"Cockatoo" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... almost wholly of the faintly pulsing sea—sibilant and soft. Twice have the big-eyed stone plovers piped demoniacally. Once there were flutterings among the nutmeg pigeons in the star-proof jungle of the crowded inlet to the south. A cockatoo has shrieked out in dismay at some grim nightmare of a snake. Two swamp pheasants have assured each other in bell-like cadences that the night is far spent, ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... place. "Don't! It makes me want to get out there again. What colour that was! Opal and umber and amber and claret and brick-red and sulphur—cockatoo-crest-sulphur—against brown, with a nigger-black rock sticking up in the middle of it all, and a decorative frieze of camels festooning in front of a pure pale turquoise sky." He began to walk up and down. "And yet, you know, if you try to give these people ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... ye once again—once again; and there ye sit, still just like a cockatoo on a pairch. Weel, mon, I forgie ye! Mind ye that, I forgie ye!' And without a word more he turned and walked out of the house, leaving the master ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... covered with moving figures. Every one was there. Under the Gallery, surveying the world like Boadicea her faithful Britons, was Lady St. Leath, her white hair piled high above her pink baby face, that had the inquiring haughty expression of a cockatoo wondering whether it is being offered a lump of sugar or an insult. On either side of her sat two of her daughters, Lady Rose and Lady ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... which consisted of geese, wild ducks, teals, curlews, divers, sea-pies, gulls, and terns, very few birds were seen, and those chiefly of the parrot and cockatoo tribe; a species of the latter was noticed of a rich black plumage, and very like the black cockatoo of New South Wales. Kangaroos from their traces must be numerous, but only a very few were noticed; the only reptile that was found was a black snake, which Mr. Cunningham saw for a moment ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... marks of a fire; whether these had been more or less recent — whether the stumps were more or less black, was the greatest change which varied the uniformity, so wearisome to the traveller's eye. In these woods there are not many birds; I saw, however, some large flocks of the white cockatoo feeding in a corn-field, and a few most beautiful parrots; crows, like our jackdaws were not uncommon, and another bird something like the magpie. In the dusk of the evening I took a stroll along a chain of ponds, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... indescribable when the horn was drawn forth. Shavings flew everywhere. The sawdust was like a butcher's shop. There were records too, some broken, all scratched. When set going it made a noise like a cockatoo with a cold. Decently covered with a cloth it was interned in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 23, 1919 • Various
... roofs of corn stacks in the barn yards. The white cockatoos (Cacatua galerita, Lath.) were at one time to be seen in immense flocks, but are now becoming scarce. Many of the parrots have beautiful plumage, and the white cockatoo and rose-hill parrot have ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... of Animals from New South Wales, containing, Descriptions of the Bankian Cockatoo; Red-shouldered Parrakeet; Crested Goat Sucker; New Holland Cassowary; White Gallinule; Dog from New South Wales; Spotted Martin; Kanguroo Rat; Laced Lizard; Port Jackson Shark; Bag Throated Balistes; Unknown Fish from New South Wales; Watts's Shark; Great Brown Kingsfisher.—Additional ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... to know why a man who possessed the most beautiful and noble Bird of Paradise—a bird of rare plumage and wonderful qualities—should suddenly see more beauty in an ordinary Cockatoo, whose only attraction was its yellow feathers—a Cockatoo that screamed monotonously as it swung backward and forward on its perch, and would eat sugar out of the hand of any stranger while it cried 'Pretty Poll.' The man could not afford to buy this creature also, so he deliberately ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... Tahitian sacrifice, truly baptized in his own blood. The other gods besides Oro were numerous, and there were also many animals supposed to be possessed with familiar spirits. A chief was once in the cabin of a ship where there was a talking cockatoo: the moment the bird spoke he rushed away in the utmost terror, leapt overboard, and swam for his life, convinced that he had heard the ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... lay at her feet upon the hearth-rug. The other, a little lively gray-haired creature, who looked like a most ancient girl whom no power of gathering years would ever make old, was standing upon a high chair, making love to a demoniacal-looking cockatoo in a gilded cage. As I entered the room, the latter all but jumped from her perch with a merry though wavering laugh, ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... "Wilderness", but since the eighteenth century called the "Menagerie", because of a Duchess of Norfolk who kept an aviary within its precincts. Mrs. Delany, in 1756, thus alludes to this place: "We went there on Sunday evening; but I only saw a crown bird and a most delightful cockatoo, with yellow breast and topping". There is an air of pleasing disorder about the drives, and one is ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... gorgeous tribe of parrots came; And screaming, leapt from bough to bough, Like living jets of crimson flame! And where the hillside-growing gums Their web-like foliage upward threw, Old Nature rang with echoes from The loud-voiced mountain cockatoo; And a thousand nameless twittering things, Between the rustling sapling sprays, Were flashing through the fragrant leaves, And dancing like to fabled fays; Rejoicing in the glorious light That beauteous Morning had unfurled To make the heart of ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... obey orders. Breakfast in housekeeper's room. After breakfast assist housemaid to dust ornaments, and on Saturdays and Wednesdays, wash, comb, and examine dogs; other days comb and examine them only; clean and feed macaw, cockatoo, and parrot, also canary and other birds; bring up dogs' dinners, and prevent them fighting at meals. After dogs' dinners read to Lady T., if required; if not, get up collars and flounces, laces, etc., for Lady T. and Lady ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... So shy and furtive a bird would choose his time for refreshment when there is little likelihood of interruption. In the ravine there are often metallic starlings by the dozen, and little green pigeons—for those domiciled come and go at all hours of the day. Occasionally a sulphur-crested cockatoo comes sailing down to the diminishing pool through interwoven leafage noiselessly as a butterfly; but scrub fowls, scared by the apparition in white, scamper off with a clatter, scattering the dead leaves. In such narrow quarters, birds are under restraint, and show anxiety ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... pouches. But the chief thing about the bird is, of course, the snowy down on the breast, of which ladies' muffs are made. The Zoological Society in Regent's Park offer a reward of L100 for a live albatross or black cockatoo, but it has never been earned, though the attempt to carry them to England has often been made, for the albatross ...
— Six Letters From the Colonies • Robert Seaton
... of the beautiful parrot family is the anaca (Derotypus coronatus). It is of a green colour, and at the back of its head rises a hood of red feathers bordered with blue, which it can elevate or depress at pleasure. It is the only American parrot which resembles the cockatoo of Australia. It is of a solemn, morose, and irritable disposition. The natives often keep the bird in the house for the purpose of seeing the irascible creature expand its beautiful feathers, which it readily does when excited. The ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... or Climbers, form the last section of the perching birds. This is an interesting group, since it includes all the varieties of the parrot, cockatoo, and macaw species; the woodpeckers, ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... these ceremonies is that of supplying the tribe with food and other necessaries. Often the rites consist of an imitation of the effect which the people desire to produce; in other words, their magic is homoeopathic or imitative. Thus among the Warramunga the headman of the white cockatoo totem seeks to multiply white cockatoos by holding an effigy of the bird and mimicking its harsh cry. Among the Arunta the men of the witchetty grub totem perform ceremonies for multiplying the grub which the other members of the tribe use as food. One of the ceremonies ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... thought you got away. Never saw any more of you after you jumped through the French window. Never had time. The last thing I remember is her Ladyship screaming like a mad cockatoo, yes, and abusing me as though I were a pickpocket, with the drawing-room all on fire. Then something happened, and down I went among the broken china and hit my head against the leg of a table. Next came a kind of whirling blackness and I ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard |
