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Quail   Listen
verb
Quail  v. t.  To cause to fail in spirit or power; to quell; to crush; to subdue. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Quail" Quotes from Famous Books



... butterflies hover on great curved wings over the jungle edge; all day long the cock-quail whistles from wall and hedge, and the crestless jays, sapphire winged, flit across the dunes. Red-bellied woodpeckers gossip in live-oak, sweet-gum, and ancient palm; gray squirrels chatter from pine to bitter-nut; the iridescent little ground-doves, mated for ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... had reached the bed of the canyon lie called a halt and bade her light a fire and cook him the quail. She gathered ironwood and catclaw while he watched her vigilantly. Together they roasted the birds by holding them over the fire with sharpened sticks thrust through the wings. He devoured them with the ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine

... he had delighted the good housewife with four nice quail, or as they were known in this section, "pa'tridge," which he had dropped out of a bevy that got up before him in the brush close to the woods where ...
— Darry the Life Saver - The Heroes of the Coast • Frank V. Webster

... the nursery again,' with all its complicated machinery, when the sole hope has got over its teething torments, can walk, feed itself, and generally be companionable, is a prospect before which modern mothers seem to quail. The remedy is to multiply the number of hopes before the nursery has time to be outgrown by Hope No. 1, in fact to keep the nursery going a good many years longer than is nowadays fashionable—though by no means for the unlimited period ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby

... eastern culture pale My cloistered flesh began to fail; They bore me where the deserts quail To winds from ...
— Songs of the Cattle Trail and Cow Camp • Various

... truth. The Boston newspapers gave insertion to a fictitious narrative of a defeat of a body of soldiers by the people of New York, and to a series of fictions which represented the English troops as a set of poltroons who would quail before the sons of liberty. While these reflections were fresh in the minds of the soldiers, one of them was involved in a quarrel, and was beaten by several Bostonians, who were rope-makers belonging to the establishment of Mr. John Gray. Incensed at the ill-treatment he had received, twelve of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... into his. Harry's anger was always conquered by one word of kindness. "Where did you get all your flowers?" asked the children. "I will show you," replied Harry, "if you will follow me." They all shouted, "Let's go, let's go; show us the way, Harry;" and off they set. Harry ran like a quail through bush and brier, and over rocks and stone walls, till he came to a hill covered with a wood. "On the other side of this hill," said he, "we shall find them." In a very few minutes the children ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen

... reason, we find that Fowls always make their Nests upon the Ground, while Birds, for the most part, build their Nests aloft; so then our common Poultry are Fowls, the Pheasant, Partridge, Peacock, Turkey, Bustard, Quail, Lapwing, Duck, and such like are all Fowls: But a Pigeon is a Bird, and a Stork, or Crane, and a Heron, are Birds, they build their Nests aloft, and carry Meat ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley

... recent short but exceedingly arduous campaign, and with my own eyes witnessed your indomitable pluck and resource, I would not advise it; for to undertake and succeed in what I am going to suggest a man must possess courage that will quail at nothing, infinite resource, the ability to decide and act with lightning promptitude in the face of any emergency, a profound knowledge of the ways of the natives, and, lastly, the thews and sinews of ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood

... gnats," with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable. His eye is to take in fish, flower, and bird, quadruped and biped. Science is always brave, for to know, is to know good; doubt and danger quail before her eye. What the coward overlooks in his hurry, she calmly scrutinizes, breaking ground like a pioneer for the array of arts that follow in her train. But cowardice is unscientific; for there cannot be a science of ignorance. There may be a science of bravery, for that advances; but a ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... me, too. The shooting in our district is poor, however, as I had set up a dog, I got a gun, too. I took to sauntering round the neighbourhood with my Tresor: sometimes one would hit a hare (and didn't he go after that hare, upon my soul), sometimes a quail, or a duck. But the great thing was that Tresor was never a step away from me. Where I went, he went; I even took him to the bath with me, I did really! One lady actually tried to get me turned out of her drawing-room on account of Tresor, ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... their fear or surprise, the first thing which they do is to shake out their feathers. The best instances of this adpression of the feathers and apparent shrinking of the body from fear, which Mr. Weir has noticed, has been in the quail and grass-parrakeet.[15] The habit is intelligible in these birds from their being accustomed, when in danger, either to squat on the ground or to sit motionless on a branch, so as to escape detection. Though, with birds, anger may be the chief and ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... upon me, from which I could no longer get free. I felt that a catastrophe was approaching before which the boldest spirit must quail. A dim, vague notion laid hold of my mind, but which was fast hardening into certainty. I tried to repel it, but it would return. I dared not express it in plain terms. Yet a few involuntary observations confirmed me in my view. By the flickering light of the ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... Carnaby did quail a matter at these words about the judgment-seat and the broad eye, aptly and gravely delivered by him moreover who hath to administer truth and righteousness in our ancient and venerable laws, and especially, at the present juncture, in those against park-breaking and deer-stealing. But finally, ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor

... most sensible persons, that the proposed arrangement would not have been an improvement. I find, however, in the preface to the third volume on birds that M. Gueneau de Montbeillard described all the birds from the ostrich to the quail, so the foregoing passage is perhaps his and not Buffon's. If so, the imitation is fair, but when we reflect upon it we feel uncertain whether it is or ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... that menaced them. Mr. Duncan saw his wife and children gain the Sand Hills in safety, and then the smoke and half consumed grass filled the air, hiding the rescued from view as the burning wave swept toward them, maddening the oxen and making the stout hearts of the pioneers quail, as the burning fragments eddying through the air, fell thick and fast among them. Prairie dogs, in droves went howling past, wolves and panthers laying their bodies close to the ground in their rapid leaps, heeded ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle

... puts up that nursin' game with Peets, an' day an' night she hangs over her apoplectic father-in-law like a painter over a picture. She's certainly as cunnin' as a pet fox! She dresses as quiet as a quail an' makes her voice as softly sober as a suckin' dove's. In the end she's ...
— Faro Nell and Her Friends - Wolfville Stories • Alfred Henry Lewis

... intercessor; wherefore, he sends to Joab to go to the king and make intercession for him. (2 Sam 13, 14:32,33) Also, Joab durst not go upon that errand himself, but by the mediation of another. Sin is a fearful thing, it will quash and quail the courage of a man, and make him afraid to approach the presence of him whom he has offended, though the offended is but a man. How much more, then, shall it discourage a man, when once loaden with guilt and shame, from attempting ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... confidential snooping, refused to quail before the much-publicized senatorial scowl. "It's tough putting on a hunt when you're not ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman

... shrieks, the cattle run, and some coyote wolves are startled from their lairs and run, too; large numbers are here, and the preceding night their yells aroused some passengers from sleep. As we proceed, quail are seen, and wild cats something like a lynx. Arriving at Tucson (pronounced Tewsohn), I enquired for a gentleman to whom I had an introduction, but learned that he was up at his gold mine. This Tucson is an ancient city, having been founded by the Jesuits in 1560 A.D. It does a large ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett

... Indian raids were terrible enough, but the horrors of uncertainty and ignorance which enveloped the settlers in the forests might well cause the stoutest heart to quail when once it became known that the Indians had become their enemies, and that there was another enemy stirring up the strife, and bribing the fierce and greedy savages to carry desolation and death into the settlements of ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... with a different kind of ardour, they waited for his coming, and laid feminine snares for him. Two girls, to particularize, thought of little else than Sydney Green as they lay in their bunks, recovering from that horrible malady at which we all laugh, and all quail. One was a fair girl, named Alice Merton. She was one of the riders, and was extremely pretty, with blue eyes and a complexion like cream and roses. She was very slight and dainty, and looked fragile; but she was ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice

... thought "rough." It made them laugh; it was a tribute to their stout-heartedness. Nor was there anything necessarily braggart in this attitude of theirs. As they realized that work would not be readily offered to a man who might quail before its unpleasantness, so it was a matter of bread-and-cheese to them to cultivate "roughness." I need not, indeed, be writing in the past tense here. It is still bad policy for a workman to be nice in his feelings, ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt

... case, while yet the blue rifle smoke is curling up over his head, the hunter will hear, just there in the empty air so near that he could lay his hand on the spot, a low laugh—He-he-he! A wild, low laugh of scorn and derision, which causes the strong, bold man to quake and quail far more than were he to hear the loud, fierce growl of a bear behind him. Saving the red man, no one knows who or what this terrible shape of the wilderness is—where he dwells, nor how he exists; whom he loves, nor whom he hates; but white men ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... lanterns were extinguished, and nothing was left to tell the tale but the long tables of rough deal, where we had feasted. They were covered with leaves and dust; spiders had draped them with filmy robes. The quail piped, the jay-bird screamed, the dove sobbed, and a slim snake, startled at the flight of a bounding hare, glided away among the rustling leaves. So soon does this new land recover the ...
— In the Footprints of the Padres • Charles Warren Stoddard

... if they fondle a quail or a dove, Or inscribe on a myrtle, the names that they love? Does Alcides not teach us how valour is mild? Lo, at rest from his labours he plays with ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton

... power that a mind of deep passion has over feebler natures. I have seen a brawny, fellow, with no lack of ordinary courage, fairly quail before this slender stripling, when in one of his curious fits. But these paroxysms seldom occurred, and in them my big-hearted shipmate vented the bile which more calm-tempered individuals get rid of by a continual pettishness at ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... Then may I never expect future bliss, may eternal misery be my portion, if I leave you as long as fate permits us to be together. I am yours—your wife; my fortunes, my present, my future, my all, are embarked with you, and destiny may do its worst, for Amine will not quail. I have no recreant heart to turn aside from danger or from suffering. In that one point, Philip, at least, you chose, you ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat

... first one and then another of the boys went for me, and I took it all. I just," and here his voice rose, and his manner became feverishly excited, "I just ate crow right along for months—and tried to look as if 'twas quail. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris

... sufficient to itself and existing only for its own beauty. Now it existed for a child. The human element had caused nature, as it were, to recede, to take the second place. A child, bending down to pick up a shot quail, then straightening up victoriously, held the vast panorama in submission, as if he had quietly given out the order, "Make me significant." And Rosamund, who had stolen away to meet the evening, was now only intent on knowing whether the shot bird ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot—filled him pretty near up to his chin—and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various

... placid slumbers, was a sight to make a brave man quail, but the glance that William turned upon him was guileless ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton

... the course of my travels I often have seen Th' effects of the dreadful electric machine; Of the gymnotus eel, with one stroke of his tail He would make the stout African elephant quail, Or the heart of the horny rhinoceros quake, Oh! may he ne'er visit this land or this lake. The small swimming spider, with silky lined cell, I have seen her manoeuvre her own diving-bell. They are endless the wonders of shallow and ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.

... rugged side To Malaya's hill the Vanar hied, And to his royal chieftain there Announced the coming of the pair: "See, here with Lakshman Rama stands Illustrious in a hundred lands. Whose valiant heart will never quail Although a thousand foes assail; King Dasaratha's son, the grace And glory of Ikshvaku's race. Obedient to his father's will He cleaves to sacred duty still. With rites of royal pomp and pride His sire the Fire-God gratified; ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... day will the solitude weary thee; one day will thy pride yield, and thy courage quail. Thou wilt one day cry: "I ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche

... the others, smaller, for sleeping apartments. So close to the edge of the forest was the house that the sweep of the wind through the tree-tops made constant music, and the odd, squalling bark of the black squirrel, the chatter of the red one, the drumming of the ruffed grouse, the pipe of the quail and the morning gobble of the wild turkey were familiar sounds. There were deer and bear in the depths of the green ocean, and an occasional wolverine. Sometimes at night a red fox would circle about the clearing and bark querulously, the cry ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... cruelty is thus removed. The birds in fighting, follow the instinct which nature has implanted in them, and their marvellous courage and endurance surpass anything to be found in any other animals, human or otherwise, with which I am acquainted. Most birds fight more or less; from the little fierce quail, to the sucking doves which ignorant Europeans, before their illusions have been dispelled by a sojourn in the East, are accustomed to regard as the emblems of peace and purity; but no bird, or beast, or fish, or human ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... not appear to be deserted. From the farther clumps came the calling of the male quail, and around sounded the different murmurs of clucking, of twittering, of the ruffling of feathers: in a word, the divers voices of the small inhabitants of the plains. Sometimes there flew up a whole covey of quail; the gaudy-topped pheasants scattered ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... although she was penetrated with pleasure at this explanation of his holding aloof. "Oh, I like Arnold very much. I always have. There's something ... something sort of touching about Arnold, don't you think? Though I must say that I've heard enough about the difference between training quail dogs and partridge dogs to last me the rest of my life. But that's rather touching too, his not knowing what to do with himself but fiddle around with his guns and tennis-racquets. They're all he has to keep him from being bored to death, and ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... just as a general when he takes a city or a camp hands over his new acquisition to the statesman, for he does not know how to use them himself; or as the quail-taker transfers the quails to the keeper of them. If we are looking for the art which is to make us blessed, and which is able to use that which it makes or takes, the art of the general is not the one, and ...
— Euthydemus • Plato

... very strange specimens, such as the ostrich which can not fly, but can outrun a horse and kills its prey by kicking forward like a man. Australia also has immense mound-making turkeys, honeysuckers and cockatoos, but no woodpeckers, quail or pheasants. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard

... and wallaby are generally too tame. Amongst other animals shootable are the native bear—a sluggish creature looking like a small bear; the bandicoot, a small animal with a pig's head and snout; the native cat; cockatoos, parrots, eagles, hawks, owls, parroquets, wild turkey, quail, native pheasants, teal, native companions, water-hens, and the black swan and the opossum. Of these the wild turkey affords the best fun. You have to stalk them in a buggy, and drive in a gradually narrowing circle round them till you get within shot. The ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny

... her tread, as she traversed the void which should have been filled with a courtly throng, sounded ominous in her ear, and the haughty woman began to quail. She had heard it said that when a ship was doomed to destruction, no rats were ever known to leave port in its hold. Was she a sinking ship? Was her doom sealed? Once more her longing eyes sought the lofty, open doors, through ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... youth, His scorn of wrong, his zeal for truth, And bards, who saw his features bold, When kindled by the tales of old, Said, were that youth to manhood grown, 560 Not long should Roderick Dhu's renown Be foremost voiced by mountain fame, But quail to ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... laughed at me till the tears came in her eyes. "That dog is a gentleman," she said; "see how he holds bones on the paper with his paws, and strips the meat off with his teeth. Oh, Joe, Joe, you are a funny dog! And you are having a funny supper. I have heard of quail on toast, but I never heard ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders

... while the grasshopper sang out shrill In the grass beneath the blanching thistle, And the afternoon air, with a tender thrill, Harked to the quail's complaining whistle,— ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... the whole valley was abundantly supplied. In the spring time, great numbers of wild ducks, geese and brant were found in all the ponds and marshes; in the woody ground the wild turkey, the pheasant and the quail. At times, the sun was actually darkened by the flight of wild pigeons, while the prairie chicken was found in all the open ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce

... Romance herself has made her dwelling among men? So we come back to the old myth, and hear the goat-footed piper making the music which is itself the charm and terror of things; and when a glen invites our visiting footsteps, fancy that Pan leads us thither with a gracious tremolo; or when our hearts quail at the thunder of the cataract, tell ourselves that he has stamped his hoof in the ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... said, in a voice that made her quail in spite of her effrontery, "you will please never speak like this again; it is, both to my wife and me, an insult which I will not tolerate. Virgie is a lady in every sense of the word; even my critical ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... gray-haired captive forward, and with his eagle eye he glances keenly round the hall. That flashing eye has ere now bade monarchs quail; and those thin lips have uttered words which shall make the world ring till the last moment of the world shall come. The stately Eastern captive moves unawed through the assembly, till he makes a subject's salutation to the Emperor-judge who is to hear him. And when, then, the gray-haired sage ...
— If, Yes and Perhaps - Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations with Some Bits of Fact • Edward Everett Hale

... large creek comes in here from the south; and immediately below this about 100 yards another from same quarter. Bronze-wing and crested pigeons here; also some beautiful parrots, black ducks, teal, whistlers, painted widgeons, and wood-duck in small number; also parakeets and quail. Some dry grass here on top of banks up to my waist; further out there is some good tussocky grasses and there has been plenty oats. Secured seeds from the bean tree and the stones of the fruit ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay

... her hostess sharply. This was not the time for soft, persuasive words. "Get up at once. You are young and strong. You must show the stuff you are made of now if you ever mean to show it. I cannot help you if you quail." ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon

... and burned. The devil has no servants now; only the people have servants. There may be some mistake about a doctrine which makes the wicked, when a majority, the mouthpiece of God against the virtuous, but the hopes of mankind are staked on it; and if the weak in faith sometimes quail when they see humanity floating in a shoreless ocean, on this plank, which experience and religion long since condemned as rotten, mistake or not, men have thus far floated better by its aid, than the popes ever did with their prettier principle; so ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... palmetto a pair of horns were visible; and a herd of wild cattle, incredibly thin and fleet, leaped with a snort into the open, stared an instant at the intruders and sprang out of sight with the speed of deer. A covey of small, brown quail broke close at hand and sailed away, skimming the top of the grass. Fox squirrels were to be seen through the hanging moss on the cypress trees. A great whooping crane waded into view and flapped away in clumsy fashion. A flock ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen

... is over, The boughs will get new leaves, The quail come back to the clover, And the swallow ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous

... afterwards, and he was always doing some strange thing in order to make a sensation. The first day that he was old enough to be admitted to the public assembly, while he was being greeted there, he let loose a tame quail, which he carried about under his cloak, and no business could be done till it had been caught. Another time he came very late, with a garland on his head, and desired to have the sitting put off because he had a feast ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge

... from the quail of New York State, and naturalists tell us that this is caused by a difference in environment—quail being a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... found in abundance; both greater and lesser bustard; black and gray partridges, quail, geese, duck, and snipe. A week's leave could be made provide good shooting and a welcome addition to the usual fare when the wanderer returned. Every sort of shotgun was requisitioned, from antiquated muzzle-loaders bought in the bazaar to the most modern creations ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt

... of gentleness, and even of music, completed the terrors of the captive, who trembled in his hand like a quail in the clutches of a kite, and would, but for his grasp, as powerful to sustain as to oppose, have fallen to the floor. Her lips quivered, but they gave forth no sound; and her eyes were fastened upon his with a wildness and intensity ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... the rough country of the cap-rock, the young day was beginning to awaken. A quail piped its morning greeting from the brush. A gleam of blue in the dun sky flashed warning of a sun soon to rise. He had struck the rim-rock a little too far to the right, and deflected from his course to find the pocket he was seeking. For half a mile he traveled parallel ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine

... To take Kintuck and hit the trail for the Kalispels over a thousand miles of mountain and plain, was simple, but to thrust himself amid the mad rush of a great city made his bold heart quail. Money was a minor consideration in the hills, but in the city it was a matter of life and death. Money he must now have, and as he could not borrow or steal it, it must be earned. In a month his wages would amount ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... tell her, as I intended to?" thought he. "Is it because I fear her—fear my own child? No, it cannot be—and yet there is that in her eye which sometimes makes me quail, and which, if necessary, would keep at bay a dozen stepmothers. But neither she, nor either one of them, has aught to dread from Mrs. Carter, whose presence will, I think, be of great benefit to us all, and whose gentle manners, I trust, ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes

... these matters,' replied Zero, with an air of great dignity. 'This will shake England to the heart. Gladstone, the truculent old man, will quail before the pointing finger of revenge. And now that ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... not so merry as they; In honest civil sort they make each other sport, As they trudge on their way; Come fair or foul weather, they're fearful of neither, Their courages never quail. In wet and dry, though winds be high, And dark's the sky, they ne'er ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... them is that they are the greatest gluttons on earth, with veritably voracious appetites, and that the best isn't good enough for them. To be sure, at a pinch, they will demolish a score of potatoes, if there be nothing else; but offer them caviare, canvas-back duck, quail, and nesselrode pudding, and they will look askance at food that is plain and wholesome. The "plain and wholesome" liver is a snare and a delusion, like the "bluff and genial" visitor whose geniality veils all sorts of satire ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various

... adventurous knight, who having undertaken a perilous enterprise by way of establishing his fame, feels bound, in honor and chivalry to turn back for no difficulty nor hardship, and never to shrink or quail, whatever enemy he may encounter. Under this impression, I resolutely draw my pen, and fall to with might and main at those doughty questions and subtle paradoxes which, like fiery dragons and bloody ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... others dogs; and some are fond of gold, and others of honour. Now, I have no violent desire of any of these things; but I have a passion for friends; and I would rather have a good friend than the best cock or quail in the world: I would even go further, and say the best horse or dog. Yea, by the dog of Egypt, I should greatly prefer a real friend to all the gold of Darius, or even to Darius himself: I am such a lover of friends ...
— Lysis • Plato

... tone causes him to quail. He had hoped that the surprise of his unexpected appearance—coupled with his knowledge of her clandestine appointment—would do something to ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid

... not quail, or look aside; nor did she answer, standing straight, her eyes on his face, her bosom rising ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... and starting in fresh.) "Then we'll hev some fried Spring chickens, of our dominick breed. Them dominicks of ours have the nicest, tenderest meat, better'n quail, a darned sight, and the way my mother ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... your soldier this; That in good fury he may feel The body where he sets his heel Quail from your downward ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various

... butterfly and humble-bee Come to the pleasant woods with me; Quickly before me runs the quail, The chickens skulk behind the rail, High up the lone wood-pigeon sits, And the woodpecker pecks and flits. Sweet woodland music sinks and swells, The brooklet rings its tinkling bells, The swarming insects drone and hum, The partridge beats his throbbing ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... not the necessary personal magnetism to look a cyclone in the eye and make it quail. I am stern and even haughty in my intercourse with men, but when a Manitoba simoon takes me by the brow of my pantaloons and throws me across Township 28, Range 18, West of the 5th Principal Meridian, I lose my mental reserve ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... defiant derision of Russell, raised their mocking cry of "Come back! come back! come back!" And back accordingly he went clatter, clatter down the aisle, a stern resolution flashing from his eye, and causing the little boys as he passed to quail before him. Now it so happened that the lesson was a short one, and, moreover, Russell took more time, making a farther excursion into the churchyard than before, in order if possible to be rid entirely of the noisy intruders. Just as he returned to the church door, this time completely ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... prince are welcome. The people shall fete them, and make their days pass as quickly as seconds fly. If thou art desirous they shall enter and be presented to the great Naya before whose eyes all men quail," Babila said, bowing humbly before ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux

... be goin'," he said, and out he walked. The mother barely raised her eyes, but after he was gone she rose and from the low doorway looked after his sturdy figure trudging up the road. His whistle, as clear as the call of a quail, filled her ears for a while and then was buried beyond the hill. A smaller lad ...
— In Happy Valley • John Fox

... basement house, this table can be in the lower dining-room. In a house three rooms deep the table and all the refreshments can be in the usual dining-room or in the upper back-parlor. Of course, her "grand spread" can be as gorgeous as she pleases. Hot oysters, salads, boned turkey, quail, and hot terrapin, with wines ad libitum, are offered by the wealthy; but this is a difficult table to keep in order when ten men call at one o'clock, and forty at four, and none between. The best table is one which is furnished with boned turkey, jellied tongues, and pft,s, sandwiches, ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood

... so merry and light-hearted that he treated even serious matters in a joking way. We are told, that, when he was first admitted to the city council, he acted like a schoolboy, and mischievously let loose a captive quail, which ran in and out among the feet of the councilors, and fluttered about so wildly as to upset the gravity of the ...
— The Story of the Greeks • H. A. Guerber

... "Stop him!" But the men he had hired to do his wicked work fell back instead of trying to halt the young inventor. It was not Tom's appearance that made them quail. Over the ridge there appeared a second figure—and a more fearful or threatening apparition none of them ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Locomotive - or, Two Miles a Minute on the Rails • Victor Appleton

... the hill was where the ruined house stood, it became more lone and shunned than ever, and the boldest heart in the whole country-side would quail to be in its vicinity, even in the day-time. To such a pitch the panic rose, that an extensive farm which encircled it, and belonged to the old usurer who made the seizure, fell into a profitless state from the impossibility of men being found to work upon it. It ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... to row as quickly as possible to the other end of the lake. But before the boat reached the bank, Uvar Ivanovitch once more succeeded in surprising his friends; having noticed that in one part of the wood the echo repeated every sound with peculiar distinctness, he suddenly began to call like a quail. At first every one was startled, but they listened directly with real pleasure, especially as Uvar Ivanovitch imitated the quail's cry with great correctness. Spurred on by this, he tried mewing like a cat; but this ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev

... and there a bird, startled from its hiding place, sought refuge in the higher branches. A pensive quail piped an answer to the trilling call from the meadows. A tree toad uttered his lonely, guttural exclamation. The air, freshening with a coming covey of clouds, swayed the tops of the trees with ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... committed under this new regime of mind- power, when brought to light, will make stout hearts quail. Its mystery protects it now, for it is not yet known. Error is more abstract than Truth. Even the healing Principle, [25] whose power seems inexplicable, is not so obscure; for this is the power of God, and good should seem more natural ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... what did she behold? The court-yard was filled and the woods were swarming with a host of dragons and all sorts of wild beasts of every size. But, firm in her faith and trust in God, the young girl did not quail, but taking one animal after another washed and cleaned it in the best possible way. Then she set about cooking the dinner, and when Sunday came out of church and saw her children so nicely washed and every thing so well done she was greatly ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various

... when other mountain forests are properly protected by law and properly guarded. Some of these areas have been so denuded of surface vegetation by overgrazing that the ground breeding birds, including grouse and quail, and many mammals, including deer, have been exterminated or driven away. At the same time the water-storing capacity of the surface has been decreased or destroyed, thus promoting floods in times of rain and diminishing the flow of streams ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Supplemental Volume: Theodore Roosevelt, Supplement • Theodore Roosevelt

... on its way out to sea. Huge gulls rose slowly, fluttering their wings in the light breeze and striking their webbed feet on the surface of the water for over half a mile before they could leave it. Hardly had the patter, patter died away when a flock of sea quail rose, and with whistling wings flew away to windward, where members of a large band of whales were disporting themselves, their blowings sounding like the exhaust of steam engines. The harsh, discordant cries of a sea-parrot ...
— Dutch Courage and Other Stories • Jack London

... Endurance must conquer, where force could not reach. He came nearer and nearer, till the ghastly face was close to mine. A shudder as of death ran through me; but I think I did not move, for he seemed to quail, and retreated. As soon as he gave back, I struck one more sturdy blow on the stem of his tree, that the forest rang; and then looked at him again. He writhed and grinned with rage and apparent pain, and again approached me, but retreated sooner than before. I heeded him no ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald

... a lofty family; perhaps the wealthiest brass and copper founders' family known to mankind. They lived at Camberwell; in a house so big and fierce, that its mere outside, like the outside of a giant's castle, struck terror into vulgar minds and made bold persons quail. There was a great front gate; with a great bell, whose handle was in itself a note of admiration; and a great lodge; which being close to the house, rather spoilt the look-out certainly but made the look-in tremendous. At this entry, a great porter kept constant watch ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... eyes, and it does not exist. You open them, and it's there again. Sometimes I go out into the fields at night and close my eyes, and then it seems to me there is nothing at all existing. Suddenly the quail begin to call, and a wagon rolls down the road. Again a dream. For if you stopped up your ears, you wouldn't hear those sounds. When I die, everything will grow silent, and then it will be true. Only the dead ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev

... role. He defends them on their remarkable powers of imagination. One has only to study Sexton Blake to discover the intricate psychology of that wondrous personality who can solve the foulest murder or unravel stories that the divorce courts would quail before. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke

... and work, and love their babies, and help each other when in trouble. I knew one boy who really thought it was not wrong to steal newly built birds'-nests, and I have seen girls—quite large ones, too—who were afraid of Mice! It was only last winter that a Quail came to my front door, during the very cold weather, and snuggled down into the warmest corner he could find. I fed him, and he stayed there for several days, and I know, and you know, perfectly well that although he did not say it in ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson

... ducks of various kinds, wild pigeons, ocpara (a very fine quail, much larger, fatter and plumper than the American pheasant), and the wild Guinea fowl, are among ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany

... Wooster's word is his bond. Woosters may quail, but they do not edge out. Only the keenest ear could have detected the tremor in the voice as I asked her if she would care to come out ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... so sublime and unafraid, It wears its sorrows like a coat of mail; And Fate, the archer, passes by dismayed, Knowing his best barbed arrows needs must fail To pierce a soul so armored and arrayed That Death himself might look on it and quail. ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... Where the quail all day Pipe on the chaparral hill; A few more days, And the last of us lays His ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill

... prove true, discretion will be none the worse off. On the other hand, to champion a myth is to make one's self ridiculous, and of being ridiculous the agnostic has a consuming fear. From the superhuman disinterestedness of the theory of the Religion of Humanity, before which angels might quail, he flinches not, but when it comes to the risk of being laughed at by certain sagacious persons he confesses that bravery has its limits. He dares do all that may become an agnostic,—who dares do more ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne

... inhabit both hemispheres, and specimens of the different varieties are grouped in the cases. In the first case the visitor should notice the Currie partridge, from Nepal, the Cape and bare-necked partridges of Africa, and the sanguine pheasant; in the second case, the common European partridge and quail, the red European partridge, the Indian olive partridge, and the Andalusian quail; in the third and last partridge case, Californian and crested quails, and the Indian crowned partridge. Next in order are the Grouse, grouped in two ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold

... your defaced and damnified kirk on your own terms; and I ask you, Are you a worthy minister? The communion season approaches; how can you pronounce thir solemn words, 'The elders will now bring forrit the elements,' and not quail? A parishioner may be summoned to-night; you may have to rise from your miserable orgies; and I ask you, Haddo, what does your conscience tell you? Are you fit? Are you fit to smooth the pillow of a parting Christian? ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson

... him a victim. Thus far thou art safe; but he will pursue thee; and think not to escape his vengeance. How to proceed is beyond my counsel. Should midnight come, thou wouldest see horrors in this chamber that might quail the stoutest heart. Thou art bereft of life or reason if ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... old lake now grassed over. He had quite forgotten this feature of the descent—perhaps the clouds had hung over it; he was overjoyed, however, to find that the flat ground abounded with a kind of quail, larger than ours, and hardly, if at all, smaller than a partridge. The abundance of these quails surprised him, for he did not remember them as plentiful anywhere on the ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler

... not supposed to stand in the way of her being considered a beauty. Her face was very fair, though it lacked that softness which we all love in women. Her eyes, which were large and bright, and very clear, never seemed to quail, never rose and sunk or showed themselves to be afraid of their own power. Indeed, Lady Laura Standish had nothing of fear about her. Her nose was perfectly cut, but was rather large, having the slightest possible tendency to be aquiline. ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... you know, are fond of chicken and other fowl; so they served chicken soup and roasted turkey and stewed duck and fried grouse and broiled quail and goose pie, and as the cooking was excellent the King's guests enjoyed the meal and ate heartily ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum

... them, but cautious and silent in the presence of those whom they have sufficient discernment to perceive at once take them at their true value. Observe one of those fellows the instant an educated gentleman appears in the circle of which he is the attraction,—how his eye will quail and his voice sink, and he will endeavour to sneak away before his true character is exposed. I need scarcely advise my readers not to ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston

... in travel now took more people where they could see for themselves the beauty of nature. In the new poetry we consequently find more definiteness. We can hear the whir of the partridge, the chatter of magpies, the whistle of the quail. Poets speak of a tree not only in general terms, but they note also the differences in the shade of the green of the leaves and the peculiarities of the bark. Previous to this time, poets borrowed from Theocritus and Vergil piping shepherds ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... the passerine birds, which Crozet mentions by the names of European birds, and also a quail (Coturnix Novae-Zealandiae) which has lately ...
— Essays on early ornithology and kindred subjects • James R. McClymont

... trying moment for Pontiac. He stood there discovered, defeated. But he did not quail before the steady gaze of the English. His brow was only more haughty, ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney

... indigenous to this part of the country, but about a century ago escaped from the various missions of Upper California, at which they had been bred, and since have propagated in incredible numbers; also the grouse, the prairie hen, the partridge, the quail, the green parrot, the blackbird, and many others which I cannot name, not knowing their generic denomination. The water-fowls are plentiful, such as swans, geese, ducks of many different species, and the Canadian geese with their long black necks, ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat

... know what it means," remarked Jack; "I've been trying to make it out all along. That's sure a different voice. Some of Ted's crowd have got separated, and they're just trying to get together again. You've heard quail calling, after being flushed and scattered. ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren

... powder of Mars' sands, toward the fort. Simultaneously almost, three things happened. A three-foot UV beam wiped out the advancing party. A pair of fifteen-foot beams cut a great gaping hole in the wall of the interstellar ship, as it darted up, like a startled quail, its weapons roaring defiance, only ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell

... 4,000 people, on November 6th, the All-Americans played the Pioneers, another local organization, and though Healy pitched a good game for the visitors they were beaten this time by a score of 9 to 4. Ward did not take part in the game on this occasion, he having taken a day off to shoot quail, and the defeat was largely chargeable to the costly errors divided up among Hanlon, Crane, Manning, Von ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... herons, cranes, storks, cormorants, hundreds of varieties of seagulls, ducks, swans, wild geese, secure in the possession of an inexhaustible supply of food, sport and prosper among the reeds. The ostrich, greater bustard, the common and red-legged partridge and quail, find their habitat on the borders of the desert; while the thrush, blackbird, ortolan, pigeon, and turtle-dove abound on every side, in spite of daily onslaughts from eagles, hawks, and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... me. I like it here. I like the feel of the air in the fall. There's a flock o' ducks now circlin' over that bend o' the river. The geese are comin'. I heard 'em honk high up in the sky last night. I like my oysters and terrapin. I like to shoot ducks and geese, rabbits and quail. I like the smell o' the water. I like the smell o' these fields. I like the way the sun shines and the winds blow down here. It's in ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon

... bright and lively group of women or children, but rarely of men. Flock is applied to birds and to some of the smaller animals; herd is confined to the larger animals; we speak of a bevy of quail, a covey of partridges, a flock of blackbirds, or a flock of sheep, a herd of cattle, horses, buffaloes, or elephants, a pack of wolves, a pack of hounds, a swarm of bees. A collection of animals driven or gathered for driving is ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... him, and a terrible weapon this—the Holy Office of the Inquisition, a court before which all temporal courts must bow and quail. He launched its power against me, and behold me, in the moment when I accounted myself the victor in the unequal contest, accused of the dread sin of heresy. Words lightly weighed—uttered by me in prison under stress—had been zealously ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini

... completely and aggressively organized, and the sturdiest President would quail before them. The President who should undertake, single-handed, to deal with the complication of administrative evils known as the Spoils System would find his party leaders in Congress and their retainers throughout the country arrayed ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... Fish River. One of those caught weighed seventeen pounds, and the people stationed at Bathurst reported they had caught some weighing twenty-five pounds. The field game are the kangaroos, emus, black swans, wild geese, wild turkeys, bustards, ducks of various kinds, quail, bronze-winged and other pigeons, etc. etc. The water-mole also abounds in all ...
— Journals of Two Expeditions into the Interior of New South Wales • John Oxley

... the Franks," by Gregory of Tours (540-594), is an instructive memorial of the times. He was himself an intrepid prelate, who did not quail before Chilperic I. and Fredegunde, but braved their wrath. Chilperic proposed to establish by his authority a new view of the Trinity of his own devising, but was resisted by Gregory, who told him that no one but a lunatic would embrace such an opinion. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... hunters of our day would have displayed their skill in these fortunate times! This abundance of pigeons at a period when our ancestors were not favoured in the matter of food as we are to-day, recalls at once to our memory the quail that Providence sent to the Jews in the desert; and it is a fact worthy of mention that as soon as our forefathers could dispense with this superabundance of game, the wild pigeons disappeared so totally ...
— The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval • A. Leblond de Brumath

... it is well, Here calling me in haunted dell, That thy heart has not quail'd, Nor thy courage fail'd, And that thou couldst brook The angry look Of Her ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... Afghan, whose knife bids one quail; B is a Boer, who made England turn pale; C is a Chinaman, proud of his tail; D is a Dutchman, who loves pipe and ale; E is an Eskimo, packed like a bale; F is a Frenchman, a Paris fidele; G is a German, he fought tooth and nail; H is a Highlander, otherwise Gael; I is an Irishman, just out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various

... If quail or ducks are to be served for dinner, an old Indian dish, wild rice, is very desirable. Prepare this ...
— Good Things to Eat as Suggested by Rufus • Rufus Estes

... 54a.]] [Sidenote: The beholder of this fair city stood still as a "dased quail."] An-vnder mone so gret m{er}wayle No fleschly hert ne my[gh]t endeure, As quen I blusched vpon at baly, So ferly {er}-of wat[gh] e falure. 1084 I stod as stylle as dased quayle, For ferly of at french[46] fygure, at felde I naw{er} reste ne t{ra}uayle, ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various

... morgue are beyond powers of description in their ghastliness, while the moans and groans of the suffering survivors, tossing in agony, with bruised and mangled bodies, or screaming in a delirium of fever as they issue from the numerous temporary hospitals, make even the stoutest hearted quail with terror. Nearly two thousand bodies have already been recovered, and as the work of examining the wreckage progresses the conviction grows that the magnitude of the calamity ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker

... is likely to hear a muffled tapping in response, and this may at times be heard while one is engaged in excavating a mound. It has a chirring or fluttering quality, described by Fisher as resembling the noise of a quail flying. Bailey (1905, 148) is of the opinion that it is used as a signal of alarm, call note, or challenge, a view which the present authors believe to be correct. During the winter of 1920-21, however, both Bailey and Vorhies discovered that this sound, or a very similar one, ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor

... faintly they lisp the first syllables of the marvelous tale. Witness the clear sweet whistle of the gray-crested titmouse,—the soft, nasal piping of the nuthatch,—the amorous, vivacious warble of the bluebird,—the long, rich note of the meadowlark,—the whistle of the quail,—the drumming of the partridge,—the animation and loquacity of the swallows, and the like. Even the hen has a homely, contented carol; and I credit the owls with a desire to fill the night with music. Al birds are incipient or ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... blows Allis had started angrily toward Diablo's box. She was at the door when Shandy's cry of terror rang out. For an instant the girl hesitated; what she saw was enough to make a strong man quail. The black stallion was loose; with crunching jaws he had fastened on the arm of Shandy, in the corner of the stall, and was trying to pull the boy down that he might trample him to death. But for a second she faltered; if ever ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser

... the strings a little and struck the chords. Then he began to sing. He began very softly and sang "Fly Away, Pretty Moth," then "Araby's Daughter." He could sing very well in those days, following with the simpler chords. Perhaps the mother "Quail" had known those songs herself back in the States, for her manner grew kindlier, almost with the first notes. When he had finished she was the first to ask him ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... never joined with his in fellowship Over this pact of infamy. You known— As he was known through every nerve of me. Therefore I 'stopped his mouth the only way' But my way! none was left for you, my friend— The loyal—near, the loved one! No—no—no! Threaten? Chastise? The coward would but quail. Conquer who can, the cunning of the snake! Stamp out his slimy strength from tail to head, And still you leave vibration of the tongue. His malice had redoubled—not on me Who, myself, choose my own refining fire— But on poor unsuspicious innocence; ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... made a quail which is still in existence, so beautiful and so perfect that it lacks nothing but the power of flight. Antonio, therefore, had not spent many weeks over this work before he was known as the best, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari

... to bed because of a mild attack of delirium tremens. I brush the vipers away with a sweep of my hand, and go about my business. But I myself draw the line at roosters. A man who may laugh at snakes will quail before roosters. A fellow may shut his eyes to snakes, but he can't shut his ears to roosters. Well, well: it's all in a life-time. But, believe me, no good poetry, either in verse or in ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... engaged, a pistol-shot was heard, and immediately after, a loud, fierce yell burst from the forest, causing the ears of those who heard it to tingle, and their hearts for a moment to quail. In less than ten minutes, the church was empty, and the males of the congregation were engaged in a desperate hand-to-hand conflict with the savages, who, having availed themselves of the one unguarded pass, had quietly eluded the vigilance of the scouts, ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne

... would be if you saw our quail and cock fights, and the excitement they raise. You would laugh, no doubt, especially when you were told that they are enjoined by law, and that all of military age must attend and watch how the birds ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata

... seemed on the point of turning against them.[486] The Five Nations were half won for France. In November a large deputation of them came to renew the chain of friendship at Montreal. "I have laid Oswego in ashes," said Vaudreuil; "the English quail before me. Why do you nourish serpents in your bosom? They mean only to enslave you." The deputies trampled under foot the medals the English had given them, and promised the "Devourer of Villages," for so they styled the Governor, that they would never more lift the hatchet against his children. ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... up the sheaves. I stopped beside the village pump and reflected upon my misery. I had resigned myself to water, when a woman carrying a sickle opened the door of one of the inns. Some friendly bird must have told her of my thirst and weariness—perhaps the merry little quail that I heard as I came up from the plain crying 'To-whit! To-whit!' That blessed auberge actually contained bottled beer. And the room was so cool that butter would not have melted in it. These southern ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... air with dense masses of black smoke—and pieces of charred grass falling down in showers. Would not the stoutest English villager, armed only with the bow and arrow against the enemy's musket, quail at the idea of breaking through that wall of fire? When at a distance, we once saw a scene like this, and had the charred grass, literally as thick as flakes of black snow, falling around us, there was no difficulty in understanding the ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... remained true to him, he marched to Jerusalem to be crowned. All the churches were shut against him, and he could not even find a priest to officiate at his coronation. He had despised the papal authority too long to quail at it now, when it was so unjustifiably exerted, and, as there was nobody to crown him, he very wisely crowned himself. He took the royal diadem from the altar with his own hands, and boldly and ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... assented the third. "You know they say that no one has ever been able to eat a quail a day for thirty days hand running, but I'd be willing to ...
— Bert Wilson in the Rockies • J. W. Duffield

... Lady holds her own With condescending grace, And fills her lofty place With an untroubled face As a queen may fill a throne. While I could hint a tale (But then I am her child) Would make her quail; Would set her in the dust, Lorn with no comforter, Her glorious hair defiled And ashes on her cheek: The decent world would thrust Its finger out at her, Not much displeased I think To make a nine days' stir; The decent world would sink ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... rather to these postures of a bayadere, succeeded the excitement of vingt-et-un, followed by well-earned repose. Next day there were new entertainments and new exercises; beginning with wrestling-matches for grown men and for youths, and proceeding with quail-fights, and feats performed by a camel and an elephant. After lunch Bougainville and his party had a drive and some archery, and witnessed sack-races, basket-balancing, &c. In this way, they were told, the sultan passed all his time. Most striking is the respect and submission shown ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... a thrush, an ortolan, a beccafico, a robin-redbreast, or any other feathered and diminutive biped. He is not so ambitious as to expect a quail. Partridges he has heard of; of one, at least, a sort of phoenix, reproduced from its own ashes, and seen from time to time before an earthquake, or other great catastrophe. As to the hare, he is well aware that it is a fabulous animal of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various

... California in those days—thirty years ago—differed widely from the California of to-day. Then, the sage brush of the foot-hills teemed with quail, and swans, geese, duck (canvas-back, mallard, teal, widgeon, and many other varieties) literally filled the lagoons and reed-beds, giving magnificent shooting as they flew in countless strings to and fro between the sea and the fresh water; whilst, ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various

... pushed forward to Mr. Krook's window, which they closely invest. A policeman has already walked up to the room, and walked down again to the door, where he stands like a tower, only condescending to see the boys at his base occasionally; but whenever he does see them, they quail and fall back. Mrs. Perkins, who has not been for some weeks on speaking terms with Mrs. Piper in consequence for an unpleasantness originating in young Perkins' having "fetched" young Piper "a crack," renews her friendly intercourse on this auspicious occasion. The potboy at the corner, who is ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... were, however, speedily forgotten in the stronger emotion caused her by an incident which occurred immediately after. Sir Michael had not been in the room since dinner-time, and now he suddenly entered. He came forward with a rapid step towards Lady Randolph, and even she seemed to quail beneath the steady gaze of his angry eye. He stood before her for a moment, as if the rage that swelled his bosom were too great for utterance; and his face became of the color of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... "How-ow-owgh-aloo-oo!" uttered loudly from a hundred throats, comes pealing down the valley. Its fiendish notes, coupled with the demon-like forms that give utterance, to them, are well calculated to quail the stoutest heart. Ours are not without fear. Though we know that the danger is not immediate, there is a significance in the tones of that wild slogan. They express more than the usual hostility of red to white—they breathe a spirit of vengeance. The gestures ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... his dreams gone from him like a covey of frightened quail. The fence was cut. For a hundred yards or more along the hilltop it was cut at every post, making it ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden

... evil was done; the sheep must be turned back at the river or they would swarm in upon the whole upper range. One man could turn them there, for it was the dead line; but once across they would scatter like quail before a hawk, crouching and hiding in the gulches, refusing to move, yet creeping with brutish stubbornness toward the north and leaving a clean swath behind. There were four passes that cut their way down from ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge

... streams where the burnished trout flashed swiftly back and forth in the clear water. They came to an upland park where the soft whistle of quail caused Polly to lift her rifle, but the whir of wings told of a flight. From jagged rents in the cliffs, through which the horses passed, their hoofs ringing echoes from the iron-veined rock, they came to sleepy hollows where the Quaker Aspens stood ghostlike as sentinels ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... unbridled tongue, To laughter vile the incense rose—'tis thus our hymn was sung; Both loud and deep the murmurs rang, and Felix' face grew pale, Then Polyeucte mad defiance hurls, while all the people quail. 'Vain are your gods of wood and stone!' his voice was stern and high— 'Vain every rite, prayer, sacrifice' so ran his blasphemy. 'Your Jupiter is parricide, adulterer, demon, knave, 'He cannot listen to your ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille

... be for that, but we have to find other methods for a lot of people. Besides, we need something that will intercept some of the grubs in the fall, before they get big. After all, by the time the quail are interested in them, they have already done some damage in the ground. In the ground the grubs can do two kinds of damage. They can make turf loose so it can be rolled back like a rug. Second, if you should plow up a piece ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 41st Annual Meeting • Various

... and from mountain high, The quail's soft note reechoes far and wide; When hunter moon hangs crescent in the sky, And wild deer ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson

... of strange poultry too,—strange to me at least, for never had I expected to find flocking together wild turkeys, Canadian geese, black ducks, wood ducks, and mallards (all with wings clipped so that they never again could fly), sage hens, quail, spruce-grouse, partridge, ptarmigan and western mountain quail. All seemed perfectly at home and ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... is just like every other part of the canyon, only a little more lonely. It is not half a mile from camp, and hardly a dozen steps from the place where the boys go so often to shoot quail.' ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... the weather grew milder, but cloudier; they lost sight of land; the thermometer rose to 32 degrees; a few water-quail were to be seen, and flocks of wild geese flew toward the north; the crew laid aside some of their thick clothes; they began to be aware of the approach of summer ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... on the village, situated on a small, upland plateau, grass- covered, and with only occasional trees. There was a wild chorus of warning cries from the women, who scurried out of the grass houses, and like frightened quail dived over the opposite edge of the clearing, gathering up their babies and children as they ran. At the same time spears and arrows began to fall among the invaders. At Sheldon's command, the Tahitians and Poonga-Poonga men got into action ...
— Adventure • Jack London

... dizzily, and once he narrowly escaped being run down by a cable car. He dined alone at a small French restaurant in one of the side streets. The waiter marveled at the amount of black coffee the young man consumed and looked hurt when he did not touch the quail and lettuce. ...
— Brewster's Millions • George Barr McCutcheon

... people about to be put to a cruel death!" exclaimed A'Dale; "after burning them, the same men will proceed on to burn those you love. Strike a brave blow now, and you will make them quail before you." ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... which alienated him from the prince. William of Orange was one of those lean and pale men who, according to Caesar's words, "sleep not at night, and think too much," and before whom the most fearless spirits quail. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... Rhodes Bigfoot Wallace's Humor Charles M. Russell as Artist of the West (or any other western artist) Learning to See Life Around Me Features of My Own Cultural Inheritance I Heard It Back Home Family Traditions My Family's Interesting Character Doodlebugs in the Sand Bobwhites Blue Quail Coachwhips and Other Good Snakes Mockingbird Habits Jack Rabbit ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie

... keen. A steady, high wind was blowing, but raising no dust in the road, owing to last night's rain. The laburnums glistened, rustling to and fro in the breeze; a ripple ran over everything. From afar the cry of the quail was carried over the hills, over the grassy ravines, as if the very cry was possessed of wings; the rooks were bathing in the sunshine; along the straight, bare line of the horizon little specks no bigger than flies could be distinguished moving about. These were some ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev

... rifle's crack the file of warriors bolted hither-thither, scattering like quail for covert. Captain Brady ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin

... was to burst three years later, was not a strong man. He entered on his duties doubtfully and before long sent requests for his recall on account of his family concerns. He might well quail at the magnitude of his task. His instructions bade him by all available means discourage the claims of the Catholics, and rally the discouraged Protestants. Thereafter he might conciliate the Catholics by promising relief for their parochial clergy, the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... are gold-eyes, suckers, and cat-fish. Unattractive as are the names of the two last, the fish themselves are excellent. Among the birds, Professor Hind mentions prairie-hens, plovers, various ducks, loons, and other aquatic birds, besides the partridge, quail, whip-poor-will, hairy woodpecker, Canadian jay, blue jay, Indian hen, and woodcock. In the mountain region are bighorns and mountain goats; the grizzly bear often descends from his rugged heights into the plains, and affords ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston



Words linked to "Quail" :   move, retract, cringe, button-quail, quail bush, Lofortyx californicus, California quail, bevy, migratory quail, flinch, game bird, shrink, phasianid, bobwhite, quail brush



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