"Undergrowth" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... daring and curiosity of both, and in a few minutes they were within two hundred yards of the Northern camp. But they lay very close in the undergrowth. They saw a big fire and Harry judged that four or five hundred men were scattered about. Many were asleep on the grass, but others sat up talking. The appearance of all was so extraordinary ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Little as he cared for shooting, he had the habit of concentration which makes it natural for a man to throw himself wholly into whatever business he has in hand, and there were moments of the afternoon when a sudden whirr in the undergrowth, a vivider gleam against the hazy browns and greys of the woods, was enough to fill the foreground of his attention. But all the while, behind these voluntarily emphasized sensations, his secret consciousness continued ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... the first thoroughly to explore it, cutting his way inland through the tangled undergrowth of imperfect thought. He has measured its length and breadth, marked out and described its spiritual features with minute accuracy. The country thus won to philosophy will always bear his name, Estetica di ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... clamor as ever. To them Suma meant nothing; the majority of them had never seen her—did not even know that such a creature existed. The jays, quarrelsome and noisy as are their relatives of the temperate zone, occasionally saw the spotted hunter as she passed where the undergrowth was more open, and sent up a loud chatter that apprised all the other wild things of her whereabouts. And while realizing her impotence to deal with them, Suma could never quite check the growl that swelled in her throat nor stay the lips that drew back until the gleaming, white fangs ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... left the other three to seek their beds, and himself slipped quietly out of the hotel by one of the ground-floor windows and set off in a pitch-black night to seek Spurge in his lair. And after sundry barkings of his shins against the rocks and scratchings of his hands and cheeks by the undergrowth of Hobkin's Hole he rounded the poacher out and ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... through a gate into the broad grass-grown avenue, cut through the woods to the road. Wrayson at first was silent, and Louise seemed a little nervous. More than once she started at the sound of a rabbit scurrying through the undergrowth. There was something a little mysterious about the otherwise profound silence of the impenetrable woods. Even their footsteps fell noiselessly upon ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... us in black shadow. Where the sun's rays penetrated, myriads of brilliant insects flashed like jewels; yellow butterflies, beetles with wings of ruby-red or gold, and dragonflies that picked out the undergrowth with fire. In the shadow overhead flew and chattered crowds of green paroquets and glossy crows, while here and there we could see a Bird of Paradise drooping its smart tail-feathers amid the foliage. A little further, and deep in the forest the ear caught the busy ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... inocarpus, a kind of tropical chestnut; and most magnificent and imposing of all, a stately tree, resembling the magnolia in its foliage and manner of growth, and thickly covered with large white flowers, edged with a delicate pink. The ground was level as a parlour floor, and free from brushwood or undergrowth of any kind, except a few long-leaved, fragrant ferns, and in places a thick carpet of flowering vines and creepers. The trees were stationed at such distances apart, as to compose a fine open grove, and ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... came near his old home, Cecilio saw his master Emilio shooting at a very handsome bird on the top of a bamboo-tree. The bird fell down, and the man ran to pick it up. As Emilio was making his way up to the bird through the thorny bamboo undergrowth, Cecilio sat down to wait for him, and, having nothing else to do, began to play his guitar. The master at once began to dance among the bamboo-trees, and he received many wounds because of the sharp spines. ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... their flanks the torn cloak of camouflage—small squat guns which stared idly into the air, or with wider mouths still, like petrified dogs for ever baying at the moon—long slim guns which lay along the grass and pushing undergrowth—and one gun which had dipped forward and, fallen upon its knees, howled silenced imprecations at the devil in the ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... at my low command; I raised my rifle and fired into the undergrowth beneath the trees. The wolves sprang out at a run, with lightning bounds, crossed a small opening and disappeared into the heavy forest beyond. I continued firing at them, without effect. Just before they vanished into the spruces, ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... mass of brambles, from which here and there the snow had been shaken off. There was no sign of any pathway; if ever there had been one, the neglect of years had obliterated it. Bracken, brambles, shrubs and bushes had grown up and degenerated, only to be succeeded by a ranker and more dense form of undergrowth. Many of the trees, although they were still plentiful, had been blown down and left to rot on the ground. The place was silent except for the slow drip of falling snow from the drooping leaves. He took ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... on in silence, now, he ahead this time, brushing aside the thick undergrowth that blocked ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... them, they seemed to be Toltec rather than Aztec. They are engraven on the natural rock, and are of a character quite unintelligible to the present generation. For years these were hidden by the dense undergrowth, being on the edge of the plain, near the spot where the Americans clambered up the steep acclivity when they stormed the castle. The shrubbery has now been cleared away so as to render ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... contemplating was forbidden, and could bring them no luck; and he, like her, felt a delightful awe, which thrilled him at each repeated sigh of the forest trees. The perfume of the foliage, the soft green light which filtered through the leaves, the soughing silence of the undergrowth, filled them with tremulous excitement, as though the next turn of the path might lead them to ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... the order of membrane fungi, Hymenomycetes, was called by the name of "Polyporites Bowmanii." During the Tertiary period members of the genera now known under the names of Lenzites, Polyporus, and Hydnum were all in existence. It is interesting to know that even before the Tertiary period the undergrowth consisted of ferns and fleshy fungi. What a time of delight for the botanist! But there were no human beings in those days to roam amongst that luxuriant undergrowth, and only the fossil remains in the deposits of coal and peat are left to tell ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... been two o'clock when he crossed the King's Highway, a mile or more above the northern gates, and struck down into the same thick undergrowth that had protected him and Hobbs on a memorable night ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... obtained by transplanting the mature plants, since leaves are obtainable in a few months and in half a year suckers large enough for transplanting are produced. It is stated that in setting the plants out, the undergrowth is cleared away and the suckers are placed in the ground about 1 1/2 meters apart. Some attention is given to the young plants such as loosening the earth around them; but as soon as they obtain a good foothold ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller
... the trail, and endeavored, as he advanced, to extend his line so as to form a junction with General Young's command on the right, and at the same time outflank the enemy on the left; but the tropical undergrowth was so dense and luxuriant that neither of the attacking columns could see the other, and all that they could do, in the way of mutual support and cooeperation, was to push ahead toward the junction of the two roads, firing, almost at random, ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... once began to mark out a semicircle, with a radius of some fifty yards, on the river bank. Ten of the cattle were killed and skinned, and as others of the party came up they were set to work to cut down the trees and undergrowth within the semicircle, and drag them to its edge, casting them down with their heads outwards so as to form a formidable abbatis. Within half an hour of the appointed time the twenty boats had arrived together with as many more, in which the grain, hides, and other ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... out the arrow and helped the bird to rise, pushing back the undergrowth so that its broad white pinions could have free play. After a few feeble attempts to fly it spread its wings, rose up from the earth, and after circling several times round its benefactor as though to thank him, it ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... bridge, Baptiste throws himself upon the lines, wrenches them out of Sandy's hands, and, with a quick swing, faces the pintos down the steep side of the ravine, which is almost sheer ice with a thin coat of snow. It is a daring course to take, for the ravine, though not deep, is full of undergrowth, and is partially closed up by a brush heap at the further end. But, with a yell, Baptiste hurls his four horses down the slope, and into the undergrowth. 'Allons, mes enfants! Courage! vite, vite!' cries their driver, and nobly do the pintos respond. Regardless of bushes and brush heaps, they tear ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... conscious of a heavy steam-like vapor rising from the undergrowth at the edge of the jungle; the atmosphere grew suddenly sticky and sultry. Almost within a moment the brilliant sunshine was blotted out, and a gray twilight settled over the lake. Frightened birds, squawking and screaming, hurried by; a fawn, drinking at the water's edge, darted off ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... the kind of brook that is, for every one knows the kind of country arbutus loves—hilly country, with slopes toward the north; bits of woodland, preferably with pine in it, to give shade, but not too deep shade; a scrub undergrowth of laurel and huckleberry and bay; and always, somewhere within sight or hearing, water. It is curious how arbutus, which never grows in wet places, yet seems to like the neighborhood of water. It loves the slopes above ...
— More Jonathan Papers • Elisabeth Woodbridge
... streams or rivers and groundwater is not potable, all water needs must be met by catchment systems with storage facilities; beachhead erosion because of the use of sand for building materials; excessive clearance of forest undergrowth for use as fuel; damage to coral reefs from the spread of the crown of thorns starfish natural hazards: severe tropical storms are rare international agreements: party to - Climate Change, Endangered Species, Marine Dumping, Ozone Layer Protection, Ship Pollution; signed, but not ratified ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... vast, empty garden, neglected and dead. The hedge that surrounded it was only a tangled mass of undergrowth, and the paths were buried and choked by weeds. The desolate house beyond it loomed up whitely in the shadow. It was damp and cold in the garden, but she went in, mutely obeying the blind force that impelled ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... less when he describes the solitary silent places of mediaeval castles, palaces, and their rooms; of the long, statue-haunted, cypress-avenued gardens, a waste of flowers and wild undergrowth. We wander, room by room, through Adelaide's castle at Goito, we see every beam in the ceiling, every figure on the tapestry; we walk with Browning through the dark passages into the dim-lighted chambers of the town palace at ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... Charleston dust and fever, may be found, indeed, the bristly palmetto; but the whole island, with the exception of the western point, and a line of hard, white beach on the sea-coast, is covered with a dense undergrowth of sweet myrtle, so much prized by the horticulturalists of England. The shrub here often attains the height of fifteen or twenty feet, and forms an almost impenetrable coppice, burthening ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... a bit of common, where great black junipers stood up like magnates in council above the motley undergrowth of fern and heather, and then they turned into the park. A great stretch of dimpled land it was, falling softly towards the south and west, bounded by a shining twisted river, and commanding from all its highest points a heathery world ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and silvery white. Farther back, it ran on toward the sunset, a sweep of blue and neutral gray, flecked with dusky lines of bluffs, interspersed with gleaming strips of water, but nowhere in the wide landscape was there a sign of human habitation. Small birches and poplars, with an undergrowth of nut bushes, clothed the sides of the ravine, but some distance ahead it broadened out and the stream that flowed through it turned the hollow into a muskeg. There harsh grass and reeds grew three or four feet high, ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... had the same sort of timber and undergrowth, and they went through some dense forests, in which vines and small brush made traveling difficult. They had to cut their way ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... quality, not over-common with members of his grand breed; a trait which linked his career pathetically with that of a livery-plug. He would hunt for anybody. He went through his day's work, in stubble or undergrowth, with the sad ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... baggage and their own provisions, and a lad from Awaiya, who was accustomed to catch butterflies for me. My two Amboyna hunters I left behind to shoot and skin what birds they could while I was away. Quitting the village, we first walked briskly for an hour through a dense tangled undergrowth, dripping wet from a storm of the previous night, and full of mud holes. After crossing several small streams we reached one of the largest rivers in Ceram, called Ruatan, which it was necessary to cross. It was both ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... as one could find anywhere out of a picture by Dore. The sombre pines crowded in on the little stream, elbowing and whispering, leaving overhead but a gap of clear sky; on either hand the rugged sides of the canon sloped steeply up amongst the timber and thick undergrowth, and never the note of a bird broke a silence which seemed only to be emphasised by the faint sough of the wind in the tree tops. Minute dragged into minute, yet no deer came stealing down to drink, and rapidly the stillness and heart-chilling gloom were getting on my nerves; when, far up ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... discussing plans when a near-by step startled them. Parting the undergrowth, a torn and dishevelled man appeared. It was Paul De Loie. He almost dropped on ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... well-worn track disappeared, giving place to a newly cleared one. Trees had been cut down roughly, leaving stumps in such irregular profusion that, though horses could pass between them easily, no wheeled traffic could have gone that way. The undergrowth and the tree-trunks had been piled along either side, so that the new path was fenced in. It was steep and crooked, every section of it commanded by some other section higher up, with plenty of crags and boulders that afforded even better ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... pendants from the boughs. And the trees, besides being hung with climbers, are also decked with orchids and with foliaceous lichens and mosses. The wild banana with its crown of glistening leaves is everywhere conspicuous. Bamboos shoot up through the undergrowth to a hundred feet or more in height. The fallen trees are richly clothed with ferns typical of the hottest and dampest climates. And dendrobiums and other orchids fasten ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... was remarkable chiefly for the extent of the gardens attached to the house, and for the singularly advanced state of dilapidation in which everything was allowed to remain. Beyond the gardens the woods stretched down to the sea, unpruned and thick with a heavy undergrowth; from the road the gardens were hidden by thick hedges, and by the forbidding gray front of the building. It was not an attractive place to look at, and once within the precincts there was a heavy sense of loneliness and utter desolation, that seemed to fit it for ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... towards the man who spoke. "My mare had gone lame, and I had dismounted in a copse to examine her, when there was the quick, regular beat of hoofs at a gallop across the turf. I was alert on my own account in a moment, crouching down amongst the undergrowth, for with a lame animal I could have made but a poor show. There flashed past me a splendid horseman, man and beast one perfect piece of harmony. The moon was near the full. I saw the neat, strong lines of the horse, the ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... leaves, six feet long and six inches in width, pointed to the higher plant world that was to come. Between these gaunt towering trunks the graceful tree-ferns spread their canopies at heights of twenty, forty, and even sixty feet from the ground, and at the base was a dense undergrowth of ferns and fern-like seed-plants. Mosses may have carpeted the moist ground, but nothing in the nature of grass or flowers had ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... in and out in the effort to keep near the coast. Nearly all day long we were in sight of the ocean; now and then some wooded promontory obscured our view; now and then we were threading woods and valleys farther inland; now and then the road almost lost itself in thickets of shrubbery and undergrowth, but each time we would emerge in sight of the broad expanse of blue water which lay like a vast mirror on that bright and still ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... apples. He soon convinced himself that this man was indifferent to his movements, and, watching his opportunity, when the man's back was turned, he slipped beyond the orchard, into a dense swamp, covered with a thick undergrowth of saplings and bushes. Here there was a huge prostrate log twenty feet in length, curtained with a ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... argue vindictiveness—and a logic which I can hardly attribute to the idiot. Still, who can tell what went on in the distorted mind of that poor creature? He is reported to have rescued the dead body of a rabbit from the undergrowth on one occasion, and to have blubbered when he could not bring ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... had burnt down the forests and enriched the soil of Madeira. It was soon after Zarco's return to Funchal that he first set fire to the woods behind the fennel fields of the coast, to clear himself a way through the undergrowth into the heart of the island; the fire blazed and smouldered till it had taken well hold of the entire mass of timber that covered the upper country, nothing in the feeble resources of the first settlers ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... form but the yellow underparts and greenish back are brighter. Like the last species, this form nests on the ground or very close to it, in weeds or rank undergrowth, in swamps. Their eggs which are laid in May or June are not distinguishable from ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... had been an inextricable labyrinth of laws and customs, mainly Roman and Frankish in origin, hopelessly tangled by feudal customs, provincial privileges, ecclesiastical rights, and the later undergrowth of royal decrees; and no part of the legislation of the revolutionists met with so little resistance as their root and branch destruction of this exasperating jungle. Their difficulties only began when they endeavoured to apply the principles of the ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... the footing, was treacherous with loosened stones and mud. The horses, mounting a hill, picked their way carefully; and Lee Randon gazed over his shoulder into the valley below. He saw it through a screen of bare wet maple branches—a dripping brown meadow lightly wreathed in blue mist, sedgy undergrowth along water and the further ranges of hills merged in shifting clouds. A shaft of sunlight, pale and without warmth, illuminated with its emphasis an undistinguished and barren spot. On the meadows sloping to the south there were ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... immobility might be the sign of a tense patience biding its time. Who was to say that some night the position might not be reversed—that it would not be he who stood naked save for his own pelt among the undergrowth watching some happy firelit puma licking the grease of a good meal from its paws? That was the primitive doubt. It's an attitude that one may understand even now, he said, when one faces the spring of one of the larger carnivora; ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... Dougal plunged into the current and steadied him with a grimy hand. The leap was at last successfully taken, and the three scrambled up a rough scaur, all reddened with iron springs, till they struck a slender track running down the Dean on its northern side. Here the undergrowth was very thick, and they had gone the better part of half a mile before the covert thinned sufficiently to show them the stream beneath. Then Dougal halted them with a finger on his lips, and crept ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... should find those people dressed in tunics, or at least some other inhabitants.[17] The Spaniards marched through the forest and emerged on an extensive plain overgrown with brush, amidst which there was no vestige of a path. They sought to cut a pathway through the undergrowth, but wandered about so hopelessly that they hardly advanced a mile. This underbrush was indeed as high as our grain when ripe. Worn out and fatigued, they returned without having discovered a trail. The next day the Admiral sent out a new ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... and Boleti especially, are largely dependent upon the character of woods and forests. When the undergrowth of a wood is cleared away, as it often is every few years, it is easy to observe a considerable difference in the fungi. Species seem to change places, common ones amongst a dense undergrowth are rare or disappear ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke
... lay back upon the dry leaves, depending upon hearing chiefly, to warn them of the possible coming of an enemy. The undergrowth was so dense about the cup that no one fifteen yards away could see them, and they were able to hear even a creeping warrior, before he could come that near. Hence they reposed without alarm, and, bold forest runners that they were, eternally ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... massed and jumbled ruins of cliff wall. There were tangled thickets of wild plum-trees and other thorny growths that made passage extremely laborsome. He found innumerable tracks of wildcats and foxes. Rustlings in the thick undergrowth told him of stealthy movements of these animals. At length his further advance appeared futile, for the reason that the stream disappeared in a split at the base of immense rocks over which he could not climb. To his relief he concluded that ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... was cleverly explained by Sir Charles Lyell, who noticed, on one of his visits to America, that the water of the Mississippi, around the rank growths of cypress which form the "cypress swamps" at the mouths of that river, was highly charged with sediment, but that, having passed through the close undergrowth of the swamps, it issued in almost a pure state, the sediment which it bore having been filtered out of it and precipitated. This very satisfactorily explained how in some places carbonaceous matter might ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... onward, now approaching, now leaving the trees. Where there was dense undergrowth they could see ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... which invariably provokes a hearty response from his equine comrades. The sharp ear of the airman does not fail to distinguish this sound above the music of his motor. Again, he has come to regard all copses and stretches of undergrowth with suspicion. Such may or may not harbour the enemy, but there is no risk in making an investigation. He swoops down, and when a short distance above the apparently innocent copse, circles round it two or three times. Still ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... rollers and the sharp rocks daunted us, and we declined his offer with thanks, and rowed off to the southward. Anything more enticing than the cove we were quitting can hardly be imagined. A fringe of cocoa-nuts and bread-fruit trees, overhanging an undergrowth of bright glossy foliage and flowers, a few half-hidden palm-leaf covered huts, from one of which—I suppose the chief's—a tattered Tahitian flag floated in the breeze, a small schooner drawn up among the trees and carefully covered ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... it was already settled by what occurred in captivity. My scrupulous watching at various times was rewarded. The majority of the hunters immediately entered their nests, carrying the bees pressed against their bodies; some halted on the neighbouring undergrowth; and these I saw treating the bee in the usual manner, and lapping the honey from its mouth. After these preparations the corpse was placed in the larder. All doubt was thus destroyed: the bees provided for the larvae are previously carefully ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... little shiver, well excused by the mountain coolness, but Rebecca was beguiled into stepping out into the moonlight The brightness of the moon and the blackness of the shadows cast by trees and rocks and undergrowth, seemed somehow to heighten the effect of the intense and utter stillness reigning around them,—even the occasional distant cry of some wandering wild creature marked, rather than broke in upon, the silence. Rebecca's glance about ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... subservient to her beck and call. Before, however, I could satisfy myself positively that the old snake really held supervision over her brood, the gentleman with whom I happened to be came upon the scene, whereupon the interesting family disappeared beneath the undergrowth of ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... of Seillon, the three riders following the path which led through the woods. The boar led them a chase which lasted until five in the afternoon, turning upon his tracks, evidently unwilling to leave the forest with its thick undergrowth. ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... trampling all over, you won't know where you are when it comes to a close search," was the cheerful answer. "Now, about that gun—it must be hidden somewhere in the undergrowth. The man who fired it would never dare to carry it along an open road on a fine morning like this, when ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... It lay through dense forest, impeded by fallen trees and thick undergrowth. They were obliged to advance in Indian file, cutting a path as they went. When night came they encamped on the bank of Clear River. The next morning, while the others were preparing to resume the march, Major Rogers, with a foolhardy ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... an area-surface of about twenty or thirty acres. Pine-trees grew thinly over it, with here and there a bush or two of acacia, the species known as "mezquite." There was plenty of grass among the trees, and large tussocks of "bunch grass" mingling with cactus and aloe plants, formed a species of undergrowth. This, however, was only at two or three spots, as for the most part the surface was open, and could be seen at a single view. The hunters had hardly elevated their heads above the cliff, when the herd of big-horns became visible. They were at the moment near the western extremity of the table; ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... but a very little way; and indeed the trail, apart from the apparently growing weight of the pack, was not favourable to song. There was no sort of path whatever after they had left the river bank; nothing but the primeval forest, with an undergrowth that was so dense that the branches of one bush were often interwoven with its neighbours. Through this they had to force their way, head down, hands and clothes suffering badly in the process. Then would come a patch of Jack-pine, where trees seven to ten feet high ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... armor-plating that protected its back. Fresh blood flowed from a wound in the white under-skin; this, and the dripping flints that tipped their spears, told how death had come. One curving horn that projected from a wrinkled snout caught at times in the undergrowth, and then the ones who dragged it would throw themselves upon the head with snarls of fury and twist ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... off the slashing, or clear away the branches of the felled trees, which is usually done before the great logs, which do not readily burn, are attacked with the saw; and one day, when the wind promised to drive the conflagration away from the camp, fires were kindled here and there among the tindery undergrowth. The attempt proved successful, and in a few hours the fire had spread into the surrounding forest. It crept on through the latter steadily, springing up the towering trunks from spray to spray, until the dark firs were garlanded with climbing flame. Beneath them ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss
... feet—that theoretical road for which the United States had paid so often and so well—was seen between the mightiest sentinel trees; but in the midst had sprung up a fresh growth, often nearly one hundred feet high, surrounded by huge stumps, and heavy undergrowth of the renewing forest, varied with hopeless mudholes and swamps, and only at intervals of about twenty miles ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... as, at the close of that long and varied day, he stood at the mouth of a natural cave, half hidden by tangled undergrowth, which had been appointed months ago by Joanna the gipsy as the place where on May Day evening she would meet him, and tell him more of the matter so ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... leader of the secret society which met at awful hours in the deserted shanty just below the sawmill. What a creep went up and down your spine as in the chill of the evening the boys came stealing out of the undergrowth one by one, and greeted their chief with the password, known by every parent in town. The stars looked down upon you as they must have looked upon all the great conspirators of time since the world began. You felt that the life of the government hung by a thread, when ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... spectators standing at the outer verge of her domain. We may compare the religion of the Middle Ages to an alpine range, on the lower slopes of which the explorer finds himself entangled in the mire and undergrowth of pathless thickets, oppressed by a still and stifling atmosphere, shut off from any view of the sky above or the pleasant plains beneath. Ascending through this sheltered and ignoble wilderness, he comes to free and windswept pastures, to the white solitude of virgin snowfields, to brooding ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... not shoot the deer instead of hallooing him away, thou great idiot?" demanded Standish in jesting anger, while, with such a rush as the animal sore athirst makes when he scents the water springs, all the men but three of the party burst through the undergrowth and found themselves in a lovely little dale so sheltered by hills and trees as to offer only a southern exposure to the weather. The snow of the previous day had already disappeared from this favored spot, and the little runlet with its welling spring sparkled free from frost among the long ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... up, and three regiments, led by Colonel Jenkins, made a flank movement, and by a desperate assault, took the redoubt on the left, with six pieces of artillery. When Rhodes' North Carolina Brigade got sufficiently through the tangle and undergrowth and near the opening as to see their way clear, they raised a yell, and with a mad rush, they took the fort with a bound. They were now within the strong fortress on the left and masters of the situation. Colonel Jenkins was highly complimented ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... marred its beauty. The islands were covered with a lofty growth of living timber clothed in the deepest green. There were not then, as now, upon some of them, great dead trees reaching out their long bare arms in verdureless desolation above a stinted undergrowth, and piled up trunks charred and blackened by the fire that had revelled among them, but all were green, and thrifty, and glorious in their robes of beauty. Thousands of happy songsters carolled gaily among their branches, or hid themselves in the dense ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... it, rides as fast as the thick standing trunks, and tangle of undergrowth will allow. The darkness also obstructs him; for it is night. Withal he advances rapidly, though cautiously; at intervals glancing back, at longer ones, delaying to listen, ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... screening fronds of a young areca palm, and came to an abrupt halt, his eyes fixed on an object in the midst of the tropical undergrowth. ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... a crashing in the undergrowth on their right, and presently a crouching form came creeping rapidly towards them under cover of the sheltering bank. In a terse aside Yorke acquainted the doctor with the details of his comrade's mischance, keeping a wary eye meanwhile on the window. The ex-naval ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... cook's cleaver, lest the noise of chopping attract natives; for we were convinced by the light we had seen shining in the jungle that the island was inhabited. So we set off cautiously into the woods, and slowly tramped some distance through an undergrowth that scratched our hands and faces and tore our clothes. On the banks of a small stream we picked some yellow berries, which Blodgett ate with relish, but which the rest of us found unpalatable. We all drank water from the hollows of trees,—we dared not drink from the boggy stream,—and ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... nightmare tramp. The rain never ceased. By day we lay in icy misery, chilled to the bone in our sopping clothes, in some dank ditch or wet undergrowth, with aching bones and blistered feet, fearing detection, but fearing, even more, the coming of night and the resumption of our march. Yet we stuck to our programme like Spartans, and about eight o'clock ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... Apollo, the god of music and of song, his mother the muse Calliope. Apollo gave his little son a lyre, and himself taught him how to play it. It was not long before all the wild things in the woods of Thrace crept out from the green trees and thick undergrowth, and from the holes and caves in the rocks, to listen to the music that the child's fingers made. The coo of the dove to his mate, the flute-clear trill of the blackbird, the song of the lark, the liquid carol of the nightingale—all ceased ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... across the log between the rushes, she saw the stranger, with a wary step, break through the undergrowth about the pool—cautiously, expectantly. The water heaved a bit about her chin, for her hidden chest was palpitating with the short, sharp intakes ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... the elephants, but they crowded in royal array into Olga's quick imagination. She and Nick would often go elephant-riding in the jungle. Mysterious word! It held her like a spell. Tall trees and winding undergrowth, a gloom well-nigh impenetrable, creatures that hid and spied upon them as they passed! Perhaps they would go tiger-hunting together. She thrilled at the thought, picturing herself creeping down one of those dim glades, rifle in hand, in search of the ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... execution, and power of imitation, he is unsurpassed (and in the last-named particular unequalled) by any of our Northern birds. His ordinary note is forcible and emphatic, but, as stated, not especially musical: Chick-a-re'r-chick, he seems to say, hiding himself in the low, dense undergrowth, and eluding your most vigilant search, as if playing some part in a game. But in July or August, if you are on good terms with the sylvan deities, you may listen to a far more rare and artistic performance. Your first impression will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... were formed in this manner seems to be proved by the testimony which we have concerning the open area before mentioned as having existed in western Kentucky. It is said that around the timberless fields there was a wide fringe of old fire-scarred trees, with no undergrowth beneath their branches, and that as they died no kind of large vegetation took their place. When the Indians who set these fires were driven away, as was the case in the last decade of the last century, the country at once began ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... the bare trees and over the cracking sticks, screened and roofed in from the outer world of wind and cloud by a net-work of boughs, led her slowly on till in time she had left the larger trees behind her and swept round into the coppice where Winterborne and his men were clearing the undergrowth. ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... looking down on the Muskingum River. In these, concealed from view, lay a boy of fifteen. His face was worn and thin. His moccasins and leggins were frayed from much running through undergrowth. He was peering through the branches to a bend in the river. He had lain there hours, watching. That morning, a canoe containing two savages came up past him. The Indians were paddling vigorously. Why their haste? That was what the boy ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane
... house, breaking the smooth lawns, were beds and trees of flowers, at this time of the year a glowing exotic mass of color; but in the park that made up the greater part of the estate exclusive of the farms, the grass under the superb oaks was merely clipped, the weeds and undergrowth removed. The oaks had been evenly shorn of their lower branches, which gave them a formal and somewhat arrogant expression, as of cardinals and kings ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... place, where one might fancy that the many British dead rested more easily beneath oaks and among familiar flowers than in most of the cemeteries of this dreary land. The wood was about 1-1/2 miles long, with a maximum depth of 1,400 yards, and its undergrowth, where not cut away, was densely intertwined with alder, hazel, ash, and blackthorn, with water standing in large pools on parts of its boggy surface. In one corner was the picturesque Fosse Labarre, a wide horseshoe moat enclosing a little ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... streamed into it from the crowded electric-cars, there were exclamations of rapture. Women and girls fairly shrieked with delight. The ground, which had been entirely cleared of undergrowth, was like an etching in clearest black and white, of the tender dancing foliage of the oaks and birches. The birches stood together in leaning, white-limbed groups like maidens, and the rustling spread of the oaks shed broad ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that we gave to the place the name of the Friendly village. We breakfasted here; and after purchasing twelve dogs, four sacks of fish, and a few dried berries, proceeded on our journey. The hills as we passed were high, with steep, rocky sides, with pine and white oak, and an undergrowth of ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... in Virginia.%—Meantime Grant had set out from Culpeper Courthouse on May 4, 1864, crossed the Rapidan, and entered the "Wilderness," a name given to a tract of country covered with dense woods of oak and pine and thick undergrowth. The fighting was almost incessant. The loss of life was frightful; but he pushed on to Spottsylvania Courthouse, and thence to Cold Harbor, part of the line of fortifications before Richmond. He would, as he said, "fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... in a brake of tall fern, and shooting out with forelegs bent sprang across a thicket. Carrie thought it hardly touched the ground. It was wonderfully swift and graceful, and although the forest was choked with undergrowth and rotting logs all was very quiet when ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... walking on after this occurrence for some time in silence, when True pricked up his ears and began to steal forward. I could, however, see nothing. The undergrowth and masses of sipos were here of considerable denseness. Still, as he advanced, we followed him. Presently the forest became a little more open, when we caught sight of a creature with a long tail and ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... happen to you, in the course of a solitary and contemplative walk, to lie down on your face in the undergrowth of a forest, amid that vegetation which springs up, various and manifold, through the fallen autumn leaves, and allow your eyes to wander along the level of the ground before you? Little by little the sense of height is lost, the interwoven branches ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... the shooting party, he swerved without any further hesitation, sharply to the left, and ran as hard as he could in the direction of the group that had now gathered round Stephen. He dodged the trees and undergrowth as well as he could, and tried as he proceeded to scan all the ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... a safe and comfortable branch when she discovered that the tree stood upon the edge of a small clearing that had been hidden from her by the heavy undergrowth upon the ground below, and simultaneously she discovered the identity of the beasts she ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the floods and it was very nearly impossible to cross by swimming elsewhere. Eventually, after many attempts, some men of the 60th Division did succeed in performing the feat, after which rafts were towed across filled with troops who hid in the dense undergrowth lining the banks of the river. It was nearly two days before all the raiding force was safely transported to the other side, for the men as they landed had to beat off the attacks made by the Turks to prevent the crossing and they were under heavy fire all the time. ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... way through the intricacies of the wood, he had been seriously incommoded by the thick undergrowth, and he had accidentally encountered several miry pools, with which he had involuntarily made a closer acquaintance than was at all conducive either to his personal appearance or comfort. The doctor's temper, though, generally speaking, one of the most even, was ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... tall grass, tropical undergrowth, under barbed-wire fences and over wire entanglements, regardless 20 of casualties, up the hill to the right this gallant advance was made. As we appeared on the crest we found the Spaniards retreating only to take up a new position farther on, ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... further shore, to wander in a labyrinth of reddening beeches, and oaks on which the thick foliage still kept its dusky green; to emerge upon open lawns where the pale gold birches looked like fairy trees, and where amber and crimson toadstools shone like jewels on the skirts of the dense undergrowth of holly and hawthorn? The liberty of it all, the delicious feeling of freedom, the release from convent rules and convent hours, bells ringing for chapel, bells ringing for meals, bells ringing to mark the end of the brief recreation—a perpetual ringing and drilling ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... to follow, it was slow work, and the trees seemed to become thicker and thicker as we advanced. Under other circumstances, we might have stopped to admire the wonderful variety of shrubs and creepers which formed the undergrowth; as it was, we had to keep our eyes constantly about us, for at any moment we might have to encounter a huge boa or anaconda, or we might tread upon some venomous serpent, or a tree-snake might dart down upon us from the boughs above. Monkeys, as before, ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... to appear, yet flat and dismal, holding, it seemed, no light, yet reflecting it; and all in an extraordinary cold clearness. Nature seemed herself, yet struck to dumbness. No breeze stirred the twigs overhead or the undergrowth through which they rode. Once, as the two, riding a little apart, turned suddenly together, up a ravine into thicker woods, they came upon a herd of deer, who stared on them without any movement that the eye could see. Here ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... party followed the banks of the little stream that had given them fresh water, Anders leading, Thorolf just behind him. Wind stirred softly in the leaves overhead, unseen birds fluttered and chirped, sunshine sifting through the maple undergrowth turned it to emerald and gold and jasper. Once there was a discordant screech from the evergreens, but it was only a brilliant blue jay with crest erect, scolding at them. A striped squirrel flashed up the trunk of a tree to his hole. Then ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... as it had cleared the road, and the Second Brigade was ordered to pass in rear of the first and face to the front when clear of the First Brigade. This movement was very difficult, owing to the heavy undergrowth, and the regiments became more or less tangled up, but eventually the formation was accomplished, and the Division stood in an irregular line along the San Juan River, the Second Brigade on the right. We were subjected to a heavy fire from the forces on San Juan Ridge and Kettle ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... nor the religions growing out of the books were extant. Furthermore, strictly speaking, it is not with any or all of these three religions that the Christian missionary comes first, oftenest or longest in contact. In ancient, in mediaeval, and in modern times the student notices a great undergrowth of superstition clinging parasitically to all religions, though formally recognized by none. Whether we call it fetichism, shamanism, nature worship or heathenism in its myriad forms, it is there in awful reality. It is as omnipresent, as persistent, as hard to kill as the scrub bamboo which both ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... with no desire to move, but at last, summoning all my resolution, I scrambled weakly to my feet and endeavoured to follow, but after some while, wondered to see it so dark and found I was among trees that closed about me ever denser. Yet I struggled on, pushing my way haphazard through the undergrowth, being yet much shaken by my fall, until I came out into a narrow way lit by the moon; but scarcely was I here than I paused to lean against a tree, overcome by a sick faintness. And thus leaned I some while to recover my strength, and in my ears the dismal drip, drip of sodden trees ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... may appear to burst through from an undergrowth of statistics into the clear field of truism. False beliefs are more practical than theoretical, more a matter of practical conduct than of passive experience, more a change of reagent than a reaction to change. The man on the street or even many a leading neurologist ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... along which the wire will be carried. There has heretofore been no communication between these points except by water. The river is bordered on both sides by high mountains and dense forests of heavy timber, with an almost impenetrable undergrowth. Notwithstanding these difficulties, Mr. Conway, one of the telegraph engineers, made an exploration of the entire route, during the latter part of last winter, on snow-shoes, being at one time three days in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... was no easy matter to get back to the shore, and an hour later found them in a tangle of undergrowth. Aleck was ahead, ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)
... scream of terror Millicent sprang apart from her companion's side and stood for a space staring at the man who had appeared out of the rent-down undergrowth. The pale light beat upon Geoffrey's face, showing it was white with anger. Looking from Geoffrey, the girl glanced towards Leslie, who waited in the partial shadow of a hazel bush. Even had he desired to escape, which was possible, the ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... stretched away to his right for over a thousand feet. Along the road which ran almost parallel with the wall was the remnant of what had once been a great woods; yearly the county authorities determined to cut away its thick undergrowth—and yearly left it alone. On the left the road was bare for some distance along the bluff; then, bending, it again sought the shelter of the trees and meandered along until it lost itself in the main street of Sihasset, a village large enough to support three banks and, after a fashion, eight small ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... near this city. It is a beautiful location for a "city of the dead,"—a tract of some forty or fifty acres on the eastern bank of the Concord, gently undulating, and covered with a heavy growth of forest-trees, among which the white oak is conspicuous. The ground beneath has been cleared of undergrowth, and is marked here and there with monuments and railings enclosing "family lots." It is a quiet, peaceful spot; the city, with its crowded mills, its busy streets and teeming life, is hidden from view; not even a solitary farm-house attracts the eye. All is still and solemn, as befits the place ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... swung to find the third. That man moved through thick undergrowth, and Calhoun set it on fire in a neat pattern of spreading flames. Evidently, these men had had no training in battle tactics with blast-rifles. The third man also had to get away. He did. But something from him arched through the smoke. It fell to the ground directly ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... the thrush came swimming recklessly through the trees, and far over in the fields the ploughmen started upon the heavy courses of their labour; while here and there poachers with bows and arrows slid through the green undergrowth, like spies ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... watching them as they waded down stream, and then climbed the bank, disappearing in the undergrowth. Sequitah had moved past me, and I heard his voice speaking in Indian dialect. Along the forest aisles his warriors glided by where I stood, noiselessly as shadows. In another moment De Artigny and I were alone, the black ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... all that. She was sure that it did not take her more than twelve or fifteen minutes (for she had gone that way a hundred times) to get back to the gate, to walk up the little wood, to cut through it by a track in the undergrowth, and turn round the further and western end of it. Thence she could either take the long path that slanted across the field to the Farm bridge or keep to the upper ground along a trail in the grass skirting ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... thunder. But it is so continuous, so sedulous, that it becomes part of oneself. One does not lose it at night as one falls asleep, nor does one recover it in the morning, when dreams are disturbed by a little stir of life in the undergrowth and one opens one's eyes to see above one the bronze of ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... she been crying; but she was not much happier with her sketch than I had been with mine. The jutting group of birch-trees was well chosen, and she had drawn them admirably. But when she came to add the confused background of trees and undergrowth, her very outline had begun to look less satisfactory. When it came to colour—and the midday sun was darting and glittering through the interstices of the trees, without supplying any effects of chiaroscuro ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... caution to thread the narrow gorge; but I finally reached the rocky bench, about one thousand feet below the grade of the railroad. It was now broad daylight, and I commenced cautiously the search for Summerfield's body. There is quite a dense undergrowth of shrubs thereabouts, lining the interstices of the granite rocks so as to obscure the vision even at a short distance. Brushing aside a thick manzanita bush, I beheld the dead man at the same instant of time that another person arrived like an apparition ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... might have been well chosen for secrecy; indeed, we might have remained there for days were it not for fear. A giant poplar had been uprooted by some storm and had crushed in its fall an opening in, the undergrowth. The trunk spanned the little brook, and the boughs, intermingling with the ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... there was none; but this was of little moment, for they knew that so long as they continued to ascend every step took them so much nearer to the summit; and they were agreeably surprised to find that the bush and undergrowth that, at a distance, had appeared to be absolutely impenetrable, was not nearly so dense as it had looked. They were consequently enabled, by adopting a somewhat serpentine route, to make very fair upward progress, although they occasionally encountered spots where a passage had to ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... a column some thirty-five feet before shooting out a canopy of branches and leaves. There are also a few Scotch firs, the trunks well covered with ivy, and a pretty specimen of the variegated sycamore. The undergrowth of laurel, laurustinus, briar, privet, holly, etc., is very luxuriant here, and the vacant ground is closely covered with the wood anemone (Anemone nemorosa), which must form a continuous mass of pearly ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes |
