"Finny" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Neither do you go up north if you know what you are about. You go "down North"; and your friend is not bound for Labrador. She is going to "the Labrador," or, to be more of a purist still, "the Larbadore." Having put you right on these rudiments—oh! I forgot another: "Fish" is always codfish. Other finny sea-dwellers may have to be designated by their special names, but the unpretentious cod is "t' fish"; and the salutation of friends is not, "How is your wife?" or, "How is your health?" But, "How's t' fish, B'y?" I like it. It is ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... preserved sweet without salt. The waters surrounding these islands may be said to be literally alive, so full are they of fish. Almost as numerous as the fish, are the birds which satisfy their voracious appetites upon this finny multitude, until they can gorge no more, when they retire to the islands to deposit their excrement, composed of the oily flesh and bones of their only food, until the mass which has been accumulating for thousands of years, is so great as almost ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... removing them; and by its vital powers converts what would otherwise act as a poison into a rich and fruitful nutriment, again to constitute a pabulum for the vegetable growth, while it also acts the important part of a purveyor to its finny neighbours.'[5] This perfect adjustment in the economy of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, whereby the vital functions of each are permanently maintained, is one of the most beautiful ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... whole fleets of tiny fishing-boats, to be counted by thousands, like shoals of fishes, themselves engaged in procuring food for the teeming multitudes on shore, and giving an idea of the vast numbers of the finny tribes which inhabit those seas. Frequently, too, there glided by one of those roguish, rakish, wicked-looking craft—an opium clipper, fleet as the sporting dolphin, and armed to the teeth, for she has foes on every side; the pirates long to make her their ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... knew they were on their trial, and that it behoved them to be wary. They had not compassed twenty winters without knowing that Marget Todd lost Davie Haggart because she "fittit" a black stocking with brown worsted, and that Finny's grieve turned from Bell Whamond on account of the frivolous flowers in her bonnet: and yet Bell's prospects, as I happen to know, at one time looked bright and promising. Sitting over her father's peat-fire one night gossiping with him about fishing-flies and tackle, I noticed ...
— Auld Licht Idyls • J.M. Barrie
... is famed for its large flying-fish, of which some are from 18 to 24 inches in length: and not a little so, for those monsters of the finny tribe called sharks. In the Admiralty book of directions, the fact is related of an artillery-man being found fully accoutred in the stomach ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... fishing much better than most boys, for he seldom misses his game. He takes his position on the railing, and fixes his eyes upon the finny tribes below, and when a fish that suits him comes within his range, he dives into the water and brings it up with his stout beak, and then beats it upon the railing to make it limp and ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... Fish-house at the London Zoological Gardens it must be said that its contents are decidedly "mixed," for it is the home not only of a few specimens of the finny tribe, but also of some wading and diving birds, of a very curious amphibian, of a few shrimps, and of several of the beautiful flower-like sea-anemones. The collection, however, loses nothing in point of interest because of its varied character, and will ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... saw us at the Fish Pond, where Mr. Browne again exhibited his skill in the gentle craft, and caught a good dish of the finny tribe. The mystery as to how these fish could have got into so isolated a spot, was not yet cleared up, and I was really puzzled ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... hardworking, and could always make a good living by their calling, so that the smuggling they did was nothing to be compared to their Cheshire compatriots. Strings upon strings of ponies have I seen coming along the road from Formby, laden with the finny spoil. The ponies had panniers slung over their backs, while sometimes the fisherman's wife or child, if the horse could bear the double burden, was seated between them. These were called "Formby Trotters." ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... disabled from want of strength. Attaining the state of the red-eyed fire, do thou condescend to do me this favour!' Having thus advised Atharvan, the fire went away to some other place. But his place of concealment was divulged by the finny tribe. Upon them the fire pronounced this curse in anger, 'You shall be the food of all creatures in various ways.' And then that carrier of oblations spoke unto Atharvan (as before). Though entreated by the gods, he did not agree to continue ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Pyne," I replied, in the way of reminiscence. "It is a pity to waste our opportunities of observation now, in getting up costumes; and, for my part, I confess that I have a wholesome dread of these sea-deities, and fear to exasperate their finny feelings by reducing them to effigies. Thetis is very spiteful, sometimes; ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... ears are very minute, mere apologies one might think; but don't be hasty. The finny prey of the sea-lion makes no sound as it skims through the water; and perhaps the padded foot of that stealthy garrotter, the Polar bear, makes as little on the smooth ice; for catching the one and not being caught by the other the sea-lion must trust to the keenness ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)
... removed from the volcanic fires in the centre. It is probable that, when the rent was formed near the base, one of those caverns was broken open, and that the waters from it were discharged along with their finny inhabitants. ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... water, or nothing but vapor —this is surely a noteworthy thing. Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is combined with the element in which they swim, hence, a herring or a cod might live a century, and never once raise its head above the surface. But owing to his marked internal structure which ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... part of the State. In the early winter after the river was frozen over above Poughkeepsie, it was discovered that immense numbers of fish were retreating up stream before the slow encroachment of salt water. There was a general exodus of the finny tribes from the whole lower part of the river; it was like the spring and fall migration of the birds, or the fleeing of the population of a district before some approaching danger: vast swarms of cat-fish, white and yellow perch and striped bass were ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... a Walton quite, Betweenwhiles I should try To lure the finny tribe to bite (At the right time, in the right ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... thought Jack with a chuckle, as he also dipped his hand to grope for the finny delicacies. He had less than a minute to wait when something cold and smooth touched his fingers. He made a desperate clutch, sinking his arm to his elbow, but the fish was too quick, and darted beyond his reach, just as Ogallah landed another ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... keeping watch and ward. If an intruder approached, they would dart at him spitefully. These fish have the air of bantam cocks, and, with their sharp, prickly fins and spines and scaly sides, must be ugly customers in a hand-to-hand encounter with other finny warriors. To a hungry man they look about as unpromising as hemlock slivers, so thorny and thin are they; yet there is sweet meat in them, as we ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... ever be. The beetle rends the insect, and the hawk preys on the beetle; order on order, life rises from death and carnage, and higher pleasures from lower agonies. Shall the man be better than nature? Soothing and restful flows the Nile, though underneath its placid surface finny tribes wage cruel war, and the stronger eat the weaker. Shall the gazer who would read the secrets of the stars turn because under his feet ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... of course, frightens the fish, which dive to the bottom of the stream, and Mr. Indian, plunging head foremost into the water, beneath which he sometimes remains several minutes, will presently reappear, holding triumphantly in each hand one of the finny tribe, which he kills by giving it a single bite in the head or neck with ...
— The Shirley Letters from California Mines in 1851-52 • Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
... I was some distance from the boat, with the tide flowing in so rapidly that in a few minutes I should have had to swim, and a swim in water swarming with such furious kinds of the finny tribe was ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... throng, in many a motley group, His followers—monsters of enormous chine, Sea-shouldering whales, and Glaucus' aged troop, Paloemon, Ino's progeny divine, Swift Tritons, born to gambol in the brine, And Phorcus' finny legions. Melite, And virgin Panopoea leftward shine, Thetis, Nesaee, daughters of the sea, Spio, ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... in their dens; The cattle on the bill. Deep in the sea The countless finny race and monster brood Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood No more with noisy hum of insect rings; And all the feathered tribe, by gentle sleep subdued, Roost in the glade and hang their drooping wings." —Translation ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... his wading-boots and fishing dress, and industriously whipping the water for trout. The Swirl was a famous trout-stream, and Mr. Honeywood's coachman was a noted fisherman, and was accustomed to pass many of his nights fishing the stream with a white moth. It appeared that the finny inhabitants of the Swirl were as fond of whitebait as are Cabinet Ministers and London aldermen; for the coachman's deeds of darkness invariably resulted in the production of a fine dish of freshly-caught trout ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... in a flood of glory behind the dark pine-woods at the head of the lake, when Hector and Louis, who had been carefully providing fish for the morrow (which was the Sabbath), came loaded with their finny prey carefully strung upon a willow-wand, and found Catharine sleeping in her bower. Louis was loath to break her tranquil slumbers, but her careful brother reminded him of the danger to which she was exposed, sleeping ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... vegetable meal; But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,[26] Each wish contracting fits him to the soil. Cheerful at morn he wakes from short repose, 185 Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes; With patient angle trolls the finny deep; Or drives his venturous plowshare to the steep; Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way, And drags the struggling savage[27] into day. 190 At night returning, every labor sped, He sits him ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various
... not exaggerating," he continued, "when I say that we are face to face with the gravest problem that has ever confronted us. It has pleased God in His infinite Providence so to direct the finny tribes that the denizens of the deep have altered the ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... behind In equal curls, and well conspired to deck With shining ringlets the smooth ivory neck. Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains, And mighty hearts are held in slender chains. With hairy springes we the birds betray, Slight lines of hair surprise the finny prey, Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, And beauty draws ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... look at the little pond with the rock-work fountain, which they had made, and which played by means of a barrel of water hid in the shrubbery behind, the stream being conveyed through a piece of small piping. Here it was that Harry and Philip kept all the finny treasures they captured, and the little pond was rich in carp, roach, dace, and perch; while, amongst other valuables, Fred was informed of the existence of an eel a foot long, which had been put in two months before, ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... large trout. Mr. C.J. Swete, writing in his Handbook of Epsom, not longer ago than 1853, is pleased to take his reader with him by the banks of the Mole, in which he has obtained "permission from the proprietor to gather some of the finny treasures of its liquid mines." Quite unwarrantably, he assumes that his reader is ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... people he finds me with, however, that he is a hadji, a dervish, and that he hails from Mazanderan. I shouldn't be much surprised to see him back up the latter assertion by producing a dried fish from the ample folds of his kammerbund; but these finny witnesses are reserved to perform their role later in ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... "Gurr finny," says T. Atkins, and there seems no doubt about the well-known War being over at last. Home-keeping folk, who imagine it ended when the whistle blew at the eleventh hour of November 11th, are wide, very wide, of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... might show At need her course, in lack of sun and star, Where icebergs threaten, and the sharp reefs are; Lift the blind fog on Anticosti's lee And Avalon's rock; make populous the sea Round Grand Manan with eager finny swarms, Break the long calms, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... finny armies clog the twine That sweeps the lazy river, But pearls come singly from the brine, With ...
— Bitter-Sweet • J. G. Holland
... had its full counterpart in the finny hosts which peopled the waters at its base. Below the water-line, the rock seemed one honey-comb of grottoes, affording labyrinthine lurking-places for swarms of fairy fish. All were strange; many exceedingly beautiful; and would have well ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... the valley of the moon," agreed Billy, and he said it on the evening of the day he hooked a monster steelhead, standing to his neck in the ice-cold water of the Rogue and fighting for forty minutes, with screaming reel, ere he drew his finny prize to the bank and with the scalp-yell of a Comanche jumped and clutched it by ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... preposterous number of fish of immense size. The water was so clear, that we could see the fish rush and seize the bait as fast as it was thrown in. Sometimes a huge shark would bite the fish in two, so that the poor finny creature was between Scylla and Charybdis. These fish are called cherne and pargo, and at dinner were pronounced good. At length a shark, in its wholesale greediness, seized the bait, and feeling the hook in his horrid ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... cooks served the fish at noon the boys were loud in their praises. Some had suggestions to offer about the ways of cooking them; but it was noticed that half the inmates of the camp busied themselves immediately after lunch in hunting fishing tackle; and the prospect for peace among the finny tribes in that ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts on a Tour - The Mystery of Rattlesnake Mountain • George A. Warren
... not have sent the news of his success to Lady Laura; but he had not done so. The piece of paper which she still held crushed in her hand was in itself very innocent. "Hurrah for the Loughshanes. Finny has done the trick." Such were the words written on the slip, and they had been sent to Lady Laura by her young cousin, the clerk in the office who acted as private secretary to the Under-Secretary of State. Lady ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... praise of some great King Who o'er a num'rous people and renown'd Presiding like a Deity, maintains Justice and truth. The earth, under his sway, Her produce yields abundantly; the trees Fruit-laden bend; the lusty flocks bring forth; The Ocean teems with finny swarms beneath 140 His just controul, and all the land is blest. Me therefore, question of what else thou wilt In thy own palace, but forbear to ask From whom I sprang, and of my native land, Lest thou, reminding me of those sad ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer
... water receded, the finny tribe proper imprisoned in the landlocked bodies became more and more crowded. They struggled in frantic masses, churning up the mud from the bottom so that the liquid in which they swam was thick and black. The smaller ones attacked one ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... directly from off shore the Old Glory bowled along merrily over the waves. Nobody showed the least sign of seasickness, and they talked, laughed, and sang as if they had not a care in the world. Tom also did some fishing, and caught a string of the finny tribe, of which ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... she thought it strange that they could distinguish her from the novices. That much they knew of the upper air. The fish watched her out of their beady eyes, stirring in their dim atmosphere with a strange, finny motion. ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... lies there in blessid idleness an' no matther what's th' matther with him, he don't suffer half as much pain as he would in pursoot iv two dollars a day. I knowed a man wanst who used to take his vacations that way. Whin others wint off f'r to hunt what Hogan calls th' finny monsthers iv th' deep, he become seeryously ill an' took to bed. It made ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... to his own cave. He was pursued, however, and killed by the red fish of Manu'a. I tell them that the shark, red fish, etc., must have been mere figurative names for chiefs and districts, and the finny troops under them were doubtless living men, but in all these stories the Samoans are rigid literalists, and believe in the very words of the tradition. And yet at the present day they have towns and districts bearing figurative names, distinct from the real names, such as the sword ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... Tavern, at Bournbrook Hotel (or, as it is better known, Kirby's), and at Pebble Mill, in most of which may be found perch, roach, carp, and pike. At Pebble Mill, March 20, last year, a pike was captured 40 inches long, and weighing 22 lbs., but that was a finny rarity, and not likely to be met with there again, as the pool (so long the last resort of suicidally inclined mortals) is to be filled up. A little farther off are waters at Sarehole, at Yardley Wood, and the reservoir at King's Norton, but with these exceptions ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell
... short distance out into the lake, and soon had all he could do to attend to his line, so rapidly did the finny denizens of the ...
— Messenger No. 48 • James Otis
... description of all the varieties of the finny inhabitants of the sea, showing their mode of life, and illustrating their habits and usefulness, by Rev. W. Bingley, A. M. Containing over 500 pages of large, clear type, and nearly 500 illustrations; bound in Cloth; stamped in Inks from ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... sufficient to allure them to where they were originally spawned; or that they are piloted there by some of the old fry. This idea will not appear improbable, when we consider the general laws which seem to control the whole finny tribe; and what would be the consequence should they be thrown down? The cod-fish which occupy the banks of Newfoundland, between the latitudes of 41 and 45, are very different, and are kept so distinct, and are so similar on the respective banks, that a man acquainted with that fishery will separate ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... again at Hillton, and Outfield, when he learned of the intention, declined his uncle's invitation and remained also. The days passed quickly and merrily. There was excellent skating on the river, and Joel showed West the methods of ice-fishing, though with but small results of a finny nature. ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... The "brown bear"—a large species, nearly resembling the "grizzly"—is found only in the Barren Grounds; and the great "Polar bear" comes within their borders, but the latter is a dweller upon their shores alone, and finds his food among the finny tribes of the seas that surround them. In marshy ponds, existing here and there, the musk-rat builds his house, like that of his larger cousin, the beaver. Upon the water sedge he finds subsistence; but ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... scrupulous head, Strict Age, and sour Severity, With their grave saws, in slumber lie. 110 We, that are of purer fire, Imitate the starry quire, Who, in their nightly watchful spheres, Lead in swift round the months and years. The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove, Now to the moon in wavering morrice move; And on the tawny sands and shelves Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves. By dimpled brook and fountain-brim, The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim, 120 Their merry ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... carried a fishing-rod and line, and her name was Kate Bonnet. She was a bright-faced, quick-moving young person, and apparently did not expect to catch many fish, for she had no basket in which to carry away her finny prizes. Nor, apparently, did she have any bait, except that which was upon her hook and which had been affixed there by one of the servants at her home, not far away. In fact, Mistress Kate was ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... described by Walton on the banks of the river Lea. He gives the feeling of the open air: we walk with him along the dusty road-side, or repose on the banks of the river under a shady tree; and in watching for the finny prey, imbibe what he beautifully calls "the patience and simplicity of poor honest fishermen." We accompany them to their inn at night, and partake of their simple, but delicious fare; while Maud, the ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... small golden fish. The fish begged hard to be released, and promised, if he were set free, to sacrifice as many of his subjects as would daily fill the fisherman's nets. On this understanding the finny monarch was given his liberty, and fulfilled his promise to the letter. Moreover, when the fisherman's boat was capsized in a gale the Fish King appeared, and, holding a flask to the drowning man's lips, made him drink a magic fluid which ensured his ability to exist under ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... it was one solid mass of great shining, blue-grey fish, of about thirty pounds weight each. The most imaginative artist in depicting the "Miraculous Draught of Fishes" never approached the reality of Barrackpore, or pictured such vast quantities of writhing, silvery finny creatures. They were a fish called cattla by the natives, a species of carp, with a few eels and smaller fish of a bright red colour thrown in amongst them. I could never have believed that one pond could have held such incredible quantities of fish. The Viceroy, an intrepid ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... feeble folk were to gather food for the warriors, of whom the principal ones were the Bear, Wolf, Wildcat and Bison. The Swallow served as messenger to the birds, and the swift Trout carried the news to the finny tribes, for all were to join in ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... know one from the other, and we were sometimes much diverted, and they were much annoyed, by his sending for one when he meant the other. Although our cruising ground appeared a profitable one, and we were considered fortunate in being sent there, for six weeks we only made prizes of hundreds of the finny tribe by trawling off Quimper and L'Orient. This amusement, exercising guns, sails and lead, gave us full employment, and ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... in the bargain," asserted Jack, "for you can see he's carrying quite a neat string of the finny beauties. There, he holds it up so you can get your ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... mouthed curse, Not back to Seville and its sunny plains Winged their brief-biding dreams, but once again, Lords of a palace in Tenochtitlan, They guarded Montezuma's treasure-hoard. Gold, like some finny harvest of the sea, Poured out knee deep around the rifted floors, Shiny and sparkling,—arms and crowns and rings: Gold, sweet to toy with as beloved hair, — To plunge the lustful, crawling fingers down, Arms ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... if 'taint," says she. He informs her that she is always "bellerin'" about something, and she requests him not to be so "putchy;" nor does that end the matter. Guests like the Melvines of Melvine Farm, the Bligh boys of Bligh's Corners, the Plunkett girls and Deacon Buckingham's hired girl, and Yem Finny and Sam Bab's folks, are the kind to invite to a party. They are the kind to keep up a rumble of talk in the parlor, and in the other rooms a rush of games—Hide the Handkerchief, Hunt the Slipper, and so on: Achilles's troops did ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... three lakes in succession, Fraser, Burns, and Decker, and climbed over a low divide to drop into the Bulkley Valley—a pleasant, rolling country, where the timber was interspersed with patches of open grassland and set with small lakes, wherein schools of big trout lived their finny lives unharried by anglers—save when some wandering Indian snared one with a ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... experienced various delays, having several times been frozen up in creeks. They would be able to cut, during the winter, twenty- five thousand fishing-rods, enough, one would think, to clear the streams of all the finny tribe. Mr. F. C. Stirling, of Painesville, Ohio, was the principal of the party, and I found him an unusually intelligent young man. He had passed the previous winter alone upon White River in an experimental sort of way, and ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... my Indian friend Joao. He carried a bow, four arrows with detachable heads, and a harpoon six feet long. The little boat which we found close to the outlet of the lake was pushed away from the shore, we each seized one of the peculiarly decorated paddles, and were off, looking for finny game. We paddled quietly along near the shore, now and then receiving a bump from some concealed snag which nearly upset us. It requires considerable skill to navigate one of these poorly-made dugouts, the slightest move causing a disproportionate ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... shore a Temple[449] still, Of small and delicate proportion, keeps Upon a mild declivity of hill,[nd] Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps The finny darter with the glittering scales,[450] Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps; While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails[ne] Down where the shallower wave still tells ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... with curiosities. Probably the flying-fish may be considered as one of the most singular. This little scaled inhabitant of water and air seems to have been more favoured than the rest of its finny brethren. It can rise out of the waves and on wing visit the ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... opened in Kolonial Hall, which was crowded every nite with stujents, &c. Perfesser Finny gazed for hours at my Kangaroo, but when that sagashus but onprincipled little cuss set up one of his onarthly yellins and I proceeded to hosswhip him, the Perfesser objected. "Suffer not your angry pashums to rise up at the poor annimil's little ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... the boys left the house a half hour later, they took with them not only all that was necessary to lure the finny prey from their lurking places, but each as well carried on his shoulder a Winchester repeating rifle and around his waist ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield
... aisles of the roads and lanes. Fishing-tackle hung in company with tattered jerseys outside of huts hidden in grasses and honeysuckle. The shepherdesses, as they followed the sheep inland into the heart of the pasture land, were busy netting the coarse cages that trap the finny tribe. Long-limbed, vigorous-faced, these shepherdesses were Biblical figures. In their coarse homespun, with only a skirt and a shirt, with their bare legs, half-open bosoms, and the fine poise of their blond heads, theirs was a beauty that ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... to go from every woe to peace in the wide ocean, But you will find your foolish mind repent its foolish notion. When dog-fish dash and mermaids splash their finny tails to find you, I'll make a bet that you'll regret the world ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... head first. His speed was so great that any smaller fish which he pursued was doomed, unless fortunate enough to be within instant reach of shoal water. Of course, it must not be imagined that the great trout was able to keep his domain quite inviolate. When he was full fed, or sulking, then the finny wanderers passed up and down freely,—always, however, giving wide berth to the lair under the bank. In the bright shallows over against the other shore, the scurrying shoals of pin-fish played safely in the sun. Once in a long while a fish would ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... evidently but seldom trodden. It abounded in sunken ruts, wherein lurked the adder. It led by sullen pools, where the bittern boomed and the pike swam, his silver side glittering like a streak of light beneath the dark surface, as he sought his finny prey. Now it was marshy and muddy, now it was tangled with thorns, now impeded by fallen trees. So thick was the verdure that the sky could not ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... and taking his jointed rod, joined the trio who had wandered around the bend of the eastern shore of the island; for Paul certainly did love to feel a lively fish at the end of his line, and could not think of leaving Lake Tokala without giving its finny inhabitants a chance ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... about the bow of the ship, the grampus slowly heaving his huge form above the surface; or the ravenous shark, darting, like a spectre, through the blue waters. My imagination would conjure up all that I had heard or read of the watery world beneath me; of the finny herds that roam its fathomless valleys; of the shapeless monsters that lurk among the very foundations of the earth; and of those wild phantasms that swell the tales of ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... how we waited, How we watched with anxious eyes,— For the finny tribe to yield us Captures of enormous size; There was always disappointment Filling us with deep dismay, For we only caught the minnows And the ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... cruise in a little yacht built to accommodate yourself and a few well chosen friends, or motor over scenic highways to places of interest both near and far? Do you regard yourself a mighty hunter and desire so to convince your friends? Or would you be content to angle for the finny denizens of the deep with a certainty that you will not in turn ...
— The Beauties of the State of Washington - A Book for Tourists • Harry F. Giles
... harbour of the universe. So beautiful were her lines, that you might almost have imagined her a created being that the ocean had been ordered to receive, as if fashioned by the Divine Architect, to add to the beauty and variety of His works; for, from the huge leviathan to the smallest of the finny tribe—from the towering albatross to the boding petrel of the storm—where could be found, among the winged or finned frequenters of the ocean, a form more appropriate, more fitting, than this specimen of human skill, whose beautiful model and ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... the dark background of dense foliage; and, if we looked over the side for a moment, we saw the deep obscurity of the tranquil ocean constantly flashing into sudden brightness, as a long trail of pale phosphorescent sparks, or a momentary halo, betrayed the movement of some finny denizen of the deep. ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... of the Marti fish-market, at the end of Mercaderes Street, affords a display of the finny tribe which we have never seen equaled elsewhere. Every hue and combination of iris colors is represented, while the variety and oddity of shapes is ludicrous. Even fishing on the coast and the sale of the article are virtually government monopolies; indeed, everything is taxed ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... will chace the ravenous wolf,—who, bearing the iron ball in his lacerated side, ever and anon gnaws the wound in his rage, and slinks on weeping tears of blood. The roebuck and the hare, the feathered and the finny tribe, are ever presenting an endless alternation of amusement more or less exciting; and the sportsman has but to settle with himself, when the rosy morn appears, whether he will bestride his gallant steed, or throw the rod or rifle over his shoulder,—his ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... and out came a finny struggler; but it was no use to kick, for Bluescrags never left go when once he had hold of a fish, and he was just gobbling it ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... down the Western Way, A Blaze of Fires renews the fading Day; Unnumbered Barks the Regal Barge infold, Brightening the Twilight with its beamy Gold; Less thick the finny Shoals, a countless Fry, Before the Whale or kingly Dolphin fly. In one vast Shout he seeks the crowded Strand, And in a Peal of Thunder ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... not give rise to protestations, to indignation meetings, to questionings in the House, and to the papers being filled with complaints, till matters were put right again? Yes, indeed, all these things would happen! meanwhile, however, we continue placidly in our fishless state of existence, and the finny tribe, outside in the deep sea, have a good time ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... some fishing-huts, which were constructed on the frozen river, the traffic in the finny tribe which takes place in this part of Russia being very great, the Volga producing the sterlet (a fish unknown in other rivers of Europe), in large quantities. I have often eaten them, but must say I could never appreciate this so-called delicacy. The bones are of a very glutinous ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... all the fishes,— Who much enjoyed the joke, With many a joyous wriggle And finny ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... forth from that archaic sea, the Ichthyosaurus Uprose upon his finny wings, with neocomian fuss, "Oh, Iguanodon!" he cried, as he approached the shore, "Why art thou thus dysthynic, love? Come, rise with me, and soar, Or leave these estuarian seas, and wander in the grove; Behold! a bird-like reptile fish is ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... clear, active little river, such as a trout-fisher would glory in, only that its banks in this neighbourhood are everywhere sentinelled by trees of willow, dog-wood, laburnum, &c. whose flowery arms entwined within each other shadow the clear water, and protect from the lure of the angler its finny inmates. ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... only observe, under oath, that I was informed that the vessel intended to depart in search of some of the numerous ichthyological specimens that roam in finny herds through the boundless depths of the sea—as soon as the ...
— Freaks of Fortune - or, Half Round the World • Oliver Optic
... all thrive, so I suppose we are adapting ourselves to the medium, and shall be scaly and finny before long. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... were able to examine some inhabitant of the planet Mars our first interest would be to know with what senses they were endowed, and these finny creatures living in their denser medium, which after a few seconds would mean death to us, excite the same interest. They see, of course, having eyes, but do they feel, hear, ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... preserved in barrels with bay salt, and no other of the finny tribe has so fine a flavour. Choose those which look red and mellow, and the bones moist and oily. They should be high-flavoured, and have a fine smell; but beware of their being mixed with red paint, to improve ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... published a Supplement to Frank Forrester's Fish and Fishing in the United States, by W. H. HERBERT, correcting some errors which had crept into the principal work on that subject, and completing the memoirs of the finny tribes under the democratic institutions of America, with the jaunty airiness of description, and genuine relish of natural scenery (as well as of fried fish), which have given such a wide celebrity to the flowing and unctuous ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... a deputy two days later, but the Italians had taken warning and fled. However, the warden found and destroyed several nets with which the fish poachers had been illegally gathering the finny prizes ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... a sudden shock hurled them headlong against the glass-filled shelves, smashing several bottles and releasing the slimy, finny contents, and sending them all in a heap ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... kinds, the females display signs of intelligence earlier than the males. Lutra being the only female among the cubs, she naturally grew to be the most keenly observant, and often identified the finny visitor before her brothers ventured to decide that it was ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... Person who sent the foregoing Receipts, concerning Oysters, advises another way of roasting Oysters, which I think is a very good one, and not much known. It is, to take large Oysters, open them, and hang them by the finny part on a small Spit, after having first dipt them in the Yolk of an Egg, and roll'd them in Crumbs of Bread; turn them three or four times before the Fire, and baste them gently with Butter, till the Crumbs of Bread are crisp upon them, and serve them ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... earth still night prevails; Calm sleep the mountain tops and shady vales, The rugged cliffs and hollow glens; The cattle on the hill. Deep in the sea, The countless finny race and monster brood Tranquil repose. Even the busy bee Forgets her daily toil. The silent wood No more with noisy hum of insect rings; And all the feathered tribes, by gentle sleep subdued, Roost in the glade, and hang their ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... waving the sheet from the tower she won't say to herself, 'The energetic maiden on yon lofty tower is my one and only love. I can only see one bloomer leg and a hank of hair, but that is enough to recognize my soul mate by. Come to my arms, Finny!'" ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... a certain cormorant Its contribution from its fishes, And stock'd his kitchen with good dishes. Yet, when old age the bird had chill'd, His kitchen was less amply fill'd. All cormorants, however grey, Must die, or for themselves purvey. But ours had now become so blind, His finny prey he could not find; And, having neither hook nor net, His appetite was poorly met. What hope, with famine thus infested? Necessity, whom history mentions, A famous mother of inventions, The following stratagem suggested: He found upon the ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... surely as the natives disappear under the surface of the water, so surely will they reappear with a fish writhing upon the point of their short spears; and even under water their aim is always correct. One traveller, Sturt, is of opinion that they seldom eat the finny tribes when they can get anything else, but this idea seems scarcely to agree with the report of others. At all events, whether from choice or not, a large proportion of their subsistence is derived from the waters. With regard ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... this device for enhancing the food-supply, and the aquaria at Agricultural Hall, containing twelve or fifteen thousand gallons of salt and fresh water, present a congress of the leaders, gastronomically speaking, of the finny people. The shad remains not only to be naturalized in Europe, but to be reintroduced to the water-side dwellers above tide, who once met him regularly at table. He is joined by delegates from the mountain, the great lakes and the Pacific coast ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... and dead, The Soul from her too active organs fled To a brook. A female fish's sandy roe With the male's jelly newly leavened was; For they had intertouched as they did pass, And one of those small bodies, fitted so, This Soul informed, and able it to row Itself with finny oars, which she did fit, Her scales seemed yet of parchment, and as yet Perchance a fish, but by no name ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... singular and rare darter, swimming with body immersed, and snake-like head just appearing above the water; and there were the white unwieldy forms of the tyrant pelicans standing on the watch for their finny prey. Swimming birds speckled the surface; various species of Anatidae—swans, geese, and ducks,—while the air was filled with flights of gulls and curlews, or was cut by the strong whistling ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... mother bore me not a finny thing, so would I have gone down to thee, and kissed thy hand, if thy lips thou would not suffer me to kiss! And I would have brought thee either white lilies, or the soft poppy with its scarlet petals. Nay, these are summer's flowers, and those ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... good weather, in the season, the blueback and spring salmon swim in vast schools across the end of Squitty. They feed upon small fish, baby herring, tiny darting atoms of finny life that swarm in countless numbers. What these inch-long fishes feed upon no man knows, but they begin to show in the Gulf early in spring. The water is alive with them,—minute, darting streaks of silver. The salmon follow these schools, ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... gazing vulgar's eyes employs, With foreign trinkets and domestic toys. Here mummies lay, most reverently stale, And there the tortoise hung her coat of mail; Not far from some huge shark's devouring head The flying-fish their finny pinions spread. Aloft in rows large poppy-heads were strung, And near, a scaly alligator hung. In this place drugs in musty heaps decay'd, In that dried bladders and false ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... caught the finny prize, and his eyes glistened at its size; but Maurice knew full well that this act of benevolence on their part would not serve to protect them a particle from the thieving propensities of the nomads if a chance were ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... thou mislik'st my hair? Well, oaken logs Are here, and embers yet aglow with fire. Burn (if thou wilt) my heart out, and mine eye, Mine only eye wherein is my delight. Oh why was I not born a finny thing, To float unto thy side and kiss thy hand, Denied thy lips—and bring thee lilies white And crimson-petalled poppies' dainty bloom! Nay—summer hath his flowers and autumn his; I could not bring all these the selfsame day. Lo, should some ...
— Theocritus • Theocritus
... am grieved to observe in your otherwise estimable character, a melancholy want of faith," replied Mueller "Without faith, what is friendship? What is angling? What is matrimony? Now, I tell you that with regard to the finny tribe, the more I charm them, the more enthusiastically they will flock to be caught. We shall have a miraculous draught in a few minutes, if you ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... survived the exploit only to fall a victim to the wiles of a North Sea fisherman. As the cormorant is generally regarded to be the dernier cri in voracity, the incident illustrates the old saying of the biter bit. As a rule birds of prey have the upper hand in their contests with the finny denizens of the deep. But the triumph of the halibut is not altogether unprecedented. I remember, when I was cruising in the China Seas in the year 1854, witnessing a combat between a dolphin and a Bombay ...
— Punch, Volume 156, 26 March 1919 • Various
... and alive with a multitude of fish. There were minnows by the thousand, and a good many gold-fish; and J——-, who had brought some bread to feed the swans, threw in handfuls of crumbs for the benefit of these finny people. They seemed to be accustomed to such courtesies on the part of visitors; and immediately the surface of the water was blackened, at the spot where each crumb fell, with shoals of minnows, thrusting one another even above the surface in their eagerness ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... are dealing with the red race, the black, or the white. Nor does it matter whether we deal with one part of the continent or another. Wherever we turn we can trace the influence of mountains and plains, of rocks and metals from which tools are made, of water and its finny inhabitants, of the beasts of the chase from the hare to the buffalo, of domestic animals, of the native forests, grass-lands, and deserts, and, last but not least, of temperature, moisture, and wind in their direct effects upon the human body. ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... of waves, Where finny nations glide; Within whose deep, dark caves The ocean monsters hide: His power is sovereign there, To raise, to quell the storm; The depths his bounty share, Where sport the scaly swarm: Tempests and calms obey the same almighty voice, Which rules the earth and skies, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... companions. Getting into the boat, however, we made another thorough search; and while doing so I found jammed into a corner of the after-locker a large fishing-hook, such as is used for catching sharks, bonitos, and other finny monsters of the deep. Besides this, we discovered a ball of twine and some spare pieces ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... What can be more delightful on a bright, pleasant afternoon, when the wind is in exactly the right quarter, than to take up a standard work on fishing, written by some gifted traveling passenger agent, and with him to snatch the elusive finny tribe out of their native element, while the reel whirs deliriously and the hooked trophy leaps high in air, struggling against the feathered barb of the deceptive lure, and a waiter is handy if ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... the Little Bill, far up in the pine woods, and having "the time of their lives" in spite of their scant success in capturing trout. Old Hucks could go out before breakfast and bring in an ample supply of speckled beauties for Mary to fry; but Uncle John's splendid outfit seemed scorned by the finny folk, and after getting her dress torn in sundry places and a hook in the fleshy part of her arm Patsy learned to seek shelter behind a tree whenever her uncle cast his fly. But they reveled in the woods, and would lie on the bank for hours ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... of the deep, whether it was properly a fish at all. A whale can be as surely drowned in the water as a man, but this cannot be said of a fish. A whale differs also in many other respects from the finny tribe proper. They bring forth living young, they breathe atmospheric air through their lungs, in place of water through the gills, having a double heart and warm blood, like land animals. Their blow-holes ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... olden time certain varieties of fish were tabooed and could not be caught at all times, being subject to the kapu of Ku-ula, the fish god, who propagated the finny tribes of Hawaiian waters. While deep sea fishing was more general, that in the shallow sea, or along shore, was subject to the restrictions of the konohiki of the land, and aliis, both as to certain kinds and periods. ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... the copy again, I saw that it purported to be the work of "Rudentia Jones, Fellow of the Palaeontologic Society, Entomologist to the Institute for Harmonizing the Universes, and Ruler of Subaqueous Creation, excepting the Finny Mammalia." ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... what Bluff called "gilt-edged." Perhaps he was a little prejudiced in the matter, because he had had a share in capturing the gamy fighters. But there was not a dissenting voice when Jerry moved that they pronounce the finny denizens of the big lake unequalled for their ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... strolled beside that lake, A pretty maid I chanced to see Fishing away for finny prey, Yet not a single one caught she; All round her boat the fishes leapt And gambolled to their hearts' content, Yet never a thing did the maid but sing— I wonder ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... and salmon as it comes to us variously prepared for the table. In short, we Americans are fairly friendly with a number of the aristocrats of the water, but on analyzing the situation we come to realize that as for knowing the "finny tribe" as a whole well enough to get complete gastronomic joy out of the situation, it remains that it is only the French ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... a few days three canoes, with many men and warriors, no longer decorated with war-paint, no longer armed with bows and arrows and sharp spears, but with the pale cheeks of men of peace, and bearing the implements of fishermen, ventured off to the rocks in quest of the finny brood. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... approach of stormy weather seem to rise, as by the stroke of a magician's wand, from the sea. One of the few changes one meets with on a voyage to Africa is angling for birds, for they are as easily taken as the finny tribe, by baiting a fish-hook with a piece of fat meat, and especially so in those rough seas, upon whose surface little to nourish can be found, they seize greedily upon the hook, which fastens itself readily in their crooked ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... out and walked over the mussels to the pool, and when he saw the wicked soul of the Magician looking out through the round eyes of a big finny fish he remembered all that his Princess had suffered, and he longed to draw his sword and kill the ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... and leaps over to the fireplace where he stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... equal knaves demand), To gain a lawless passport through the land. Here, wand'ring long, amid these frowning fields, I sought the simple life that Nature yields; Rapine and Wrong and Fear usurp'd her place, And a bold, artful, surly, savage race; Who, only skill'd to take the finny tribe, The yearly dinner, or septennial bribe, Wait on the shore, and, as the waves run high, On the tost vessel bend their eager eye, Which to their coast directs its vent'rous way; Theirs or the ocean's miserable prey. As on their neighbouring beach yon swallows stand, ...
— The Village and The Newspaper • George Crabbe
... work, laid work, prest work, Net work, most curious pearl or rare Italian cut work, Fine fern stitch, finny stitch, new stitch, and chain stitch, Brave bred stitch, fisher stitch, Irish stitch, and queen's stitch, The Spanish stitch, rosemary stitch, and maw stitch, The smarting whip stitch, back stitch, and the cross stitch.— All these are good, and these we must allow, ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... be some fine pickerel in this lake," said Snap, and he fixed his rod and line for that specimen of the finny tribe and Giant did the same. Shep and Whopper went in for whatever they could catch. The fishing was highly successful and the boys soon had all the fish they ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... brooks in quest of the classical trout and the minnows. Of the last alone, according to M. Agassiz, several of the species found in this town are yet undescribed. These would, perhaps, complete the list of our finny contemporaries in ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... mountains of Vermont, looked like so many tumuli of the deceased Indian giants of ages gone by. In the centre between, in a southerly course, ran a clear, silver brook, well stocked with an abundance of trout and other species of the finny tribe. On both sides of this stream were situated the extensive farms of the Pryings. They had abundance of woods from the elevated extremes on either side. The rivulet constituted a cooling retreat for cattle in summer, and ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... that valley and the rugged recesses of the Imnaha between Oregon and Walla Walla. The famous red fish, the yank, and others possibly peculiar to the place were found in abundance in the lake. It was their treasure house for finny food, and the hovering hills furnished flesh of ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... shore. Since the great Pan expired, and through the roar Of the Ionian waters broke a dread Voice which proclaimed "the Mighty Pan is dead." How much died with him! false or true—the dream Was beautiful which peopled every stream With more than finny tenants, and adorned The woods and waters with coy nymphs that scorned Pursuing Deities, or in the embrace Of gods brought forth the high heroic race 10 Whose names are on the hills ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... beaks at the crabs and cray-fish; and upon projecting limbs of trees perched the black darter, his long snake-like neck stretched eagerly over the water. In the air a flock of buzzard vultures were wheeling lazily about, and a pair of ospreys hung over the lake, now and then swooping down upon their finny prey. ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... afternoon, our finny travelers came together to a little clear brook, with a bottom of fine gravel, over which the water was but a few inches deep. Our fish painfully worked his way to it; for his tail was all frayed out, his muscles were sore, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... man, but that only made the difference worse. The details resolved as Farmer stared at him. The oddness about head and shoulders became finny crests; what had looked at first like a red skin-tight costume became a scaly hide. Farmer realized with a shock that ...
— Stairway to the Stars • Larry Shaw
... liveliest fishes. Swanhilda for a while watched in silence the disport of the happy creatures, then snatched up a hazel wand lying at her feet, round the end of which a worm had coiled, and, half maddened by the joyance of the finny tribe, struck with it into the water. A greedy fish snapped at the switch. The famishing Swanhilda clutched hungeringly at it, but found in her hand a piece of offensive carrion, and nothing more; whilst around, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... fish of all sorts, shapes, and sizes. I had not been long at Puttihee before I had erected a staging, leading out into deep water, and many a happy hour I have spent there with my three or four rods out, pulling in the finny inhabitants. ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... the master he seems to have admired above others, Rabelais, who, in the tempestuous roll of his diverse waters, sometimes washes up on to the sand pearls fit to adorn the crown of any lyrical poet. Fishes appear in Nash's otherwise unpoetical prose as "the sea's finny freeholders;" the inhabitants of a port town do not sow corn, "their whole harvest is by sea;" they plough "the glassy fieldes of Thetis." He has an instinctive hatred for abstract terms; he wants expressive words, words that shine, that breathe, ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... for many yards on either side. At every bend in the river there is of course a deep hole close to the bank; these holes remain full of water, as the little stream continues to flow through them; and the water, in its entrance and exit being too shallow for a large fish, all the finny monsters of the river are compelled to imprison themselves in the depths of these holes. Here the crocodiles have fine feeding, as they live ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... Vast flocks of huge pelicans were swimming along the stream, dipping their enormous bills into the water, and each time bringing up a fish. They have enormous pouches, capable of containing many pounds of their finny prey. ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... speak of the fishes which make nests, for very few such have been discovered, and they are considered curiosities of fish-life. Perhaps when we know more of the habits of the finny-tribe, we shall find that some others provide for the safety of their young in a similar way, but at present I believe the Stickleback, which not only makes a nest but takes care of his young brood until they ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... boats towing astern in calm weather. We saw some bonitoes in chase of a large shoal. The flying-fish made an audible rustling noise as they arose before their pursuers, who, in eager chase, often sprang several yards out of the water. Besides their finny enemies, the former had to encounter in their flight armies of boobies, gannets, and other tropical birds, which hovered over them, and secured many of them before our eyes. Notwithstanding this, I do not suppose that flying-fish are more unhappy or more ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... most desirable and wary of most species of game, furry or finny, the huge, heavily tusked veterans of the wild-boar family often feed after dark, being too cunning to banquet by daylight and carouse with the gayer blades and the big, ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... there stood a group of huts Before whose gates old men sat mending nets And eyed with secret joy the little boys That gaily gambolled on the sandy beach Regardless of their parents' daily toils. And all the busy women left their homes And their young ones with baskets on their heads Filled with the finny treasures ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... yon broad shallows shine, Know'st thou, that finny foison all is mine In the bag below thy beak — yet thine, not less? For God, of His most gracious friendliness, Hath wrought that every soul, this loving morn, Into all things may be new-corporate born, And each live whole in all: I sail with thee, Thy Pelican's self is mine; yea, ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... come to a halt on the road about half a mile from the borders of Bloomsbury where they lived. From where they stood, holding their fishing rods, and quite a decent catch of finny prizes, they could look out over the beautiful surface of Lake Sunrise, which was over fifteen miles long, and in places as much as three ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... which for a considerable distance lay along the margin of the stream, which now fell in small cataracts, now brawled over stones, and at other times ran dark and silent through deep pools overhung with tall willows—pools which seemed to abound with the finny tribe, for huge trout frequently sprang from the water catching the brilliant fly which skimmed along its deceitful surface. How delightful! The sun was rolling high in the firmament, casting from its girdle of ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... became as taciturn as my companion. My amusements were equally confined—looking down into the depths of the ocean, as I lay over the rocky wall which girded the major portion of the island, and watching the motions of the finny tribes below, wondering at the stars during the night season, eating, and sleeping. Thus did I pass away an existence without pleasure and without pain. As for what my thoughts were I can hardly say, my ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... in shape an inverted tea-cup without its bottom, from the centre of which projected a spire, or shaft of wood, transfixed with two iron rods, that bore on their ends the letters N. S. E. and W, in the same metal. The whole was surmounted by an imitation of one of the finny tribe, carved in wood by the hands of Richard, and painted what he called a scale-color. This animal Mr. Jones affirmed to be an admirable resemblance of a great favorite of the epicures in that country, which bore the title of lake-fish, ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... men called to her, but she made no answer. She but fished away demurely, from time to time hauling up a flashing finny thing, which she calmly bumped on the rock and then tossed upon the silvery heap, which had already assumed fair dimensions, close behind her. As Ab looked upon the young fisherwoman his interest in her grew rapidly and he was silent, though Oak called out taunting words and asked her if she ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo |
