"Tern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the water birds the nests are often grouped in colonies in certain places and not scattered singly here and there as with most land birds. Thus when a colony, say of the heron, tern, or flamingo, is found it is very easy for the hunter to break it up and destroy all the birds. Among the water birds the gulls, terns, grebes, herons, egrets, osprey, flamingos, and pelicans have ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... Gerard and I were for knocking as many as we could on the head; but Cousin Silas would not allow us, observing that we did not want them for food, and that they had a far better right to the rock than we had. The booby, Mr McRitchie told us, is a species of gannet, and the noddy a species of tern. The first lays her eggs on the bare rock, but the latter constructs a nest with sea-weed. While the doctor was eagerly hunting about for specimens of natural history, we were amused by watching the proceedings of some of the few inhabitants ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... had fallen down exhausted in a meadow, and was picked up just as the life was leaving its body. The place must have been one hundred and fifty miles from the sea as the bird flies. As it was the sooty tern, which inhabits the Florida Keys, its appearance so far north and so far inland may be considered somewhat remarkable. On removing the skin I found it terribly emaciated. It had no doubt starved to death, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... from William Russell and others, citizens of America, concerned in trade to the island of Guadeloupe, addressed to the Marechal de Castries, and complaining of the shutting to them the port of Point a Pitre, and receiving them only at Bessa-tern. This was enclosed to me by the subscribers, to be delivered to the Marechal de Castries. But the present is not the moment to move in that business; and moreover, I suppose, that whenever parties ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... for the dogs being nearly expended, and no seahorses having yet been seen near the shore, I sent Mr. Ross with a sledge to Tern Island on the 13th, in expectation of being supplied by the Esquimaux. Mr. Ross returned on the 14th without success, the whole of the natives having left the island after plundering the birds' nests, as they had done ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... branch of the creek on the north side and at noon having travelled 13 ms. we arrived at the entrance of a second Northen branch of the creek where we had nooned it on the 12 th of Septr. last. here we halted, dined and graized our horses. while here Sheilds took a small tern and killed a deer. at this place a road turns off to the wright which the indians informed us leads to Clarks river some distance below where there is a fine extensive vally in which the Shalees or Ootslashshoots ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... Noordwyk is a lonely but very bracing walk of three miles along the sand, with the dunes on one's right hand and the sea on one's left. One may meet perhaps a few shell gatherers, but no one else. We drove before us all the way a white company consisting of a score of gulls, twice as many tern, two oyster catchers and one curlew. They rose and settled, rose and settled, always some thirty yards away, until Noordwyk was reached, when we left them behind. Never was a Japanese screen so realised as by these birds against the pearl grey sea ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... them things but is setting down and waching them out of the coner of your ey and pertending to studdy hard whitch nobudy can do when sumbuddy is howling terruble and banging agenst seets and you never know when your tern wil come nex. ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... the deacon, the chanters in holiday surplice of gold and silver, the spruce volunteer singers with oiled hair, the joyous melodies of holiday songs, the ceaseless blessing of the throng by the priests with flower-bedecked tern candles with the constantly repeated exclamations: "Christ has risen! Christ has risen!" Everything was beautiful, but more beautiful than all was Katiousha, in her white dress, blue belt and red bow in her hair, and ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... with many a shot at the numerous swans or ducks. At length another change took place in the general course of the river which from west turned to east-south-east. The height of the banks appeared to diminish rapidly and a very numerous flock of the small sea-swallow or tern indicated our vicinity to the sea. The slow-flying pelican also with its huge bill pursued, regardless of strangers its straight-forward ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... Triplication. — N. triplication, triplicity[obs3]; trebleness[obs3], trine. V. treble, triple; triplicate, cube. Adj. treble, triple; tern, ternary; triplicate, threefold, trilogistic[obs3]; third; trinal[obs3], trine. Adv. three times, three fold; thrice, in the third ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... arched the entrance to the cottage and supported a rambler rose bursting into bloom she could see the bay, blue as a sapphire and scintillating with ripples of gold. A weather-stained scow was making its way out of the channel, and above it circled a screaming cloud of tern that had been routed from their nesting place on the margin of white sand that bordered the path to the open sea. Mingling with their cries and the rhythmic pulsing of the surf, the clear voices of the men aboard the tug reached her ear. It was flood tide, and the water that surged over the bar stained ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett |
