"Perch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... an upside-down bucket for a seat. Nothing more uncomfortable for a fat man can be imagined, yet Cheon sat on his rickety perch, for the most part chuckling and happy. Perhaps, like Mark Tapley, he felt it a "credit ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the nest before they are fully fledged. Crutches of various kinds are selected for the poor captive, the most ingenious of which is made of a single joint of bamboo, the two ends being formed into cups—the middle part being cut, and then bent and arched over the fire; the perch being formed of a straight piece of bamboo, which joins the two cups below. A hook fastened to the top of the arch enables the owner to suspend it from the thatched ceiling of his hut; and thus the parrot swings about, listening to his master's ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... in doubt and trembling. In that exposed and comfortless perch, the lifeless street on one hand, the black mystery of the neglected park on the other, he was seized and shaken by a sudden revulsion of feeling like a sickness of his very soul. Physical fear had nothing to do with this, for he was quite alone ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... home at eventide to the small but cosy cottage in that green lane, far, far away in the pleasant country; and she used to stand at the gate to watch for his coming, sometimes running half-way up the lane to meet him, and he would perch her on his shoulder, where she felt, oh! so safe, and bring her home to mother. Or she would climb his knee as he sat by the fire, and watch dear mother get the nice supper; but father was dead now. She had seen the pretty daisies growing above ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... of perches and nesting-places may be left to the reader's judgment. The goldfinches will want some slender twigs close to the roof, and a swinging perch, such as in Fig. 9, as they love to get up as high as possible, and look down contemptuously on everybody else. The canaries will like another swing (Fig. 10) suspended from a stout perch above by a small swivel and chain, and placed in the front near the wires, where ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of this kind of bird on its legs is a very important part of its—diagnosis; (we must have a fine word now and then!) Its action on the wing, is mere flutter or flirt, in and out of the hedge, or over it; but its manner of perch, or literally 'bien-seance,' is admirable matter of interest. So also in the birds which are on the water what these are on land; picking up anything anywhere; lazy and fortunate, mostly, themselves; fat, floating, daintiest darlings;—their balance on the water, also, and under ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... as trout, perch, smelts, &c.—may simply be rolled in Indian meal or flour, and fried either in the fat of salt pork, or in boiling lard or drippings. A nicer method, however, with fish, whether small or in slices, is to dip them first in flour or fine crumbs, then in beaten egg,—one egg, with two ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... the story of my escape with amazement, saying, "You fell into the hands of the Old Man of the Sea, and it is a mercy that he did not strangle you as he has everyone else upon whose shoulders he has managed to perch himself. This island is well-known as the scene of his evil deeds, and no merchant or sailor who lands upon it cares to stray far away from his comrades." After we had talked for awhile they took me back with them on board their ship, where the captain received me kindly, ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... outside many of the temples old women and children earn a livelihood by selling sparrows, small eels, carp, and tortoises, which the worshipper sets free in honour of the deity, within whose territory cocks and hens and doves, tame and unharmed, perch on every jutty, frieze, buttress, and ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... no little coaxing on the part of both Toby and Mrs. Treat to induce Mr. Stubbs to come down from his lofty perch; but the task was accomplished at last, and by the gift of a very large doughnut he was induced to resume his seat ...
— Toby Tyler • James Otis
... the camp. The boys lived in little wooden lodges called Senior and Junior Lodges, the younger ones on one side of the camp and the older ones on the other. They were divided into three classes according to their swimming ability, namely, minnows, perch and salmon, and the different groups ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... once, to their horror, she seemed to slip and fall. Down she came from her perch, struck the water with a splash ...
— The Rival Campers Ashore - The Mystery of the Mill • Ruel Perley Smith
... sent me three squirrels during the winter. The dearest one of all had been injured and lived only a few days. The flying squirrel is the least interesting and seems stupid. It will lie around and sleep during the entire day, but at dark will manage to get on some high perch and flop down on your shoulder or head when you least expect it and least desire it, too. The little uncanny thing cannot fly, really, but the webs enable it to take tremendous leaps. I expect that ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... held on the same course until abreast of the perch, which was only a forked stick. The men came aft and hauled in the mizzen sheer. Chambers put up the helm. The mizzen came across with a jerk, and the sheet was again allowed to run out. The jib came over with a report like ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... the Salters to spend the night. Sister Salter was the woman who had received the blessing. Brother Salter was not a brother at all—he was still in the world, a little, twopenny man with a thin black beard, sad black eyes and a perch mouth. But he was not proud of his godless state, especially as it compared with his wife's radiant experience; he was literally an humble sinner and showed it. We took our places behind them in ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... found some eggs. True, they were only water-hen's eggs, and not so large as the duck's eggs, but then she must not be too particular. And she was just as lucky with her fishing. With a red worm on the end of her line, she managed to catch a fine perch, which was quite sufficient to satisfy hers and Rosalie's appetite. Yet, however, she wanted a dessert, and some gooseberries growing under a weeping willow furnished it. True, they were not quite ripe, but the merit of this fruit is that ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... proceed from the action of the air, as the bird dives swiftly through it with open mouth; but this supposition is rendered improbable by the fact that the European species makes a similar sound while sitting on its perch. It has also been alleged that the diving motion of this bird is an act designed to intimidate those who seem to be approaching his nest; but this cannot be true, because the bird performs the manoeuvre when he has no nest to defend. This habit is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... to the belief in omens, and the casual occurrence of certain contingent circumstances soon creates the easiest of theories. Should a bird of good omen, in ancient times, perch on the standard, or hover about an army, the omen was of good import, and favourable to conquest. Should a raven or crow accidentally fly over the field of action, the spirits of the combatants would be proportionably depressed. Should a planet be shining ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume XII. F, No. 325, August 2, 1828. • Various
... until she had finished. Then he helped her down from her perch, and made a way for her through the crowd. She looked at him in astonishment. "Thank you, Sir,—don't trouble! Last night I was pelted with filth. ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to catch a few of the perch and gudgeons, which Leonora had attracted by carefully ...
— HE • Andrew Lang
... fixed tranquillity. The rivulet Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o'er its bed Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks, Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice In its own being. Softly tread the marge, Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren That dips her bill in water. The cool wind, That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee. Like one that loves thee nor will let thee pass Ungreeted, and shall ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... the ladder, and sighed in helpless resignation. She had not yet descended from her perch, so that her face was almost on a level with Hector's own. The hazel eyes had lost their mocking gleam, and the peaked brows were furrowed with distress; it was a very forlorn and disconsolate but withal charming little Peggy who faltered out her ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... with eagerness to those frequent trips with his father "to the place where Mother dear went to heaven." From his perch on his father's shoulders he could look vast distances into the underbrush and catch glimpses of the wild life therein; when the last nut had been distributed to the squirrels in the clearing, he would follow a flash of blue that was a jay high up among the evergreen branches, or a flash of red ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... he is an ancient bird, who tried his pipe in better days, and then was scared by random shots, he is fain to lift the migrant wing once more towards the humble perch, among the trees he loves. All gardeners own that he does no harm, unless he flits into a thicket of young buds, or a very choice ladies' seed-bed. And he hopes that he is now too wise to ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... sea-grouch." For hours afterward the sulky Jew would speak to no one nor acknowledge speech from any one. Vainly striving to paint, he would suddenly burst into violent rage, tear up his attempt, stamp it into the deck, then get out his large- calibred automatic rifle, perch himself on the forecastle-head, and try to shoot any stray porpoise, albacore, or dolphin. It seemed to give him great relief to send a bullet home into the body of some surging, gorgeous-hued fish, arrest its ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London
... Berwick, who was an excellent swimmer, had a plan of his own, for he was not bewildered or frightened and he had noted one or two things even as the wave caught him. He would not catch the rope flung to him because of the chance of dragging Jim off his perch in spite of the latter's great strength, and then, too, he was liable to be hurled against the cliff and be badly injured, so he let the wave carry him back, exerting himself so as to be brought nearer the beach on the return. Being a splendid swimmer, as has ...
— Frontier Boys in Frisco • Wyn Roosevelt
... went to-day. They made a kind of drag with small willows and bark, and swept the creek: the first company brought three hundred and eighteen, the second upwards of eight hundred, consisting of pike, bass, fish resembling salmon, trout, redhorse, buffaloe, one rockfish, one flatback, perch, catfish, a small species of perch called, on the Ohio, silverfish, a shrimp of the same size, shape and flavour of those about Neworleans, and the lower part of the Mississippi. We also found very fat muscles; and on the river as well ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... to me, or I will jump from my perch here to yours; and be careful how you set me at defiance, for a branch of this chestnut-tree causes me a good deal of annoyance, and may provoke me to extreme measures. Do not follow the example of this branch, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... rocky pasture-land that fell rapidly down to the stately chestnuts, to the orchard, to the cornfields in the narrow valley, and the maples on the bank of the amber river, whose loud, unceasing murmur came to the lad on his aerial perch like the voice of some tradition of nature ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the hut, perhaps to fetch the lamp, when suddenly the skies behind were illumined in a blaze of light, a broad slow blaze that endured for several seconds. By it the eyes of Rachel, made quick with madness, saw many things. From her perch on the top of the hut she saw the town of Mafooti. On the plain to the west she saw a number of black dots, which she took to be people and cattle travelling away from the town. In the nek to the east she saw more dots, each of them crested with white, and carrying something white. Surely ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... moment, when but a touch is necessary to destroy the unconscious traveller—a sudden rush is heard above the robber. Great wings sweep away, with sudden clatter, and the dismal hootings of an owl, scared from his perch on a low shrub-tree, startles the cold-blooded murderer from his propriety. With the nervous excitement of his mind, and his whole nature keenly interested in the deed, to break suddenly the awful silence, the brooding hush of the forest, with unexpected ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... with their feet, otherwise they would be liable to continual falls, and they are able to do this by means of their long finger-like toes and large opposable thumbs, which grasp a branch almost as securely as a bird grasps its perch. The true hands, on the contrary, are used chiefly to climb with, and to swing the whole weight of the body from one branch or one tree to another, and for this purpose the fingers are very long and strong, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... barely cleared, each time, by the skin of his teeth. He got me so nervous that I couldn't look at the view. I couldn't look at anything but him. Every time he went sailing over one of those abysses my breath stood still, and when he grabbed for the perch he was going for, I grabbed too, in sympathy. And he was perfectly indifferent, perfectly unconcerned, and I did all the panting myself. He came within an ace of losing his life a dozen times, and I was so troubled ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... You bet! 'Twas screwmatics and liver, old Pill-box declared. Knocked me slap orf my perch, fair 'eels uppards. I tell you I felt a bit scared, And it left me a yaller-skinned skelinton, weak, and, wot's wus, stoney-broke. If it hadn't a bin for my nunky, your pal might have ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, Sep. 24, 1892 • Various
... on her tired brain like the coming of darkness, and she fell into sleep—the first rest that had visited her since she learnt of Charles's arrest. But her slumber was disturbed by dreams. She dreamt that she was back in Cornwall, sitting on her old perch at the foot of the cliffs, looking at the Moon Rock. The face in the Rock was watching her, as it had always watched her, but this time with a dreadful sneer which she had never seen before. It frightened her so that she moaned and tossed ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... the beam With deadly fangs in sheath; the shrike let pass The nestling finch; the emerald halcyons Sate dreaming while the fishes played beneath, Nor hawked the merops, though the butterflies— Crimson and blue and amber-flitted thick Around his perch; the Spirit of our Lord Lay potent upon man and bird and beast, Even while he mused under that Bodhi-tree, Glorified with the Conquest gained for all And lightened by ...
