"Perch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fell leopard through the forest prowl, Fish prey on fish, and fowl regale on fowl; How Lybian tigers' chawdrons love assails, And warms, midst seas of ice, the melting whales; Cools the crimpt cod, fierce pangs to perch imparts, Shrinks shrivelled shrimps, but opens oysters' hearts; Then say, how all these things together tend To one great truth, prime ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... incontinently remarking: "Time alone can disclose what may be the end of this frivolity and talk!" After the flowery season of summer was gone, and the black time of winter was come, thorns took the station of the Rose, and the raven the perch of the Nightingale. The storms of autumn raged in fury, and the foliage of the grove was shed upon the ground. The cheek of the leaf was turned yellow, and the breath of the wind was chill and blasting. The gathering cloud poured down hailstones, like pearls, and flakes of snow floated like ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... up her trade. Let the Popes abandon Rome, and her churches will soon be without worshipers; her artists without employment. Her glorious monuments will perish. Science and art and sacred literature will take their flight and perch upon some more favored spot. The hundred thousand and more strangers who annually flock to Rome from different parts of the world will shake off the dust from their feet and seek more ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... must be him. When she left, dem buzzards went back to deir perch. First thing dey done was to lap up deir own puke befo' dey started on uncle Alex again. Yes sir, dat's de way turkey buzzards does. Dey pukes on folks to keep dem away, and you can't go near kaise it be's so nasty; but dem buzzards don't waste nothing. Little young buzzards looks like down till ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration
... 110. Perch Willow (Salix amygdaloides) (Almond-leaf Willow). Small to medium-sized tree. Heartwood light brown, sapwood lighter color. Wood light, soft, flexible, not strong, close-grained. Uses similiar to the preceding. ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... soon as I perceived it, I sprang to my feet, and seizing my bow, in the use of which I had become quite expert, I quickly sent an arrow through the unsuspecting animal, and it tumbled headlong from its lofty perch and fell dead at my feet. Wakometkla, who had been rather taken by surprise by the suddenness of my movements, now came up to me, and praised my skill and quickness; he then condescended to assist me in skinning and cutting up the carcass. We then packed in the skin, such portions of the ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... many a time and oft I've seen the man's great heart stare from his eyes, Just like a girl's, out at the crowing boy: And yesterday it was he perch'd him fair Upon his broad rough shoulder, like a lamb Laid on the topmost reaches of a hill, And so he bore him, all his face a-glow, When heralds came with war-notes from the king; At which he turn'd him ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... economic responsibilities, free from social cares and intrusion. Bores with sad stories of unappreciated lives and fond hopes unrealized, never broke in upon his peace. He was not pressed for time. No frivolous dame of tarnished fame sought to share with him his perilous perch. The people on a slow schedule, ten minutes late, never irritated his temper. His correspondence never ...
— The Mintage • Elbert Hubbard
... owing in a great measure to the presence of the whisky-keg, which the old warrior ever and anon took from its perch among the packs behind him, and applied to his lips, sorely, as it appeared, against the will of his companion, who seemed to remonstrate with him against a practice so unbecoming a warrior, while in the heart of a foeman's country, and not a little also against his own sense ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, "How ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... then lost himself in one of those meditative moods which ravish and elevate the soul, soothe it, and comfort it. His reverie had no doubt lasted a long time. Night fell. Whether he meant to come down from his perch, or whether he made some ill-judged movement, believing himself to be on the floor—the event did not allow of his remembering exactly the cause of his accident—he fell, his head struck a footstool, he lost consciousness and ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... power to defend his countries and subiects on that side of the sea. For whereas he was readie at the mouth of the riuer of Barbe to passe ouer into England, not long after midsummer, the French king, with Eustace king Stephans sonne, Robert erle of Perch, Henrie erle of Champaigne, and Geffrey brother to duke Henrie, hauing assembled a mightie armie, came and besieged the castell of Newmarch, and sent foorth the lord Geffrey with a strong power to win the castell of Angers. Duke Henrie aduertised hereof departing ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (4 of 12) - Stephan Earle Of Bullongne • Raphael Holinshed
... the door brought no response, however, and just as they turned to go, Gyp, the ever present Gyp, howled a bit of news from his perch on the roof of the ...
— Princess Polly's Playmates • Amy Brooks
... the meadow lark, sweet and incessant as it balanced on a rosin-weed, of the lark bunting and lark finch, poured forth melodiously; twittering blue-birds looked into the air and back to their perch atop the dead cottonwood as they gathered luckless insects; the brown thrush, which sings the night through in the bright starlight, rivaled the robin and grosbeak as Philip gazed over the blue-skyed, green-grassed land. The blue-green of the ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... they pass on to another. When they are scared away by what is called exact intelligence from the tall forest of great personalities, they contrive to live humbly clinging to such bare plain stocks and poles (Tis and Jack and Cinderella) as enable them to find a precarious perch. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... Feast of St. Theophilus, to the profit of Maitre Jacquet Coquedouille. Since that time the poor penman had never a place to call his own. But by the good help of Jean Magne the bell-ringer and with the protection of Our Lady, whose Hours he had aforetime written, Florent Guillaume found a perch o' nights in ...
— The Merrie Tales Of Jacques Tournebroche - 1909 • Anatole France
... was seeing that his cousins reached a place of comparative safety before he looked to himself. For they found the ledge, once they had scrambled up to it, well above the water, and wide enough to give shelter and a safe perch for all three. ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Camp - or The Water Fight at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... trouble that Seneca gives himself to fortify himself against death; to see him so sweat and pant to harden and encourage himself, and bustle so long upon this perch, would have lessened his reputation with me, had he not very bravely held himself at the last. His so ardent and frequent agitations discover that he was in himself impetuous ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... from Seater or Crodo, worshipped by the old Saxons. He was lean, had long hair and a long beard. In his left hand he held up a wheel, and in his right he carried a pail of water, wherein were flowers and fruits. He stood on the sharp fins of the perch, to signify that the Saxons, for serving him, should pass, without harm, in dangerous and ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... part returned to its kindred clay. He has painted, not pictures of the world, but English pictures, such as Gainsborough himself might have done; beautiful rural pieces, with trees which might well tempt the wild birds to perch upon them; thou needest not run to Rome, brother, after pictures of the world, whilst at home there are pictures of England; nor needest thou even go to London, the big city, in search of a master, for thou hast one at home in the old East Anglian ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... perch, and crowing like a rooster, is the bart. You need not look for flies on Barraclough, doctor. He's his own chauffeur this trip. I don't fancy the joy myself, but the bart. is rorty, and what would you say to ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... upon, but the rest of the background is of gold, as was the common practice at the time. The great innovator, Giotto, in some of his pictures had attempted to paint landscape backgrounds. In his fresco of St. Francis preaching to the birds there is a tree for them to perch on, but it seems more like a garden vegetable than a tree. Even his buildings look as though they might fall together any moment like a pack of cards. Hubert not only gives landscape a larger place than it ever had in any great picture before, but he paints ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... markets, its life as a whole as I saw it in 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 was ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... "You just perch on that cracker-keg, and I 'll see that you get enough," said Tom, putting a dumbwaiter before her, and issuing his orders with ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape, till custom make it Their perch, and not their terror. ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... from his perch, but his meal was not at all disturbed, for he began eating again with apparent relish. Indeed, I was soon furnished with another of these unconscious protectors. This one came from the opposite direction to a point where I had hung a splendid ham of venison. He cared to go no further, ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... sort of ladies you have ruined," said she, "but you have a pleasant manner of reparation. The scratch on my cheek smarts, but not unduly—my foot is as sound as ever it was." She helped me perch the faggot on my head, and we walked on together. This last generosity had ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... Their armies of the right and of the center were beaten and the retreat followed. The Imperial Guard left in the marshes of St. Gond more than 8,000 men and almost all its artillery. Victory henceforth began to perch on the Allied banners over ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... Aunt Kitty. There are obstacles in the way. You must be granny, and mother, and sister and wife, and all my womankind, a little longer, if you please.' And he sat down fondly at her feet, on a footstool which had been his childish perch. ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he climbed 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 somber 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 ...
— Stories of American Life and Adventure • Edward Eggleston
... cuckoo, nor The boding raven, nor chough hoar, Nor chattering pie, May on our bride-house perch or sing, Or with them any discord bring, But from ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... of use or ornament what would be a contradiction in fact. You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various
... humming smoothly; the air-renewing machine was functioning steadily; the gauge hands all slept or quivered in their usual places. Nothing uneven in the slight vibration of the ship; nothing that might possibly forbode trouble. Up on his perch, the engineer peered ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... wing'd his airy way. My pitying eyes effused a plenteous stream, To view their death thus imaged in a dream; With tender sympathy to soothe my soul, A troop of matrons, fancy-form'd, condole. But whilst with grief and rage my bosom burn'd, Sudden the tyrant of the skies returned; Perch'd on the battlements he thus began (In form an eagle, but in voice a man): 'O queen! no vulgar vision of the sky I come, prophetic of approaching joy; View in this plumy form thy victor-lord; The geese (a glutton race) by thee deplored, Portend the suitors ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... passengers, but Mr. James Gollop clung to his platform as if having no frantic longing for a seat. And at Princetown he patiently waited until the crowd thinned, and with one eye glared through blue glasses forward to make certain of the Judge's departure. He descended from his perch and looked anxiously around to meet the inquiring stare of a man who was evidently in waiting, and toward him rushed as to ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... will be built out of the ladies' admiration, and given to him to pose on," said Mr. Doremus. "However, I must say for the gentleman,—though I've only seen him dripping wet, and shaking himself like a big dog,—he didn't give me the impression of being the sort of chap to say 'thank you' for the perch." ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... constant jet of water or perpetual fountain. Another curious application of the principle furnishes us with an elaborate toy, consisting of a group of birds which alternately whistle or are silent, while an owl seated on a neighboring perch turns towards the birds when their song begins and away from them when it ends. The "singing" of the birds, it must be explained, is produced by the expulsion of air through tiny tubes passing up through their throats from a tank below. The owl is made to turn by a mechanism similar to ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... and bewilder every passer-by, they fancy they are in the upper-ten of womanhood. Vain! The peacock, whose little heart is one beating pulse of vanity, is not half so vain as they. Giddy, trifling, empty, vapid, cold, moonshine women, whose souls can perch on a plume, and whose only ambition is to be a traveling advertisement for the men and women who traffic in what they wear, are many who flaunt in satins and glitter in diamonds. How many such there are we would not ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... clutched him by the sleeve. Gabriel turned, and steadied her on her aerial perch by holding her arm. At the same moment, while he was still reversed in his attitude, there was more light, and he saw, as it were, a copy of the tall poplar tree on the hill drawn in black on the wall of the barn. It was the shadow of that tree, ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... the boy's perch; every one was silent, waiting anxiously to catch his words, as if their lives ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... live in a manner worthy of it; but one thing she was determined upon—she would not alienate her friends by climbing to the top of her money and looking down upon them. None of them knew how high she would be if she were to perch herself on the very top of that money, but even if she climbed up a little way, they might still feel that they were very small in ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... be found, and she sat down again at the open casement, intrenched behind twenty boxes of like treasure, in any one of which the thing might have hidden itself away, while her mother came up and established herself with a fan at the other window, and Paula, descending from her perch, rummaged ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... perch on this rocky wall these great birds would soar away, looking like a cloud in the sky, to seize a reindeer from a passing herd and bring it to their young. Or, again, they would circle out with a noise like thunder from their shaking wings, and ...
— A Treasury of Eskimo Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss
... Haigh, "that we might just snap the thing in two amidships, and leave the hind wheels and all the back part behind? It would ease the load by at least three hundred-weight, and I think we could all perch on the foot-board in front. I'm sure the pole would keep it right ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... flitted over us all, and passed away, and up rose a gray and sullen morning,... and we had a splendid breakfast of flapjacks, or slapjacks, and whortleberries, which I gathered on a neighboring hill, and perch, bream, and pout, which I hooked out of the river the evening before. About nine o'clock, Hillard and I set out for a walk to Walden Pond, calling by the way at Mr. Emerson's, to obtain his guidance ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... during which he had been mentally engaged in the calculations necessary, he undertook to prove the possibility of draining the lake, and "giving to plough and harrow many hundred, ay, many a thousand acres, from whilk no man could get earthly gude e'enow, unless it were a gedd,* or a dish of perch now and then." ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... late in the afternoon to take Felicia home. She would perch on the edge of the work bench and talk to Roger about the work in a voice and with an unself-conscious manner so like her small sister's that Roger, his restless mind on the problems of his work, often confused the two girls in his thoughts and answered or directed them indiscriminately. ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... leaping—only one or two I think but they make just enough noise to make one realize that there is life in the smooth water, that it is more than a splendid silver mirror for the sun which streams across it. I disturbed a solitary king-fisher as I went out to the wharf. He rose from his perch upon the rope, circled about for a minute and then settled back, on ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... "That a parrot belonging to King Henry VIII. having been kept in a room next the Thames, in his palace at Westminster, had learned to repeat many sentences from the boatmen and passengers. One day sporting on its perch, it unluckily fell into the water. The bird had no sooner discovered its situation, than it called out aloud, 'A boat, twenty pounds for a boat.' A waterman happening to be near the place where the parrot was floating, immediately ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... FROM my perch over the bay window of the library, I had heard Tom Thornton express his savage determination to crush out of me the information he wanted. Being forewarned, I was in a measure forearmed, and I did not intend to be caught ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... 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 ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... thin and light bodies, they are remarkable swimmers, and pursue and catch fish under water with ease. When alarmed they have a habit of sinking their body below water, leaving only their head and neck visible, thereby having the appearance of a water snake. They also fly well and dive from their perch into the ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... which is sounded like a long French "eu" and a French "i." These words I am told mean, "Drunk again to-day also?" the "anc'uei" being a Piedmontese patois for "ancora oggi." The bird repeated these words three or four times over, and then turned round on its perch, to all appearance terra cotta again. The effect produced upon the drunkard was such that he could never again be prevailed upon to touch wine, and ever since this chapel has been the one most resorted to by people who wish to give up ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... 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, ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... wanted to use his limbs, I put him into a large wicker bonnet-basket, having taken out the lining; it made him a large cheerful airy cage. Of course I had a perch put across it, and he had plenty of white sand and a pan of water; sometimes I set his bath on the floor of the room, and he delighted in bathing until he looked half-drowned; then what shaking of his feathers, what preening and arranging there was! And how happy and clean ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... the terrible duty-calls flashed through her mind Toni slipped down from her perch on the balustrade and made her way down to the towing path beneath. She often walked beside the river in these quiet morning hours, alone unless her dog Jock, an Airedale terrier of unimpeachable ancestry and cheerful disposition, was at hand to ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... the refuge of tempted faith. What was Hezekiah to do with the crafty missive? It was hoped that he would listen to reason, and come down from his perch. But he neither yielded nor took counsel with his servants, but, like a devout man, went into the house of the Lord, and spread the letter before the Lord. It would have gone hard with him if he had not been to the house of the Lord ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... perch hand running while Giant did not get a nibble. The small member of the club was somewhat disappointed, but suddenly there came a tug that almost pulled ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill
... get the men to take turns in watching aloft from the mizzenmast for any chance vessel. The icy gale was too much for them, and they preferred the shelter of the cabin. O'Brien, the boy, who was only fifteen, took turns with Mahoney on the freezing perch. It was the boy, at three in the afternoon, who called down that he had sighted a sail. This did bring them from the cabin, and they crowded the poop rail and weather mizzen shrouds as they watched the strange ship. But its course did not lie near, and when ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... takes a plug of tobacco from his pocket and hands it to his father. Nora slides down off her perch and disappears, ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... catfish, and perch, and trout, and seven-up, and euchre, and poker, and when the meal was over Mr. P. went out for a moonlight row upon the lake. He had to make the most of his time, for it would take him so long to get back to Nassau street, you know. He had not paddled his scow more ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... the shaggy bark, pressing his body still closer to the limb, and then shot downward straight toward Jack, who was too vigilant to be caught unprepared. Leaping backward a couple of steps, he brought his gun to his shoulder, like a flash, and fired almost at the moment the animal left his perch. There could be no miss under the circumstances, and the "painter" received his death wound, as may be said, while in mid-air. He struck the ground with a heavy thump, made a blind leap toward the youthful hunter, who recoiled several steps more, and then, after a brief ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... of his gauntlet, Tim Linkinwater struck the desk such a blow with his clenched fist, that the old blackbird tumbled off his perch with the start it gave him, and actually uttered a feeble croak, in the extremity of ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... creatures! they should have been up hours ago. That old rooster over the way has crowed himself hoarse, trying to start them all out: and he is not as smart as he might be, for I saw the first streak of dawn myself, before he was off his perch. ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... me, lady, I have taken you off your melancholy perch, Bore you upon my fist, and show'd you game, And let you fly at it.—I pray thee, kiss me.— When thou wast with thy husband, thou wast watch'd Like a tame elephant:—still you are to thank me:— Thou hadst only kisses from him and high feeding; But what delight ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... hand, with his luxurious feet raised on a holy water-pail, that lay along, and therein a cat, new kittened, sat glowing o'er her brood, and sparks for eyes. And the cart-horse cavalier had on his shoulders a round bundle, and thereon did perch a cock and crowed with zeal, poor ruffler, proud of his brave feathers as the rest, and haply with more reason, being his own. And on an ass another wife and new-born child; and one poor quean a-foot scarce ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... shore at sight of them with most erratic movements and novel commands included in their Art of Navigation. Now and then some poet or philosopher went musing by, fishing for facts or fictions, where other men catch pickerel or perch. ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... was vain and they returned without news; then holy mendicants were sent out to search and they also returned unsuccessful. Then the princess said "If you cannot find the owner of the golden hair I will hang myself!" At this a tame crow and a parrot which were chained to a perch, said "You will never be able to find the man with the golden hair; he is in the depths of the forest; if he had lived in a village you would have found him, but as it is we alone can fetch him; unfasten our chains and we will go in search of him." So the Raja ordered ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... therefore, always enhances the sensation of rude solitude with which I contemplate this wild and desolate scenery. We often see him perched upon a dead tree that stands in the water, a few rods from the shore, apparently watching our angling operations from his leafless perch, where he sings so sweetly, that the very desolation of the scene borrows a charm from his voice that renders every object delightful. This bird I believe to be ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... Lippman was seized by an officer and dragged off his perch, and choked into silence—surrounded meanwhile by a crowd of indignantly protesting citizens. It was quite clear by this time that the crowd had come to hear Samuel's speech, and was angry at being balked. There was a general shout of protest that ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... 1 and a half pence per gallon, 2 shillings 6 pence. Wardrobe: ... lights, a farthing; a halfpennyworth of candles of cotton ... Kitchen:—50 herrings, 2 and a half pence; 3 codfish, 9 and three-quarter pence; 4 stockfish... salmon, 12 pence, 3 tench, 9 pence, 1 pikerel, 12 roach and perch, half a gallon of loaches, 13 and a half pence; one large eel... One and a half quarters pimpernel, 7 and a half pence; one piece of sturgeon, 6 pence. Poultry—100 eggs, 5 pence; cheese and butter, 3 and three-quarter pence... milk, one and a quarter pence; drink, 1 penny; Saltry:—half ...
— In Convent Walls - The Story of the Despensers • Emily Sarah Holt
... from elevated genius a uniformity of greatness, and watch its degradation with malicious wonder, like him who, having followed with his eye an eagle into the clouds, should lament that she ever descended to a perch. ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... puma, as there was a large number of places for him to choose from. So one night, when everything was still and silent, and even the chattering parrots were asleep on one leg, the monkey stole down softly from his perch, and washed off the honey and the leaves, and came out from his bath in his own proper skin. On his way to breakfast he met a rabbit, and stopped for ...
— The Brown Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... interior, at all my books, looking so ornamental against the walls of my study, at all the portraits of the friends of my life of active service above the shelves, and the old sixteenth-century Buddha, which Oda Neilson sent me on my last birthday, looking so stoically down from his perch to remind me how little all these things counted. I could not help remembering at the end that my friends at Voulangis had gone—that they were at that very moment on their way to Marseilles, that almost every one else I knew on this side of the water was either at Havre waiting to ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... drapery had enabled Giles to keep her and her father in view till this time; but now he lost sight of them, and was obliged to follow by ear—no difficult matter, for on the line of their course every wood-pigeon rose from its perch with a continued clash, dashing its wings against the branches with wellnigh force enough to break every quill. By taking the track of this noise he soon ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... of the hot chills, the needle and little glass piston out of the hand-bag and with a dry little insuck of breath, pinching up little areas of flesh from her arm, bent on a good firm perch, as it were. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... 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 ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... if you please, have a mat hung across the opening. But we had not got so far as that yet on our vessel, only just got the staging fixed in fact; and I assure you a bamboo staging is but a precarious perch when in this stage of formation. I made myself a reclining couch on it in the Roman manner with my various belongings, and was exceeding comfortable until we got nearly out of the Rembwe into the Gaboon. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... of the Prophet gently through his nose, as the breeze stirred through the trees overhead, and cast chequered and changing shadows over the paved court, and the little fountains, and the nasal psalmist on his perch. On one side was the mosque, into which you could see, with its white walls and cool-matted floor, and quaint carved pulpit and ornaments, and nobody at prayers. In the middle distance rose up the noble towers ...
— Notes on a Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... fish are occasionally useful in determining the fresh-water origin of strata. Certain genera, such as carp, perch, pike, and loach (Cyprinus, Perca, Esox, and Cobitis), as also Lebias, being peculiar to fresh- water. Other genera contain some fresh-water and some marine species, as Cottus, Mugil, and Anguilla, or eel. The rest are either ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... quite out, and went across the sky, all in the time he was letting out his line. And not until the sun had gone half through the day did the weight reach the bottom. Then he hauled up the line a little way, and almost before it was still, he felt a pull. And he hauled it up, and it was a mighty sea perch. This he killed, but did not let down his line a second time, for in that way it would become evening. He cut a hole in the lower jaw of the fish, and put in a cord to carry it with. And when he took ...
— Eskimo Folktales • Unknown
... the lantern, and Jack put in an ax. They did not take much food; they could buy that of farmers or in Port William. They got a "gang," or, as they called it, a "trot-line," to lay down in the river for catfish, perch, and shovel-nose sturgeon, for there was no game-law then. Bob provided an iron pot to cook the fish in, and Jack a frying-pan and tea-kettle. Their bedding consisted of an empty tick, to be filled with straw in Judge Kane's barn, some equally empty pillow-ticks, and a pair of brown ...
— The Hoosier School-boy • Edward Eggleston
... smiling with supreme ease, lowered Peggy from her perch, and dropped into the vacant seat beside her. Daisy passed on with a smile to join the Bradlaws. Peggy remained, glued to ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... squirts of tobacco juice, and a bit of lath with which he meditatively tapped the gunwale, the meantime, with some skill, casting pebbles into the water with his bare toes. "Ax'n yer pardon, ma'm!" he said, scrambling from his perch upon W——'s appearance; and then, pushing us off, he bowed with much Southern gallantry, and hat in hand begged we would come again to ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... swears nor curses, come what may; 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, he may give it or ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... quicker. That means he gives an earlier warning. A canary will fall off his perch in four minutes when the air's only got one-fifth of one ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... which may be used for incense. The others are idlers. If they have any duties as acolytes, these are for the moment forgotten. Several are attracted by the ceremonies in the cathedral and look down from their high perch upon ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... meal was over, she ran down to the willows and read it there, then went straight to the favourite lounging-place of an old vaquero who had adored her from the days when she used to trot about the rancho holding his forefinger, or perch herself upon his shoulder and ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... size of soup-plates, large clouds of smoke came from his nostrils. He had a glass-enamelled surface, and if he was half as tall as he felt, some museum manager missed a fortune. Then the young fiends, leaving me on my slippery perch, high up near the sky, drew afar off and stood against the fence, and gave me plenty of room to fall off. But when I suddenly felt the world heave up beneath me, I uttered a wild shriek—clenched my hands in the animal's black hair and, madly flinging propriety ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence; just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced to entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be lachrymose: I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself with ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... perch'd on the throne, The poet and prince of the grove, Inviting the lingering morn, Taught the bard the sweet descant of love: And there, from the brake by the rill, When night's sober steps have retir'd, Ten thousand gay choristers thrill Sweet confusion with ...
— The Poetry of Wales • John Jenkins
... it was a friend of his; and finally the friend was produced, en costume de ville, but equally jovial,and Italian enough—a brave Lucernese, who had spent half of his life between Bellinzona and Camerlata. For ten francs this worthy man's perch behind the luggage was made mine as far as Bellinzona, and we separated with reciprocal wishes for good weather on the morrow. To-morrow is so manifestly determined to be as fine as any other 30th of September since ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... Rigdum Funnidos was in a hutch in the small garden under the cliff, Begum and two small gray kittens were in a basket under the kitchen stairs, Aga was purring under everybody's feet, Cocky was turning out the guard upon his perch—-in short, Il Lido was made as like Silverfold as circumstances would permit. Aunt Ada with Miss Vincent was sitting on the sofa in the drawing-room, with a newly-worked cosy, like a giant's fez, over the teapot, and Valetta's crewel cushion fully displayed. She was ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... necessary to convince 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 ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... the West Indies. They rest ashore at night, and therefore we never see them far at sea, not above twenty or thirty leagues, unless driven off in a storm. When they come about a ship they commonly perch in the night, and will sit still till they are taken by the seamen. They build on cliffs against the ...
— Early Australian Voyages • John Pinkerton
... the bird is in her manner. There's something tranquilly alert in her manner that's like a bird; like a bird that lingers on its perch, looking at you over its shoulder, if you come up behind. That trick of the heavily lifted, half lifted eyelids,—I wonder if it's a trick. The long lashes can't be; she can't make them curl up at the edges. Blood,—Lurella Blood. And she wants ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells
... The name of the genus being liable to this last construction, men seem to have thought that the species should follow; consequently, the regular plurals of some very common names of fishes are scarcely known at all. Hence some grammarians affirm, that salmon, mackerel, herring, perch, tench, and several others, are alike in both numbers, and ought never to be used in the plural form. I am not so fond of honouring these anomalies. Usage is here as unsettled, as it is arbitrary; and, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... oonderstan', hae's the nevey as is' t' heir th' esteate. The coochman as puts oop at th' White Hoss tellt me as theer war another nevey, a deal finer chap t' looke at nor this un, as died in a fit, all on a soodden, an' soo this here yoong un's got upo' th' perch istid.' ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... said a perch from the water under the bank. Bevis leaned over a little, and could see the bars across his back ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... said the cabman, who had descended from his perch, and was slapping his chest, for the ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it had not been easy to clip the term "automobile" down to the working stub "auto," the machine would never have run our streets. Again, the decimal system is conceded to be far ahead of the asinine "five and one-half yards make one rod, pole or perch"; the only reason why the commonsense thing does not supersede the foolish one is that the sensible measurement has the fool tag on it. Who could imagine ever going into a store and asking for seven decimetres and nine ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... and killed the impudent bear, that, being full of tender buffalo meat, was sluggish and unwary, and thus became an easy victim to the unerring rifle; when the unwilling prisoner came down from his perch in the pine, feeling sheepish enough. The last time I saw him he told me he still had the bear's hide, which he religiously preserved as a memento of his foolishness in separating himself from his rifle, a thing he has never been ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... amusement here, and shared by both sexes. What the Marne and the Morin contain in the way of booty, we hardly know; but it is certain that more cunning fish, whether perch, tench, or bream, never existed, and are not, "by hook or by crook," to be caught. Wherever we go, we find anglers sitting patiently by these lovely green banks, and certainly the mere prospect they have before ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... guessed that the boy would rather suffer any torture than admit that walking was 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 comments as ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... that morning of mid-May. The rain was over. Clouds and mists were gone, leaving an atmosphere of purest crystal. The sun floated a globe of gold in the yielding blue. Above the wilderness on a dead treetop, the perch of an eagle now flashing like a yellow weather-vane, a thrush poured the spray-like far-falling fountain of his notes over upon the bowed woods. Beneath him the dull green domes of the trees flashed as though inlaid with gems, white and rose. Under these domes the wild grapevines, ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... gliding along the curbstone came to his feet he dodged in skilfully in front of the big turning wheel, and spoke up through the little trap door almost before the man gazing supinely ahead from his perch was aware of having been boarded ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... farm-houses to picnic at a way-side pool, splashing and fluttering, with their long wings expanded like butterflies, keeping poised by a constant hovering motion, just tilting upon their feet, which scarcely touch the moist ground. You will seldom see them actually perch on anything less airy than some telegraphic wire; but, when they do alight, each will make chatter enough for a dozen, as if all the rushing hurry of the wings had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... the Zoo, taking the rickety old steamer to the Statue of Liberty, drinking afternoon tea at the Ritz, and all that sort of thing. The first three nights in town he slept in one of the little traffic-towers that perch on stilts up above Fifth Avenue. As a matter of fact, it was that one near St. Patrick's Cathedral. He had ridden up the Avenue in a taxi, intending to go to the Plaza (just for a bit of splurge after his domestic confinement). ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... we turned northwards on the road to La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, a pleasant little town on the banks of the Marne, approached by an avenue of plane trees whose dappled trunks are visible for many miles. Here we had lunch at the inn—a dish of perch caught that morning in the waters of the Marne, a delicious cream-cheese, for which La Ferte is justly famous, and a light wine of amber hue and excellent vintage. The landlord's wife waited on us with her own hands, and as she waited ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... 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
... men. From some who had made the trip I had heard wonderful stories of Nature's prodigality. There were roads made through tangled thickets by immense herds of buffaloes smashing their way five abreast. Deer were too innumerable to estimate. To perch a turkey merely required that one step a rod or two from the cabin door. Only the serious nature of my business, resulting from the very serious nature of the ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... like that on the breast, but considerably larger and longer—of a rich black, tinged with purple and bronze. It would be difficult to do justice by a verbal description to the beauty of that little gem of a bird, when, animated, it expanded its shields and stood quivering on its perch. I often thought how much more beautiful must be the appearance of numbers collected together in their native woods in the interior of New Guinea, from whence this one was brought. The feet of our little pet were yellow, and it had a black bill. We fed it on fruits, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... most uncomfortably and painfully on his elevated perch, quaking with fear of both man and reptile, not daring to come down or to sleep in his precarious position, or able to do so for the pain of his wound, and growing hour by hour weaker from the bleeding which it was impossible to ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... hostess, the visitor, whether a lady or a gentleman, looks about quietly, without hurry, for a convenient chair to sit down upon, or drop into. To sit gracefully one should not perch stiffly on the edge of a straight chair, nor sprawl at length in an easy one. The perfect position is one that is easy, but dignified. In other days, no lady of dignity ever crossed her knees, held her hands ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... warn him, or do anything except let out a horrified "Oh-h!" he had leaped lightly from his high perch and was ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... summit without difficulty, I found, as I had expected, that my lofty perch afforded a magnificent outlook over the plain in every direction. The ostriches whose movements I particularly desired to watch were now in plain view, and with the aid of my telescope I could not only distinguish the cocks from the hens, but ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... the hilt smooth and shining, and the guard embossed with a variety of elegant devices. But the part which first arrested attention and attracted the most admiration was the head, whereupon was sculptured a gigantic honey-bee, with wings expanded, as if about to fly from its perch; the eyes were sparkling diamonds, the body was composed of different colored metals, in imitation of life—and the whole so cunningly wrought, that it seemed a living bee about to mount into the air. The man rode and looked as if not anticipating, and incapable of fearing danger, carelessly ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... signs, as for instance, a post office, some telegraph wires on which birds of a thousand colors perch with an air of perpetual surprise, and—tucked away in the city's busiest maze not four hundred yards from the western wall—the office of ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... through the sleep a dream Of the Frenchman who once was my master by the side of the willowy stream; And he talked and told me tales of the war unwaged as yet, And the victory never won, and bade me never forget, While I walked on, still unhappy, by the home of the dark-striped perch. Till at last, with a flash of light and a rattle and side-long lurch, I woke up dazed and witless, till my sorrow awoke again, And the grey of the morn was upon us as we sped through the poplar plain, ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... was determined to wait no longer. He would go to the Abbey at once, and ascertain the cause of Margaret's delay. He rang the bell, went into the park, and ran along the avenue to the perch. Lights were shining in Mr. Dunbar's windows, but the great ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... she realized. The throng hung breathless upon each move of the players, while there was no sound but the noise of shifting chips and the distant jangle of the orchestra. The lookout sat far forward upon his perch, his hands upon his knees, his eyes frozen to the board, a dead cigar clenched between his teeth. Crowded upon his platform were miners tense and motionless as statues. When a man spoke or coughed, a score of eyes stared at him accusingly, ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... under some classy mistake," he dryly signified. "I was inviting myself to go with you. As for Rose, he and I won't perch on the same branch unless we get lynched together for horse stealing—and you know how I don't love ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... others? Mrs. Tiralla hastily stuck her head into the hen-house. There they were, all sitting on the perch; not one of them was missing, not ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... bag George threw a few nuts to the chipmunk. But the little fellow was not as tame as some squirrels to be seen in the city parks, for they will perch on your shoulder and eat nuts from your hand. The chipmunk, however, made a loud, chattering noise, with a sort of whistle in between and scampered up a tree like ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... cajoling words and chuckles, shied still nearer the opposite hedge, her ears cocked nervously erect. Seen nearer at hand, and out of the direct dazzle of sunlight, the cage looked innocent enough with its grey inmate swinging solemnly to and fro on its perch, but as the cart swung rapidly past, Mistress Poll evidently felt that it was time to assert herself, and opened her mouth to emit a shrill, raucous cry, at the sound of which the mare bounded forward in a ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the one hand being pushed up the mountain-side, and, on the other hand, being thrust into the sea. Some of the smaller cottages and a few villas seem to have been beaten in this struggle for standing-room, for they appear to have been obliged to clamber up the mountain-side, and perch themselves on spots where there does not seem to be standing-room for a goat. From such elevated positions they look down complacently on their ...
— Chasing the Sun • R.M. Ballantyne
... not know, madam," answered Mistress Margaret; "but, of all birds in the air, I would rather be the lark, that sings while he is drifting down the summer breeze, than the weathercock that sticks fast yonder upon his iron perch, and just moves so much as to discharge his duty, and tell us ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... but there are probably few more pleasing; and this effect of delicacy and grace is at its best towards the close of a quiet afternoon, when the densely decorated towers, rising above the little Place de l'Archeveche, lift their curious lanterns into the slanting light and offer a multitudinous perch to troops of circling pigeons. The whole front, at such a time, has an appearance of great richness, although the niches which surround the three high doors (with recesses deep enough for several circles of sculpture) and indent the four great buttresses that ascend ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... has spent angling in it,—you would not know whether to laugh or cry. The first day he was brought down to the place, he wanted to go out and try once more, he said, for his old deluding demon,—a one-eyed perch." ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cleaned perch into a saucepan with two chopped carrots, a sprig of parsley, a celery root, a sliced onion and a pinch of salt. Cover with white wine and simmer for twenty minutes. Drain and keep warm. Take out the onion, parsley ...
— How to Cook Fish • Olive Green
... the top, going down into the villages. There's no fun inside," said Imogen complacently, settling herself upon her perch. ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... its kindred clay. He has painted, not pictures of the world, but English pictures, such as Gainsborough himself might have done; beautiful rural pieces, with trees which might well tempt the wild birds to perch upon them: thou needest not run to Rome, brother, where lives the old Mariolater, after pictures of the world, whilst at home there are pictures of England; nor needest thou even go to London, the big city, in ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow |
