"Oriole" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... look of the sharp-shinned hawk hovering for an instant, in sheer intellectual abandon and physical exuberance, above the unconscious oriole ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... together under the spreading branches of a giant maple tree, where they could see into the nest of an oriole that brooded in a long purse of gray lint and white cotton cord. They could almost reach out and touch it. The breakfast was good, nicely served by a neat maid, evidently doing something so out of the ordinary that she was rather stunned; but she was a young person of some self-possession, ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... jay, within the elm's tall crest, Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young; And where the oriole hung her swaying nest, By every light ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... below is another miniature forest—a forest of ferns putting out the hairy fronds that in another month will be above the height of a man. Overhead, like a flame of fire, flashes the scarlet tanager with his querulous call; or the oriole flits from branch to branch, {50} fluting his springtime notes; or the yellow warbler balances on topmost spray to sing his crisp love song on the long journey north to nest on Hudson Bay. And over all and in all, intangible as light, intoxicating as wine, ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... They also startled, in passing through swampy places, several large blue herons, and long-legged cranes: and on many of the trees they observed the curious hanging nests of a bird, which the hermit told them was the large oriole. These nests hung in long strings from the tops of the palm-trees, and the birds were very actively employed moving about and chattering round their swinging villages: on seeing which Martin could not help remarking that it would astonish the colony not a little, ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... Professor, the birds must have food. They are the farmer's best friend. I hope you don't begrudge them a few sunflower seeds, I love birds. I particularly admire the 'Baltimore Oriole,' with their brilliant, orange-colored plumage; they usually make their appearance simultaneously with the blossoms in the orchard in the south meadow; or so Aunt Sarah tells me. I love to watch them lazily swinging on the high branches of tall trees. On the limb of a pear ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... bird which is very fond of these hairy intruders. This is the Cuckoo, and he eats so many that his stomach actually becomes lined with a thick coating of hairs from their woolly bodies. The Baltimore Oriole also is fond of rifling ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... childhood; all her familiar, her secret places; some of them known to John, some to herself alone. There was the spot where the Indian pipes grew; the particular bit of marshy ground where the fringed gentians used to be largest and bluest; the rock maple where she found the oriole's nest; the hedge where the field mice lived; the moss-covered stump where the white toadstools were wont to spring up as if by magic; the hole at the root of the old pine where an ancient and honorable toad made his home; these were the landmarks of her childhood, and she looked at ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of striking plumage are the Bluejay, the Bluebird, the Baltimore Oriole, the Scarlet Tanager, the ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... what, girls," said Miss Berengaria Topping, female representative of the great dynasty that ruled over the world-famous Planet Hotel, "she's got style, lots of it. I call her perfectly splendid, when she's got up in her swell clothes. That oriole's wing she wears in her bonnet makes her look gorgeous,—she'll be a stunning Pocahontas for the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... next sermon, and how dreadful the morals of the parish were becoming. Then, having perfectly bewildered the poor old gentleman, who was always sleepy of a Monday morning, Mother Magpie would take a peep into Mrs. Oriole's nest, sit chattering on a bough above, and pour forth floods of advice, which, poor little Mrs. Oriole used to say to her husband, bewildered her more than a hard ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Their shadows soften the sunlight glittering on the snow, or weave a black fretwork when the cold moon shines. Yet vital in their hearts the trees hold summer's secret. A little while, and they will be clothed in the leafy glory of June. The robin and catbird and oriole will sing hidden among their branches. Of that summer season the trees will be the delight and crown, that now stand like true children of winter. They stand now so strong and true because of that hidden life within them which summer will fully disclose. It is because it is alive that ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... meadow-lark trilled o'er the leas and the oriole piped in the maples, From my hammock, all under the trees, by the sweet scented field of red-clover, I harked to the hum of the bees, as they gathered the mead of the blossoms, And caught from their low melodies the rhythm ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... calm and fair. The robins sang remorselessly in the apple-tree, and were answered by bobolink, oriole, and a whole tribe of ignorant little bits of feathered happiness that danced among the leaves. Golden and glorious unclosed those purple eyelids of the East, and regally came up the sun; and the treacherous sea broke into ten thousand smiles, laughing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Summer calls Through the deep arches of her forest halls,— The bluebird, breathing from his azure plumes The fragrance borrowed where the myrtle blooms; The thrush, poor wanderer, dropping meekly down, Clad in his remnant of autumnal brown; The oriole, drifting like a flake of fire Rent by a whirlwind from a blazing spire. The robin, jerking his spasmodic throat, Repeats, imperious, his staccato note; The crack-brained bobolink courts his crazy mate, Poised on a bulrush tipsy with ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... like a dream of a bird-song, came a simple melody from a distant field. "Welcome," he said. "That's our meadow-lark, Amy; not equal to your skylark, I admit. Indeed, it is not a lark at all, for Dr. Marvin says it belongs to the oriole family. Brief and simple as is its song, I think you will agree with me that spring brings few more lovely sounds. That is the first one that ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... making natural history collections has much extended of recent years: so much so, that many blame too ardent collectors for the increasing rarity of birds like the crossbill, waxwing, hoopoe, golden oriole, and others which seem to have once visited this country ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... him the great elms and maples and oaks showed crisp against the pale summer sky. Occasionally a leaf fell. A red squirrel chattered above him, and an oriole sang shrilly and joyously near by. The sun was reddening in the west, and below, almost at his feet, the valley swam in a haze of delicate amethyst. The curving stream glittered. From where he stood he could see them bundling up the sheaves of wheat. All ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... was all the world I knew of then— The meeting-house upon the hill, the tavern just beyond, Old deacon Packard's general store, the sawmill by the pond, The village elms I vainly sought to conquer in my quest Of that surpassing trophy, the golden oriole's nest. And, last of all those visions that come back from long ago, The pretty face that thrilled my soul when ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field
... the nest of the oriole swings, Or the color its eggs may be? Do you know the time when the squirrel brings Its young from their nest in the tree? Can you tell when the chestnuts are ready to drop Or where the best hazel-nuts ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... exhilarates and refreshes the spirits of the laborer and what appears the hardest work becomes a welcome task. Toil here has its immediate recompense. Always peaceful, always contented and cheerful, always kind, there is no want of companions whose presence is delightful and never burdensome. The oriole, the swallow, the sparrow, the cawing crow, the chipmuck, or the squirrel will not desert him. He can always rely upon their presence while engaged in the necessary preparation for the harvest. The flowers are with ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of colour. Elnora, born among such scenes, worked eagerly, but to the city man, recently from a hospital, they seemed too good to miss. He frequently stooped to examine a flower face, paused to listen intently to the thrush or lifted his head to see the gold flash which accompanied the oriole's trailing notes. So Elnora uttered the first cry, as she softly lifted branches ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... Of the wild bee's morning chase, Of the wild-flower's time and place, Flight of fowl and habitude Of the tenants of the wood; How the tortoise bears his shell, How the woodchuck digs his cell, And the ground-mole sinks his well; How the robin feeds her young, How the oriole's nest is hung; Where the whitest lilies blow, Where the freshest berries grow, Where the ground-nut trails its vine, Where the wood-grape's clusters shine; Of the black wasp's cunning way, Mason of his walls of clay, And the architectural plans Of gray hornet ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Then I turned into a long avenue of limes. Here, too, all was desolation and age; last year's leaves rusted mournfully under my feet and in the twilight shadows lurked between the trees. From the old orchard on the right came the faint, reluctant note of the golden oriole, who must have been old too. But at last the limes ended. I walked by an old white house of two storeys with a terrace, and there suddenly opened before me a view of a courtyard, a large pond with a bathing-house, a group of green willows, and a village ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... did not reply; so presently Pablo turned his head and gazed up into the master's face. Then he knew—his fingers trembled slightly as he returned to work on the hondo, and, for a long time, no sound broke the silence save the song of an oriole in ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... Then Morton turned from the fish-lines he was straightening, and looked his honest, quiet pleasure, as different in manner from his twin-sister as a staid, slow proud-stepping heron is different from a flitting, fluttering, flame- winged oriole. ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... hadn't gone very far before Mrs. Oriole, who had a nest like a long white stocking on a branch of the weeping willow tree, began ...
— Little Jack Rabbit's Adventures • David Cory
... Baltimore Oriole, also called the Baltimore Bird, is a distinguished weaver. With strong stalks and hemp or flax, fastened round two forked twigs corresponding to the proposed width of nest, it makes a very delicate sort of mat, weaving into it quantities of ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... wood-pigeon sits, And the woodpecker pecks and flits. Sweet woodland music sinks and swells, The brooklet rings its tinkling bells, The swarming insects drone and hum, The partridge beats his throbbing drum. The squirrel leaps among the boughs, And chatters in his leafy house. The oriole flashes by; and, look! Into the mirror of the brook, Where the vain blue-bird trims his coat, Two tiny ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... Spring and Summer went to the making of the tapestry: the first robin's cheery call, the shimmer of blue wings speeding across it, the golden glow from an oriole's breast, and the silver rain of melody dripping from the throat of a meadow-lark as he swept through the ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... poor little friend who had been taken from her side. There are women, and even girls, with whom it is of no use to talk. One might as well reason with a bee as to the form of his cell, or with an oriole as to the construction of his swinging nest, as try to stir these creatures from their own way of doing their own work. It was not a question with Iris, whether she was entitled by any special relation or by the fitness of things to play the part of a nurse. She was ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... symmetrical completion of the whole effect. It was a neat, well-proportioned whole, the woman and her toilet, which I, being a man, of course, cannot describe. One of her adornments was the head, breast, and wing of a Baltimore oriole, worn ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... moment's pause, "You are wrong, and I am right. You wish to deprive me of a social glass, free companionship with those I love, life's best enjoyments, and to live bound down to the contracted limits of a temperance-pledge.-Me sign! No! Go ask leave of the soaring eagle to clip his wings; of the oriole to tarnish his bright plumage; of the bounding deer to fetter his free limbs,—but do not ask me ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... they sometimes nearly spilled out, and saved themselves only by clinging to the firm sticks and twigs. So it would seem that their home was a good sort for the needs of their early life, just as it was; and no doubt a heron's nest for a heron is as suitable a building as an oriole's is for an oriole. ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... Scotch firs, and a fine view of Wolstonbury rising in the east. It was on Henfield common that Mr. Borrer once saw fourteen Golden Orioles on a thorn bush. Adventures are to the adventurous, birds to the ornithologist; most of us have never succeeded in seeing even one Oriole. ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... to awaken deep and real sentiment in us as we gaze on the tree-tops, the mountains and hillsides, the gurgling waters and sweeping billows; on sunlight, shadow, and storm. Behind the forest-leaf we suddenly discover a songster, the gleam of an oriole's breast in a bed of mantling green. Nature always rejoices. She has been singing and laughing all down the ages. She does her part grandly for the happiness of man; and as we come into closer touch with her, ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... real "home life" before the new fledgling or tiny furred body left the nest for an independent life and a future nest of its own. The wild mates at work upon the house which instinct prompted was to be of use soon, the construction of a swinging pocket hung high up by an oriole, this was a part of the home life, just as essential a part of it as the covering of the eggs, the feeding of ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory
... lilac-tree in blossom, and a well with a long sweep. Such a pleasant place it looked! A low stone-wall shut it in, the stones all covered with moss and gay red and yellow lichens. Beside the white lilac, there was a great elm and a yellow birch. In the latter was an oriole's nest; and presently Hildegarde heard the bird's clear golden note, and saw his bright wings flash by. "I like this place!" she said, settling herself comfortably in the flag-bottomed chair. She dropped her eyes to the book ...
— Hildegarde's Holiday - a story for girls • Laura E. Richards
... might have been taken for a suburban villa. Projecting eaves, large dormers, which sprang out from the roof-line and rested on a broad porch and balcony, a rustic porte cochere, and here and there a vine-covered bay or oriole window, broke up the regularity of its outline, and proclaimed its designer a true poet—and poetry, now-a-days, is more often written on the walls of country houses than in the corners ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... small jewel case, while I examined the place it came from. Here all was calcite crystal heavily massed in various forms, and a harmony of blue and brown, with half a dozen round, unbroken, perfect geodes hanging from the ceiling like oriole nests. The geode taken proved on opening to be especially fine, being filled with pearly white calcite crystals of both the dog-tooth and nail-head forms, and was kindly presented to be added to the collection of cave specimens already purchased in town, to which were also added ...
— Cave Regions of the Ozarks and Black Hills • Luella Agnes Owen
... islands is all black, being a Jamaican regiment of that color; and when one of the warriors comes down the white street, with his swagger-stick in his hand, and flaming in scarlet and gold upon the ground of his own blackness, it is as if a gigantic oriole were coming towards you, or a mighty tulip. These gorgeous creatures seem so much readier than the natives to laugh, that you wish to test them with a joke. But it might fail. The Summer Islands are ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... read aright what he sees. The facts in the life of Nature that are transpiring about us are like written words that the observer is to arrange into sentences. Or the writing is in cipher and he must furnish the key. A female oriole was one day observed very much preoccupied under a shed where the refuse from the horse stable was thrown. She hopped about among the barn fowls, scolding them sharply when they came too near her. The stable, dark and cavernous, was just beyond. The bird, not finding what she wanted outside, ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... said to be about one hundred and fifty kinds of birds on the island of Puerto Rico. Among these are the mocking bird, the wild canary, the sugar bird, the thrush, the humming bird, the owl, the hawk, the dove, the cuckoo, the oriole, the nightingale, and the Guinea bird. During the migrating season, many other birds fly ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... first by the noble speech of Chatannna, but I soon recovered from its effects. The little Oesedah came to my aid by saying: "Wait until Ohiyesa tells of the loveliness of the beautiful Oriole's home!" This timely remark gave me courage ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... the trees of the Common, which are close, but, except for the crown of one noble English elm, are shut away from me, I hear an occasional robin and Baltimore oriole. Very rarely a woodpecker will go over. The great northern shrike is a frequent winter visitor, but by ill chance I have not been up when he has called at ...
— Roof and Meadow • Dallas Lore Sharp
... do not go so quickly as Gonds. Now, what evil had the little woodman done to them? See, they talked together, all five, standing up, before they killed him. Bagheera, let us go back. My stomach is heavy in me, and yet it heaves up and down like an oriole's nest at the end ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... with a mane a trifle the longest," said Vaura, "reminds me of Oriole that I used to ride when ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... An oriole perches on the tree near him and begins an enchanting song. Both turn, and she leans over the railing, still in range of his eyes. He remembers like a sudden flash that they were here years ago, planning, dreaming, hoping, she his promised wife. Does it stir his soul? Was that merely a young man's ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... out of the dark shade. The most beautiful, perhaps, were the golden orioles, which my uncle afterwards told me are often classed with the birds of paradise, and are sometimes placed in the same genus as the regent bird of Australia. These, however, might not have been the true golden oriole, because that bird is very rare, and is an inhabitant of the mainland of New Guinea, though also found on the island of Salwatty. We observed their nests cleverly suspended between the horizontal forks of the outer branches of lofty trees, where ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the long, long summer hours, The golden light should lie, And thick young herbs and groups of flowers Stand in their beauty by. The oriole should build and tell His love-tale close beside my cell; The idle butterfly Should rest him here, and there be heard ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... courts and wins and weds a Baltimore oriole. During courtship there may have been delightfully sympathetic conversation on the charm of being free birds, the felicity of soaring in the blue summer air. Mr. Jay may have been all humility and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... ground. Imagine a palm such as we put in pots at weddings and teas as high as Holy Trinity Church and hundreds and hundreds of them. The country is very like Cuba but more luxuriant in every way. There are some trees with marble like trunks and great branches covered with oriole nests and a hundred orioles flying in and out of them or else plastered with orchids. If Billy Furness were to see in what abundance they grew he would be quite mad. It is a great pity he did not come with us. This little town is the terminus of the railroad and we have been here four days ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... hour, the white shell-paved court, its two playing fountains, the roses, lilies, jasmines and violets, their perfume spicing all the air, and the oriole and mocking-bird enrapturing it with their songs, although it was that same dire twenty-fourth of April of which we have been telling. Townward across the wide plain the distant smoke of suicidal conflagration studded the whole great double crescent of the harbor. Again the slim railway, ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... respect. For instance, the green wood-pecker with his red crest is scarcely less gorgeous than the green parrot, and the kingfisher only comes behind its Indian relative in size. The plumage of the golden oriole is certainly sumptuous, and brilliant sunshine has, of course, the effect of showing off ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... neighbors were simply amazing. (Perhaps the kingbird has some reason to be pugnacious!) No sooner was that tenement finished than, as promptly as if they had received cards to a house-warming, visitors began to come. First to show himself was an orchard oriole, who was in the habit of passing over the yard every day and stopping an hour or more in the neighborhood, while he scrambled over the trees, varying his lunches with a rich and graceful song. Arrived this morning in the kingbird tree, he began his usual hunt over the top branch, ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... my spirit, and there is no cloud between us now. It has passed away, and I see. Little white one, the white life is the only life, and I will live it with you till a white man comes and gives you a white man's home. But not John Alloway. Shall the crow nest with the oriole?" ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... May, the season "betwixt May and June," beauty and fragrance and melody comes in a rich flood. The flaming breast of the oriole and the wondrous mingling of colors in the multiplied warblers glint like jewels among the ever enlarging leaves. The light in the woodlands becomes more subdued and the carpet of ferns and flowers grows ...
— Some Spring Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... they feel on their horses free, Tingles the tendoned thigh with life; Their cavalry-jackets make boys of all— With golden breasts like the oriole; The chat, the jest, and laugh are rife. But word is passed from the front—a call For order; the ...
— Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War • Herman Melville
... a couple of years, she was doing so well. Pearl stared at him speechless with joy. Then she went to the window and looked out at the glorious June day, that all at once had grown more glorious still. The whole landscape seemed to Pearl to be swimming in a golden mist. An oriole flew carolling gaily over the woodpile, singing the very song that was in her own heart. When she came back to the teacher's desk her eyes ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... "It's an oriole's nest," Tom said, with just a note of good-humored impatience in his voice. "I thought you'd ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... half-a-dozen church-spires, sending back the lines of narrow light into the water; anon we glide past a forest of majestic old trees, that seem to press their topmost buds against the fleecy clouds floating in the blue sky; and through these forests we catch glimpses of the oriole, dashing through the boughs like a flake of fire.—Yankee Stories, by ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... second brood of nearly fledged wrens is heard now (August 20) in an oriole's nest suspended from the branch of an apple-tree near where I write. Earlier in the season the parent birds made long and determined attempts to establish themselves in a cavity that had been occupied ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... guileless innocence and softness!—in the kind, frank eyes, what all-embracing love for God's creatures everywhere! She would not tread upon a worm; and I recollect to this day, what an agony of tears she fell into upon one occasion, when some boys killed the young of an oriole, and the poor bird sat singing its soul away for ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... with its own body. The lowest of the birds may lay their eggs simply on the ground without any special protection. As we rise in the scale of the bird world we find nests provided for the eggs. These nests become increasingly complex and specialized, until we reach the oriole's home with its wonderfully woven mass of fiber, which, in spite of its apparent looseness, supports well the weight of the mother bird and of her eggs. The robin, not content with making a woven basket, plasters it with clay, and makes an ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... woods and roadside in the Crow Hill section of the county. From association with her Phil and Martin had developed an equal interest in outdoors. The Landis boy often came running into the Reist yard calling for Amanda and exclaiming excitedly, "I found a bird's nest! It's an oriole this time, the dandiest thing way out on the end of a tiny twig. Come on ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... simply imaginary portraiture. The earliest houses of education in Oxford were doubtless the religious houses, beginning with the Priory of Saint Frideswide, but schools appear to have speedily followed, whose alumni lodged in such hostels as we have described in "Le Oriole." The hall, so called (we are not answerable for the non-elision of the vowel) was subsequently granted by Queen Eleanor to one James de Hispania, from whom it was purchased for the new college founded by Adam de Brom, and took the ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... through The grasses of the meadow, and a blaze Of butter-cups and daisies in the field, Filling the air with praise, As if a silver chime of bells had pealed! The frozen songs within the breast Of silent birds that hid in leafless woods, Melt into rippling floods Of gladness unrepressed. Now oriole and blue-bird, thrush and lark, Warbler and wren and vireo, Confuse their music; for the living spark Of Love has touched the fuel of desire, And every heart leaps up in singing fire. It seems as if the land Were breathing ...
— The White Bees • Henry Van Dyke
... close, stuffy kind of a nest; enough to smother one,' said the oriole scornfully. Come with me and I will teach you to hang your nest on the end of an elm branch. You just weave together some hair and grass and moss and hang it on a slender, swinging branch, where nothing can get to it. Then you'll be safe. ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix
... an English sparrow,—a bird that cannot sing, and will sing, and ought to be persuaded not to try to sing. But a talkable person has the gift that belongs to the wood thrush and the veery and the wren, the oriole and the white-throat and the rose-breasted grosbeak, the mockingbird and the robin (sometimes); and the brown thrush; yes, the brown thrush has it to perfection, if you can catch him alone,—the gift of being interesting, charming, delightful, in ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... not what you do. You would put to death the birds that make sweet music for us in our dark hours: the thrush, the oriole, the noisy jay, the bluebird, ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate
... nothing so unbecoming," she flung lightly back. "And it has not been raining for ever so long. Unless you wish to build a nest in the forest, like a new fashion of oriole, Signor Byrd, you had better hurry and catch up with ...
— The Innocent Adventuress • Mary Hastings Bradley
... nightie, was having a frolic with Grace, there was a sound of wheels. The stage, which Horace called the "Oriole" because it had a yellow breast, was ...
— Dotty Dimple's Flyaway • Sophie May
... door grows into the color of the sprouting grain, and the buds upon the lilacs swell and burst. The peaches bloom upon the wall, and the plums wear bodices of white. The sparkling oriole picks string for his hammock on the sycamore, and the sparrows twitter in pairs. The old elms throw down their dingy flowers, and color their spray with green; and the brooks, where you throw your worm or the minnow, float down ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... in succession from the state of lead, to the state of red arsenic, from red arsenic to tin, from tin to silver. Are not these facts? But to believe in the collar bone, in the full line and in the stars, is as ridiculous as to believe with the inhabitants of Grand-Cathay that the golden oriole turns into a mole, and that grains of wheat turn into fish of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... This is just done. The one I wore yesterday was my waterfall-hat, with the green feather; this, you see, is an oriole." ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... propensity of this bird, I have only once, during an intimacy of more than forty years, heard him indulge it. In that case, the imitation was by no means so close as to deceive, but a free reproduction of the notes of some other birds, especially of the oriole, as a kind of variation in his own song. The catbird is as shy as the robin is vulgarly familiar. Only when his nest or his fledglings are approached does he become noisy and almost aggressive. I have known him to station his young in a thick cornel-bush on the edge of the raspberry-bed, after ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... running like silver threads through all the other music, could be heard the fine trills of the field sparrows; the swinging chant of the creeping warblers and the loud rattle of the Tennessee warblers ran high up in the scale, furnishing a gossamer tenor; that golden optimist, the Baltimore oriole, piped his cheery recitative in the tops of the trees; chickadees supplied the minor strains and tufted titmice the alto; four or five turtle doves soothed the ear with their meditative cooing; while the calls and songs of numerous jays ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... shouldn't like to say, I'm sure, I shouldn't like to say, Why all the birds should chirp of you, Who live so far away. Robin and oriole sing to me From the leafy depths of our apple-tree, With trunk so gnarled and gray— But why your name should their burden be I ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.
... am often sad. Is it any wonder? Is not all nature sad? Listen! There is the song of the oriole. Breaking in on the stillness it is mournful. The breeze is sad, the brook is sad, this dying Indian summer day is ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... still drove in a wild whirl. There was a glassy reflection of a faded moon on the water, and daybreak came rustling through the trees which nodded and swayed overhead. A twittering of winged things arose in the branches, first only the cadence of a robin's call, an oriole's flute-whistle, the stirring wren's mellow note. Then, suddenly, out burst from the leafed sprays a chorus of song that might have rivaled angels' melodies. The robin's call was a gust of triumph. The oriole's strain lilted exultant and a thousand throats ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... sky. There is a red tint on the tips of the boughs of the hard maple. With Nature, color is life. See, already, green, yellow, blue, red! In a few days—is it not so?—through the green masses of the trees will flash the orange of the oriole, the scarlet of the tanager; ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Charles Dudley Warner • Charles Dudley Warner
... asleep, and she still went on, speaking the words mechanically, and busy with her own tumultuous thoughts. Amazement possessed her that the world could be so full of joy to which she had long been deaf. She could hear the oriole singing in the elm; his song was almost articulate. The trees waved a little, in a friendly fashion, through the open windows; friendly in the unspoken kinship of green things to our thought, yet remote in their own seclusion. One tall, delicate locust, gowned ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... singing, but perked their heads sideways and watched this strange thing popping out of the hollow limb. Finally one of them, Mrs. Oriole, clad in a suit of gold, streaked with ...
— Bumper, The White Rabbit • George Ethelbert Walsh
... oriole has changed its habits of nest-building since Audubon's day, or else he was wrong in his drawing of the nest of that bird, in making the opening on the side near the top. I have never seen an oriole's nest that was not ...
— John James Audubon • John Burroughs
... sunset like this on the shores of the Bay of Minas, where the thrush and oriole twittered their even-song before seeking their nests, where the foliage of the trees was all ablaze with golden fire, and a shimmering path of sunlight lay upon the still waters like a glorious bridge leading from themselves ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... feather. No other bird I ever saw can do the trick as a grouse does it. We saw but few other birds on this excursion. An occasional blue-jay, a vagrant bee-bird, now and then a robin, and once in a while a most brilliantly colored oriole made up the list. Fluffy-tailed gray squirrels chattered at us noisily from the wayside trees. They seemed bubbling over with life and motion. We stopped at the Soda Springs for a life-giving draught of its refreshing waters, ...
— Out of Doors—California and Oregon • J. A. Graves
... with smart-looking little worthless berries, whose sparkling complacency the combined contempt of man, beast and bird could not dim. The call of the field-lark came continually out of the grass, where now and then could be seen his yellow breast; the orchard oriole was executing his fantasias in every tree; a covey of partridges ran across the path close under the horse's feet, and stopped to look back almost within reach of the riding-whip; clouds of starlings, in their odd, irresolute way, rose from the high bulrushes and settled again, without ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... We will destroy the wicked insects and worms that spoil your cherries and currants and plums and apples and roses. We will give you our best songs, and make the spring more beautiful and the summer sweeter to you. Every June morning when you go out into the field, Oriole and Bluebird and Blackbird and Bobolink will fly after you, and make the day more delightful to you. And when you go home tired after sundown Vesper Sparrow will tell you how grateful we are. When you sit down on your porch after dark, Fifebird and Hermit Thrush and Wood Thrush will ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... now to the sounds of the forest. The soft breeze fluttering among the leaves, the rain-call of the tree frog, the caw of crows from distant hilltops, the sweet songs of the thrush and oriole, were blended ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... mountain-section, from foothills to mountain-summits, is enlivened in nesting-time with scores of species of birds. Low down on the foothills one will find Bullock's oriole, the red-headed woodpecker, the Arkansas kingbird, and one will often see, and more often hear, the clear, strong notes of the Western meadowlark ringing over the hills and meadows. The wise, and rather murderous, magpie goes chattering about. Here and there the quiet ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... "That's what she is," said she. "Thank goodness, she isn't a member of MY family. If she were I never would be able to hold my head up. Just listen to Goldy the Oriole over in that big elm. I don't see how he can sing like that, knowing that one of his relatives has just done such a shameful deed. It's a queer thing that there can be two members of the same family so unlike. Mrs. Goldy builds one of the most wonderful nests of any one I know, and Sally ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... vital, copious, eternal procession. Still, plenty of the birds hang around all or most of the season—now their love-time, and era of nest-building. I find flying over the river, crows, gulls and hawks. I hear the afternoon shriek of the latter, darting about, preparing to nest. The oriole will soon be heard here, and the twanging meoeow of the cat-bird; also the king-bird, cuckoo and the warblers. All along, there are three peculiarly characteristic spring songs—the meadow-lark's, so sweet, so alert and remonstrating (as if he said, "don't you see?" or, "can't ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... said the Large Doll, for they were just waking up. The Spanish Doll soon made acquaintance with an Oriole, who agreed to take her up to his nest for the day. It was just fitted up, and Mrs. had not moved in. Fortunately the Spanish Doll was quite slender, so the Oriole could lift her, and her dress matched his feathers. The squirrels kindly took some of the others into their nests under ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... (Numenius arquata), charming little black swallows (Wardenia nigrita), the common English swallow; a hornbill (buceros), all feathers and no flesh; a lean and lanky diver (plotus), some lovely little honeysuckers, a red oriole, a fine vulture (Gypohierax angolensis), and a grand osprey (hali[oe]tus), which even in the agonies of death would not drop his prey. Many other birds were given over to Mr. Dawson, who worked from dawn till dusk. Mr. Grant dropped from the trees ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... I doubt if you can get so many as three toadstools and a couple of sassafras stalks to listen to you, when the ardent oriole flings across the leafy ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... designed more to pass the night in, than the day; in brief, a pine barrens dormitory, of knotty pine bunks, without bedding. As with the nests in the geometrical towns of the associate penguin and pelican, these bunks were disposed with Philadelphian regularity, but, like the cradle of the oriole, they were pendulous, and, moreover, were, so to speak, three-story cradles; the description of one of which ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... of Naples; himself a Prince, and—worthy son of a worthy sire—alderman and then mayor of the city of Tallahassee. Thus did an uncompromising democrat pay court to the shades of Royalty, while a mocking-bird sang from a fringe-bush by the gate, and an oriole flew madly from tree to tree in pursuit of a fair creature of ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... don't always succeed. Once I remember a Robin got the better of me, so did a Catbird, and another time a Baltimore Oriole. When I can't whip a bird myself I generally give a call and a whole troop of Sparrows will come to my aid. My, how we do enjoy a fuss ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [December, 1897], Vol 2. No 6. • Various
... of the little garden lot. How often has my young heart been delighted with his song there! And then, what sweet chanting I have heard in those woods all the day from the thrush and sparrow, yellow-bird and oriole! How their mellow voices would seem to echo in the noon-silence, or at the sunset hour, as though they were singing anthems in some vast cathedral! They were; and what anthems of nature's harmony and praise! God heard ...
— Small Means and Great Ends • Edited by Mrs. M. H. Adams
... The golden oriole's flute-like whistle poured down from some leafy summit in a sudden stream of melody. A hurried note, he thought; expressed without much feeling—from duty rather than inclination; not like the full-throated ease of other orioles in other ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... and wings; it is 9.5 inches in length. They are quite abundant and resident in southern Texas where they build at low elevations in trees, preferably mesquites, making the nests of woven grasses and hanging them from the small twigs of the trees; the nests are more like those of the Orchard Oriole and not long and pensile like those of the Baltimore. The three to five eggs are grayish white, blotched, clouded, spotted or streaked with brownish and purple. Size 1.00 x .70. Data.—Brownsville, Texas, April 6, 1897. 5 eggs. Nest of ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... And he went out by the big elm and stood under the Oriole's nest. "The boy stood on the burning deck Whence all ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... their profit in being mistaken by certain birds of prey for the strong, active, and gregarious honey-suckers. Now, many other birds would be benefited by similar mimicry, which is none the less confined, in this part of the world, to the oriole genus. It is true that the absence of mimicry in other forms may be explained by their possessing some other (as yet unobserved) means of preservation. But it is nevertheless remarkable, not so much that one species should mimic, as that no ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... the honeysuckle gray The oriole with experienced quest Twitches the fibrous bark away, The cordage of his hammock-nest,— Cheering his labor with a note Rich as the orange ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... of the plains rather than of the hills. One species, however, the Indian Oriole (Oriolus kundoo) is a summer visitor to the Himalayas. The cock is a bright yellow bird with a pink bill. There is some black on his cheeks and wing feathers. The hen is less brilliantly coloured, the yellow of her plumage being dull and mixed with green. ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... window, and sat down beside it in the rocking-chair. The cool breeze struggled through the tree that nestled sociably up to it, and made the little knobs of cherries nod at me, as if saying, "You would not like us now, but you will by and by." The oriole gurgled and giggled from among them, "Wait! Come again! Come again! Ha, ha!" The noise of the greedy canker-worms, mincing the poor young green leaves over my head, seemed a soothing sound; and even the sharp headache I had brought ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... the long, long summer hours The golden light should lie, And thick young herbs and groups of flowers Stand in their beauty by; The oriole should build and tell His love-tale close beside my cell; The idle butterfly Should rest him there, and there be heard The ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Ruffed Grouse Kingfisher Bittern Bluejay Highholder Rosebreasted Grosbeak Sawwhet Owl Woodthrush Oriole Scarlet Tanager * * ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... through, and of his daily adventures, and brought to her the occasional results of his single-handed combats with birds and beasts. He offered to dig up a tarantula's nest for her and to catch and tame for her pleasure a side-winder rattlesnake, or, if she preferred, a golden oriole or a mocking-bird. It did n't make any difference to him whether she chose a rattlesnake or an oriole; whatever she wanted him to do, he was ready to attempt. And Madge looked and listened and worshipped; and Kid, basking ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... for hours in some cool, shady fern nook under a sheltering road hedge or in the shade of some giant tree friend. At such times he scaled the thinking, wondering part of himself and opened wide his heart to the great whisper that rippled the grain, to the sweet song that swelled the throat of the oriole and lark, to the beauty that dyed the heavens and the earth, to the glad ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... built on broad crotches of the cherry trees hovered about, their black eyes peering questioningly down at the unwonted visitors to the place. Once during the marriage service a Baltimore oriole flashed into a tree near by, his golden plumage made more intense against the white blossoms. With proud assurance he demonstrated his appreciation of the orchard and perched fearlessly on an outer bough while he whistled his insistent, imperious, ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... islands; while a third of the different species found are peculiar to the Andamans. Moreover, the Andaman species differ from those of the adjacent Nicobar Islands. Each group has its distinct harrier-eagle, red-cheeked paroquet, oriole, sun- bird and bulbul. Fish are very numerous and many species are peculiar to the Andaman seas. Turtles are abundant and supply the Calcutta market. Of imported animals, cattle, goats, asses and dogs thrive well, ponies ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... the room, however, who knew what grasshoppers were good for. He was an orchard oriole, and after looking on for a while, he came down and carried off the hopper to eat. The jay did not like to lose his plaything; he ran after the thief, and stood on the floor giving low cries and looking ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... the messengers of spring—the robin, the oriole, and the bluebird—filling the orchard with their glad melody. The little sparrow chirped in glee for the very joy of living, and the hungry crows, in great crowds, called loudly the tidings of spring. But not long could they stop to ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber
... the Javanese fauna." In these were included the "elegant yellow-and-green trogon (Harpactes Reinwardti); the gorgeous little minivet flycatcher (Pericrocotus miniatus), which looks like a flame of fire as it flutters among the bushes; and the rare and curious black-and-crimson oriole (Analcipus sanguinolentus)." Mr. Wallace also speaks of the rare and beautiful butterflies which he captured here. In particular he secured a specimen of the calliper butterfly, "remarkable for having on each hind wing two curved tails ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... sky the first stars come timidly out. All the birds are asleep. Only the redstarts and the nuthatches are still chirping drowsily.... And now they too are still. The last echoing call of the pee-wit rings over our heads; the oriole's melancholy cry sounds somewhere in the distance; then the nightingale's first note. Your heart is weary with suspense, when suddenly—but only sportsmen can understand me—suddenly in the deep hush there is a peculiar croaking and ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... warbling lightly up, till the others joined, as if the oriole in his hanging nest not far away had stirred to sing out ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that of the gaudiest flower lifting its face to light and air. The lilies of the mire are not so white as the white herons that fish among them. The ripest spray of goldenrod is not so highly coloured as the burnished gold on the breast of the oriole that rocks on it. The jays are bluer than the calamus bed they wrangle above with throaty chatter. The finches are a finer purple than the ironwort. For every clump of foxfire flaming in the Limberlost, ...
— The Song of the Cardinal • Gene Stratton-Porter
... taken their places, but do not fill them. One great elm remains; it seemed to me the largest and oldest tree in the world. My mother nursed her children in its shade; under it my world began. In its top lived the wind and from the longest spray of its longest limb the oriole hung her artistic basket and brooded her golden babies. Like many another ancient dooryard tree it carried back its traditional origin to a staff stuck in the ground and left ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... of birds, has driven from the gardens all the wild, beautiful feathered creatures whom, as a boy, I knew. The fire-flashing scarlet tanager and the humming-bird, the yellow-bird, blue-bird, and golden oriole, are now almost forgotten, or unknown to city children. So the people of self-conscious culture and the mart and factory are banishing the wilder sort, and it is all right, and so it must be, and therewith ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... galbula, Linnaeus. French, "Le Loriot."—I have never seen the bird alive or found any record of the occurrence of the Golden Oriole in Guernsey or the neighbouring Islands, and beyond the fact that there was one example—a female—in the Museum (which may have been from Jersey) I had been able to gain no information on the subject except of a negative sort. No specimen had passed through the hands of the local ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... eaters. Bills of the others long and conical, adapted for insectivorous diet. About half the family are gifted songsters. Red-winged Blackbird. Rusty Blackbird. Purple Grackle. Bronzed Grackle. Cowbird. Meadow Lark. Western Meadow Lark. Bobolink. Orchard Oriole. Baltimore Oriole. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... year 1897 I had become very much alarmed at the prospect of the total extinction of our song-birds. The Bobolink seemed to be disappearing from the field in Massachusetts, the beautiful Summer Red Bird had become extinct, and the Oriole and the Scarlet Tanager had almost disappeared. Many varieties of songbirds which were familiar to my own boyhood were unknown to my children. The same thing seems to be going on in other countries. ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... had walked through the snow with his hat off; and William H. Prescott, with his eyesight restored, happened in from Mexico, a cactus in his buttonhole; and Audubon set a cage of birds on the table—Baltimore oriole, chaffinch, starling and bobolink doing their prettiest; and Christopher North thumped his gun down on the hall floor, and hung his 'sporting jacket' on the hat-rack, and shook the carpet brown with Highland ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage |
