"Flipper" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and stage of development of the Emperor chick of which we have no knowledge, and it would have been a triumph to have secured the chick, but, alas! there was no way to get at it. Another most curious sight was the feet and tails of two chicks and the flipper of an adult bird projecting from the ice on the under side of the jammed floe; they had evidently been frozen in above and were being washed out under ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... hardly believe that the webbed feet of the upland goose, or of the frigate-bird, are of special use to these birds; we cannot believe that the similar bones in the arm of the monkey, in the fore leg of the horse, in the wing of the bat, and in the flipper of the seal, are of special use to these animals. We may safely attribute these structures to inheritance. But webbed feet no doubt were as useful to the progenitor of the upland goose and of the frigate-bird, as they now are to the most aquatic of living birds. So we may believe ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... appearance, and as to her outward condition, he is the man open to praise or blame. Meantime the old salt ("ex-coasting skipper" was writ large all over his person) had hobbled up alongside in his bumpy, shiny boots, and, waving an arm, short and thick like the flipper of a seal, terminated by a paw red as an uncooked beef-steak, addressed the poop in a muffled, faint, roaring voice, as if a sample of every North-Sea fog of his life had been permanently lodged in his ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... the tarry tawniness of an old boatswain's hand is nearer the mark, but even that is less among man-of-war's men than in the merchant-service, and is least in the revenue marine; it varies, also, with the habits of the individual, and the nature of his employment for the time being. The flipper of your legitimate shiver-my-timbery old salt, whose most amiable office is piping all hands to witness punishment, has long since acquired the hue of a seven-years' meerschaum; while the dandy cockswain of a forty-gun frigate lying off the navy-yard, who ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... we was making a great hit. Well, we was, but not the way we thought. I remember one of the gang gets Phil to one side after a talk like this and whispers to him, laughing like fun. Phil says to him: "My dear boy, I've been to thousands of these things"—waving his flipper scornful around the premises—"and upon honor they've all been alike. Now that I've discovered something positively original, let me enjoy myself. The entertainment by the Heavenly ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... various references to rudimentary organs, like the bones of a hand in the flipper of the whale, or the teats of male animals, and the like, can hardly be called arguments. He tries to account for them and fails; acknowledging ignorance of the laws of heredity. Some of them he will have to be young ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... this, and then they played at fairies up and down the stairs, while Sidney sat at the bottom of the stairs and went on reading Treasure Island. But Rupert was determined to have a flying machine, with real flipper-flappery wings, like at Hendon. So he got two brass fire-guards out of the spare room and mother's bedroom, and covered them with newspapers fastened on with string. Then he got a tea-tray and fastened it on to himself ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... easy and comfortable way to get a bite of breakfast, while waiting for her baby to finish nursing. And every little while, from the big blowhole or nostril on top of her head she would 'spout,' or send up a spray-like jet of steamy breath. And every little while, too, the big-headed baby under her flipper would send up a baby spout, as if in imitation of ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... hearts, private hearts, what ties there were snapped! Tell, Hal—vouch, Will, o' the ward-room mess, On you how the riving thunder-bolt clapped. With a bead in your eye and beads in your glass, And a grip o' the flipper, it was part and pass: "Hal, must it be: Well, if come indeed the shock, To North or to South, let the victory cleave, Vaunt it he may on his dung-hill the cock, But Uncle Sam's eagle ...
— John Marr and Other Poems • Herman Melville |