— The Light of Asia • Sir Edwin Arnold
... returns and denounces his rival. He is bitten by suppositious dogs cunningly simulated by stage carpenters, who remark "bow wow" from behind the scenes. He is cut by ROSE MANDRAKE, and also by rows of broken bottles, which line the top of the wall on which he makes a perilous perch, not having a pole or rod with which to defend himself against the dogs. He is challenged by Fox and seconded by Miss BLANCHE BE BAR in naval uniform. Finally he takes refuge in the china closet, and hurls cheap plates and saucers at his foes. With ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, Issue 10 • Various
... to get off to Paris, where the old Finch has dropped off his perch at last. That was all I wanted of him, and it was time to wring him dry and have done with him. He will go off in consumption before the ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The perch or coupling-pole should be shifting or movable, as, in the event of the loss of a wheel, an axle, or other accident rendering it necessary to abandon the wagon, a temporary cart may be constructed out of the remaining portion. The tires should be examined ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... to-night," she whispered to Laura, across Cornet Perch's shell-jacket, as Pen was performing cavalier seul before them, drawling through that figure with a thumb in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of foam, stood up, slipped the coil over his head, and unwound it, glancing to right and left. Now Jim amid ordinary events was an acknowledged fool, and had a wife to remind him of it; but perch him out of female criticism, on a dizzy foothold such as this, and set him a desperate job, and you clarified his wits at once. This eccentricity was so notorious that the two men above ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... good. When she is naughty the case is exactly reversed. This baby's proper name is Lullitha, which means Playfulness, and illustrates a side of her character undiscovered by the visitor who only sees the Owlet sitting on her perch with serious, watchful, unblinking eyes, regarding the intruder. But most babies are complex characters, and are not ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... passion for fishing, which he usually indulged whenever the season and business permitted. One day, when reports had been coming in relating to the bass and perch, he announced his intention of making a two or three days' visit to the lakes. He was going down, he said, to Reedy Lake with Judge Archinard, an ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... be better imagined than described. The poor ox, apparently, had no idea of giving up the ghost quite yet. He was in good health and spirits, and showed signs of being pleased to see a white man again. The little birds of the prairies had used him as a perch. This office he appeared quite accustomed to perform, for he did not disturb the flock that was then occupying his back. How he had escaped the wolves is ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... in the furniture and curtains, and nowhere any sign of luxury or even of a cultivated taste, unless the cheap classics in the book-case were a sign of an effort in that direction. The only object that threw any light upon the character of the room's owner was a large perch, placed in the window to catch the air and sun, upon which a tame and, apparently, decrepit rook hopped dryly from side to side. The bird, encouraged by a scratch behind the ear, settled upon Denham's shoulder. He lit his gas-fire and settled down in gloomy patience to await his dinner. After ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... Run. For aught that I knew, some concealed observer might now be watching me from the pine-tops on the nearest knoll. Some rifleman might be running his practised eye down the deadly groove, to topple me from my perch, and send me crashing through the boughs. The uncertainty, the hazard, the novelty of my position had at this time an indescribable charm: but subsequent exposures dissipated the romance and taught me the ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... Branling had suggested his staying outside, and he would undertake to bring people to look at him: but Dawson, for some unaccountable reason, was usually suspicious of advice from that quarter; so he "stooped to conquer" and lost all. The shako tumbled from its precarious perch, and hung ignobly suspended by the cap-lines. A lancer with a pair of grey spectacles, and a shako hanging round his neck, would have been a very fancy dress indeed: so he was endeavouring, at the risk of choking himself, to disentangle, by main ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... and they could tell all sorts of queer stories, if they chose to speak — but they are very silent, carps are — of their nature peu communicatives. Oh! what has been thy long life, old goody, but a dole of bread and water and a perch on a cage; a dreary swim round and round a Lethe of a pond? What are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldy ones, and do they know it is a grandchild of England who brings bread to ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... failed of its proper mark; but found another in the green parrot, who was dangling, head downward, from his perch; and there was an angry squawk from the ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... Dick told me; while he hauled and hauled away, and soon brought to the surface a fish shaped something like a perch, but apparently of sixty or seventy pounds weight. It was indeed, I saw, a species of sea-perch, from the large ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... him, would be revealed. Jean's mouth was already open to speak. He waved her aside. She adhered to her post. He shouted to the postilion, and the huge, lumbering vehicle was set in motion. At the first turn of the wheels, Jean slipped from her perch, her dress caught in the spokes, and she was crushed ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... imagination, greatly attracted me. Just such a village was right on the other side of our garden wall, but it was forbidden to us. We had come out, but not into freedom. We had been in a cage, and were now on a perch, but the chain ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... the flowers fade, thither it will return, and grow and grow, please Heaven, until next summer it rejoices me again; and so, year by year, till the wood rots. Then carefully I shall transfer it to a larger perch and resume. Probably I shall sever the bulbs without disturbing them, and in seasons following two spikes will push—then three, then a number, multiplying and multiplying when my remotest posterity is extinct. That is, so Nature orders it; ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... the cup that belies its reputation and dances drunkenly whenever another guest joggles our elbow,—which happens so often that we suspect conspiracy,—the old-fashioned saucer affords no reasonably secure perch for a sandwich; responds with delight to the law of gravitation if left to itself; and sets us wishing, those of us who think scientifically, that evolution had refrained from doing away with an extension by which alone we could now hope to manage it. We mean a tail! ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... crabs, cray-fish, dabs, dace, eels, flounders, haddocks, herrings, lampreys, ling, lobsters, mussels, oysters, perch, pike, plaice, prawns, salmon-trout, shrimps, skate, smelts, soles, sprats, sturgeon, tench, thornback, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... boy upon the rock now. Two Arrows darted down from his perch, slipping, sliding the instant the bear followed One-eye. He had waited up there for hour after hour, looking down at his half disabled enemy, and he was tired of it. He had seen that the strength of the bear was failing and that he bled freely, and was not far behind him ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... BIRD IS NOT ELECTROCUTED WHEN IT SITS ON A LIVE WIRE. If a man accidentally touches a live wire that carries a strong current of electricity he is electrocuted; yet birds perch on such a wire in perfect safety. If a man should leap into the air and grasp a live wire, hanging from it without touching the ground, he would be no more hurt by it than a bird is. A person who is electrocuted by touching such ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... water, has been beaconed and lighted. The gales and floods experienced during January and February did very great damage; and the outlay in replacing lost buoys, and repairing and replacing beacons, has been considerable. A perch buoy has been moored at the northern entrance to Great Sandy Strait, in place of the floating beacon which was sunk on the night of the 10th May last. The work of raising this vessel was commenced, but had to be abandoned in consequence of heavy weather coming on and ultimately ...
— Report on the Department of Ports and Harbours for the Year 1890-1891 • Department of Ports and Harbours
... such place as the Quadrant, or Opera Colonnade; and Sir Walter Scott celebrating the Field of Waterloo, not in the broad-margined octavos of Paternoster-row, but about the purlieus of the Horse Guards. Wordsworth would be his own Skylark. The laureate, Southey, would perch himself on the dome of the New Palace. Campbell would step out of New Burlingtonstreet into the Park; Miss Mitford would keep a Covent-Garden audience awake with her own tragedies, and Planche would no longer entrust his rhymes to Paton or Vestris. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... time, and volunteer work; besides, she was waiting for you, and I could not help doing this.' She held out a hand, which was scarcely needed, and Mary sprang lightly to share her perch ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... dived, but Hilda could not be coaxed off her perch till the others were ready to go in. So, altogether, the first bath was not a great success, and Hilda almost made up her mind that she would never try it again, for it was, by no means, such fun as it ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... honey-dropping flowers, Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... leaped down from her high perch, and was now taking a drink from a little sparkling mountain rill which flowed ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... drum more promiscuously than does downy. He utters his long, loud spring call, whick—whick—whick—whick, and then begins to rap with his beak upon his perch before the last note has reached your ear. I have seen him drum sitting upon the ridge of the barn. The log-cock, or pileated woodpecker, the largest and wildest of our Northern species, I have never heard drum. His blows ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... would as soon attempt to entice a star To perch upon my finger; or the wind To follow me like a dog—as try to make Some people do what ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... ago it had seemed to beckon. Now she depended on it the white folds eluded her hand. If the wind dropped, she was lost. She couldn't help thinking of all the things she wished not to think of. She thought of that immense depth below her narrow perch. She didn't believe the man or woman lived strong-minded enough ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... good, for at that moment Nelson opened furiously on the quarter-master at the conn. 'I'll knock you off your perch, you rascal, if you are so inattentive.—Sir Ed'ard, send your best quarter-master to the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... buggy stopped just back of him, and he was conscious from the shadows on the snow that the driver was looking down from his perch. ...
— Van Bibber and Others • Richard Harding Davis
... the rustle of the maple-leaves, I see their breathing branches rise and fall, And hear, from their high perch along the eaves, The bright-necked ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... this noise and bustle came Miss Easton and Jack. The groom scrambled down from his perch, and the two got out. In an instant she was surrounded by three or four men, all talking at the same time and upon the same subject: "Was not the day superb?" "Did she know which way the hounds were to run?" "Was she going to ride Midnight?" "What a beauty ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... successful in securing the money, rose to the surface and clambered into the boats holding the coins in their mouths. One youth more daring than the others mounted to the upper deck of our steamer and offered, if a shilling instead of a penny was thrown into the water, to plunge from his high perch to the sea fifty feet below and get the silver. And he won much applause by successfully accomplishing ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... himself lov'd the damsel to court, On her shoulder first perch'd with endearment and joy; With his beak he then snapt it's strong silken support, And bore from ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... time, it seemed to the curious without, and to the agitated, nervous witnesses peering through the unchinked logs of the wall, they sat on their comfortless perch, half crouching forward, and chewed, and discussed the testimony. There were frequent intervals of silence, and in one of these Con Hite was disturbed to see the sketch of the "witch-face" once more passed from ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... sighing of the autumn leaves, and the cooing of the sleepy doves; while the ice-bird, as the Germans call the water-ouzel, sat on a rock in the river below, and warbled his low sweet song, and then flitted up the grassy reach to perch and sing again ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... more doth search But on the next green bough to perch, Where, when he first does lure, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... painful. He had his reward in the look of dumb gratitude Rupert gave him when a roomy carriage had been secured, and they were all packed in as tight as sardines in a tin, with Don and Billykins sharing the driver's perch, and making shrill ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... after the half-hour of exercise, and sitting on the uncomfortable wooden seat without a back that was her perch by day, "it's no good staying here in a sort of maze. I've got nothing to do for a month but think. I may as well think. I ought to be able to think ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... perch in the hen-house, he would waken and crow before the break of day. Then he would go out in front of the hen-house and crow three ...
— Bobby of Cloverfield Farm • Helen Fuller Orton
... whatever was to come. But while it was still calm and light I had the mast stepped, and sent the sailmaker aloft to take a good, comprehensive look round and see whether he could discover any sign of a sail; and no sooner had he, with much pain and tribulation, climbed to the top of his precarious perch than he sang out that he could just see, in the northern board, what looked like the heads of a ship's royals. Of course he could not tell in which direction she was bound, for, like ourselves, she was becalmed, and slowly "boxing the compass," that is ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... both ends. The whole, as is often the case, was painted a dull red. This torii, or "birds' rest," is said to be so called because the fowls, which were formerly offered but not sacrificed, were accustomed to perch upon it. A straw rope, with straw tassels and strips of paper hanging from it, the special emblem of Shinto, hung across the gateway. In the paved court there were several handsome granite lanterns on fine granite pedestals, ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... left his insecure perch and headed up over that razor-back ridge whence the young geologist ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... his heart was continually clamoring at what he considered the intolerable slowness of the generals. They seemed content to perch tranquilly on the river bank, and leave him bowed down by the weight of a great problem. He wanted it settled forthwith. He could not long bear such a load, he said. Sometimes his anger at the commanders reached an acute stage, and he grumbled about the camp ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... white cage, hung the canary, which hopped from one perch to the other, all day long, without ever singing. On the window-seat, behind the little curtains, blossomed tall geraniums and phlox, which, through the mesh of the muslin curtains, sent a blissful fragrance ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... occupied by the watchers of the ford. There they lived, no man knows how long, on their perch over the waters of Clyde. They dwelt at top of a stone structure some eight feet above low water mark, for they could not live on the ground floor, of which the walls, fifty feet thick at the base, defied the waves of the high tides driven by ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang
... in the service of the church, with its or^an and choir effects, for here his true vocation asserted itself. He was wont, too, to hide in the belfry, and revel in the roaring orchestra of metal, when the chimes were rung. On one occasion a stroke of lightning precipitated him from his dangerous perch to the floor below, and the history of music nearly lost one of its great lights. The bias of his nature was intractable, and he was at last permitted to study music, at first under the charge of his uncle Joseph, the cure of Jesi, and ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... attention, I suffered her to remain. Encouraged by this concession, she gradually came to move the stool on which she sat nearer and nearer to my table, until after gaining a little every day during some weeks, she at last worked her way right up to me, and used to perch herself beside me whenever I worked. In this position she used, still without ever obtruding her presence in any way, to make herself very useful by holding my pens, test-tubes, or bottles, and handing ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... climbed to the tower of the Old North Church By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, To the belfry-chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Masses and moving shapes of shade,— By the trembling ladder, steep and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the town, And ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... Farnham have not yet frightened them all away. Coot and moorhens paddle in and out of the reeds, and great grebes float leisurely about its surface. It has always been famous for its fishing. In Aubrey's time it was "well known for its carps to the London fishmongers," and to-day it holds pike, perch and tench. I heard of no carp. ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... bidding me sit on the wreck of a cane-bottomed chair, gave me my first lesson in Greek Mythology. He talked for nearly an hour, and I, ragged urchin of the London streets, my wits sharpened by hunger and ill-usage, sat spell-bound on my comfortless perch, while he unfolded the tale of Gods and Goddesses, and unveiled Olympus before my ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... never object, when trolling, to come across a pike: and no wonder, for a pike of 10 lb. and upwards gives some fair play, though by no means to compare with what a fish of the salmo tribe of that weight would give. Then we have perch in abundance, and splendid eels; but as these need a float and bait to catch them, we dismiss them as quite infra dig. True a perch will come at a minnow, and we have sometimes seen them take a fly; but they are generally voted a ...
— Scotch Loch-Fishing • AKA Black Palmer, William Senior
... birds, like sparrows, and perch on the roofs or chimneys—there are generally some on the roof of the Eglise Reformee Francaise, a church situated in a much-frequented part. It is amusing to see a black rook perched on a red tile chimney, with the smoke coming up around him, and ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... roses protected her slumbers. She slept and dreamed. She saw the blue bird flying toward the castle of his love. He looked as beautiful as a star, but she did not expect for a moment to see him perch on her shoulder. She knew she was not a princess, and couldn't expect visits from a prince changed into a bird the color of deep sky. However, she told herself that all birds are not princes, that the birds in the village are villagers and among them may well enough have been some ...
— Our Children - Scenes from the Country and the Town • Anatole France
... on a branch of a tree, seemingly too much alarmed at his perilous position to molest the half-dozen deer that crowded timidly together right underneath his perch. Up above him the smaller branches were stocked with monkeys, who looked very disconsolate at their enforced imprisonment. As we swept past, the tiger raised his head, gave a deep growl and showed his teeth, then crouched down again as if fully aware of ...
— True Stories of Wonderful Deeds - Pictures and Stories for Little Folk • Anonymous
... days he had always walked beside his horses. Now that he had grown old and gray, he was very often glad to perch on the seat and doze there. But just when a short dream had helped him to forget the bitter change in his life, another of those monsters would roar behind him its spiteful, deep "too-oot, too-oot." Then it behooved him to jump ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... this beery intruder of his grievous error in taking Professor Thunder' celebrated Missing Link, Mahdi, from the tangled jungles of Darkest Africa, for a cheap fake. Nickie sprang to the perch with great agility, caught it with one hand, slowly drew up a leg, hooked a hind claw to the bar and hung so, ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... by much so well as Clun used to do; nor another Hart's, which was Cassio's; nor, indeed, Burt doing the Moor's so well as I once thought he did. Thence home, and just at Holborn Conduit the bolt broke, that holds the fore-wheels to the perch, and so the horses went away with them, and left the coachman and us; but being near our coachmaker's, and we staying in a little ironmonger's shop, we were presently supplied with another, and so home, and there to ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... except some rude ballad that told of Charlemagne or Rollo. The sports that had pleased the leisure of his earlier youth were tedious and flat to one snatched from so mighty a career. His hound lay idle at his feet, his falcon took holiday on the perch, his jester was banished to the page's table. Behold the repose of this great unlettered spirit! But while his mind was thus debarred from its native sphere, all tended to pamper Lord Warwick's infirmity of pride. The ungrateful ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the baulks of timber that cumbered the deck of the brig on either side of the caboose. An ideal perch. The sun was setting over Australia way, in a sea that seemed like a sea of boiling gold. Some mystery of mirage caused the water to heave and tremble as ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... it makes me afeared of him, and therefore I drink the worse. What us poor girls wants is not to be jumped up all of a sudden and made honest women of; this is too much for us and throws us off our perch; what we wants is a regular friend or two, who'll just keep us from starving, and force us to be good for a bit together now and again. That's about as much as we can stand. He may have the children; he can do better for them than I can; and as for his money, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... upon the entrance of the last comers. A momentary hush was succeeded by a general buzz of conversation, the subject of which was quite easily understood. The stately dame du comptoir immediately opened her little wicket and came down from her perch to show the couple to the best seats, a courtesy rarely extended by that impersonation of restaurant dignity. The hungry women almost stopped eating to see what man was in tow of ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... she never went to the garden without calling Jack, who would give an answering "caw!" and hop gravely after her, or perch on her shoulder with all the confidence ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various
... Noury came forward, and grasped the hand of Scott, passing from him to Louis and Morris, and then doing the same with Felix, who had dropped down from his perch at the skylight. As soon as Mrs. Blossom saw him on the floor, she rushed towards him with outspread arms; but the Milesian warded off the assault, and took ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... are decided by the birds themselves. If, for instance, a dozen are entered, they all begin to sing lustily, but as they sing, one after another recognizes that it is outclassed and gets down off its perch, puts its head under its wing and will not sing any more. At last there is just one bird left singing, and it sings with enthusiasm as ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... to her. She wondered afterwards what he must have thought of her, sitting there on her perch in burning embarrassment with no word or sign of welcome. But whatever he thought, he dealt with the ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... us pray!' We have Souls to save, since Eve's slip and Adam's fall, Which tumbled all mankind into the grave, Besides fish, beasts, and birds. 'The sparrow's fall Is special providence,' though how it gave Offence, we know not; probably it perch'd Upon the tree ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... business of life went on just the same around them. The hungry bass with his piratical black fin just cutting the surface, scattered the shoals of minnows, and sadly lessened their numbers. The kingfisher scooped occasionally from his perch to return with a shining morsel, and the gray heron stalked among the pools like a duck on stilts, searching the muddy bottom for ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... his bobbing cork vaguely, then went across the track and secured the plump perch. At intervals during their conversation he caught ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... arrive at the trysting place, if such it may be termed; but he had been a close observer of the arrival of the others, nevertheless; and he accomplished that by arriving in the vicinity early in the day, and by later climbing among the boughs of one of the trees, from which perch he was enabled to watch the coming ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter |
