"Ornithologist" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "which arise from the effects of climate and food, of domestication, captivity, transportation, voluntary and compulsory migration—all the causes in fact of alteration and degeneration—unite to throw difficulties in the way of the ornithologist."[133] ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... am inclined to think Mr. GORDON goes one better, both in the "atmosphere" of his mountain pictures and in his studies of birds at home upon their nests. To judge, indeed, by the unruffled domesticity of these latter, one would suppose Mr. GORDON to have been regarded less as the prying ornithologist than as the trusted family photographer. I except the golden eagle, last of European autocrats, whose greeting appears always as a super-imperial scowl. Chiefly these happy results seem to have been due to a triumph of patient camouflage, concerning which the author suggests the interesting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... seed-time and harvest that the depredations of the Crow are committed; during the remainder of the year we witness only his services; and so highly are these services appreciated by those who have written of birds, that I cannot name an ornithologist who does not plead in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... But the hills are its home—the foot-hills, notably, of the Appalachian range, the domestic turkey not being very common higher up, nor its wild original ("original," we insist, pace the Agricultural Report ornithologist, who finds an ineffaceable distinction in the fact that the tail-ring of the one is sometimes, and that of the other never, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Vol. XV., No. 85. January, 1875. • Various
... species of birds, and sometimes five or six specimens of a species. They are very pretty to look at, and some of the cases are, indeed, splendid; but I will undertake to say, that no man but a professed ornithologist has ever gathered much information from the collection. Certainly, no one of the tens of thousands of the general public who have walked through that gallery ever knew more about the essential peculiarities of birds when he left the gallery than when he entered ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... Nature the individuals of some species are known to vary to a degree sensibly wider than that which separates related species. In his instructive section on the breeds of the domestic pigeon, our author remarks that "at least a score of pigeons might be chosen which if shown to an ornithologist, and he were told that they were wild birds, would certainly be ranked by him as well-defined species. Moreover, I do not believe that any ornithologist would place the English carrier, the short-faced tumbler, the runt, the ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... inhabitant of the middle states south of the Ohio River. In fact, this species is now chiefly confined to Florida, western Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and the Indian Territory. That careful and reliable ornithologist, Dr. Elliot Coues, seems to doubt whether it is now entitled to a place in the avi-fauna of South Carolina, where it was once found ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... birds as this gentleman. "Wilson probably understood the remark, for he appeared not to be pleased, and inquired whether Audubon had any drawings of birds. A large portfolio was placed upon the table, and all its contents exhibited by the amateur ornithologist. Wilson was surprised; he had supposed he was himself the only person engaged in forming such a collection; and asked if it was intended to publish them. Audubon replied in the negative: he had never thought of presenting the fruits of his labors to the world. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... "One scarcely knows what to think about the snakes here. The records of the entire Union show few deaths in a year, and yet there's no scarcity of rattlers, copperheads, and moccasins in this Republic of ours. I know a man, an ornithologist, who for twelve years has wandered about the Florida woods and never saw a rattler. And yet, the other night a Northern man, a cottager, lighted his cigar after dinner and stepped off his ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... the common sparrow, and its plumage, which exhibits a diamond pattern of black, white, and blue. Of the hawk tribe, the varieties are numerous: the largest is the eagle-hawk, which now and then carries off a lamb from the flocks of careless shepherds. Were I an ornithologist, I might write a goodly volume on the birds of this country; but I must content myself with these few notices; not forgetting, however, to mention the stately black swan, a bird becoming every ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... eight or ten days before. His attention had been called to them by his cat, who was trying to get up to the box to bid them welcome. He believed that she discovered them within three minutes of their arrival. It seemed not unlikely. In its own way a cat is a pretty sharp ornithologist. ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... precautions are taken, as I took them. I was weeks in that terribly dull Scotch village, but nobody suspected my real mission. I made quite a large circle of friends at the 'Star,' who all believed me to be a foreign ornithologist writing a book upon the birds of Scotland. Trust me to ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... found it not, but my ramble was not without its reward. In a pine wood three miles from the town I stood awhile to listen to the sound as of copious rain of the moisture dropping from the trees, when a sudden tempest of loud, sharp metallic notes—a sound dear to the ornithologist's ears—made me jump; and down into the very tree before which I was standing dropped a flock of about twenty crossbills. So excited and noisy when coming down, the instant they touched the tree they became perfectly ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... languished for three years, in 1754. Dr. Birch has drawn a very just and interesting character of this eminent man, which may be found in Nichol's Anecdotes of Bowyer, 562. 7. Mr. Edwards, the late ornithologist, has described him in a simple, but appropriate, manner. "He seemed," says he, "to have attained to universal knowledge; for, in the many opportunities I have had of being in his company, almost every part of science has happened to be the subject ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... kind of union; and he found, after repeated trials, that there was a greater reduction in weight in the young from a father paired with his daughter, than from a mother with her son. I may add that Mr. Eyton, of Eyton, the well-known ornithologist, who is a large breeder of Grey Dorkings, informs me that they certainly diminish in size, and become less prolific, unless a cross with another strain is occasionally obtained. So it is with Malays, according to Mr. Hewitt, as ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... awe, terror, love of beauty, and all the other emotions in this momentous catalogue. The starry heavens have one side for the astronomer, as astronomer, and another for the poet, as poet. The nightingale, the skylark, the cuckoo, move one sort of interest in an ornithologist, and a very different sort in a Shelley or a Wordsworth. The hoary and stupendous formations of the inorganic world, the thousand tribes of insects, the great universe of plants, from those whose size and form and hue make us afraid as if they were deadly ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... not possessing the interest to the ornithologist which Lundy Island (the only breeding-place of the Gannet in the South-West of England) or the Scilly Islands possess, or being able to produce the long list of birds which the indefatigable Mr. Gaeetke has been ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... kill insects for the sake of making a collection. From reading White's 'Selborne,' I took much pleasure in watching the habits of birds, and even made notes on the subject. In my simplicity I remember wondering why every gentleman did not become an ornithologist. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... true Ornithologist, and how beautiful, each in the adaptation of its own structure to its own life, every bird that walks the land, wades the water, or skims the air! In his pages, pictured by pen or pencil, all is wondrous—as nature ever ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... the famous American ornithologist, the Turkeys, lured by the grains of maize, descended the insidious slope, entered the short underground passage and beheld, at the end of it, plunder and the light. A few steps farther and the gluttons emerged, one by one, from beneath ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... hair, the perfect representative of moral and bodily strength. I was always in the habit of permitting him to lead the way, when, in any of our excursions, it was necessary to favorably impress the imagination of the Indians. He was distinguished as an ornithologist, and was never so much at home as in the midst of the forests; in fact, he often regretted that he had not been born an Indian. His gravity entirely devoid of sadness, his skill in shooting, and his silent laugh, often led me to compare him to Cooper's "Leather-Stocking;" but it was "Leather-Stocking" ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... the evening is so beautiful as to double our regret for the deplorable mutilation which has deprived us of all but the opening of the morning prayer.[1] The feathers fallen from the wings of these "Four Birds of Noah's Ark" would be worth more to the literary ornithologist than whole flocks of such "tame villatic fowl" as people the ordinary coops and hen-roosts ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... present classed in the Starling family, differs from all other species in the form of the bill and nostrils, and seems most nearly allied in its general structure to the Ox-peckers (Buphaga) of tropical Africa, next to which the celebrated ornithologist Prince Bonaparte finally placed it. It is almost entirely of a slatey colour, with yellow bill and feet, but the feathers of the rump and upper tail-coverts each terminate in a rigid, glossy pencil or tuft of a vivid crimson. ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... The geologist finds here not only all the formations of rock found on the earth, but all the geological periods and ages. The botanist finds here about all the plants, shrubs and flowers; the zoologist finds most all the animals and the ornithologist finds most all the birds, while the ...
— Birdseye Views of Far Lands • James T. Nichols
... Visit—published in the same year as The Time Machine—he comes closer to earth. That ardent ornithologist, the Rev. K. Hilyer, Vicar of Siddermouth, who brought down an angel with a shot-gun, is tenderly imagined; a man of gentle mind, for all the limitations of his training. The mortalised angel, on the other hand, is rather a tentative and simple creature. He may represent, ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... in a place just like this," said Drake, stopping with his two little friends on reaching a height, and turning round to survey the scene behind him, "that a queer splinter of a man who was fond o' callin' himself an ornithologist shot a grizzly b'ar wi' a mere popgun that was only fit for a ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... Burroughs tells of a shrike singing in his vicinity in winter, "a crude broken warble,"—"saluting the sun as a robin might have done." Winter, indeed, seems to be his chosen time for singing, and an ornithologist in St. Albans says that in that season he sings by the hour in the streets of ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... the Tartar, learning a lesson of perseverance under adversity from the spider is well know. Not less interesting is the anecdote of Audubon, the American ornithologist, as related by himself: "An accident," he says, "which happened to two hundred of my original drawings, nearly put a stop to my researches in ornithology. I shall relate it, merely to show how far enthusiasm—for by no other name can I call my perseverance—may ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... get here in great perfection. By the way, tell Cooke [his brother-in-law], with my kindest regards, that — is a lying old thief, many of the things he told me about Macgillivray, e.g., being an ignoramus in natural history, etc. etc., having proved to be lies. He is at any rate a very good ornithologist, and, I can testify, is exceedingly zealous in his vocation as a collector. As in these (points) Mr. —'s statements are unquestionably false, I must confess I feel greatly inclined ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... Audubon, I believe, awards any song to that familiar little Sparrow, the Socialis; yet who that has observed him sitting by the wayside, and repeating, with devout attitude, that fine sliding chant, does not recognize the neglect? Who has heard the Snow-Bird sing? Not the ornithologist, it seems; yet he has a lisping warble very savory to the ear, I have heard him indulge in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... interrogation to which the local naturalist is continually called to respond. If perchance he dwells in Connecticut, how repeatedly is he asked, "Don't you find your particular locality in Connecticut a specially rich field for natural observation?" The botanist of New Jersey or the ornithologist of Esopus-on-Hudson is expected to give an affirmative reply to similar questions concerning his chosen hunting-grounds, if, indeed, he does not avail himself of that happy aphorism with which Gilbert White was wont to instruct his questioners concerning the natural-history harvest of his beloved ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... tropical wilderness—to surprise one in the very field with which one is most familiar. While in my own estimation my chief profession is ignorance, yet I sign my passport applications and my jury evasions as Ornithologist. And now this playful Spirit of the Jungle permitted me to meditate cheerfully on my ability to compare the faunas of New York and Guiana, and then proceeded to startle me with three salvos of birds, first physically ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... confirm what William Barton wrote to Wilson, the ornithologist, that "The jay is one of the most useful agents in the economy of nature for disseminating forest trees and other nuciferous and hard-seeded vegetables on which they feed. In performing this necessary duty they drop abundance of seed ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... Wyeth were travelling two men of science; Mr. Nuttall, the botanist; the same who ascended the Missouri at the time of the expedition to Astoria; and Mr. Townshend, an ornithologist; from these gentlemen we may look forward to important information concerning these interesting regions. There were three religious missionaries, also, bound to the shores of the Columbia, to spread the light of the ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... for opening a spacious Zoological and Botanical Garden in the north part of the island of New York, immediately on the Hudson. A plan of an association for the purpose has been drawn up by Mr. Audubon, a son of the eminent ornithologist—the same who lately made an overland journey to California. His courage and perseverance in that expedition have given the public a sufficient pledge of the energy and constancy of his character, and his scientific knowledge, educated as he has been from his early childhood ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... interests of the country. For this purpose the department is separated into thirteen bureaus, under the following officers (1) the Entomologist, (2) Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry, (3) Chemist, (4) Botanist, (5) Chief of the Section of Vegetable Pathology, (6) Statistician, (7) Ornithologist, (8) Director of the Office of Experiment Stations, (9) Microscopist, (10) Pomologist, (11) Chief of the Forestry Division, (12) Chief of the Seed Division, and (13) Weather Bureau. The enumeration of these titles indicates the general nature of the ...
— Government and Administration of the United States • Westel W. Willoughby and William F. Willoughby
... could do properly (maps, refuge huts, mountain roads; studies of animal life, of noxious insects, of migrations of birds, and so on), but they create new bonds between men. Two Alpinists of different nationalities who meet in a refuge hut in the Caucasus, or the professor and the peasant ornithologist who stay in the same house, are no more strangers to each other; while the Uncle Toby's Society at Newcastle, which has already induced over 260,000 boys and girls never to destroy birds' nests and to be kind to all animals, has certainly done more for ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... it was comfortable, but some men seem to enjoy that kind of thing," said Wedderburn. "Anyhow, the natives of his party were sufficiently civilised to take care of all his collection until his colleague, who was an ornithologist, came back again from the interior; though they could not tell the species of the orchid and had let it wither. And it makes these ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... A certain ornithologist tells with complacent pride of having shot over fifty-eight rose-breasted grosbeaks in less than three weeks (during the breeding season) to learn what kind of food they had in their crops. This kind of devotion to science may have quite ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... ornithologist, with gun and pencil, went through the forests of America to bring down and to sketch the beautiful birds, and after years of toil and exposure completed his manuscript, and put it in a trunk in Philadelphia for a few days of ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... Edinburgh, where he delivered an oration in blank verse on the comparative merits of Ramsay and Fergusson, assigning the pre-eminence to the former poet. In this debate his fellow-townsman and friend, Alexander Wilson, the future ornithologist, advocated in verse the merits of Fergusson; and the productions of both the youthful adventurers were printed in a pamphlet entitled the "Laurel Disputed." In occupying the position of schoolmaster at Falkirk, Picken proposed to raise funds to aid him in the prosecution of his theological ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various |
