from 'lapis,' a stone. One might as well say a man is 'stoned' to death with brick-bats.' . . . WHAT sad and startling contrasts are presented to the eye and mind of one who attentively looks over the illustrated newspapers of the British metropolis! On one hand, pictures of triumphal processions, arches, bonfires, illuminations, rich presents, gorgeous ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... Dun or Mouse colour. The Skin or Leather of them hath Ribs running along it, and draws up in 3 or 4 Folds; and at the joints of those Ribs and the Extremities of the Wings, there are sharp and crooked Claws, by which they may hang on any thing. [A further description of the great bats and their habits follows.] At this Isle also we found plenty of Turtle and Manatee, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... damned things!" he breathed. "Jumping, they were, and leaping, and flying on their leather wings like a lot of black bats out o' hell! And I'm thinkin' that's where they've taken Chet Bullard, and never again will he hold a ship like 'twas in the hollow of his hand, and him settin' it down ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... for every purpose—for football, cricket, tennis, bicycle, shooting, dining, and strolling about. In the same way he possessed a perfect armoury of athletic and other useful implements. There were fine bats by the best makers for cricket, rods for trout fishing, splendid modified choke-bores, saddles, jockey caps, and so on. A gentleman like this could hardly long remain in the solitary halls of learning—society must claim him for parties, balls, dinners, and ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... branch of Audubon Avenue,—is on the left as you advance, and not more than three-hundred yards from the great vestibule. It is but little more than a quarter of a mile in length, and is remarkable for its pit of two-hundred and eighty feet in depth; and as being the hibernal resort of bats. Tens of thousands of them are seen hanging from the walls, in apparently a torpid state, during the winter, but no sooner does the spring open, ...
— Rambles in the Mammoth Cave, during the Year 1844 - By a Visiter • Alexander Clark Bullitt
... prairie, or in winter, on a frozen lake or river, is chosen. Each player has a sort of bat, called "T-ke-cha-ps-cha," about thirty two inches long with a hoop at the lower end four or five inches in diameter, interlaced with thongs of deer-skin, forming a sort of pocket. With these bats they catch and throw the ball. Stakes are set as bounds at a considerable distance from the centre on either side. Two parties are then formed, and each chooses a leader or chief. The ball (T-pa) is then thrown up half way between the bounds, and the game begins, ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... when quite near it you become aware of its existence. For the sake of internal safety a wall has been built round the top of the precipice, and at certain points you may look over this parapet, sheer down some ten or twelve hundred feet, into an abyss fit only to be the habitation of the owls, bats, and birds of prey which frequent its solitudes. There seems no resting-place for any wingless creature: thus the strange birds which haunt the wild recesses of the rocks do so in perfect security, and their varied cries, along with the roar of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... long. The young are developed within the body of the parent, until they attain the pupa state, when she deposits the pupa case, which is nearly half as large as her abdomen. Other genera are parasitic on bats; among them are the singular spider-like Bat ticks (Nycteribia, Fig. 95), which have small bodies and enormous legs, and are either blind, or provided with four simple eyes. They are of small size, being only a line or two in length. Such degraded ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... labyrinths as places of retreat in extreme danger; the howling of winds through the crevices of old walls and other dreary vacuities; the grating of heavy doors on rusty hinges of iron; the shrieking of bats and the screaming of owls and other creatures that resort to desolate or half-inhabited buildings; these and the like circumstances in the domestic life of the people I speak of, would multiply their superstitions and increase their credulity; ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... the blackbird had ended his song, for evening was falling apace; against the glimmering dusk bats wheeled and hovered, and as the shadows deepened I watched the stars shine forth, while low down in the darkening sky was an effulgence that ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the bigger light, and how the less, That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee, And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and fertile. Cursed be that I did so! All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, Which first was mine own king: and here you sty[387-95] me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... lofty Justice Hall, with its one chair of authority, high-backed and wickered, once the terror of luckless poacher, or self-forgetful maiden—so common since, that bats have roosted ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... Marseilles. His placidity and stolid indifference are rudely shaken by the sharpers, who differ only from the boatmen of Beirut in that they wear pantaloons and intersperse their Arabic with a jargon of French. These brokers, like rapacious bats, hover around the emigrant and before his purse is opened for the fourth time, the trick is done. And with what ceremony, you shall see. From the steamer the emigrant is led to a dealer in frippery, where he is required to doff his baggy trousers and crimson cap, and ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... solid rock, down deep into the hill, and it was almost like being in a coal-mine, only it was a great deal cleaner and not so deep. But it seemed just as much out of the world. In some of the rooms there were bats hanging to the ceilings. We didn't disturb them. One of the rooms was called the governor's room. There wasn't any governor there, of course, but it had been made by the jolly old earl who had the place cut out,—and who was governor ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... his former life, and nowhere Can his eyes abide with pleasure; Only gloomy spectres rise up, Which the sunlight soon would banish. Unrefreshed, next to the future Roves the mind from which sweet sleep flies; Forges plans, takes resolutions, Builds up proud and airy castles; But like owls and bats are flying All around them hosts of doubts which Drive away all hope ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... seek the Philtre's subtle aid To win the hand of some fair maid. We mus'nt miss the Troubadours Who went forth on their singing tours, Twanging harps and trilling lays To maids of medieval days. And Oh! the right good merry times With Maskers, Mummers and the Mimes, Hobby horses gaily prancing, Bats and Bowls and Maypole dancing. When folks would take a lengthy journey To see the Knights at Joust or Tourney: Or watch the early English 'Knuts' Show their skill at Archery butts. Then come gloomy History pages On torture ...
— A Humorous History of England • C. Harrison
... sniff of scorn. "Why, he was doing you the most friendly turn he knew how. No doubt there was a big mosquito just going to bite you, and that little chap there snapped it up in time to save you. There are lots of folk beside bats that get themselves misunderstood just when they are trying hardest to ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... own heather we wonned together, I and my Willie (O love my love): I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, And flitter-bats wavered alow, above: ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... themselves to the lamp. In the walls wasps built terra-cotta warehouses in which to store the semi-animate carcasses of spiders and grubs; a solitary bee constructed nondescript comb among the books, transforming a favourite copy of "Lorna Doone" into a solid block. Bats, sharp-toothed, and with pin-point eyes, swooped in at one door, quartered the roof with brisk eagerness, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... Where wild Altama murmurs to their woe. Far different there from all that charmed before The various terrors of that horrid shore; Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, And fiercely shed intolerable day; Those matted woods, where birds forget to sing, But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling; Those poisonous fields with rank luxuriance crowned, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around; Where at each step the stranger fears to wake The rattling terrors of the ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... regular work in life. They give their attention unconsciously, spontaneously; to politics. Look at a family of children, half boys, half girls; the boys take instinctively to whips and guns and balls and bats and horses, to fighting and wrestling and riding; the girls fondle their dolls, beg for a needle and thread, play at housekeeping, at giving tea-parties, at nursing the sick baby, at teaching school. That difference lasts through life. ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... was a place where the girls could wear their new dresses, and where one could laugh aloud without being reproved by the ensuing silence. That silence seemed to ooze out of the ground, to hang under the foliage of the black maple trees with the bats and shadows. Now it was broken by light-hearted sounds. First the deep purring of Mr. Vanni's harp came in silvery ripples through the blackness of the dusty-smelling night; then the violins fell in—one of them was almost like a flute. They called so archly, so seductively, that our feet ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... scornfully driven from the font—the dead body of a dissenter has been refused Christian burial—the cries of poverty and distress have been disregarded—from bitter sectarianism. The genial influence of Christianity is fast driving these demoniac feelings to the owls and bats.—Ed. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... unwinged from birth so they can't fly to you. One of the most talkative people living, in some ways I am strangely speechless. Why! I haven't even told Boggley, though if he had eyes to see instead of being the blindest of dear old bats, my shining face would betray me. I keep on smiling in a perfectly imbecile manner, so that people exclaim, "Well, you are indecently glad to get away," and when they ask Why? I point them to the scene in the Old Testament where Hadad said unto Pharaoh, "Let me depart, ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... books and writing paper and baseballs and bats and boxing gloves and chocolate and cigarettes and motion pictures and lectures and theatrical entertainments. Home comes with the hut, bringing all the love and care and cheer of the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... downs I've felt the shocks Since days of bats and shuttlecocks, And allcumpaine and Albert-rocks, When I the world began; And for these games I often sigh Both marmoney and Spanish-fly, And flying kites, too, in the sky, For which ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... their hands had reached there was no door, so they felt along it till they came to the corner, and beyond the corner was the front wall of the house. In it was the front door. But so nearly did this door open upon the abyss that the bats that fled from their coming, from where they hung above the door of oak, had little more to do than fall from their crannies, slanting ever so slightly, to find themselves safe from man in the velvet ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... a faint ruddy glow. The channel, covered by a semicircular arch, was just wide enough for one boat to pass through, with oars out. The black water flowed silently by in a sluggish, Stygian stream. Bats, startled by the light, fluttered in their faces, and then disappeared ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... substituted clothing for this purpose, except on the top of our heads; but their roots also are very richly supplied with nerves so that they form almost a sort of feelers, or organs of sense. Many animals that move about much in the dark, like cats and bats, for instance, have their lips or faces studded with long, delicate, stiff hairs called whiskers, which act in this way and prevent their bumping into objects in the dark. And it is probable that the bristling of the hair on a dog's back, when he is angry or frightened, ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson
... in, and did not receive a single ball, his partner succumbing to the very first ball bowled after Edgar had gone out to the wicket. Then the Rifles went in, and the loss of the Hussars' fast bowler soon made itself felt. Two of the best bats of the Rifles were at the wicket, and in spite of several changes of bowling, seventy-four runs were scored without a separation being made. Captain Moffat looked round the field despairingly. He had tried all ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... there's nothing like Astounding Stories with which to "unlax." You're doing a fine job, and I only make these suggestions because I want a "perfect" magazine instead of one that bats 97% all the time. Hope you'll have room for all this. And, oh yes, keep on with your program of "No reprints." Your new yarns are better than the old ones. Let's have the new ones, and encourage our fine string of authors to do even better ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... sudden accession of new knowledge may compel him to cast his former idols to the moles and to the bats. But it must be some very miraculous interposition indeed which can justify him in quitting the religion of his forefathers; and, assuredly, it must be an unwise interposition which provokes him ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... crumbled into ruins, and stars twinkled among their shattered and darkened walls. The moon burned icily above the eastern hills. The nightingales (or John was no true prophet) sang better than they had ever sung before, while bats, hither, thither, flew in startling zig-zags, as if waltzing to the music. And all the air was sweet with the ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... game of ball is also described in Historical Collections of Georgia, by the Rev. George White, 3d edition, New York, 1835, p. 670, which took place in Walker County, Georgia, between Chatooga and Chicamauga. The ball was thrown up at the centre. The bats were described as curiously carved spoons. If the ball touched the ground the play stopped and it was thrown up again. Rev. J. Owen Dorsey in a paper entitled "Omaha Sociology," printed in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, etc, 1881-1882, Washington, ...
— Indian Games • Andrew McFarland Davis
... grueling job of installing the Quakelizor began. First the cave was cleared of debris, bats, and other small living creatures. Then a site was marked out on the cave floor. Tom had brought along a midget model of his great atomic earth blaster, which he had invented to drill for iron at ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... dusk the bats flitter to and fro by the house; there are moths, then, abroad for them. Upon the cucumber frame in the sunshine perhaps there may be seen an ant or two, almost the first out of the nest; the frame is warm. There are flowers open, despite the cold wind ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... an ancient nation which they knew nothing of." In the deserts of Borgoo[370] the rock-Tibboos still dwell in caves, like cliff-swallows, and the language of these negroes is compared by their neighbors to the shrieking of bats, and to the whistling of birds. Again, the Bornoos[371] have no proper names; individuals are called after their height, thickness, or other accidental quality, and have nick-names merely. But the salt, the dates, ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... in Samoa and the neighboring group of islands.[1602] It appears that all omens are derived either from the movements of animals that are regarded as incarnations of deities,[1603] or from phenomena that are held to be produced immediately by deities. The flight of owls, bats, or rails, according to its direction, indicates the result of a battle or a war; the howling of a dog is a sign of coming misfortune; if a centipede crawls on the top of a mat it is a good omen, if on the bottom of a mat it is bad; it is unfortunate when ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... had smoked out his pipe, and when the bats were abroad, his curiosity dominated his complex hesitations, and he stole back into his darkling sitting-room. He paused in the doorway. The stranger was still in the same attitude, dark against the window. Save for the singing of some sailors ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... men's sayings, to prove the good success of the gospel of old, did better become that people and age, than you and yours; they being a people that lived in the power thereof, but you such bats as cannot see it. That saying you mention of Rigaltias, doth better become you and yours: 'Those now-a-days do retain the name, and society of Christians, which live altogether antichristian lives. Take away publicans, and a wretched rabble, &c. and our Christian churches ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... immediately followed by the flight of two brick-bats, which fell close to the singer's feet; but had they come in contact with his head, they would certainly have knocked all the music and poetry out of it. The poor frightened musician took to his heels with such speed that a greyhound could not have caught him. Unhappy fate of night-birds, ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... chin of the ladies, and the dirty shirts and shaggy hair of the young men, who have levelled nobility almost as much as the mobility in France have, have confounded all individuality. Besides, if I did go to public places and assemblies, which my going to roost earlier prevents, the bats and owls do not begin to fly abroad till far in the night, when they begin to see and be seen. However, one of the empresses of fashion, the Duchess of Gordon, uses fifteen or sixteen hours of her four-and-twenty. I heard her journal ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... over Harley was gone; she trusted to the influence of Helen—in case of what?—ay, what? It was because the danger was not clear to her that her bold spirit trembled: superstitions, like suspicions, are "as bats among birds, and fly by twilight." Harley had ridiculed the idea of challenge and strife between Audley and himself; but still Lady Lansmere dreaded the fiery emotions of the last, and the high spirit and austere self-respect ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... miserable ribs. The conversation lasted for some ten minutes, about which time gown-boys' dinner was over, and we saw these youths, in their black horned-button jackets and knee-breeches, issuing from their door in the cloisters. There were no hoops, no cricket-bats, as usual on a half-holiday. Who would have thought of play in expectation of such tremendous sport as was in store ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... to shut out from his mind the light shining in through the little window opened by Mr. Allison; but the effort was in vain. Steadily the light came in, disturbing the owls and bats, and revealing dust, cankering mould, and spider-web obstructions. All on the outside was fair to the world; and as fair, he had believed, within. To be suddenly shown his error, smote him with a painful ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... the poplars that lined the avenue, beautiful and tall in the evening, she thought of Owen. He had said they were the trees of the evening. She had not understood, and he had explained that we only see poplars in the sunset; they appear with the bats ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... her arms across her breast, and lie on the waves as among swelling cushions like a child in a rocking cradle. And here she was allowed the full privileges of a child. She shouted; called to the startled wild geese; teased the night-swallows, and the bats skimming along the surface of the lake in quest of water-spiders. Here she even ventured to sing, and gave voice to charming melodies, which floated over the water like the sounds of ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... dwelleth no good thing. And the Indian has acknowledged that power,—he has cast his idols of cruelty and revenge, those virtues on which he prided himself in the blindness of his heart, to the moles and the bats; he has bowed and adored at the foot of the Cross;—but it was not so in the days whereof I have ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... cutting sprouts almost like a man and when I was eight I could pick one hundred pounds of cotton. When it rained and we could not go to the field my aunty had me spinning thread to make socks and cloth, then I had to card the bats and make ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... well-trained broomsticks mounted high, Seen like shadows against the sky; Crossing the track of owls and bats, Hugging before them their ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... have shifted my quarters out of my fine room to the south-west into one with only three sides looking over a lovely green view to the north-east, with a huge sort of solid veranda, as large as the room itself, on the open side; thus I live in the open air altogether. The bats and the swallows are quite sociable; I hope the serpents and scorpions will be more reserved. 'El Khamaseen' (the fifty) has begun, and the wind is enough to mix up heaven and earth, but it is not distressing like the Cape south-easter, and, though hot, not choking like the Khamseen in ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... are they? Kind of look like huge bats," commented Nelson thoughtfully. "Wonder if they could ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... do I," Colonel Hampton admitted. "I'm probably going bats, but what the hell? It's a nice way to go bats, I'll say that.... Stick around; whoever you are, and let's get acquainted. I sort of ...
— Dearest • Henry Beam Piper
... and by way of paying off some old grudge for a black mark; but there was a strong spice of humanity at the bottom even of his frolics. It happened one day, that his friend Ben Johns told him that one of the bats which had done terrible execution on the tutor's windows had also played havoc on his table, breaking a bottle of ink, and deluging some half-dozen of the tutor's books; "and do you know," said Johns, "the poor man who has made such a loss is saving up all ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... we laid aside, And we cast the vessel ashore On the Gulliby Isles, where the Poohpooh smiles, And the Rumbletumbunders roar. And we sat on the edge of a sandy ledge And shot at the whistling bee; And the cinnamon-bats wore water-proof hats As they danced ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... and cheered right lustily, they will scatter and that is the end of it, but when we interfere, there is no telling where the matter will end. In 1866, we once closed the park against them, and the consequence was a riot in which the police suffered severely from brick-bats, and the mob finally took hold of the iron fence and tore it away for a long distance along the park, made their entry, and took their own way." "Well could you not have punished those offenders according to due process of law?" I asked. "Yes," he rejoined, "we might, but their number was so great ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... second over the Doctor bowled a shade straighter, and began knocking the batsmen about, and hurting them and frightening them. If they had only kept in front of the wicket, and put their bats between their legs out of the way, they might have been safe enough, but they dashed nervously about and tried to escape; and the ball would shoot and hit their toes, or rise and threaten their heads, or break back into their stomachs. Then the bowler got a man "retired hurt," and a regular ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... always the lights eluded them. From their exertions and the moist heat they were breathless, and their bodies dripped with water. Panting, they halted at the entrance of what once had been a tomb. From its black interior came a damp mist; above them, alarmed by their intrusion, the vampire bats whirled blindly in circles. Monica, who by day possessed some slight knowledge of the ruins, had, in the moonlight, lost all ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... soft light fell on the Libyan range of mountains vanishing on the western horizon, and in the north the shimmer of the Mediterranean could faintly be discerned. Blue and white lotus-flowers floated on the clear water, bats of all kinds darted softly through the still air, heavy with the scent of acacia-blossom and jasmine; the wild pigeons and other birds were at roost in the tops of the trees, while the pelicans, storks and cranes squatted ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... higher art to a point that is generally conceded to be far beyond that attained by even our modern sculptors, just as flying reptiles of the Chalk Age developed wings and learned to fly long before birds and bats ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... all to consider Ann from the barn standpoint. If she wanted the tragic and sombre she should have it—in the sunlight and surrounded with love. So she no longer was obliged to depend on the queer little girls who fluttered like blind bats in the crude of their adolescent years. Lynda, Betty, Truedale, and Brace read bloodcurdling horrors to her and took her to plays—the best. And they wedged in a deal of wholesome, commonplace fun that presently awoke a response and developed a sense ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... players arrived. He looked at them closely and his nerves jumped. Gosh! didn't they look big! And what big black bats! ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... lived in rooms outside his college; he would not enter the college until next term. They were in Oriel Lane, and exceedingly comfortable, with at least twenty pipes in a pipe-rack on the wall, and at least thirty photographs of his favourite actresses, chiefly Pauline Chase, and five cricket-bats in the corner, and about forty walking-sticks, and a large number of puzzles of the "Pigs in Clover" type, which nearly drove Gregory mad while supper ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... at a sweet-smelling platform, on which the lights were being extinguished as we turned into a quiet road where bats flew over our heads between the lamp-posts, and a policeman was passing a disc of light over a jerry-built abuse of the name of Queen Anne. Our way led through quieter roads of larger houses standing further back, until at last we came to the enemy's gates. They ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... be seen. He called her name repeatedly, but she was nowhere to be heard. The bittern alone responded to his voice, as he flew screaming by; or the bull-frog croaked dolefully from a neighboring pool. At length, it is said, just in the brown hour of twilight, when the owls began to hoot and the bats to flit about, his attention was attracted by the clamor of carrion crows hovering about a cypress-tree. He looked up and beheld a bundle tied in a check apron and hanging in the branches of the tree, with a great vulture perched hard by, as if keeping watch upon it. He leaped with ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... love me true, William. Your heart is in t'other old church among the bats and foxes, where Aunt Vesty ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... Upon this pipe, as low it dangled Over his vesture so old-fangled.) "Yet," said he, "poor piper as I am, In Tartary I freed the Cham, Last June, from his huge swarms of gnats; 90 I eased in Asia the Nizam Of a monstrous brood of vampire-bats: And as for what your brain bewilders, If I can rid your town of rats Will you give me a thousand guilders?" 95 "One? fifty thousand!"—was the exclamation Of ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... into a disused mine. The wooden tram-way on which the coal-car had formerly run still remained; and cautiously walking upon this causeway through the quagmire of mud, Miselle and Mr. Williams penetrated some distance into the mine, but saw nothing more wonderful than mould and other fungi, bats and toads. Retracing their steps, they followed the tram-way to its termination at the top of a high bank, down which the coals were shot into a cart stationed below. This coal is of an inferior quality, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... the stern face of Mr. Ball, the master, appeared at the door; he rapped sharply with his ferule, and called: "Books, books, books!" The bats were dropped, and the boys and girls began streaming into the school, but some of the boys ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... ha!" he exclaimed; "only to think of them knocking their heads about here and there, and never so much as getting warm. Detectives are all fools, so the public say. Blind as bats. They want a better ...
— The Dark House - A Knot Unravelled • George Manville Fenn
... yer think? Them heathen Chinos has et him!' Lord, now, wouldn't that jolt youse? Them Chinos a-eatin' Daggett! It give me an awful jar, an' Buck he felt it, too. That there mutt had acted right decent, an' we knew Ranch would have bats in the belfry fer fair if he hoid tell o' the pup's finish; so says Buck; 'Let's not tell him, 'cause he's takin' on now like he'd lost mother an' father an' best goil an' all, an' if he knew Daggett was providin' chow fer ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... he would say nothing, but take measures to defeat these traitors. But presently it occurred to him that it was dangerous even to know such things, and he wished that he had never heard what the hawk had said. He reflected, too, that the bats had been flying about some time, and might have heard the hawk's confessions, and although they were not admitted at court, as they belonged to the lower orders, still under such circumstances they might obtain an audience. They had always borne him ill-will, ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... Hermes summon'd forth The spirits of the suitors; waving wide The golden wand of pow'r to seal all eyes In slumber, and to ope them wide again, He drove them gibb'ring down into the shades,[111] As when the bats within some hallow'd cave Flit squeaking all around, for if but one Fall from the rock, the rest all follow him, In such connexion mutual they adhere, So, after bounteous Mercury, the ghosts, 10 Troop'd downward gibb'ring all the dreary way.[111] The Ocean's flood ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... sweetest Melancholy! Welcome, folded arms and fixed eyes, A sigh that piercing mortifies, A look that's fasten'd to the ground, A tongue chain'd up without a sound! Fountain-heads and pathless groves, Places which pale passion loves! Moonlight walks, when all the fowls Are warmly housed save bats and owls! A midnight bell, a parting groan! These are the sounds we feed upon; Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley; Nothing's so dainty sweet as ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... fellows!" urged Dick Bellamy, swinging two bats in large circles as though they were Indian clubs. "We're going to beat our best records ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... at Jamestown. In this old, dilapidated place were yet standing brick walls of three old buildings open to the birds and the bats. The brick of these half-torn down buildings were transported from England more than two hundred years ago. I saw a piece of a marble slab from the graveyard dated 1626, broken in pieces by soldiers for relics. We were soon met by the ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... will take very unusual baits. Black bass have been caught on young bats. The famous old trout in the Beaverkill River in New York State, which had refused all the ordinary baits and flies that were offered him for years and that on bright days could be seen in a pool lying deep down in the water, finally fell a victim ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... Sir Philip Sidney kept good heed that even that should serve the end in view; in his play with ideas, Dr. John Donne, so far from serving the end, sometimes obscures it almost hopelessly: the hart escapes while he follows the squirrels and weasels and bats. It is not surprising that, their author being so inartistic with regard to their object, his verses themselves should be harsh and unmusical beyond the worst that one would imagine fit to be called verse. He ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... leaning toward me with a strange look in his eyes, and whispering quickly. "The men all swore they wouldn't stay any longer; the man on watch early in the morning gave the alarm, and they all put off in the boat and got a little way out to sea. Those folks, or whatever they were, come about 'em like bats; all at once they raised incessant armies, and come as if to drive 'em back to sea. They stood thick at the edge o' the water like the ridges o' grim war; no thought o' flight, none of retreat. Sometimes a standing fight, then soaring on main wing tormented ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... have been submerged in the paean of the wind in the firs—the whisper of the Wolverine where it swept, deep and strong; its strident chatter to a fling of gravel at occasional bends in the stream; its sucking snarl over a sunken boulder. The movements and whistlings of owls and bats in the dark, moss-clung corridors on either side were quite distinct; so were the whines and snorts of weasels and other small animals, noisy in the underbrush. And undertoning all other sounds, unceasing, like a hidden menace, rose ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... home with you. And then when you're asleep they tear a little hole in your neck with their sharp claws, and they suck the blood with their red lips. When they aren't women, they take the shape of big bats like birds." He turned to me with so beautifully casual an air that I wanted to clap him on the back with ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the dusk. They carried to the cottage each ten or twelve pounds' weight extra in fish caught, but in his memories of the homeward walk S. must have been mistaken in his eloquent reference to the crake of the landrail, though he might have been correct as to the weak, piping cry of the circling bats, and the ghostly passage of flitting owl mousing low over the meadow. These alone, he said, broke the silence; in this M. took him to task, having himself heard the tinkling of sheep bells and the barking of the ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... [Greek: to hoti], that so it is. But then, for the [Greek: to pos], Nicodemus his question, How can these things be? it is no more possible for our weak understandings to comprehend that, than it is for the eyes of bats or owls to look steadfastly upon the body of the sun, when he shineth forth in his greatest strength."[N] This distinction Hamilton endeavoured to extend from the domain of Christian theology to that of ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... smiles as he alone could give. "A speech! A speech!" thundered a thousand voices. Prentiss lifted his hand; in an instant everything was still—then pointing to the group that surrounded Mr. Clay, he said, "Fellow-citizens, when the eagle is soaring in the sky, the owls and the bats retire to their holes." And long before the shout that followed this remark had ceased, Prentiss had disappeared amid ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... of course in the historical sense of that expression. In presence of that conception the petty nationalities lost their centre of gravity, brute fact dispelled their illusions, they flung their gods to the moles and to the bats (Isaiah ii.). The prophets of Israel alone did not allow themselves to be taken by surprise by what had occurred, or to be plunged in despair; they solved by anticipation the grim problem which history set before them. They absorbed into their religion ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... ball of that match bowled. He was prowling in sequestered lanes and broken-down barns out of bounds on the off-chance that he might catch some member of his house smoking there. As if the whole of the house, from the head to the smallest fag, were not on the field watching Day's best bats collapse before Henderson's bowling, and Moriarty hit up that marvellous and unexpected fifty-three at the end ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... rich, melancholy notes from every brake and thicket; the bats had come forth and were flitting to and fro on their leathern wings under the dark trees; but the brilliant dragon-flies, and all the painted tribe of butterflies had vanished already, and another race, the insects of the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... have done so by now, they either could not, or would not free it from the trap. Shann dozed again, untroubled by any dreams, to awake hearing the shrieks of clak-claks. But when he studied the sky he was able to sight none of the cliff-dwelling Warlockian bats. ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... among the orders of placental mammals, neither the whales, nor the hoofed creatures, nor the sloths and ant-eaters, nor the carnivorous cats, dogs, and bears, still less the rodent rats and rabbits, or the insectivorous moles and hedgehogs, or the bats, could claim our Homo as ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... Rupert, is said to have slept. The house is supposed to be haunted, and the present tenant is not loth to admit that he sometimes hears strange noises, a fact, if such it be, at which one can scarcely wonder, seeing that the wind and the bats have undisputed sway. The Townhall, in the Market Square, built in the place of the one destroyed during the civil wars, is thus noticed in the "Common Hall Order Book" of the Corporation: "The New Hall set up in the Market Place of the High Street of Bridgnorth was begun, and the stone ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... that bats and dormice and other things sleep all the winter; so why should not swallows sleep? They see the swallows about the water, and often dipping almost into it. They know that fishes live under water, and that many insects—like May-flies ...
— Madam How and Lady Why - or, First Lessons in Earth Lore for Children • Charles Kingsley
... she said. 'There might be—well, bats and owls and things like that, and then there'd be feelings. You'd be sure to fancy there were people or things there, and it wouldn't be half so frightening if you could get into a pew with a carpet, and make a bed ...
— The Girls and I - A Veracious History • Mary Louisa Stewart Molesworth
... of this somewhat comprehensive scheme seemed rather remote. It was commonly referred to as "Worcester's dream," and one of my friends in the army medical corps probably quite correctly voiced public sentiment when he said, "Poor Worcester has bats in his belfry." However, he laughs best who laughs last! After the lapse of a good many years my dream came true. The three great institutions which I hoped might sometime be established are to-day in existence, and are doing the work which I hoped that they might ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... toy-manufacturer. It was out upon all occasions, never amiss, and always "handy;" and, as I valued it, I never let it part from me. I own my selfishness; I would divide my apples among my playmates, my whole store of marbles was at their service,—they might knock my bats, kick my foot-ball as they chose; but I had no partnership of enjoyments in my jack-knife. Its possession was connected in my mind with something so exclusive, that I could not permit another to take it for a moment. Oh! there is a wild and delicious luxury ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... countryman brought to his father a circular piece of wood cut from a fig-tree, and desired to have it painted for a shield; it was handed over to Leonardo, who collected in his room a number of lizards, snakes, bats, hedgehogs, and other frightful creatures, and from these painted an unknown monster having certain characteristics of the horrid things he had about him. The hideous creature was surrounded by fire, and was breathing out flames. When his father saw it he ran away in a fright, and ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture - Painting • Clara Erskine Clement
... Look at the justice of our King! That Bhadrasen—you know what a touching sight he is when he is speaking of his King—the sentimental idiot! He is reduced to such a state of penury that even the bats that infest his house find it a too ...
— The King of the Dark Chamber • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... weeds—the very picture of a haunted house. Here had been the original home, always small, seldom more than four rooms, and when things had begun to prosper, a more spacious, and often, to our eyes, a less attractive, structure had been built, and the old home left to the bats and owls, with a complete abandonment that seemed to us—sentimental travellers as we were—as cynical ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... walls that once, undoubtedly, had supported terraces of vines, but the rains had long washed the soil from the rocks, and among the caves and crannies of the fallen stonework, and ruined cellars, foxes, bats, and other animals ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... is sometimes jealous of the chap who means to rise; It sneers at what he's doing or it bats him 'twixt the eyes; It trips him when he's careless, and it makes his way so hard What's left of him is sinew, not a walking tub of lard; But it's only wasting effort, for by George, the guy keeps on When his hopes have crumbled round him and you'd think his faith ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... this strange phenomenon, and dashed the froth from their foaming muzzles as they galloped now without stress of spur at their best speed. Birds that could not sing found voice, and chattered and shrieked as they dashed from tree to tree in aimless flight. Enormous bats hurtled in the air, blinded by the unusual light. From the dense undergrowth strange denizens of the woods, disturbed in their nightly prowl, leaped forth and scurried squealing between the galloping ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie |
