"Owl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... eyelids again. Or you drive by a little creek where there are bushes and hear the bird, called by the steppe dwellers "the sleeper," call "Asleep, asleep, asleep!" while another laughs or breaks into trills of hysterical weeping—that is the owl. For whom do they call and who hears them on that plain, God only knows, but there is deep sadness and lamentation in their cry. . . . There is a scent of hay and dry grass and belated flowers, but the scent is heavy, ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... of the karan grass and tied to his legs, and made a chain of the grass and let him down to the earth. When he reached the earth he was no longer a man but was an owl." ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... the grave, omniscient owls, like the foreman of a grand jury, stood a majestic "grand duc," the largest owl of the Pyrenees, resembling much our Virginian species,—a donation from a French savant, Le Frere Ogerien. The owls have ever been to me a deep subject of study, their defiant aspect, thoughtful countenances, in which ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... his way up the stairs, as pleased with the darkness as an owl who grips his prey, opened and shut his door softly, listened to see whether he could hear any noise,—made sure that, to all appearances, Cosette and Toussaint were asleep, and plunged three or four matches into the bottle of the Fumade ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... to stand always on the one spot, felt himself swaying in a drunken stupor. He blinked at the lecturer like an angry owl—the blinking regard of a sodden mind, yet fiery with a spiteful rage. His wrath was rising and falling like a quick tide. He would have liked one moment to give a rein to the Gourlay temper, and let the lecturer have it hot and strong; the next, ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... damnation!" he exclaimed, as he strode away after the encounter; "'tis the ugliest yet. A yellow-faced girl brat, with eyes like an owl's in an ivy-bush, and with a voice like a very peacocks. Another mawking, plain slut that no man will take off ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... received the newcomer in perfect silence, his head raised high, his thin mouth set in an Ugly line—very much as an eagle might receive an owl which floundered by mistake onto the same crag, far above his element. The eagle hesitated between scorn of the visitor and a faint desire to pounce on him and rend him to pieces. That glittering eye, however, was soon dull with wonder, when ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... live full many an age in latter times: Who makes a ballad for an alehouse door, Shall live in future times for evermore: Then ( )[41] thy muse shall live so long, As drafty ballads to thy praise are sung. But what's his device? Parnassus with the sun and the laurel?[42] I wonder this owl dares look on the sun; and I marvel this goose flies not the laurel: his device might have been better, a fool going into the market-place to be seen, with this motto: Scribimus indocti; or, a poor beggar gleaning of ears in the end of harvest, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... garden an owl was hooting and the night air breathed on him its perfume of lilac and violets. How quiet it was and how fragrant and dim! one could scarcely distinguish between the dewy glimmer of turf and the dark island-like thickets of guelder-rose and other flowering ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... war taking its revenge; Bonaparte, in his dawn, had met it in Italy, and superbly defeated it—the old owl fled before the young vulture. The old tactics had been not only overthrown, but scandalized. Who was this Corsican of six-and-twenty years of age? What meant this splendid ignoramus, who, having everything against him, nothing for him, without provisions, ammunition, guns, shoes, almost ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... stuckuppy snipsters, as jaw about quiet and peace, Who would silence the gay "constant-screamer" and line the Thames banks with perlice; Who sneer about "'ARRY at 'Enley," and sniff about "cads on the course," As though it meant "Satan in Eden"? I'll 'owl at sich ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 15, 1891 • Various
... sound is heard in the forest; the sportsmen who look out on the snowy scene around them observe nothing; all without is dreary silence, broken at intervals by the poor ruminating creatures in front, the cry of a solitary owl, the fall of some dead branch which age and the tempest has separated from the giant oak, the sudden spring of the squirrel awakened by the noise, and, in the interior of the cabin, by the soft gurgling of the ruby wine escaping ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... Yet oft I feel thy sacred might, While concords wing their distant flight. 20 Such Power inspires thy holy son Sable clerk of Tiverton! And oft where Otter sports his stream, I hear thy banded offspring scream. Thou Goddess! thou inspir'st each throat; 25 'Tis thou who pour'st the scritch-owl note! Transported hear'st thy children all Scrape and blow and squeak and squall; And while old Otter's steeple rings, Clappest hoarse ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... among the country people that every bird chose its mate on Valentine's day; and at one time it was the custom for young folks to go out before daylight on that morning and try to catch an owl and two sparrows in a net. If they succeeded, it was a good omen, and entitled them to gifts from the villagers. Another fashion among them was to write the valentine, tie it to an apple or orange, and steal up to the ...
— Our Holidays - Their Meaning and Spirit; retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... stubble fields they went, till by-and-by they were taking a short cut through a carriage drive in Owl's Nest Park, as Oscar informed Inna. It was a pretty bowery walk, overarched with beeches and elms in all their autumn glory, and full of the clamour of rooks. Here they met an old lady in a wheel-chair, pushed by a page-boy—such ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... midges, Now the tired planes drone homeward through the haze, And distant wood-fires wink behind the ridges, And the first flare some timorous Hun betrays; Now no shell circulates, but all men brood Over their evening food; The bats flit warily and owl and rat With muffled cries their shadowy loves pursue, And pleasant, Corporal, it is to chat In this hushed moment with a man ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... silence, except the faint murmur which now and then the trees will make in the quietest night, as if they were dreaming, and talked in their sleep; for the motion does not seem to pass beyond them, but to swell up and die again in the heart of them. This and the occasional cry of an owl was all that broke the silent flow of the undivided moments,—glacier-like flowing none can tell how. We seldom spoke, and at length the house within seemed possessed by the silence from without; but we were all ear,—one hungry ear, whose famine ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... to be heard all around them, but "familiarity breeds contempt," and from Max down they were all accustomed to hearing similar noises whenever they spent nights in the open. The owl would whinny or hoot according to his species; the loon send forth his agonizing and weird shriek from some distant lake; a fox might bark sharply and fretfully, or two quarrelsome 'coons dispute over a bit of food they had discovered—all this went with the camping ...
— At Whispering Pine Lodge • Lawrence J. Leslie
... hours, Gertrude, but my owl-visit to the steamer was highly instructive, and when we get to sea, you all will be delighted to help me complete the study of the marine ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... me! As fresh and lusty Ver foul Winter doth exceed— As morning bright, with scarlet sky, doth pass the evening's weed— As mellow pears above the crabs esteemed be— So doth my love surmount them all, whom yet I hap to see! The oak shall olives bear, the lamb the lion fray, The owl shall match the nightingale in tuning of her lay, Or I my love let slip out of mine entire heart, So deep reposed in my breast is she for her desart! For many blessed gifts, O happy, happy land! Where Mars and Pallas strive to make their glory most to stand! Yet, land, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... and plaintive air Made delicate music far away: A hill-fox barked before its lair: The white owl ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... whose invariable custom is to foretell death, it must, I think, be classified with that species of elementals which I have named—for want of a more appropriate title—CLANOGRIAN. CLANOGRIANS embrace every kind of national and family ghost, such as The White Owl of the Arundels, the Drummer of the Airlies, and the Banshee of the O'Neills ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... villain in all his actions.... That Thugut is caballing.... Pray keep an eye upon the rascal, and you will soon find what I say is true. Let us hang these three miscreants, and all will go smooth." Suvaroff was not more complimentary. "How can that desk-worm, that night-owl, direct an army from his dusky nest, even if he had the sword of ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... mother said that, and Ben gave a faint giggle, as if he would like to join in if he only had the strength to do it. But his legs shook under him, and he felt a queer dizziness; so he could only hold on to Sancho, and blink at the light like a young owl. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... forest song. Jinnie had backed against the wall as she played, and when out of her soul came the twitter of the morning birds, the babbling of the brook on its way to the sea, the scream of the owl in a high woodland tree, Lafe turned to watch her, and from that moment until she dropped exhausted into a chair, he did not take his eyes ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... ended in a sheep pasture." The Poquette Carry Road, known to the legislature of its state as "The Rainy-Day Railroad," is even more indifferently located, for it twists for six miles, from water to water, through as tangled and lonely a wilderness as ever owl hooted in. ...
— The Rainy Day Railroad War • Holman Day
... chance in five to save my life. Still, I'd be an experiment! Before I went off under the stuff I told them who I was, for I'd heard they were sometimes fairly decent to enemy aviators, and I hoped to get a message through to my people. I was feeling as stupid as an owl, but I did think I saw a change come over the men's faces when they heard my name. Later, putting two and two together, I concluded that Germany was just the kind of business nation to know all about the dear old Governor. ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... spreading shade. The jealous queen started in rage; She kick'd her crown, and beat her page: "Bring me my magic wand," she cries; "Under that primrose, there it lies; I'll change the silly, saucy chit, Into a flea, a louse, a nit, A worm, a grasshopper, a rat, An owl, a monkey, hedgehog, bat. But hold, why not by fairy art Transform the wretch into— Ixion once a cloud embraced, By Jove and jealousy well placed; What sport to see proud Oberon stare, And flirt it with a pet en l'air!" Then thrice she stamp'd the trembling ground, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... the marble courts of the palace. I love the gloom of night for its softness, the song of the nightingale in the ivory moonlight, the rustle of the breeze in the dark rose-thickets, and the odour of the sleeping flowers in my gardens; I love even the cry of the owl from the prophet's tower, and the soft thick sound of the bat's wings, as he flits past the netting of my window. I love it all, for the whole earth is rich and young and good to touch, and most sweet to live in. And I love ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... plentifully fed; but they were now to know the pains of hunger, and the ills which follow upon a meagre diet. The hunters were daily reporting increasingly bad luck in the chase; some days would yield nothing; upon other days the camp would heartily welcome an owl, an eagle, or a bag of insignificant small birds of any sort, or even a wolf—anything that had flesh on ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... and Wisconsin lumber camps could arise at 4:30 A.M., eat a patent pail full of dried apples soaked with Young Hyson and sweetened with Persian glucose, go out to the timber with a lantern, hew down the giants of the forest, with the snow up to the pit of his stomach, till the gray owl in the gathering gloom whooped and hooted in derision, and all for $12 per month and ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... as melancholy as an owl of late,' retorted Mab, caressing the old lady; 'ever since the arrest of that man Mosk ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... resulting-force! It is ever so. Savage fighting Heptarchies: their fighting is an ascertainment, who has the right to rule over whom; that out of such waste-bickering Saxondom a peacefully cooeperating England may arise. Seek through this Universe; if with other than owl's eyes, thou wilt find nothing nourished there, nothing kept in life, but what has right to nourishment and life. The rest, look at it with other than owl's eyes, is not living; is all dying, all as good as dead! Justice was ordained from the foundations of ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... which to rivet the attention of the family group over the fire in the winter evenings,—stop at every ruined wall over which the lizard is harmlessly creeping; stop at every massive tower in which the owl is screeching—at every large isolated stone under which the serpent is hissing; linger along each tortuous path, and your peasant guide will tell you a tradition ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... cautious movement asserting itself even here, and with tremulous, withered hands, lighted his candle. Then he put on his piebald dressing-gown and his carpet slippers, and sat on the declivity of his bed, blinking at the light, as wide awake as any owl. ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... with the wisdom of an old owl, "mark the curl of his lip, and the bold, defiant stare of the eye. Mark the covert smile on that face, as if he were really laughing at us now. All those things are significant—mighty significant. You do not dream of the treachery hidden beneath ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... land-birds were driven on board—a case not uncommon during storms—and an owl and a hawk were observed perched on the swinging table on the poop, without shewing any alarm at the presence of the ship's company. It was not noticed what became of them. This circumstance tended to shew the intensity of ...
— The Wreck on the Andamans • Joseph Darvall
... in a castle all decay He nestled out of sight. "O why," said he, "should mind like mine "Midst gosling-flock be lost? "In learning I was meant to shine!" And up his bill he tossed. "I'll hide," said he, "and in the dark "I'll like an owl cry out ("In wisdom owls are birds of mark), "And none shall find me out!" And so from turret hooted he At all he saw and heard; Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo! What melody! And what a silly bird! At length a Starling which had flown Down on the Castle wall Thus spake: "Why what a simple drone "You are ...
— The Death of Saul and other Eisteddfod Prize Poems and Miscellaneous Verses • J. C. Manning
... gloomy and sad to him, and the scene was as solemn as a funeral. There were no sounds to be heard but the monotonous chirp of the cricket, and the dismal piping of the frogs in the meadow. Even the owl and the whip-poor-will had ceased their nocturnal notes, and the stars looked more gloomy than he had ever seen ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... ankles; pitiful old cloth shoes; a patched coat of white drill with frogging across the front such as Chinese mess boys wear; and a battered, rimless straw hat. He drew near the table with weary feet, hesitatingly and dazed, as though he had lost his way, peering about like an owl thrust into the light of mid-day from a ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... this moment he retires apace. His fires are dark; all sounds have ceased that way Save voice of owl or mongrel wintering there. But, were he nigh, these movements I detail Would knock ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... arrive here, with a few mutilated and shapeless remains of baggage, I cannot tell, because I am no longer myself. I have been travelling in a condition of perpetual fright; and I think that I must have looked awhile ago in this bright city like an owl bewildered by sunshine. To-night it is much worse! Wishing to obtain a glimpse of popular manners, I went to the Strada di Porto, where I now am. All about me animated throngs of people crowd and ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... distinguished with ease. Even Enoch, bred in the wilderness and possessing much knowledge of wood-ranging, heard only the coarser sounds. Therefore he lay half dreaming for some moments after the Indian raised his head and lent an attentive ear to some noise which came from far away. The night-owl's hoot was intermittent; a lone wolf howled mournfully on the hillside; in the swamp a catamount screamed as it pounced upon its prey. But it was none of these sounds which had attracted the Indian's attention. ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... acknowledges it!" roared the magician. "Wretch, dotard, owl, mole, miserable buzzard! I have no reason to tell thee now that thy form is monstrous, that children cry, that cowards turn pale, that teeming matrons shudder to behold it. It is not thy fault that thou art thus ungainly: but wherefore so blind? wherefore so conceited of thyself! I tell thee, ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you can,' he called to her; 'tell me if you see a squirrel stirring, or the eyes of an owl looking out of ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... Warwickshire to-day. The halcyon or kingfisher, the white-breasted water-ouzel, the skylark, the "ruddock" or robin-redbreast, the wren, the green plover, the woodcock—these serve for some of his moods; but he mentions eagle, kite, hawk, buzzard, owl, falcon, cormorant, and a number of others, always with discretion and with the full measure of knowledge vouchsafed to his time. Classical lore and country superstitions are sometimes found in his references, but the most of them point to the poet's own loving observation at a time when ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... nearly reached the door of the cottage when once more she halted, rooted in her tracks. Out of the unnatural silence of the night, close upon the edge of the clearing, boomed the cry of the great horned owl. It was a sound she had often heard here in the northern night—this hooting of an owl; but, somehow, this sound was different. Once more her heart thumped wildly against her ribs. Her fists clenched, and she peered tensely toward the wall of the scrub timber that showed silent and ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... shadows by every boulder, and most things looked asleep except the rill that went on running. Only we and the rabbits, and the night moths and the beetles, seemed to be stirring. An occasional bat appeared and vanished like a spectral illusion, and I saw one owl flap across the moor with level wings ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... luck!" he thought. "She is now as blind as an owl. If only I can escape from talking to ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.
... love, And thou art a strorm That breaks black in the sky, And, sweeping headlong, Drenches and cowers each tree, And at the panting end There is no sound Save the melancholy cry of a single owl— ...
— War is Kind • Stephen Crane
... yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... that reached my ears was that of my own footsteps. I slowly proceeded, stopping occasionally, and listening and enjoying the profound repose and the solemn, pure light, so suited to the ruined magnificence around me. As I approached the Coliseum the shriek of an owl and the answering echo broke the stillness for a moment, and ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of this bird. It was one of her legends that a little boy was once standing just outside of the teepee (tent), crying vigorously for his mother, when Hinakaga swooped down in the darkness and carried the poor little fellow up into the trees. It was well known that the hoot of the owl was commonly imitated by Indian scouts when on the war-path. There had been dreadful massacres immediately following this call. Therefore it was deemed wise to impress the sound early upon ...
— Indian Child Life • Charles A. Eastman
... poets for making the owl a bodeful bird. He had himself done so in the Evening Walk, and corrects his epithets to suit his later judgement, putting 'gladsome' ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... entrenched in some quarries quite close to the French trenches which sapped their way forward to those pits. When the guns ceased firing the French soldiers often heard the sound of singing. But above the voices of the Germans there came sometimes a series of piercing cries like the screeching of an owl in a terrible plaint, followed by strange and bloodcurdling laughter. It was the voice of a mad woman who was one of those captured from neighbouring villages and brought into the trenches by the ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... like a gopher," answered her brother, who had listened to the cowboys telling about the little prairie dogs. "And sometimes there are snakes or an owl in the same hole ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... tell either papa or those people,' she decided, wise as a toy owl. 'And if you tell them, they will surely tell papa, so perhaps you would rather tell him yourself. But I ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... the weary traveller. Edwin was fatigued and faint. He tried to give vent to his complaints; but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth: his spirits sunk within him. No sound now reached his ears but the baying of the shepherds dogs, and the drowsy tinklings of the distant folds. The owl, the solemn bird of night, sat buried among the branches of the aged oak, and with her melancholy hootings gave an additional serenity to the scene. At a small distance, on his right hand, he perceived a contiguous object that ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... like an owl! I thought it was nothing less than a stuffed owl coming in. Why can't you wear your hat? That would hide your crown and your ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... WHITE OWL (Strix flammea).—Nested in a barn, another year in a pigeon-loft, and again in an old tub at Otterbourne. To be seen skimming softly along on ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... in the garden at his home, he caught an owl. While struggling with the bird, he broke one of its limbs. Gazing straight into the owl's large, bright eyes, he noticed, at the moment when the bone snapped, the appearance of a black spot in the lower central region of the iris, which area he later found ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... as glum as an owl, and as silent as one of these prairie dogs," went on the engineer. "You haven't said a word for over a mile. Is something ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... Fiordelisa loved her directly. When Turritella heard what had happened she came running to the King, and when she saw Fiordelisa with him she was terribly angry, but before she could say a word the Enchanter and the Fairy changed her into a big brown owl, and she floated away out of one of the palace windows, hooting dismally. Then the wedding was held with great splendour, and King Charming and Queen Fiordelisa lived happily ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... letter, written when this was supposed to be lost, he says, 'I liked all your quotations, and wish to read Busbequius; whose name would become an owl.' ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... the companion of my risk, as one against whom the elements could nourish no vengeance. No, Edie, it is not, and cannot be trueit is a fiction of the idle jade Rumour, whom I wish hanged with her trumpet about her neck, that serves only with its screech-owl tones to fright honest folks out of their senses.Let me know how you got into this scrape ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... me! Pocahontas was a gay little hanger-on of the camps,—not like this silent owl! Her mind seems older than her years, and just notice her care of him, will you? I reckon he'd have wandered away and died but for her grip on ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... feline tribe. Lizards, basking motionless upon the rocks, slid off like lightning when aware of our approach. Two splendid eagles from an eyrie on the crags above hovered and wheeled, observing us, their shadows like two moving spots of ink upon the mountain-side. A drowsy owl was put up from a cave, and one of our adherents swore he heard a partridge calling. No other living creature larger than a beetle did we come across ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... brother Cockburn and his son, and the father and brother of my Alison. Ye come to remind me of this; and that, as a reward for the shedding of our blood, the head of the chief of our house has been fixed upon the gate of Edinburgh as food for the carrion crow and the night owl! Go, get thee refreshment, Trotter; then go to rest, and dream of other heads exalted, as your late master's is, and I will be ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... whole owl's nest of a house was in league against me! You had conspired against me, you and your ilk, simply because I was superior to you, that's the reason why you wanted to shoulder me off! Do you suppose I don't realize ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... owl of death, Our nation's terror and their bloody scourge! The period of thy tyranny approacheth. On us thou canst not enter but by death; For, I protest, we are well fortified And strong enough to issue out and fight: If thou retire, the Dauphin, well appointed, Stands with the snares of war ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... stacked their arms. The cannon were parked, all pointing back toward Chattanooga. The scene looked weird and picturesque. It was in a dark wilderness of woods and vines and overhanging limbs. In fact, it seemed but the home of the owl and the bat, and other varmints that turn night into day. Everything looked solemn. The trees looked solemn, the scene looked solemn, the men looked solemn, even the horses looked solemn. You may be sure, reader, that we ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... from their use of the cry of the screech-owl (chathouan) as a signal, were the revolted peasants of Brittany and ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... we observe render us weak in body and unable to follow any worldly pursuits on our own behalf. Hence, one like us cannot possibly know thee.' He then asked me, 'Is there any one who is longerlived than thou'? I answered him, saying, 'There liveth on the Himavat an owl of the name of Pravarakarna. He is older than I. He may know thee. The part of the Himavat where he dwelleth is far off from here.' And at this Indradyumna became a horse and carried me to where that owl lived and the king ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... a distinctness that drew his muscles rigid and set his eyes staring about him in wild search. Just beyond the hanging pails a moose-bird hopped out upon the snow. It chirped hungrily, its big, owl-like eyes scrutinizing Dixon. The man stared back, fearing to move. Slowly he forced his right foot through the snow to the rear of his left, and as cautiously brought his left behind his right, working himself backward step ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... big owl in one of the trees began to call. I knew what it was for Mustagan had taught me. At first Roddy said ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... is young and amorously inclined you will notice that he never starts for the regions beyond without first providing himself with an owl's skin. This tied on his breast, he tells you, will ensure him favor in the eyes of the females he may meet on the road, and on arrival at ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray
... During this it was some consolation to the travellers to see the moon, which now, rising above the horizon, lit up the plains with her white beams, and flung her silvery effulgence over the trees. From the direction of the woods came the mournful notes of the great horned owl, and the sound of flapping wings, caused by the vampire bat, as it glided through the aisles of the forest. No other sounds appeared to indicate the presence of living thing except those made by the horses or the ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... territories of Canada—from the basin of Lake Winnipeg, with its white pelicans, to the Arctic circle—swarm with birds, wild swans, geese, ducks, plovers, grouse, cranes, eagles, owls of several kinds—especially the great snowy eagle-owl—red-breasted thrushes, black and white snow-buntings, scarlet grosbeaks (the female green and grey), crested jays, and ravens "of a beautiful glossy black, richly tinged with purple", but smaller in size ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... them. More than once Miss Charity started back in fright, and Miss Hope, who was stronger, shook so with nervousness that she found it difficult to walk. Betty, too, was much overwrought, and it is probable that if either a jack rabbit or a white owl had crossed the path of the three there would have been instant flight. However, they saw nothing more alarming than their own shadows and a few harmless little insects that the ...
— Betty Gordon in the Land of Oil - The Farm That Was Worth a Fortune • Alice B. Emerson
... milder gleam, What time the may-fly * haunts the pool or stream; When the still owl skims round the grassy mead, What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed; Then be the time to steal adown the vale, And listen to the vagrant** cuckoo's tale, To hear the clamorous*** curlew call his mate, Or the soft quail his tender ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... a tremendous controversy with no less a person than Mr Slope, respecting the apostolic succession. These two gentlemen had never seen each other, but they had been extremely bitter in print. Mr Slope had endeavoured to strengthen his cause by calling Mr Arabin an owl, and Mr Arabin had retaliated by hinting that Mr Slope was an infidel. This battle had been commenced in the columns of the daily Jupiter, a powerful newspaper, the manager of which was very friendly to Mr Slope's view of the case. ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... wizards that hate the sun?" queried Dingaan again in an astonished voice. Then he was silent, for out of the first litter came a little man, pale as the shoot from a bulb that has grown in darkness, with large, soft eyes like the eyes of an owl, that blinked in the light, and long hair out of which all the colour seemed to ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... pine was by a woodman fell'd, Which ancient, huge, and hollow tree An owl had for his palace held— A bird the Fates had kept in fee, Interpreter to such as we. Within the caverns of the pine, With other tenants of that mine, Were found full many footless mice, But well provision'd, fat, and nice. The bird had bit off all their feet, And fed them there ...
— A Hundred Fables of La Fontaine • Jean de La Fontaine
... it moaned softly past me, I fancied—nay, I felt sure I detected something that was not ordinary. I blew my nose, and had barely ceased marvelling at the loudness of its reverberations, before the piercing, ghoulish shriek of an owl sent the blood in torrents to my heart. I then laughed, and my blood froze as I heard a chorus, of what I tried to persuade myself could only be echoes, proceed from every crag and rock in the valley. For some seconds after ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... sure I shall enjoy it immensely;" i.e., "He can't talk any more than a semaphore, and looks as sleepy as an owl." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... a whale afforded as much enjoyment to them as it does to a tribe of Eskimos now. Bones of birds and fishes are found in many instances. The salmon appears to have been a favorite among fishes. Among the birds are found some species now only living in cold countries, such as the snowy owl, willow grouse, and flamingo. This is but another proof that the climate of Europe was then ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... told her that they were utterly harmless, that they always fled as soon as their keen eyes or sharp ears revealed the neighborhood of their enemies, the men who coveted their thick and long-haired hides worth a good many dollars. But she saw few living things; once there was a great snowy owl that rose heavily and then flew swiftly and in silence from a stump in a brule, disappearing among the trees like an animated shadow, yes, a shadow of sudden death to hares and partridges cowering beneath the fronds of wide-spreading conifers or in the ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... "The great owl! To go and risk her good name thus. However, thank Heaven she has played this prank with an honest lad that will ne'er expose her folly. But oh, the perverseness! Could she not bestow her nauseousness on thee?" Denys sighed ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... the Owl, That bird of solemn phiz, That truly awful-looking fowl, To represent her wis- Dom, little recked the goddess of The time when she would howl To see a Peanut set ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... past midnight. The cottages were all dark. A single faint light gleamed out from the hallway of the house. There was no sound abroad except the hooting of an old owl in the top of a water-oak, and the everlasting voice of the sea, that was not uplifted at that soft hour. It broke like a mournful ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... suddenly by the creaking of a door. It was an extraordinary thing at that hour. The whole house hold was asleep. Nothing could be heard save the footsteps of the watch-dogs on the sand, or their scratching at the foot of a tree in which an owl was screeching. An excellent opportunity to use his listening-tube! Upon putting it to his ear, M. Gardinois was assured that he had made no mistake. The sounds continued. One door was opened, then another. The bolt of the front door was thrown back with an effort. But neither ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... consider the matter. They called Bradlaugh before them and interrogated him at length as to his belief in a Supreme Being and a life after death. Then they voted, and the ballot stood eight to eight. The chairman, a large white barn-owl, gave the casting vote, declining to accept the affirmation. The matter was reported to the House, and the action duly confirmed. Bradlaugh then, on advice of Labouchere, notified the House that he was willing to accept the regulation oath, all in the interests of amity, it being of course understood ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... the more than Stygian night Descends with slow and owl-like flight, Silent as Death (who comes—we know— Unheard, unknown of all below;) Above that dark and desolate wave, The reflex of the eternal grave— Gigantic birds with flaming eyes Sweep upward, onward through the skies, Or stalk, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... am bound to say, would have guessed it. With his long scrag neck and great moons of spectacles, which he had now drawn down, the better to study me, he suggested an absurd combination of the vulture and the owl. ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... says she likes it, an' I reckon she does. Scripture says them whose deeds is evil likes darkness better'n light. You certainly made a mistake when you clapped 'er in here—that is, if you meant to punish 'er. Ann's a reg'lar bat, if not a' owl." ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... 3 An owl is a bird with a disagreeable scream, instead of a beautiful note; but the mulberries grown about the college would make them sing delightfully. And so would the influence of L, going forth from the college, transform the nature of the tribes ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... sober old Helen," she said, "you'll be an owl for a thousand years after you die! Why can't you caper a little? You don't know ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... Birds, hummingbirds even, nest in the cactus scrub; woodpeckers befriend the demoniac yuccas; out of the stark, treeless waste rings the music of the night-singing mockingbird. If it be summer and the sun well down, there will be a burrowing owl to call. Strange, furry, tricksy things dart across the open places, or sit motionless in the conning towers of the creosote. The poet may have "named all the birds without a gun," but not the fairy-footed, ground-inhabiting, furtive, ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin
... at the seminary a curst Lazarist, who by undertaking to teach me Latin made me detest it. His hair was coarse, black and greasy, his face like those formed in gingerbread, he had the voice of a buffalo, the countenance of an owl, and the bristles of a boar in lieu of a beard; his smile was sardonic, and his limbs played like those of a puppet moved by wires. I have forgotten his odious name, but the remembrance of his frightful precise countenance remains with me, though hardly can I recollect ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... frightened by the noise of an owl and a cricket, flees through the forest and into a stream, where it crushes a small fish almost to death. The fish complains to the court; and the deer, owl, cricket, and fish have a lawsuit. In the trial comes out this evidence: As the deer fled, he ran into some dry grass, and the seed fell into ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... the hill and losing itself at last amidst thick copses, where day did never more than wink and glimmer, and where, at night, its waters, brawling through their stony channel, seemed like a spirit's wail, and harmonized well with the scream of the gray owl wheeling from her dim retreat, or the moaning and rare ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... making its unobtrusive appeal. Gradually its hypnotic spell works. The distant chimes ring louder and nearer as you cross the borderland of sleep. And then outside the tent some little woods noise snaps the thread. An owl hoots, a whippoorwill cries, a twig cracks beneath the cautious prowl of some night creature—at once the yellow sunlit French meadows puff away—you are staring at the blurred image of the moon spraying through ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... retaliation; how one wrote to ministers to denounce Pope as a traitor, and another brought an image in clay to execute him in effigy; and how successive editions, genuine and spurious, followed each other, distinguished by an owl or an ass on the frontispiece, and provoking infinite controversy amongst rival vendors. It is unpleasant to have ugly names hurled at one by the first writer of the day; but the abuse was for the most part too general to be libellous. Nor would there be any great interest ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... are whist, and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid; And naught is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katydid; And the plaint of the wailing whip-poor-will, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... Hinnissy. In me heart I'm glad these neefaryous plots iv Willum J. Long an' others have been defeated. Th' man that tells ye'er blessed childher that th' way a wild goat kills an owl is be pretendin' to be an alarum clock, is an undesirable citizen. He ought to be put in an aquaryum. But take it day in an' day out an' Willum J. Long won't give anny information to ye'er son Packy that'll ...
— Mr. Dooley Says • Finley Dunne
... falsehood; he dreads the liberty which inspires me, and I detest the pride with which he is swollen. If our fortunes were equal, and if we were together in a free place, I should not call myself a phoenix; for that title ill becomes me; but he would be an owl. Such people as he imagine, on account of riches ill-acquired, and worse employed, that they are at liberty ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... replied Front-de-Boeuf; "detestable screech-owl! it is then thou who art come to exult over the ruins thou hast ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... says you are English; by the faith, he must be right, or you would never sit musing there like an owl in the sunlight! Take a draught of my burgundy; bright as rubies. I never sell bad wines—not I! I know better than to ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... words to Lady Agnes, so she turned the conversation by pointing to a snow-white cat of great size, who stepped daintily out of the tent. "I should think, as a witch, your cat ought to be black," said Miss Greeby. Mother Cockleshell screeched like a night-owl and hastily pattered some gypsy spell to avert evil. "Why, the old devil is black," she cried. "And why should I have him in my house to work evil? This is my white ghost." Her words were accompanied by a gentle stroking of the cat. "And good ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... was bird, beast, or man I could not say. At the moment, however, a dark cloud passed over the moon, and I saw no more of it. Just then, too, although all the other sounds of the forest had ceased, a species of horned owl with which I was well acquainted began to hoot with great persistency. After that, save for the rustling of trees and reeds when the wind caught them, there was ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... same, and that the deil's got into 'em," said Captain Gillespie gravely, wrinkling up his nose so much and nodding his head, and looking so like an old owl in the bright light of the moon which had rapidly risen, and was already shining with all the fulness and brilliancy it has in these southern latitudes, that it was as much as I could do to keep from bursting out laughing and so betraying my presence ...
— Afloat at Last - A Sailor Boy's Log of his Life at Sea • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of the white owl sweeping Wavy in the dusk lit by one large star. Lone on the fir-branch, his rattle-note unvaried, Brooding o'er the gloom, spins the brown evejar. Darker grows the valley, more and more forgetting: So were it with me if forgetting could ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... under Hugh's foot and the boys stopped short, their breath coming fast. The hoot of an owl directly overhead startled them violently and unconsciously they clutched each other's arm. The giant trees loomed black and forbidding in the darkness, and it was easy to imagine all kinds of things lurking behind to spring ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... crocodile, if by that means the occasional presence within the parish limits of either of these anthropophagous brutes could have been established. He brags of no fine society, but is plainly a little elated by "having considerable acquaintance with a tame brown owl." Most of us have known our share of owls, but few can boast of intimacy with a feathered one. The great events of Mr. White's life, too, have that disproportionate importance which is always humorous. To think of his hands having ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell
... the stillness of the country and the loneliness of the dark road. She hurried her steps, jumped at every sound and grew cold from pure terror as the awful stillness and emptiness closed in about her. She stood still every few minutes, staring at blurred bushes beside the road. The screech of an owl almost made her scream. And in the dark the hard lumpy road hurt her feet cruelly. The little slippers were never meant for dark country roads. So Jocelyn had to pick her steps, and with every second's delay ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... poles, about twelve feet long, and borne by two persons. These were perfectly straight, and for the first eight feet free from boughs; above this nine branches were left upon each pole, having at their ends each a bunch of feathers of the hawk or owl. On the top of one of the standards was a bunch of emu feathers. The branches were stripped of all their smaller twigs and leaves, and of their bark. They were painted white, and wound round with ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... extravagant ways, as in his affair with Mlle. Georges, the beautiful but rather tiresome actress. As for Mme. de Stael, she bored him to distraction by her assumption of wisdom. That was not the kind of woman that Napoleon cared for. He preferred that a woman should be womanly, and not a sort of owl to sit and talk with him about the ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... he passed. At this stage he was of the jocular persuasion. "Still an unwelcome visitor, ma'am? No little tidbit of news for me to-day?" There he sat, twiddling his thumbs, reiterating his singsong: "Just so!" and looking wise as an owl. Mahony knew the air—had many a time seen it donned to cloak perplexity—and covert doubts of Rogers' ability began to assail him. But then he fell mentally foul of every one he came in touch with, at present: Ned, for the bare-faced fashion in which he left his cheerfulness ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... tower both night and day, There unto her none repaired; 'Neath the church roof sat the dull owl gray, And at ...
— Queen Berngerd, The Bard and the Dreams - and other ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... shore of the Bay of Ajaccio, with this inscription on a tarnished panel over its hermetically closed door: 'Paganetti Agency, Maritime Company, Bureau of Information.' The bureau is kept by fat gray lizards in company with a screech-owl. As for the railroads, I noticed that all the excellent Corsicans to whom I mentioned them, replied with cunning smiles, disconnected phrases, full of mystery; and not until this morning did I obtain the exceedingly farcical explanation of all ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... by the fire laid down the bread, When lo, as when a blossom blows— To a vast loaf the manchet rose; In angry wonder, standing by, The girl sent forth a wild, rude cry, And, feathering fast into a fowl, Flew to the woods a wailing owl." ...
— The English Gipsies and Their Language • Charles G. Leland
... was alone, he opened one of the windows, and stared down into the dark valley. A gentle wimpling of the river among stones ascended to his ear; the trees upon the other bank stood very black against the sky; farther away an owl was hooting. It was dreary and cold, and as he turned back to the hearth and the fine glow of fire, "Heavens!" said he to himself, "what ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ask you to tell us that, Sir Evelyn, for though he is supposed to be a Roman, he seems to have lived most of his life in your country. As silent as an owl and as inscrutable as a sphinx. Nobody in Rome knows certainly who his father was, nobody knows certainly who his mother was. Some say his father was an Englishman, some say a Jew, and some say his mother was a gipsy. A self-centred man, who never talks about ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... of the service, and, to the great surprise and to the satisfaction of the blower, cut the voluntary at the end unusually short, ending it in an abrupt and discordant way, which, I am sorry to say, the blower described as 'a 'owl,' though any shock that the boy's musical taste sustained was compensated for by the feeling that he would be at home at least ten minutes earlier than ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... When, lo! an object frightful to behold; A grisly SPECTRE, cloth'd in silver-gray, Around whose feet the waving shadows play, Stands in his path!... He stops, and not a breath Heaves from his heart, that sinks almost to death. Loud the owl halloos o'er his head unseen; All else is silent, dismally serene: Some prompt ejaculation, whisper'd low, Yet bears him up against the threat'ning foe; And thus poor Giles, though half inclin'd to fly, Mutters his doubts, and strains his stedfast eye. ''Tis not my crimes thou ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... become unconscious of the chorus of toads and cicadas, my hammock came down by the head. Then I was woke by a sudden bark close outside, exactly like that of a clicketting fox; but as the dogs did not reply or give chase, I presumed it to be the cry of a bird, possibly a little owl. Next there rushed down the mountain a storm of wind and rain, which made the coco-leaves flap and creak, and rattle against the gable of the house; and set every door and window banging, till they were caught and brought to reason. And ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... looking earnestly at one another. Outside, somewhere in the woodland, there sounded the haunting gush of a night-bird's song, shivering through the quietness like a silver bell. The sweet note finished in a frightened squawk, and was followed by the cry of an owl. The song had ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... grandfather was one of the ugliest men in the world. He had one glass eye, and his nose was like an owl's, his mouth large, his teeth ugly and decayed, his face and head very small, his body long and bent, and he was bitter and ill-tempered. His name was Gluinel. Madame de Cornuel one day was reading his grandson's genealogy, and, when she came to his name, exclaimed, "I always suspected, when ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... wait for a few minutes," he said, in a tone of annoyance. "I can't think what's the matter with me, but I feel as giddy and stupid as an owl. I'll be all right presently. Is the ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... own opinion, wise little white owl." Her Highness took her friend in her arms and kissed her, held her at arm's length, drew her to her heart and again kissed her. It was like a farewell. Then she let her go. "If there is anything you need, make yourself at home with my cases." ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath
... were right. It was I who was the idiot, the owl, the dolt, not to have calculated better what the consequences of such a position might be.—But where are we going?" he asked, seeing that they had reached the ...
— Colonel Chabert • Honore de Balzac
... nature. It amused me to go about uttering silly, commonplace phrases. I was never so well thought of in the islands till I began to jabber commercial gibberish like the veriest idiot. Upon my word, I believe that I was actually respected for a time. I was as grave as an owl over it; I had to be loyal to the man. I have been, from first to last, completely, utterly loyal to the best of my ability. I thought he understood something about coal. And if I had been aware that he knew nothing of it, as in fact he didn't, well—I ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... the breeze, which had refreshed them during the day, died away, as if its office were now completed; and none of the dark sounds and sights of hideous Night yet dared to triumph over the death of Day. Unseen were the circling wings of the fell bat; unheard the screech of the waking owl; silent the drowsy hum of the shade-born beetle! What heart has not acknowledged the influence of this hour, the sweet and soothing hour of twilight! the hour of love, the hour of adoration, the hour of rest! when we think of those we ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... canal of Panama. Young man, write "I will" upon your brow, give your heart to God and hope will herald your way to victory as the reward of a well spent life. Keep your eye upon the star of ambition. Don't be like the owl, who when daylight comes hides himself within the shadows of the ivy-bound oak and moans and moans the days of his life away; but rather be like the proud eagle that leaves its craggy summit, starts on its pinion flight through the clouds, rides upon ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... syllabled, might form such a word as dilly-lily; but it is not a musical strain. Indeed, there is no music in his nature, and in all his imitations of other sounds he prefers the harsh to the melodious, such as the voice of the Hawk, the Owl, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... three or four small ones, but I am not 'lit' by a jugful! The idea! Drunk on four high-balls! Why, they just clear my brain—drive the fog out. Maybe it's the Scotch, maybe the soda. A fine combination, the high-ball. I am as stupid as an owl when I am cold sober, but when I drink, I soar! I feel like a lark with nothing between myself and the sun except a little fresh air and exercise. Oh, there's nothing the matter with me; any one ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... hive of twentieth-century civilization scant space has been provided for drones. The drone is a minus quantity in the problem of life; instead of adding to the common weal, he is ever subtracting from it. Like an owl he sits in the gloom of indolence hooting at the caravan of events. The eye of the world is quick to observe the man who is resting on his oars. A more graphic picture of the man who is ever magnifying the world's duty to him, and minimizing his duty to the world, could not be painted than ...
— A Fleece of Gold - Five Lessons from the Fable of Jason and the Golden Fleece • Charles Stewart Given
... has to take birth as a gadfly. By stealing fruits or roots or cakes one becomes an ant. By stealing Nishpava one becomes a Halagolaka.[514] By stealing Payasa one becomes in one's next birth a Tittiri bird. By stealing cakes one becomes a screech-owl. That man of little intelligence who steals iron has to take birth as a cow. That man of little understanding who steals white brass has to take birth as a bird of the Harita species. By stealing a vessel of silver one becomes a pigeon. By stealing a vessel of gold ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... heard was that of the owl, at which he was greatly terrified, and, quickly descending the tree he had climbed, he ran with alarm to the lodge. "Noko! noko! grandmother!" he cried. "I have ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... green, the upper surface, which is naturally exposed to the light, being darker than the lower which is in shadow. When the caterpillar is large, the green area is often broken up by pale lines, longitudinal as on the larvae of many Owl Moths (Noctuidae) or oblique, as on the great caterpillars of most Hawk Moths (Sphingidae). Such an arrangement tends to make the insect less easily seen than were it to display a continuous area of the same colour. The ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter
... away without end, With a burrowing owl, his old neighbour and friend, Who, being a bird in whom marmot confided, Had hired his cottage, in which he resided. The landlord just hinted, that when he lived there, He had kept the old hovel in charming ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.
... now went to the wood, for the sake of getting the place, but one only returned with a sort of explanation; for nobody went far enough, that one not further than the others. However, he said that the sound proceeded from a very large owl, in a hollow tree; a sort of learned owl, that continually knocked its head against the branches. But whether the sound came from his head or from the hollow tree, that no one could say with certainty. So now he got the place ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... Crumpetty Tree Came the Stork, the Duck, and the Owl; The Snail and the Bumblebee, The Frog and the Fimble Fowl (The Fimble Fowl, with a corkscrew leg); And all of them said, "We humbly beg We may build our homes on your lovely Hat,— Mr. Quangle Wangle, grant us that! Mr. ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... were the scenery of this beautiful universe which we inhabit; what were our consolations on this side of the grave—and what were our aspirations beyond it, if poetry did not ascend to bring light and fire from those eternal regions where the owl-winged faculty of calculation dare not ever soar? Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say, 'I will compose poetry.' The greatest poet even cannot ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... laughed, but the most were silent. They knew the story of King Agrippa and the owl, and how it had been foretold that this spirit in the form of a bird would appear to him again in the hour of his death, as it had appeared to him in ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... some love no fish, and some Love not their friends, nor their own house or home; Some start at pig, slight chicken, love not fowl, More than they love a cuckoo, or an owl; Leave such, my CHRISTIANA, to their choice, And seek those who to find thee will rejoice; By no means strive, but in humble-wise, Present thee to them in thy ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... handwriting crooked with poignant grief, and blotted at every third word by the violence of virtuous indignation, that "Thersites Junior" was his own son, and that, in one of the last of the "ribald's" caricatures her own venerable features were unmistakably represented as belonging to the body of a large owl! ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... bringing some nightingales, too, and some cue-owls. I got them in Italy. The song of the nightingale is the deadliest known to ornithology. That demoniacal shriek can kill at thirty yards. The note of the cue-owl is infinitely soft and sweet—soft and sweet as the whisper of a flute. But penetrating—oh, beyond belief; it can bore through boiler-iron. It is a lingering note, and comes in triplets, on the one unchanging key: hoo-o-o, hoo-o-o, hoo-o-o; then a silence ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cut in 'em," resumed the narrator, "and he carried a tin box strung to a strap I took for his lunch till it flew open on him and a horn toad hustled out. Then I was sure he was a botanist—or whatever yu' say they're called. Well, he would have owl eggs—them little prairie-owl that some claim can turn their head clean around and keep a-watchin' yu', only that's nonsense. We was ridin' through that prairie-dog town, used to be on the flat just after yu' crossed the south fork ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... over the rim of the world by the backs of the crooked elves. The horse and the two persons made a black, distorted shadow that jerked along as though it were a thing evil and persistent. Far off in the thickets of the hills an owl cried, eerie and weird like a creature in some bitter sorrow. The lane was deep with dust. The horse traveled with no sound, and the distorted black shadow followed, now blotted out by the heavy tree tops, and now only partly to be seen, ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... Owl and Oyster: Did Oliver Oglethorpe ogle an Owl and Oyster? If Oliver Oglethorpe ogled an Owl and Oyster, Where are the Owl and ...
— Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation • Anonymous
... the carriage at a half mile beyond Servas, put his head out of the window, made a trumpet of his hands, and gave the hoot of a screech-owl. The imitation was so perfect that another owl answered from ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... but his interest waned. He laid the glasses back upon the deck. The choked bubble of boiling water sounded from the cabin, mingled with the irregular sputter of cooking fat and the clinking of plates and silver as Halvard set the table. Without, the light was fading swiftly; the wavering cry of an owl quivered from the cypress across the water, and the western sky changed from paler yellow to green. Woolfolk moved abruptly, and, securing a bucket to the handle of which a short rope had been spliced and finished with an ornamental Turk's-head, ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... to be a romping big girl, she had just as queer ways; too old for a child, though the sober, owl-like look began to soften to an earnest expression, which on occasions verged upon a twinkle in the deep blue eyes. Distant friends were now writing letters of inquiry, and her father's relatives persistently urged Mrs. Barrett to send ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... and asked if he could assist her; she answered, through the medium of a sooty animal at her helm, that she was (like our universities) "satisfied with her own progress"; she added, being under intoxication, "that, if any danger existed, her scheme was to drown it in the bo-o-owl;" and two days afterward he saw her puffing and panting, and fiercely dragging a gigantic three-decker out into deep water, like an industrious flea pulling ...
— Christie Johnstone • Charles Reade
... Whitefoot. There are ever so many who would like nothing better than to dine on plump little Whitefoot. There are Buster Bear and Billy Mink and Shadow the Weasel and Unc' Billy Possum and Hooty the Owl and all the members of the Hawk family, not to mention Blacky the Crow in times when other food is scarce. Reddy and Granny Fox and Old Man Coyote are ...
— Whitefoot the Wood Mouse • Thornton W. Burgess
... was conscious of a return of his old devotion to the fair-haired stranger. He recalled the Frank's many kindnesses—in particular the splendid paint-box, which remained Iskender's own—and, sobbing, prayed from the heart that he might live. The hooting of an owl, or the bark of some dog in the distance, alone broke the stillness, of which the rustle of the tamarisks seemed part, so faint and vague it was. At moments, looking up at the stars, he could have deemed them living creatures, for they seemed ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... as falling stars, slanting athwart the heavens in the direction of the cottage, and increasing in size and brilliancy as it neared the earth, until the wooded ridge and the shore could be seen as distinctly from the ship-deck as by day. A dog howled piteously from one of the out-houses,—an owl whooped from the wood. The meteor descended until it almost touched the roof, when a cock crew from within; its progress seemed instantly arrested; it stood still, rose about the height of a ship's mast, and then began again ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... formerly an Ivy bush (called a tod of Ivy) was universally hung out in front of taverns in England, as it still is in Brittany and Normandy. Hence arose two proverbs—"Good wine needs no bush," i.e., the reputation is sufficiently good without further advertisement; and "An owl in an Ivy bush," as "perhaps denoting originally the union of wisdom or prudence with conviviality, as 'Be ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... vertebrae of the spine. Several times (Dr. 12b and 13b) he is represented apparently with distended abdomen. A distinguishing article of his costume is the stiff feather collar, which is worn only by this god, his companion, the war-god F, and by his animal symbol, the owl, which will both be discussed farther on. His head ornament varies in the Dresden Codex; in the first portion of the manuscript, relating in part to pregnancy and child-birth (see the pictures of women on p. 16, et seq.), he wears on his head several times a figure ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... grave with their inhabitants. The lofty palms have faded away and given place to forest trees, whose roots spring from the crumbled ruins; the bear and the leopard crouch in the porches of the temples; the owl roosts in the casements of the palaces; the jackal roams among the ruins in vain; there is not a bone left for him to gnaw of the multitudes which have passed away. There is their handwriting upon the temple wall, upon the granite slab which ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker |
