"Beak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... broad and well on the way to portliness. His limbs were massive and slow of movement and his head large, with a mane of slightly graying hair flung back from a wide, unfurrowed brow. Small and very black eyes pierced out from crinkled heavy lids and a bulldog jaw shot out from under a fat beak of a nose. And over the broad expanse of countenance was spread a smile so sweet, so deep, so high that it gave the impression of obscuring the form of features entirely. In point of fact it was a thick and impenetrable veil that the Senator had for long hung before his face from behind ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... mountain, in a bare and desert place, And I saw a mighty eagle, and a falcon he did chase; And to me the falcon came, and I hid it in my breast, But the mighty bird, pursuing, came and rent away my vest; And he scattered all the feathers, and blood was on his beak, And ever, as he tore and tore, I heard the falcon shriek;— Now read my vision, damsels, now read my dream to me, For my heart may well be heavy that doleful sight ...
— Mediaeval Tales • Various
... jade, you've all but driven a twenty-pound rooster clean through it—beak, spurs and tail feathers—that's why!" bawled the doctor. "Gad! I shall be black and blue for a fortnight! I'm colicky now: I need ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... which I shall carry with me, and preserve the skin, if we get to water to-night. The front part of the neck and underneath the wings is of a beautiful crimson hue, the back is of a light lead colour, the tail square, the beak smaller than a cockatoo's, and the crest the same as a macaw's. After leaving this flat, we passed through some scrub, and came upon another of the same description. Here I narrowly escaped being killed. My attention ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart
... the stars—with one of those keen profiled men who have such roguish eyes when they come to earth. Frenchmen strolling down the boulevards glanced skywards and smiled. They were brave lads who defended the air of Paris. No Boche would dare to poke the beak of his engine above the housetops. But one or two men were uneasy and stood with strained eyes. There was something peculiar about the cut of those wings en haut. They seemed to bend back at the tips, unlike a Bleriot, with its ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... upon this pillared rock, Prey to the vulture of a vast desire That feeds upon my life. I burst my bands And steal a moment's freedom from the beak, The clinging talons and the shadowing plumes; Then comes the false enchantress, with her song; "Thou wouldst not lay thy forehead in the dust Like the base herd that feeds and breeds and dies! Lo, the fair garlands that I weave for thee, Unchanging ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... at last, and well-nigh staked herself on the heron's beak! But we had a long ride, and were well-nigh at the Tyne before we had caught her. Full of pranks, but a noble hawk, as I shall write to my brother by the next messenger that comes our way. I call it a hawk worth her meat that ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... nice an' proper fer me to drop in an' eat with you—THE LAST TIME!" replied the cowboy. His drawl was slow and cool, his tone was friendly and pleasant. But his look was that of a falcon ready to drive deep its beak. ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... on that side of its unfortunate victim, a big, agile, vigorous Nubian, habituated to ostriches in their haunts. And, if the leg misses its mark, as it very seldom does, the bird, as it hurls past its enemy, pecks viciously at his face, its sturdy beak being capable of inflicting a serious wound wherever it strikes, and often destroying ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... older writers see vols. v. 122; vi. 16-49. I may remind the reader that the O. Egyptian "Rokh," or "Rukh," by some written "Rekhit," whose ideograph is a monstrous bird with one claw raised, also denotes pure wise Spirits, the Magi, &c. I know a man who derives from it our "rook" beak and parson. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... vivacity, his whole countenance, in fact, lighting up with the animation of intense interest,—"an old man tall and raw-boned, a scar on his nose and cheek, a halt in his gait, his left middle-finger short of a joint, and a buzzard's beak and talons tied to his hair?—It is Wenonga, the Black-Vulture. Truly, little Peter! thee is but a dolt and a dog, that thee told me ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... agitation Buck broke another spoke from the crumbling wheel. The parrot cracked his beak against the ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various
... fluttering her wings and yawning. "When the coop blew away from the ship I clung fast to this corner, with claws and beak, for I knew if I fell into the water I'd surely be drowned. Indeed, I nearly drowned, as it was, with all that water washing over me. I never was so wet before ...
— Ozma of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... stop at the squirrel's house," said the pigeon, as they stopped at an old tree. "Rap-tap-rap" with his beak on a knot-hole in the trunk, and a fat squirrel opened the door. What a lot of chattering! he was inviting them to enter. "How delightful," thought Laurie as they stepped inside, "now I shall see what a squirrel's house is ...
— The Pigeon Tale • Virginia Bennett
... look at early this morning. I had never before seen alive one of these national types of yours, and stood entranced as the noble creature swept, like a black cloud, over the river, his bald white head bent forward and shining in the sun, and his fierce eyes and beak directed towards one of the beautiful wild ducks on the water, which he had evidently marked for his prey. The poor little duck, who was not ambitious of such a glorification, dived, and the eagle hovered above the spot. After a short interval, ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... passionate nature, there was one great weakness; the love and admiration of women was a necessity to him. He could no more help trying to make women love him, than the kingfisher can help thrusting down his beak when the bright speckled sides of his prey flash through the water. It was from neither cruelty nor vanity, for Thorne had less of both traits than usually falls to the lot of men; it was rather from the restlessness, the yearning of a strong nature for that which it needed, but had not yet ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... up out of it the most loathsome-looking creature I have ever seen: a huge, crawling, red shape that was like a blood-red spider, with the eyes, the hooked beak, and the writhing tentacles of an octopus. It made no sound, but it seemed to know her, to understand her, for when she waved her hand toward the open door of her own room, obeying that gesture, it dragged its huge bulk over the threshold, ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... incomprehensible manner. With one accord, Doctor and Piper, Bear and Policeman, Face-maker and Bird, were rubbing hard at the palm of one hand. There being no trees close by, the men used the sole of a shoe, while Puffy raked away at one paw with the claws of the others, and the Bird pecked a foot with his beak. ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... back to the open French window of the pretty salon, angrily oblivious of the blue waters of Lac Leman which lapped placidly against the stone edges of the quai below. He was a tall, fierce-looking old man, with choleric blue eyes and an aristocratic beak of a nose that jutted out above a bristling grey moustache. A single eyeglass dangled from a broad, black ribbon round his neck. "One of the old school" was written all over him—one of the old, autocratic school which believed that "a man should be master in his own house, b'gad!" ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... when freshly killed, have supple feet. If young, the windpipe and beak can be easily broken by pressure of the thumb and forefinger. Young birds also have soft, white fat, tender skin, yellow feet, and ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... a Bird of Prey, Who on her slaughtering skyey way, Beak-striketh and claw-clutcheth. But Ladies who own not her sway, Will you not lift white hands to stay The shameless slaughter which to-day ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... whispered, rubbing his hooked grey beak with one finger, and chuckling low and wheezily: "Now, maybe! Me fine young Papist! Ye'll be getting your tay in a mug! Hot and ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the same direction, rose a staff of deep blue, to which was attached a drooping silver flag crossed with bars of gold. (Its pattern was like the one placed in his grave.) On the top of the staff rested a dove, holding in its beak a wreath, composed of rainbow shades, circling the word Peace in letters whiter than snow. As the new sun continued to rise, the jewelled sky increased in dazzling brilliancy, ten thousand gems of shining gold shot out, and ten thousand sapphires ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... fault, or what his crime? Or what ill planet crossed his prime? Heart too soft and will too weak To front the fate that crouches near,— Dove beneath the vulture's beak;— Will song dissuade the thirsty spear? Dragged from his mother's arms and breast, Displaced, disfurnished here, His wistful toil to do his best Chilled by a ribald jeer. Great men in the Senate sate, Sage and hero, side by ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Emile, laughing; "plain Valentin, say you? Raphael DE Valentin, if you please. We bear an eagle or, on a field sable, with a silver crown, beak and claws gules, and a fine motto: NON CECIDIT ANIMUS. We are no foundling child, but a descendant of the Emperor Valens, of the stock of the Valentinois, founders of the cities of Valence in France, and Valencia in Spain, rightful ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... cocked his head on one side, and eyed the tempting morsel. Buttered toast did not often come his way. He dropped down on to the balcony floor, hopped over to the toast, pecked at it, picked it up in his strong beak, and flew with it to the roof of the building opposite. In silence the two ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... control. On Thracia's hills the Lord of War Has curb'd the fury of his car And dropt his thirsty lance at thy command. Perching on the sceptred hand Of Jove, thy magic lulls the feather'd king With ruffled plumes, and flagging wing: Quench'd in dark clouds of slumber lie The terror of his beak, ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... pluck a few feathers from the under part of the leg; if the skin is not discolored the bird is fresh. The age may be known by placing the thumb into the beak, and holding the bird up with the jaw apart; if it breaks it is young; if not, it is old, and requires longer keeping before ...
— The Story of Crisco • Marion Harris Neil
... oolitic T. tetraedra, and that the varieties amongst them are such as are found in that variable species. Generally speaking, the American specimens of T. aenigma may be distinguished from the British T. tetraedra, by the surface having the ribs sharp and well-defined to the beak, whilst in the British species they become obsolete and smoothed down; but this difference is not constant. Professor Forbes adds, that, possibly, internal characters may exist, which would distinguish the American species from ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... never die. Have done; have done; show the sharp beak of the eagle where it is to devour my entrails. But hear me ... No, hear nothing; ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... opinion that a squadron of seven-hundred-ton vessels with beaks could best defend a harbor from ironclads; and in support of this contention he cited an experience of his own as showing the efficiency of the beak in naval warfare. A few years before he had anchored in the Piraeus, his ship, an ironclad, having a beak projecting from the bow, of course under water. Noticing a Greek brig nearing him, he made signals to her to keep well off; but the captain of the brig, resenting ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... close for James Batter, who, being a member of the fifteenpence a-quarter subscription book-club, had read a power of all sorts of things, sacred and profane. James, as he was humming it over with his specs on his beak, gave now and then a thump on his thigh, "Prime, prime, man; fine, prime, good, capital!" and so on, which astonished me much, kenning who had written it—a callant that had sleeped with our Benjie, and could not have shaped a pair of leggins ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... knaw, an' I think it wad just suit oor Sam, An' my missus, she's just o' my mind, for she says that he's nea use at yam. It was nobbut this mornin' I sent him to gan an' to harrow some land, He was boamin'(7) asleep upo' d' fauf,(8) wiva rubbishly beak iv his hand; I gav him a bunch(9) wi' my feat, an' rattled him yarmin'(10) off yam. Sea I think that I'll send him to you, you mun mak a skealmaisther o' Sam. He's a stiff an' a runty(1) young fellow, I think that' he'll grow up a whopper, ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman
... there are certainly more than a hundred well-marked races. The most noteworthy of these races are, the four great stocks known to the "fancy" as tumblers, pouters, carriers, and fantails; birds which not only differ most singularly in size, colour, and habits, but in the form of the beak and of the skull: in the proportions of the beak to the skull; in the number of tail-feathers; in the absolute and relative size of the feet; in the presence or absence of the uropygial gland; in the number of vertebrae in the back; in short, ...
— The Origin of Species - From 'The Westminster Review', April 1860 • Thomas H. Huxley
... some time before, for the hand of the spoiler had been near their dwelling, and its fragments lay scattered on the ground. He presently learnt to notice that he never heard the sharp sound of the bird's tapping beak among the woods without ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... how little and naked he was, and how he shivered, so they did not throw sticks at him, but allowed him to creep close. He watched his chance, and when they were not looking he picked up a red-hot coal in his beak and flew back home with it as fast as ever he could—and that is how fire came to ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... in thunder; his celestial breath Was sulphurous to smell. The holy eagle Stoop'd, as to foot us. His ascension is More sweet than our blest fields. His royal bird Prunes the immortal wing and cloys his beak, As when ...
— Cymbeline • William Shakespeare [Tudor edition]
... bird, with his little red beak?" said the artist. "When our dear Lord hung bleeding, and no man pitied him, this bird, filled with tender love, tried to draw out the nails with his poor little beak,—so much better were the birds than we hard-hearted sinners!—hence he hath honor in many pictures. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... of all you have done; Only think of all you can do; A false note is really fun From such a bird as you! Lift up your proud little crest, Open your musical beak; Other birds have to do their best, ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... took the little girl, flew to the loghouse, knocked with his beak a hole in the window-pane of stretched bladder, laid the infant in the arms of the Viking's wife, then flew to his mate, and unburdened his mind to her; while the little ones listened attentively, for they were old ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... another which was engaged in pursuit, if it had fallen into an opposite current, turning itself away as if for flight. And when actually engaged, one ship while bearing down upon another with its beak directed against it, assuming an oblique position itself, received a stroke from the beak of the other; while another which lay with its side exposed to the enemy, receiving a sudden impulse, was turned round so as to present its prow. While the triremes were thus engaged in ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... will not be acknown, sir; why, 'tis wise. Thus do all gamesters, at all games, dissemble: No man will seem to win. [exeunt corvino and corbaccio.] —Here comes my vulture, Heaving his beak up in ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... formation includes (like that of Java) three regions—the central volcanic, the southern peninsula of Tertiary limestone, and alluvial plains between the older formations. The highest volcanoes, Tabanan, Batur and Gunung Agung (Bali Beak), have respectively heights of 7545 ft., 7383 ft., and 10,497 ft., the central chain having an average altitude of 3282 ft. As regards flora and fauna Bali is associated with Java. The deep strait which separates it on the east ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... away from the mid-gallery, and instead, three gradated series of birds put down the length of it (or half the length—or a quarter would do it—with judgment), showing the transition, in length of beak, from bunting to woodcock—in length of leg, from swift to stilted plover—and in length of wing, from auk to frigate-bird; the wings, all opened, in one specimen of each bird to their full sweep, and in another, shown at the limit of the down back stroke. For what on earth—or in ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... merrily, in order to make it known that he had something nice to invite to, and as two neat grey-speckled hens sprang towards him, he let first one grain of corn and then another fall out of his beak, of which, agreeably to a clever hen-instinct, they availed themselves without ceremony or compliments. How ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... and to send them away to plot His death. That is what comes of making religion a round of outward observances. The Pharisee is always blind as an owl to the light of God and true goodness; keen-sighted as a hawk for trivial breaches of his cobweb regulations, and cruel as a vulture to tear with beak and claw. The race is not extinct. We all carry one inside us, and need God's help ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... by anybody that wears pants, and when Pa sidled up to her and began talking about what a great work the christian wimmen of the land were doing in educating the heathen, she felt real good, and then she noticed Pa's posey in his button-hole and she touched it, and then she reached over her beak to smell of it. Pa he squeezed the bulb, and about half a teacupful of water struck her right in the nose, and some went into her strangle place, and O, my, ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... he did not know Shacabac of the cleft lips, and the loquacious barber, and the little hunchback of Casgar, just as when he was out walking he used to look about for the black woodpecker which bears in its beak the magic root of the treasure-seeker, so Canaan and the Promised Land became in his childish imagination certain regions in Burgundy or Berrichon. A round hill in the country, with a little tree, like ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... beside them a big bird of a most beautiful blue color. At first they were a bit frightened, for the newcomer seemed of giant size beside their little lark bodies, and he was, moreover, quite fierce in appearance, having a crest of feathers that came to a point above his head, and a strong beak and sharp talons. But Twinkle looked full into the shrewd, bright eye, and found it good humored and twinkling; so she plucked up courage ...
— Policeman Bluejay • L. Frank Baum
... fore-mast, and hooked on to the reef-cringle of the fore-top-sail. The birds did not move at our approach, and one old red-eyed vulture snapped on the polished bill of the boat-hook, leaving the marks of his beak in the smooth iron. Down in the clear green depths, too, the water was alive with ravenous fish, and we could see at times hundreds of them with their heads fastened on to some dark object, rolling it, and biting it, and pulling every ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... rusty black iron, was gathering cobwebs in disuse. All this lay within Mary Louise's field of vision from the summerhouse and yet she saw it not. She was staring abstractedly at a wary robin that had stopped to rest on a fence post, his beak all frowzy with the debris from a recent drilling. The McCallum house—her father's—stood at the other end of the row of maples on the same side of the street as the meeting house and a hundred yards or so distant. There was quite an expanse of greening ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... answer presented itself. His thin, eagle face was puckered with perplexity. The sleepy eyes gleamed vengefully from between his half-closed eyelids as he gazed across the sunlit prairie. His aquiline nose, always bearing a resemblance to an eagle's beak, was rendered even more like that aristocratic proboscis by reason of the down-drawn tip, consequent upon the odd pursing of his tightly-compressed lips. For the moment "Lord" Bill was at a loss. And, oddly ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... in Newbern, but with ill success. When you got 'em learned a little about the game they acted like a lot of sissies over a broken nose or a couple of front teeth out or something. What he wanted was lads that would get the beak straightened, pretty near as good as new, or proper gold ones put in, and come back looking for more trouble. Wilbur Cowan alone ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... self-enclosed, excited philosopher, but "that most skilful breeder, Sir John Sebright, who used to say, with respect to pigeons, that he would produce any given feathers in three years, but it would take him six years to obtain a head and a beak". I am not saying that the new thought is better than the old; it is no business of mine to say anything about that; I only wish to bring home to the mind, as nothing but instances can bring it home, how matter-of-fact, how petty, as it would at first sight ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... thick-besprent, of every sort and size: Here a Bahaman-spider's carcass lies, There a dire serpent's golden skin doth shine; Here Indian feathers, fruits, and glittering flies; There gums and amber found beneath the line, The beak of Ibis ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... around the neck and clutched him like a vise, shutting off his last, startled squawk. Then Cap'n Kidd darted forward that knobby head with its ugly beak, and tore off Peter's caput ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... substances, though they are commonly simple apprehensions, and the names of them simple terms, yet in effect are complex and compounded. Thus the idea which an Englishman signifies by the name swan, is white colour, long neck, red beak, black legs, and whole feet, and all these of a certain size, with a power of swimming in the water, and making a certain kind of noise, and perhaps, to a man who has long observed this kind of birds, some other properties: which all terminate in sensible simple ideas, all ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... and sunny day The Crows to one-another say, "CAW! CAW! our nests now let us build." Away they fly: each beak is fill'd With little sticks of beechen wood, With which they build their houses good: When all is done, with joy they see The work ...
— CAW! CAW! - The Chronicle of Crows, A Tale of the Spring-time • RM
... on me heel, and me beak's begun to peel; I've an ache for every bone that's in me back. I've a feeling I could eat rubber hose and call it sweet, And me hands is warped ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... beautiful bird, with plumage of the finest shining blue, with purple beak and legs, the natural and living ornament of the temples and palaces of the Greeks and Romans, which, from the stateliness of its part, as well as the brilliancy of its colors, has obtained ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... to her, for the sunbonnet overhanging the meek potato-flowers like a flamingo's beak rose in air, as she stood erect, or as nearly erect as she ever stood nowadays. She tossed a few uprooted weeds over the lilac-hedge, and, clumping up the steps of the porch, slumped into a chair. Chairs had once been her luxury, too. She carried ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... marvellous adaptations of anatomical structure, the provisions for the flight of birds, and for the movements of fishes; with instances of arrangements to suit particular conditions—the long neck of the swan, the minute eye of the mole, the beak of the parrot, the sting of the bee—all furnishing an ever accumulating body of irrefutable evidence to attest the existence and operation of an intelligent Author ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... parting message to the earth, a great bird hovered motionless. It seemed to hang in air as if by a thread. Then it descended with a wide, circling swoop. In less than ten seconds, as it seemed to Hervey, its body and great wings, and even its curved, cruel beak, were plainly visible circling a few yards above the tree. It seemed like a journey from the heavens to the ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... a sea-bird [172] with a black beak, the upper part slightly aquiline, four inches long and in the form of a lancet; namely, the lower part representing the handle and the upper the blade, which is thin, sharp on both sides, and shorter by a third than the other, which circumference is a matter of astonishment ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... report, like that of a blunderbuss going off. This was accompanied by the flourish of a brightly coloured pocket-handkerchief, whose vivid hue approximated closely to the general tint of his cheeks and eagle-like beak, and which he held loosely, ready for action, in his disengaged left hand; for, his right was ever at work oscillating between the magazine of snuff in his deep waistcoat pocket and the nasal promontory that consumed it with almost rhythmical regularity, sniff and snort and resonant ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... rooster escaped from the old man's hands it ran off down the high-road. While thus pursuing its way, lo and behold! it found a little purse with two half-pennies. Taking it in its beak, the bird turned and went back toward the old man's house. On the road it met a carriage containing a gentleman and several ladies. The gentleman looked at the rooster, saw a purse in its bill, ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... Picus of Mirandola, the writer of his Life, that he had himself seen the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove more than once, sitting on Savonarola's shoulder, fluttering his feathers, which were sprinkled with silver and gold, and, putting his beak to his ear, whispering to him his divine suggestions. The prior besides relates in a book of his own composition at great length a dialogue that he held with the devil, appearing like, and having been mistaken by the writer ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... eagle's nest: and thro' the tree Rush'd ever a rainy wind, and thro' the wind Pierced ever a child's cry: and crag and tree Scaling, Sir Lancelot from the perilous nest, This ruby necklace thrice around her neck, And all unscarr'd from beak or talon, brought A maiden babe; which Arthur pitying took, Then gave it to his Queen to rear: the Queen But coldly acquiescing, in her white arms Received, and after loved it tenderly, And named it Nestling; so forgot herself A moment, and her ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... chance," said Dason, and knelt and offered his neck to the axe. So Tob cut off his head, sticking it on the galley's beak as an advertisement of what had been done. The body he threw over the side, and one of the great man-eating birds that hovered near, picked it up and flew away with it to its nest amongst the crags. And so we were free to get a meal ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... something for William, even if it was only going into a convent—to be bricked up alive, perhaps. And then I hears a scratch, scratch, scratching, and 'Drat the mice,' says I; but I didn't take any notice, and then there was a little tap, tapping, like a bird would make with its beak on the window-pane, and I went and opened it, thinking it was a bird that had lost its way and was coming foolish-like, as they will, to the light. So I drew the curtain and opened the window, ...
— In Homespun • Edith Nesbit
... bring earth with them, so that there will always be more of it as my hole becomes deeper by degrees. And plenty of withered leaves fall on my poor maimed top. I also positively believe that I have an earth-worm up there. How he got there, I don't know: perhaps a bird dropped him out of his beak. But he draws the leaves down into the earth and eats them and turns them into mould. So I say, like the elder-bush, it will ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... one turned, from every direction came the note of the golden oriole and the shrill cry of the hoopoe and the red-legged falcon. At any other time I should have begun chasing dragon-flies or throwing stones at a crow which was sitting on a low mound under an aspen-tree, with his blunt beak turned away; but at that moment I was in no mood for mischief. My heart was throbbing, and I felt a cold sinking at my stomach; I was preparing myself to confront a gentleman with epaulettes, with a naked sword, ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... never tiring, With its beak it doth not cease, From the cross it would free the Saviour, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... give as regards the way in which wild animals readily become domesticated, and eventually seem to prefer the society of man to that of their own species. In this case my pet was a hornbill, a bird of discordant note, and with a huge beak, and a box-like crowned head. This creature was also totally unrestrained, but showed a most decided preference for the society of man. One day it joined some of its species which made their appearance in the ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... even as regards their other studies at the University, for I will prepare the practical exercises in a double series, one illustrative of history, the other of natural science. And whether you are drawing a piece of Greek armour, or a hawk's beak, or a lion's paw, you will find that the mere necessity of using the hand compels attention to circumstances which would otherwise have escaped notice, and fastens them in the memory without farther effort. But were it even otherwise, and this practical ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... work, chaffing gaily with his principal actor as to the rendering of some of his lines. Then there was Fardell, also a schoolfellow, now a police magistrate, full of dry and pleasant humour, called by his intimates "The Beak "; Amberson, poseur and dilettante thirty years ago, but always a good fellow, now an acknowledged master of English prose and a critic whose word was unquestioned. These men, one and all, seemed to be up to the neck in life, kept young and human by the taste of it upon ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of most species are comparatively short, and the head is small so that they are often hardly noticeable when the body is distended. The sucking beak which is thrust into the host when the tick is feeding is furnished with many strong recurved teeth which hold on so firmly that when one attempts to pull the tick away the head is often torn from the body and left ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... vulture curse That hovers o'er the universe, With ready talons quick to strike In every human heart alike, And cruel beak to stab and tear In virtue's vitals everywhere,— You need no sympathy of mine To aid you, for a strength divine Encircles you, and lifts you clear Above this ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... outward form of the ibis is this:—it is a deep black all over, and has legs like those of a crane and a very curved beak, and in size it is about equal to a rail: this is the appearance of the black kind which fight with the serpents, but of those which most crowd round men's feet (for there are two several kinds of ibises) the ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... robin was so tired and frightened, that it lay on the ground, panting, with its feathers ruffled, and its beak wide open, and its eyes half closed. It seemed ready to die. Then the rude, cruel boys pulled the string to make ...
— The Nursery, October 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 4 • Various
... it happened, was only a few yards away. He came up eagerly, a slim, dark man with keen gray eyes and a nose like a hawk's beak. ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... fowl between a stork and a swan—a melancholy water-fowl brought from Astracan by the Russian ambassador." This writer tells us, "It was diverting to see how the pelican would toss up and turn a flat fish, plaice or flounder, to get it right into its gullet at its lower beak, which being filmy stretches to a prodigious wideness when it devours a great fish. Here was also a small water-fowl, not bigger than a more-hen, that went almost quite erect like the penguin of America. It would eate as much fish as its whole ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... face in the shadow of the newspaper a tall, lean young man entered the dressing-room with a swaggering gait. His melancholy eyes were deeply sunken above a nose like a crow's beak; his mouth was set in a petrified grin. The Adam's apple of his long throat made a deep shadow on his stock. He was dressed as a ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... case, although, I confess, she looked like it. In a few seconds she put down her head and opened her mouth, into which the young one thrust its beak and seemed to suck something from her throat. Then the cackling was renewed, the sucking continued, and so the operation of feeding was carried on till the young one was satisfied; but what she fed her little one with we could ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... said Mary Acton. "Do you remember the young one we found last spring, sprawling all over the nest, and opening its huge, gaping beak?" ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... we saw several dolphins and bonnettas about the ship, and the next day some straggling birds, which were brown on the back and the upper part of their wings, and white on the rest of the body, with a short beak, and a short pointed tail. The variation was now decreased to 4 deg. 43' E. our latitude was 24 deg. 30' S. our longitude 97 deg. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... and hour was she arrested?" said the man, thrusting his beak-like nose closer to Armand's face. Evidently the piece of silver had done its work well; he meant to be ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... touch. If the body feels warm after sleep, unlike their own dew-cooled skins, it soon becomes a corpse. They advance with two long knives, generally matchets, one held between the teeth. They prefer the white arm because 'guns miss fire, but swords are like the chicken's beak, that never fails to hit the grain.' Some 250 of these desperadoes lately drove off 5,000 of the semi-civilised recreants and took about 560 prisoners, including the 'King' of ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... the roc had settled and that I was once again upon solid ground, I hastily unbound my turban from its foot and freed myself, and that not a moment too soon; for the bird, pouncing upon a huge snake, killed it with a few blows from its powerful beak, and seizing it up rose into the air once more and soon disappeared from my view. When I had looked about me I began to doubt if I had gained anything by ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... naked and chubby body, played a great part in these pictures. To one of them, the title of which was "Saffron and the Rainbow," was appended the explanation, "The effect of this is great." Opposite another, which represented "A Stork, flying with a violet in its beak," stood this motto, "To thee they are all known;" and "Cupid, and a bear licking its cub," was styled "Little by Little." Fedia used to pore over these pictures. He was familiar with them all even to their minutest details. Some of them—it was always the same ones—made ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... a burst of feeling, "they say the American eagle might keep her beak shut with advantage, more than she does; but I tell you," and the Senator's hand came down hard on Dicky's knee, "a trip around Europe is enough to turn her into a singing ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... below. A woodpecker on a fir tree raps lightly and flies farther on and vanishes; it has hidden, but does not cease to tap with its beak, like a child when it has hidden and wishes to be sought for. Nearer sits a squirrel, holding a nut in its paws and gnawing it; its tail hangs over its eyes like the plume over a cuirassier's helmet: even though thus protected, ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... Marat was exactly five feet high, and his weight when at his best was one hundred twenty pounds—just the weight of Shakespeare. Jean Paul had a nose like the beak of a hawk, an eye like an eagle, a mouth that matched his nose, and a chin that argued trouble. Not only did he have red hair, but Carlyle ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... a cure for thirst: the bark, Tender and juicy, of the bough. Thy beak, a very needle, stabs it. Mark The narrow passage welling now; The sugared stream is flowing, thee beside, Who drinkest of the flood, the ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... our visitor was a surprise to me, since I had expected a typical country practitioner. He was a very tall, thin man, with a long nose like a beak, which jutted out between two keen, gray eyes, set closely together and sparkling brightly from behind a pair of gold-rimmed glasses. He was clad in a professional but rather slovenly fashion, for his frock-coat was dingy and ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... then no man can say. There was just one furious mix-up of whirling, powdered snow, that hung in the air like a mist, out of which a great pinion, a clawing paw, a snapping beak, a flash of fangs, a skinny leg and clutching, talons, a circling bushy tail appeared and vanished in flashes, to the accompaniment of stupendous flappings and abominably ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... above mentioned, to the order of the Lizards. In this singular reptile (fig. 151) the skull is somewhat bird-like, and the jaws appear to have been destitute of teeth, and to have been encased in a horny sheath like the beak of a Turtle or a Bird. It is possible, however, that the palate ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... made a companion as another man might of a dog. Even now he noted with a sort of pride that broken-winged and shattered though she was, her talons remained fixed in the back of the quarry, and her beak through the neck. ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... himself, and retreating to the chartroom, pulled the door to with a crash. There, his brows knitted, his mouth drawn on one side in sardonic meditation, he sat through many still hours—a sort of Prometheus in the bonds of unholy desire, having his very vitals torn by the beak and claws of ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... is to the west-north-west-half-north, and we will have to answer him! There are animals that speak! Well, why should not a dog do as much if he took it into his head? It is more difficult to talk with a beak than ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... for the fresh wind made the pennons cut strange capers. The winged lion of Venice looked as if trying to fly away home; the Chinese dragon appeared to brandish his forked tail as he clawed at the Burmese peacock; the double-headed eagle of Russia pecked at the Turkish crescent with one beak, while the other seemed to be screaming to the English royal beast, "Come on and lend a paw." In the hurry of hoisting the Siamese elephant got turned upside down, and now danced gayly on his head, with the stars and ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... the chimney and away to the wood. Rap! rap! rap! you can hear her tapping her beak on the tree-trunks as she hunts for food. But always and everywhere, she wears a black coat and a little red cap. Watch for the woodpecker and see if ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... a confused screaming and crying, and every one according to his usual note, but not one of them of any kind that I knew. As for the creature I killed, I took it to be a kind of hawk, its colour and beak resembling it, but it had no talons or claws more than common. Its flesh was ...
— Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... but little more difficult; a rod extends from the beak to the tail, and is crossed by another which extends from tip to tip of the wings. The rods being lashed together, a small thread is drawn from the place of the head of the eagle, to the two extremities of the wings, and thence ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... of life, and of frightful shape and features, the principal god being in a tent-like shrine, which permits only a glimpse of his grim features in the background. On his right hand is the figure of a man with the beak of an eagle, and on his left a very grotesque divinity, with a third eye, like that of the Cyclops, in the centre of his forehead. These two figures, again, are supported by gigantic guardians, one on either side, who have nothing absolutely monstrous about them, being ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... what a delight! To have something that nobody else had—something all his own. As the traveling-cloak traveled on, he little heeded where, and the lark still stayed, nestled down in his bosom, hopped from his hand to his shoulder, and kissed him with its dainty beak, as if it loved him, Prince Dolor forgot all his grief, ...
— The Little Lame Prince - And: The Invisible Prince; Prince Cherry; The Prince With The Nose - The Frog-Prince; Clever Alice • Miss Mulock—Pseudonym of Maria Dinah Craik
... see nothing but the clouds and sky. I heard a noise just over my head like the clapping of wings, and then began to perceive the woful condition I was in, that some eagle had got the ring of my box in his beak, with an intent to let it fall on a rock like a tortoise in a shell, and then pick out my body and devour it; for the sagacity and smell of this bird enabled him to discover his quarry[86] at a great distance, though better concealed ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... with Jack and a pipe to keep off the Tory mosquitos, while I fell to reading the letter. The same buzzing Tories were busy about me also with bugle and beak, but when, as I glanced at the letter, I caught Darthea's name on the second page, I forgot them and hesitated. "Still," thought I, "others have read it, and it may be well that I should do so." It was no longer private. I went on to learn what it said. It was from Miss Franks ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... overpowering effect on him. It was sung confoundedly well, too. The band came in with a wild, trailing strain, that was positively heart-breaking. The party just mentioned was, as I said, old, and a gentleman, but he was tall, robust, broad-shouldered, with eagle-like beak, and keen gray eyes that were fitting accompaniments to so distinguished a feature. His dress was rather careless, but his air and the expression of his face evinced a mixture of eccentricity and a sense of superiority. At least, it had evinced this until the singing of Tara. Then he ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... exact counterpart of her brother. Soon after her confinement, Francesca had a vision which impressed her with the belief that God would one day claim this child as His own. She saw a dove of dazzling whiteness, bearing in its beak a tiny lighted taper, enter the room; and after making two or three circles in the air, it stooped over Agnese's cradle, touched her brow and limbs with the taper, gently fluttered its wings, and flew away. Looking upon this as a sign that the little ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... manifest life. Where are they—all the dying, all the dead, of the populous woods? Where do they hide their little last hours, where are they buried? Where is the violence concealed? Under what gay custom and decent habit? You may see, it is true, an earth-worm in a robin's beak, and may hear a thrush breaking a snail's shell; but these little things are, as it were, passed by with a kind of twinkle for apology, as by a well-bred man who does openly some little solecism which is too slight for direct mention, ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... faithful ally of Great Britain, the Catholic king, that we address our doleful lamentation: it is not to the Prince of Peace, whose declaration of war was one of the first auspicious omens of general tranquillity, which our dove-like ambassador, with the olive-branch in his beak, was saluted with at his entrance into the ark of clean birds ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... woke, to find he had cried the words aloud. He sat up in bed. A white pigeon was on the sill outside his window, tapping with its beak ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... her, she means, poor soul!" soliliquized the dame. "It is but little you know my gay master if you think he values a promise made to any woman, except to deceive her! I have seen too many birds of that feather not to know a hawk, from beak to claw. When I was the Charming Josephine I took the measure of men's professions, and never was deceived but once. Men's promises are big as clouds, and as empty ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby |
