"Beak" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The gas-jet puffed and whinnied, Charlie's voice dropped almost to a whisper, and he told a tale of the sailing of an open galley to Furdurstrandi, of sunsets on the open sea, seen under the curve of the one sail evening after evening when the galley's beak was notched into the centre of the sinking disc, and "we sailed by that for we had no other guide," quoth Charlie. He spoke of a landing on an island and explorations in its woods, where the crew killed three men whom they found asleep under the pines. Their ghosts, Charlie ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... posterity, omitting nothing which either his art could demonstrate, or any mans judgment think worthy of being known. After an exact survey of the whole frame, he found the extreme length, from the beak head to the stern, where a lantern was erected, 165 feet. The breadth, in the second close deck, of which she had three, but this the broadest, was 46 feet 10 inches. At her departure from Cochin ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... a motive that goes far and explains much. The haps and mishaps of the hungry make up natural history. The eye of the eagle is developed that it may see its prey from afar, its wings are strong that it may pounce upon it, its beak and talons are sharpened that it may tear it in pieces. By right of these superiorities, the eagle ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... bird, would willingly and kindly aid him. Wondrous to relate, the bird not only kept the place it had once taken, but as often as the encounter was renewed, raising itself on its wings, it attacked the face and eyes of the foe with its beak and talons, until Valerius slays him, terrified at the sight of such a prodigy, and confounded both in his vision and understanding. The crow soaring out of sight makes towards the east. Hitherto the advanced guards on both sides remained ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... Solomon Owl had not tried more than once to catch Grumpy Weasel perhaps Mr. Crow's retort wouldn't have made him feel so uncomfortable. And muttering that he wished when people spoke of his beak they wouldn't call it a bill, and that Mr. Crow was too stupid to talk to, Solomon ...
— The Tale of Grumpy Weasel - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... three equal vertical bands of green (hoist side), white, and red; the coat of arms (an eagle perched on a cactus with a snake in its beak) is centered in ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... he had learned to sing perfectly, not with the low distant-sounding note but with open beak and clear brilliant little roulades and trills. He grew prouder and prouder. When he saw I was busy he would tilt on a nearby bough and call me with flirtatious, provocative outbreaking of song. He knew that ...
— My Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Synod had met at Dordtrecht. The great John Bogerman, with fierce, handsome face, beak and eye of a bird of prey, and a deluge of curly brown beard reaching to his waist, took his seat as president. Short work was made with the Armenians. They and their five Points were soon thrust out into ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... with awful speed the monster seized the largest and most gaily decorated plane in his hundred-foot tentacles just as the Skylark came within sighting distance. In four practically simultaneous movements Seaton sighted the attractor at the ugly beak, released all its power, pointed the main bar of the Skylark directly upward, and advanced his speed lever. There was a crash of rending metal as the thing was torn loose from the plane and jerked a hundred miles into the air, struggling so savagely ...
— The Skylark of Space • Edward Elmer Smith and Lee Hawkins Garby
... a vaguely lonesome feeling somewhere in the region of his heart. He went on past the entrance of the San Francisco Stock Exchange and almost collided with a bent-over, shrewd-faced man, whose eagle-beak and penetrating eyes were a ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... most odd and interesting bird on the American continent except the emperor penguin. Its beak baffles description, its long legs and webbed feet are a joke, its nesting habits are amazing, and its food habits the despair of most zoological-garden keepers. Millions of flamingos inhabit the shores of a number ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... twenty-nine days, when they hoped to reach Timor. That afternoon some noddies came so near the boat that one was caught. These birds are about the size of a small pigeon; it was divided into eighteen parts and given by lot. The men were much amused when they saw the beak and claws fall to the lot of the captain. The bird was eaten, bones and all, with bread and ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... while ye fly, That if you nibble, click,{1} or clye,{2} My sight's so dim, I cannot see, Unless while you the blunt{3} tip me: Then stay, then stay; For I shall make this music speak,{4} And bring you up before the Beak,{5} ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... while the flames of the pyre were still blazing brilliantly I utilised their light to enable me to strip the pelt off the great carcase. When the fire had entirely died down, and I had satisfied myself that there was nothing left of poor Ama to be desecrated by fang of beast or beak of bird, I sorrowfully retired from the fatal spot, carrying the leopard's skin with me, and making my way with some difficulty to the place where the canoe lay concealed, ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... head gently three times with his silver wand. Elsie felt immediately that she was changed into a bird. Her arms became wings, and her legs became eagle's legs with long claws, and her nose became a curved beak, while feathers covered her whole body. Then she rose up suddenly into the air, and soared away below the clouds like an eagle hatched from the egg. She flew southwards thus for several days, and would gladly have ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... forces, and the ironclad now set out to render assistance. The wooden gunboats Miami and Southfield offered just the sort of targets the monster fancied. Under a full head of steam, the Albemarle rammed her iron beak clean into the fire room of the Southfield. The latter was skewered upon the projection and began slowly sinking. The snout was so entangled with the Southfield that the victim could not be shaken off, and as she sank she carried her foe with her. The bow of the ironclad dipped below the ...
— Dewey and Other Naval Commanders • Edward S. Ellis
... mirror hung over it, with a gilt eagle a-top, holding in his beak the knot of blue ribbon that tied up a curtain of muslin falling on either side of the table, where appeared little ivory-handled brushes, two slender silver candle-sticks, a porcelain match-box, several pretty trays for small matters, and, most imposing of all, a plump blue silk cushion, coquettishly ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... plied the ferry; and then men would speak of him as the Red Boatman. But he could not be depended on, for he was often absent. His boat was of a curious shape, not like any other boat seen on the Arun. Its prow was curved like a bird's beak. And when folk wished to go across to the Amberley flats that lie under the splendid shell which was once a castle, Harding would carry them, if he was there and neither too busy nor too surly. And ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... by external compulsion. They may have the appearance of being vaguely purposive, although we would never attribute purpose to the creature making them. The infant that cries and struggles, when tormented by the intrusive pin, the worm writhing in the beak of a bird,—these act blindly, but it does not appear meaningless to say that they act. The impulse ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... must it have been which could have forced the poor, hunted wanderers of the wilderness to fly for refuge and protection from the talons and beak of the eagle to the claws and teeth of the lion. It was but a change, and made with but little hope of its being for the better. None saw this more clearly, felt it more deeply, than the sagacious Tecumseh; and his proud ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... evening from that time forward, just about sunset, a little bird with plumage gay, called "The Kingfisher," might be seen to haunt the margin of the lake, ready, with its pointed beak, to hook up the tiny fishes, that glided in shoals at nightfall near the surface ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... do not long escape being caught, though they fly beautifully. Miss J—— had a cockatoo which amused her and the little girls during sewing-class. He was a beautiful bird with a rosy crest, but extremely mischievous. To sharpen his beak he notched all the Venetian shutters in the verandahs; and if he spied a looking-glass, flew at it in a rage and broke it: fortunately there were no large mirrors in the house. These birds look very pretty perching in the trees, ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... fed them well, let them to their Kennel, and wash their Feet with Beer and Butter, or some such thing, and pick and search their Cleys, for Thorns, Stubs, or the like: If it is in Winter, let a Fire be made, and let them beak and stretch themselves for an hour or so at the fire, and suffer them to lick, pick, and trim themselves; hereby to prevent the Diseases incident to them, upon sudden Cooling, as the Mange, Itch, ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... caress of the snows and which wintry dawns have made fragrant. More than once have I satisfied my hunger with it during these disastrous days when the briars have turned into rose-colored crystals, and when the agile wagtail utters its shrill cry toward the larvae which its beak can no longer reach beneath the ice along the banks. I shall continue to gnaw these barks. For, Oh Francis, I do not wish to die with these gentle friends who are in their agony, but rather I wish to live beside you and obtain ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... when the old-fashioned meeting-house was converted into the modern temple! Time and decay had rendered the tall spire unsafe, yet its fall by force and premeditated purpose seemed a sacrilege. I felt affronted for the huge weathercock, reclining sulkily against a fence, no more to point his beak to the east with obstinate preference. I mourned over the broad, old-fashioned dial, on which young eyes could discern the time a mile off. The old sexton lived to see this change, and at the end of half a century of care under that venerable ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... Grosbeak. So, too, in the pine woods they were showered by bits of cones, and looked aloft to make out a distant little bird busily engaged in tearing the cones to pieces. They laughed at his industry, but would have been immensely interested could they have examined at close hand the Crossbill's beak and its singular adaption to just this task. And of course they remarked the stately deliberate-looking prints of the grouse; and the herded tramping of the quail. The winter was populous enough, in spite of its rigour. Some of its many creatures the boys knew; ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... you shall go scot free and that no action criminal or civil shall lie against you, and this my secretary shall give to you in writing. Now, good fellow, rise, but steal Satan's plumes no more lest you should feel his claws and beak, for he is an ill fowl to mock. Bring hither that Spaniard Maldon. I have somewhat to ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... excellent skill, omitted nothing in the description, which either his arte could demonstrate, or any mans iudgement thinke woorthy the memory. After an exquisite suruey of the whole frame he found the length from the beak-head to the sterne (whereupon was erected a lanterne) to containe 165 foote. The breadth in the second close decke whereof she had three, this being the place where there was most extension of bredth, was 46 feet and ten inches. She drew in water 31 foot ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... little opportunity of observing him, for he had ridden all the way wrapped up in his great common soldier's cloak with its big collar turned up until it obscured every feature but his eyes and the mere point of a beak-like nose. Now, as he lay in an attitude of exhaustion, I went to assist him to a position of more comfort. I took the hook-and-eye which fastened the collar of the cloak and drew them apart; and such a countenance revealed ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... I sing on the branches early, And such my love of song, I sleep but half the night-tide rarely; No raven I, of greedy maw, no kite of bloody beak, No bird of devastating claw, but a woodland songster meek. I love the apple's infant bloom; my ancestry have fared For ages on the nourishment the orchard hath prepared: Their hey-day was the summer, their ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... was musing one day sorrowfully over his disappointed hopes, ashamed to go back to his village, to which he had never returned without success before, when, suddenly, a man of majestic presence stood before him. His nose was like the beak of an eagle, and his eyes resembled fires in a dark night. Strange feathers, of brilliant colors, were woven into his scalp-lock; a magnificent robe of skins depended from his shoulders; and in his hand he held a long spear, tipped ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... Valentine, In many an orchard, copse, and grove, Assembled on affairs of love, And, with much twitter and much chatter, Began to agitate the matter. At length a bullfinch, who could boast More years and wisdom than the most, Entreated, opening wide his beak, A moment's liberty to speak; And, silence publicly enjoin'd, Deliver'd briefly thus his mind: "My friends, be cautious how ye treat The subject upon which we meet; I fear we shall have winter yet." A finch, whose tongue knew no control, With golden wing and satin ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... with his father, who gave him a whip made of a barley straw, to drive the oxen with; but an eagle, flying by, caught him up in his beak, and carried him to the top of a great giant's castle, and dropped him on the leads. The giant was walking on the battlements and thought at first that it was a foreign bird which lay at his feet, but soon seeing that it was ...
— The National Nursery Book - With 120 illustrations • Unknown
... for many years, had all at once sprung upon one another in the Parliament House with the fury of vultures: Flood had screamed to Grattan that he was a mendicant patriot, and Grattan had called Flood an ill-omened bird of night, with a sepulchral note, a cadaverous aspect, and a broken beak. The Irish, like the French, have the art of making things dramatic, and Burke was the greatest of Irishmen. On the opening of the session of 1791, the Government had introduced a bill for the better government of Canada. It introduced questions about church establishments ...
— Burke • John Morley
... of crinoline along the positions to be occupied by the hooks and eyes; this gives strength to the finish. Sufficient material should be allowed for folding over the shanks after the hooks and eyes have been sewed on, or they may be covered with silk ribbon, slipping the edge under the beak of each hook and ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... with the sight of their greediness she held the worm high above them. At last she opened her fingers, and forthwith the fowls hustled one another and pounced upon the worm. One of them fled with it in her beak, pursued by the others; it was thus taken, snatched away, and retaken many times until one hen, with a mighty gulp, swallowed it altogether. At that they all stopped short with heads thrown back, and eyes on the alert for another worm. Desiree called them by their names, and ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... took a few seeds and began to coax the bird, until it, in point of fact, performed various tricks, on the stage, clasping in its beak a ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... Then, with the suddenness and speed of a bolt from a catapult, the giant male shot out of a silvery mist of gloom and struck Peter. The two rolled over the carcass of the fawn, and for a space Peter was dazed by the thundering beat of powerful wings, and the hammering of the owl's beak at the back of his neck. The male had missed his claw-hold, and driven by rage and ferocity, fought to impale his victim from the ground, without launching himself into the air again. Swiftly he struck, again and again, while his wings beat like clubs. Suddenly his talons sank into the ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... pale eyes twinkled with a tiger's bloodthirsty greed. Her broad, flat nose, with nostrils expanded into oval cavities, breathed the fires of hell, and resembled the beak of some evil bird of prey. The spirit of intrigue lurked behind her low, cruel brow. Long hairs had grown from her wrinkled chin, betraying the masculine character of her schemes. Any one seeing that woman's face would have said that ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... explosive shells. They fired the guns backwards, out of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed with the beak. That was the theory, you know, but they had never been fought. No one could tell exactly what was going to happen. And meanwhile I suppose it was very fine to go whirling through the air like a flight of young ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... you tell me no one had been here? (Shakes his finger at her.) My little song-bird must never do that again. A song-bird must have a clean beak to chirp with—no false notes! (Puts his arm round her waist.) That is so, isn't it? Yes, I am sure it is. (Lets her go.) We will say no more about it. (Sits down by the stove.) How warm and snug it is ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... woods! Silence! Deep silence! Save for the chortle of the night-jar, the tap of the snipe's beak against the tree-trunks, the snores of a weary game-keeper, the chirp of the burying-beetle, the croak of the bat, the wild laughter of the owl and the boom, boom of the frog, deep silence reigned. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... the end of that time a great coach and horses came up to the door of the king's house; and the jackdaw came in, and he took the edge of the young girl's dress in his beak to draw her out of the house. And she went away in the carriage with him, and they came to a sort of a castle, and went into it. And there was no one in it; but no sooner did they come in, than there was a table set out before them, with every sort of food and ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... beneath the zephyr's wing, Wears on her breast the varnished buds of Spring; When the loosed current, as its folds uncoil, Slides in the channels of the mellowed soil; When the young hyacinth returns to seek The air and sunshine with her emerald beak; When the light snowdrops, starting from their cells, Hang each pagoda with its silver bells; When the frail willow twines her trailing bow With pallid leaves that sweep the soil below; When the broad elm, sole empress of the plain, Whose circling ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of Johnston's hungry hawk had been broken in the Cumberland Mountains. Early in February, Johnston had withdrawn it from Kentucky before Buell's hosts, with its beak always to the foe. By the middle of the month, Grant had won the Western border States to the Union, with the capture of Fort Donelson. In April, the sun of Shiloh rose and set on the failure of the first Confederate aggressive campaign at the West; and in that fight Dan saw his first real battle, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... heavenly sweetness of temper, and precocious piety, proved the 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 maiden would ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... into the fresh-forming foliage. The 'American blight' on apple trees is yet another member of the same family, a wee creeping cottony creature that hides among the fissures of the bark, and drives its very long beak far down into the green sappy layer underlying the dead outer covering. In fact, almost all the best-known 'blights' and bladder-forming insects are aphides of one kind or another, affecting leaves, or stalks, or ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... so fat that he reminds you, in his wig, of some droll old court officer in an illustrated nursery story-book, and yet all these fat features instinct with meaning, the fat lips curved and compressed, the nose combining somehow the dignity of a beak with the good nature of a bottle, and the very double chin with an air of intelligence and insight. And all these portraits are so pat and telling, and look at you so spiritedly from the walls, that, compared with the sort of ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the rock, that modern Prometheus, Captain Lysander Sprowl, like his mythical prototype, felt the vulture's beak in his vitals. Chagrin devoured his liver. An overflow of southern bile was the result, and he turned yellow to the whites of ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... principles I may give a simple example. Supposing a species of bird with a soft slender beak to be placed on an island, where the only food they could obtain was fruit enclosed in a hard or tough shell or covering. Supposing some birds accidentally possessed of a beak that was shorter and stouter ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... clapping their wings in the tree above him; then the five mystic beasts,—closest to his feet the irredeemable boar; then lion and bear, tiger, unicorn, and fiery dragon closest to his head, the flames of its mouth mingling with his breath as he sings. The audient eagle, alas! has lost the beak, and is only recognizable by his proud holding of himself; the duck, sleepily delighted after muddy dinner, close to his shoulder, is a true conquest. Hoopoe, or indefinite bird of crested race, behind; of the other three no clear certainty. The ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... selection, at the same time entirely ignoring my discussion (page 93, 3rd edition) on beautiful plumage being acquired through SEXUAL selection. The duke may think this insufficient, but that is another question. All analogy makes me quite disagree with the Duke that the difference in the beak, wing and tail, are not of importance to the several species. In the only two species which I have watched, the difference in flight and in the use of ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... of the Austro-Hungarian Empire bears to a monstrous bird of prey hovering threateningly over Italy. The body of the bird is formed by Hungary; Bohemia is the right wing, Bosnia and Dalmatia constitute the left; the Tyrol represents the head, while the savage beak, with its open jaws, is formed by that portion of the Tyrol commonly known as the Trentino. And that savage beak, you will note, is buried deep in the shoulder of Italy, holding between its jaws, as it were, the Lake of Garda. ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... bird had wonderful courage. Although plunged into the water and suffering one wave to break and pour over him, the great bird sprang into the air once more. He would not give up the fight! Russ and Rose saw the flashing eyes, the hooked beak parted, and every other evidence of the creature's putting forth a last remaining effort to reach a secure resting place ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Mammy June's • Laura Lee Hope
... recounts her dream: 'I sat upon a desert shore, and from the mountain nigh, Right toward me, I seemed to see a gentle falcon fly; But close behind an eagle swooped, and struck that falcon down, And with talons and beak he rent the bird, as he cowered beneath my gown.' The chief of her maidens smiled, and said; 'To me it doth not seem That the Lady Alda reads aright the boding of her dream. Thou art the falcon, and thy knight is the eagle in his pride, As he ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... ecstacy of that divine creature, that the listeners were nearly beside themselves with ravishment and admiration. The nightingale now opened, and a little humming-bird of most surprising brilliancy hopped forth, and jumping up to the Queen, held out its beak, having a label therein, apparently beseeching her to accept the offering. She stooped down to receive the billet, which she hastily unfolded. What effect was visible on her countenance we cannot pretend to say, inasmuch as ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... standing in astonishment on the threshold. In the ruinous chamber, which was lighted scantily by a small grated window, he saw a large owl sitting on the floor. Large tears were rolling from her great round eyes, and with a hoarse voice she uttered complaints from her crooked beak. But when she beheld the caliph and his vizier, who had crept after him in the mean time, she raised a loud cry of joy. Then she gracefully wiped the tears from her eyes with her brown-spotted wing, and, to the great astonishment of both, she cried out, in good ...
— What the Animals Do and Say • Eliza Lee Follen
... break in the strata, by another, perhaps twenty feet higher, the upper portion being curiously wrought by nature's chisel into the shape of a human countenance. The forehead is shelving, the eyebrows heavy and menacing; the nose large and hooked like the beak of a hawk; the upper lip short, the chin prominent and pointed, while a thick growth of ferns in the shelter of the crag forming the nose gives the impression of a small mustache and goatee. Above the forehead a ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... parrot leaned his head on one side and directed a peculiar look at the jay. But Madan- manjari raised her beak high in the air, puffed through it once or twice, and turned away ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... reason the generous blood of the Belphers boiled over, and then—zing. They jerked him off to Vine Street. Like the poem, don't you know. 'And poor old Percy walked between with gyves upon his wrists.' And this morning, bright and early, the beak parted him from ten quid. You know, Maud, old thing, our duty stares us plainly in the eyeball. We've got to train old Boots down to a reasonable weight and spring him on the National Sporting Club. We've ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... kissed. The Countess Gemini simply nodded without getting up: Isabel could see she was a woman of high fashion. She was thin and dark and not at all pretty, having features that suggested some tropical bird—a long beak-like nose, small, quickly-moving eyes and a mouth and chin that receded extremely. Her expression, however, thanks to various intensities of emphasis and wonder, of horror and joy, was not inhuman, and, as regards her appearance, it was plain she understood ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... regular tug of war ensued. They pulled one another about for some time on the top of an awning, and finally, becoming tired of this, they dropped the straw and furiously attacked each other. They fought with beak and claw, paying no attention to the spectators, and fell exhausted to the sidewalk, where they lay upon their backs until able to hop slowly away from each other. It was some little time before they recovered strength to fly in opposite directions, ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock
... out of it—oh, the most loathsome-looking creature I ever saw; 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 it crawled away and, obeying that gesture, dragged its huge bulk over the threshold, and passed from sight. Then the ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... Inn, as he passed along, he saw an old man counting on a table a big heap of gold pieces, which Kiki thought to be money. One of these would buy him supper and a bed, he reflected, so he transformed himself into a magpie and, flying through the open window, caught up one of the gold pieces in his beak and flew out again before the old man could interfere. Indeed, the old man who was robbed was quite helpless, for he dared not leave his pile of gold to chase the magpie, and before he could place the gold in a sack in his pocket the robber bird was out of sight ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... cause of variation. In one limited sense, as we shall hereafter see, this may be true; but it is preposterous to attribute to mere external conditions, the structure, for instance, of the woodpecker, with its feet, tail, beak, and tongue, so admirably adapted to catch insects under the bark of trees. In the case of the misletoe, which draws its nourishment from certain trees, which has seeds that must be transported by ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... the air. Now Mr. Eagle was one of the biggest and strongest and most respected of all the birds of the air. There were some, like Mr. Goose and Mr. Swan, who were bigger, but they spent most of their time on the water or the earth, and they had no great claws or hooked beak to command respect as did Mr. Eagle. So Old Mother Nature made Mr. Eagle king of the air, and as was quite right and proper, all the birds ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... Wiggett, and one or two others he knew, and was talking pleasantly with them, when Peakslow pushed the inverted cut-water of his curved beak through the ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... and in some cases the jaws, though bearing teeth, are beak-like at their extremities and appear to have been enveloped in a horny sheath. In the part of the vertebral column which lies between the haunch bones and is called the sacrum, a number of vertebrae may unite together into one whole, and in this respect, ...
— American Addresses, with a Lecture on the Study of Biology • Tomas Henry Huxley
... while only creating losses in the enemy's, which they easily repaired. It was, as M. Bourrienne has well said, a combat of an Alpine eagle with a flock of ravens: "The eagle may kill them by hundreds. Each blow of his beak is the death of an enemy; but the ravens return in still greater numbers, and continue their attack on the eagle until they at last overcome him." At Champ-Aubert, at Montmirail, at Nangis, at Montereau, and at Arcis, and in twenty other engagements, the Emperor obtained ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... of 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 ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... sweetly down the scale once more. Along the shore, too, there is life; guillemot, oyster-catcher, tern are busy there; the wagtail is out in search of food, advancing in little spurts, trim and pert with its pointed beak and swift little flick of a tail; after a while it flies up to perch on a fence and sing with the rest. But when the sun has set, may come the cry of a loon from some hill-tarn; a melancholy hurrah. That is the last; now there is only the grasshopper left. And there's ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... build their nest in the very corner of his little chamber window. The birds labored with the ardor of two young lovers who are in haste to start in housekeeping. The male bird brought the moistened clay in his beak, which the female kneaded, and with the addition of some chips of straw and hay, she built her little lodging with wonderful skill. As soon as the outside was finished, the betrothed gathered feathers, hair, and soft dry leaves for the inside, and then departed to hide themselves in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... Jorian oracularly, "for I was brought up along with a chough. He and I were born the same year, but he cut his teeth long before me, and wow! but my life was a burden for years all along of him. If you had but a hole in your hose no bigger than a groat, in went his beak like a gimlet; and, for stealing, Gerard all over. What he wanted least, and any poor Christian in the house wanted most, that went first. Mother was a notable woman, so if she did but look round, away flew her thimble. Father lived by cordwaining, so about sunrise Jack went diligently ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... unobserved by the captive, stole over the rim of the stub to investigate things in the gloomy interior and, while its brethren were busy outside found an undisputed field for activity in the cavity. Swooping low it dug its sharp, strong beak into Warruk's back just above the ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... which are lower in the scale than mammals, pass through a stage in which they resemble mammals in certain respects much more than they do when adult, for in an embryonic condition they agree with mammals in having no feathers, no air sacs, no pneumatic sacs in the bones, no beak. Their brain also resembles that of mammals more in an earlier stage than it does later. So, too, myriapods and hydrachnids have at birth three pairs of feet, and resemble at this stage adult insects, which form ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... because it has two wattles under its beak as large as those of a small dunghill-cock, is larger, particularly in length, than an English black-bird. Its bill is short and thick, and its feathers of a dark lead colour; the colour of its wattles is a dull yellow, almost ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... well, and a eagle had come to rest on her bosom, symbolical, mebby, of how wimmen's heart has, all through the ages, been the broodin' place and the rest of eagle man, and her heart warmed by its soft, flutterin' feathers, and pierced by its cruel beak. ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... foolish daw! Crow that thou art! Had I known thou hadst such a word in thy beak, I'd have wrung thy neck sooner than have brought thee," muttered Perronel. "I had best take thee home without ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The beak opened sharply to drop its unconscious burden upon the deck, and the watching man, petrified with horror, saw within the gaping maw great sucking discs and beyond them a brilliant glow. The whole cavernous pit was aflame with phosphorescent ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... is life But a spectre-crowded tomb? Startled with unearthly strife, Spirits fierce in conflict met, In the lightning and the gloom, The agony and sweat; Passions wild and powers insane, And thoughts with vulture beak, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the more formidable by a heavy iron beak, for the purpose of running down and sinking the enemy's vessels; a kind of hanging stage was also placed on the prow of the ship, which could be lowered in front or on either side. It was furnished on both sides with parapets, and had space for ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... chicken grows the horny tip to its beak with which it ultimately pecks its way out of its shell, because it remembers having grown it before, and the use it made of it. We say that it made it on the same principles as a man makes a spade or a hammer, that is to ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... It so happened that Merton had fired just as the bird was about to fly, and had only broken a wing. The owl fell to the ground, but led the boy a wild pursuit before he was captured. Merton's hands were bleeding when he brought the creature in. Unless prevented, it would strike savagely with its beak, and the motions of its head were as quick as lightning. It was, indeed, a strange captive, and the children looked at it in wondering and rather fearful curiosity. My wife, usually tender-hearted, wished the creature, ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... had he touched the black bird's beak with the blood, than it changed, and a handsome youth in kingly dress ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... conceive such a result," repeated Mr. Farebrother, emphatically. "There is a companionship of ready sympathy, which might get the advantage even over the longest associations." It seemed to Fred that if Mr. Farebrother had had a beak and talons instead of his very capable tongue, his mode of attack could hardly be more cruel. He had a horrible conviction that behind all this hypothetic statement there was a knowledge of some actual ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... fish, frogs and lizards form the basis of their food. According to Petherick, they do not disdain dead animals, whose carcasses they disembowel with their powerful hooked beak. They pass the night upon the ground, upon trees and upon high rocks. As regards nest-making and egg-laying, opinions are most contradictory. According to Verreaux, the balaeniceps builds its nest of earth, vegetable debris, reeds, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 829, November 21, 1891 • Various
... proceeded cautiously to examine the lock. I got it well into view, but no more of the gun. It turned out to be an old-fashioned flint-lock. It immediately began to nod backwards and forwards in a manner suggestive of the beak of a bird pecking. Consequently it forthwith became converted into the head of a bird with a long curved beak, the knob on the lock (3) becoming the head of the bird. I then looked to the right expecting to find the barrel, but the snout of a saw-fish ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... tempted, and must escape too. "With the temptation." As sure as Satan is licensed, so sure he is limited; and when Satan has ended all the temptation, he shall depart from thee (Luke 4:13). "He will with the temptation"—by such a managing of it as shall beak its own neck. God can admit Satan to tempt, and make the Christian wise to manage the temptation ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to supply their place, and thus goes on from day to day, till she has laid upwards of forty in the season. Timbo asserted that not only does man wage war against the ostrich, but that a white vulture is particularly fond of her eggs. As his beak is not sufficiently strong to break the shell, he seizes a large stone between his talons, and soaring with it high into the air, gets over the nest; he then lets it drop upon the eggs, seldom failing to break a sufficient number to afford himself a repast. The young ostriches, ...
— In the Wilds of Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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 ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... the top of the 'Stadhuis' gleamed. His beak was open like a pair of scissors and a narrow piece of blue sky was wedged in it. "Cock-a-doodle-do," cried the little boy. "Can't you hear me through the window, Gold Cocky? Cock-a-doodle-do! You should crow when you see the eggs ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... hid in thickets Where the redbird stops to stick its Ruddy beak betwixt the pickets Of the truant's rustic trap; And the sound of laughter ringing Where, within the wild-vine swinging, Climb Bacchante's schoolmates, flinging Purple ...
— Green Fields and Running Brooks, and Other Poems • James Whitcomb Riley
... moving very slowly and stealthily. But the guardian male resented this bold intrusion, and attacked him with beak ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... 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, and ...
— Roumanian Fairy Tales • Various
... the stuffed parroquet on her birthday, and Mamma had given her the Bible and the two grey china vases to make up, with a bird painted on each. A black bird with a red beak and red legs. She had set them up on the chimney-piece under the picture of the Holy Family. She put the Bible in the middle and the parroquet on the top of the Bible and the vases ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair
... sound,[qx] Like crying babe, and beaten hound:[409] With sudden wing, and ruffled breast, The eagle left his rocky nest, And mounted nearer to the sun, The clouds beneath him seemed so dun; Their smoke assailed his startled beak, And made him higher soar and shriek— Thus was Corinth ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... of the life of the South, when her wounded people lay helpless amid rags and ashes under the beak and talon of the Vulture, suddenly from the mists of the mountains appeared a white cloud the size of a man's hand. It grew until its mantle of mystery enfolded the stricken earth and sky. An "Invisible Empire" had risen from the field of Death and challenged ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... peak of an attic window, and looked down into the areas, remaining in this position a considerable time. Now it has taken a flight, and alighted on the roof of this house, directly over the window at which I sit, so that I can look up and see its head and beak, and the tips of its claws. The roofs of the low out-houses are black with moisture; the gutters are full of water, and there is a little puddle where there is a place for it in the hollow of a board. On the grass-plot are strewn the fallen blossoms of the ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Broder came creeping to the king making a sort of moan, and seemed to bewail its master's punishment; and his hawk, when it was brought in, began to pluck out its breast-feathers with its beak. The king took its nakedness as an omen of his bereavement, to frustrate which he quickly sent men to take his son down from the noose: for he divined by the featherless bird that he would be childless unless he took good ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... sac, a pocket, an elastic mask, in whose interior existed only water or air. Between their armpits was their mouth, armed with long jaw bones, like a parrot's beak. When breathing, a crack of their skin would open and close alternately. From one of their sides came forth a tube in the form of a tunnel that swallowed equally the respirable water and drew it through both entrances into its branching cavity. Their multiple arms, fitted out with cupping ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... floor. Then the wolf shook himself and became a snow white cock, which fell to picking up the grains purposing not to leave one; but by doom of destiny one seed rolled to the fountain edge and there lay hid. The cock fell to crowing and clapping his wings and signing to us with his beak as if to ask, ' Are any grains left?" But we understood not what he meant, and he cried to us with so loud a cry that we thought the palace would fall upon us. Then he ran over all the floor till he saw the grain which had rolled to the fountain edge, and rushed eagerly to pick it ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... "When I first came here there was a smith's anvil in this place, and I was then a young bird, and from that time no work has been done upon it, save the pecking of my beak every evening, and now there is not so much as the size of a nut remaining thereof; yet the vengeance of Heaven be upon me if during all that time I have ever heard of the man for whom you inquire. Nevertheless, there is a race of animals who were formed before me, ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... said my uncle, "but his beak shows through. Not in vain hath Egypt brooded all these years, if thou fail not with that dagger-stroke of thine to-night; and how canst thou fail? Nothing can now stop ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... I, bound 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 as the belt Orion wears, Bright as the jewels of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... of the wind shook the very rafters of the house as though some great bird had grasped it with beak and talons, and Priscilla stopped her swift needle, drawing it out to its full length of linen thread and holding it there. A strange puzzled look was on her face—she seemed to be listening intently. Presently, taking off her spectacles, she laid them ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... have," said the doctor, readjusting his spectacles. "Here is a splendid one. No: a blackbird has been digging his beak into that. And into this one too. Really, my dear, I'm afraid that my garden friends and foes have been tasting them all. No, here is one with nothing the matter, save the contusion consequent from its fall from ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... half-dead with thirst, came upon a Pitcher which had once been full of water; but when the Crow put its beak into the mouth of the Pitcher he found that only very little water was left in it, and that he could not reach far enough down ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... provide themselves with wheat! All their labour seemed in vain, and they were greatly distressed as to what they would do for food if they had no harvest to look forward to, when suddenly they saw, perched on a little wayside cross, a tiny robin redbreast holding in its beak an ear of wheat! The monks joyfully took the grain, and, sowing it, reaped an abundant harvest! Accounts vary somewhat in the details of this story. Some say that the bird led the monks to a store of grain, and others question the fact that the bird was a robin, ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... face wore an expression of audacity, bordering on cruelty; his hair, lying in close, damp meshes, was of a deep red; his mustache of the same color hid a large mouth overshadowed by a hooked nose, resembling the beak of a bird ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... 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, didn't ...
— The Grocery Man And Peck's Bad Boy - Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa, No. 2 - 1883 • George W. Peck
... which had been represented many times by Greek artists. The boy seems to be working as hard as any giant could do. The execution of this work is fine. It was probably made for a fountain, the water coming through the beak of the goose. There are several works of ancient sculpture which are of the same spirit, and for this reason are attributed to Boethus. The Spinario, or Thorn-extractor, in the museum of the Capitol, at Rome, is one of the most charming pieces of genre statuary ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... reaching the ears of the English ambassador, it was met with instant and angry remonstrance. "The ambassador," wrote the grand master to Francis, "has been to me in great displeasure, and has told me roundly that his master is trifled with by us. We give him words in plenty to keep his beak in the water; but it is very plain that we are playing false, and that no honesty is intended. Nor are his words altogether without reason; for many persons declare openly that nothing will be done. If the alliance of England, therefore, appear of importance to your Highness, ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... was quite blue. After a few seconds of immobility, he tried to breathe: he put out his lips, opened his poor mouth, like a little bird opening its beak to get a last mouthful of air. ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... makes reply! Ere this hath Lucas marched, with his gallant cavaliers, And the bray of Rupert's trumpets grows fainter in our ears. To horse! to horse! Sir Nicholas! White Guy is at the door, And the raven whets his beak o'er the field of ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... body—legs, arms and chest—was as hairy as the skin of an ape; his hands and feet were crooked, like the claws of a tiger. As to his visage, nothing more fantastic and frightful could be imagined. Amid a thick, bristling beard, a nose like an owl's beak and a mouth whose corners were drawn by a wild-beast-like rictus were just discernible. The eyes were half hidden by his thick, bushy, curly hair. Each curl ended in a spiral, pointed and twisted like a gimlet, and on peering at them closely ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... Eagle holds in its beak a strip of paper with "E. Pluribus Unum" on it, which means ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley
... the King of Birds, Rex Avium, looketh at the Sun, intuetur Solem, as indeed he could hardly avoid doing, since in the "cut" the sun was within a hairsbreath of his beak, while his claws were almost touching a crow (Corvus) perched on a dead horse, to exemplify how Aves Raptores ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... scatters the blue powder. His plumage, of orange colour, seems composed of metallic scales. His dainty head, adorned with a silver tuft, exhibits a human visage. He has four wings, a vulture's claws, and an immense peacock's tail, which he displays in a ring behind him. He seizes in his beak the Queen's parasol, staggers a little before he finds his equilibrium, then erects all his feathers, and ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert
... "Star". Everybody is sorry for you, old man,' he says to Jim. 'I shouldn't wonder if they'd make you a beak if you'd stayed there long enough. I'm afraid Dick's dropping the policeman won't add to our ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... they were aboard the captain set sail, and they were soon in the hollows of deep waters. There was a berth in the ship set apart for Shibli Bagarag, and one for the captain. Shibli Bagarag, when he entered his berth, beheld at the head of his couch a hawk; its eyes red as rubies, its beak sharp as the curve of a scimitar. So he called out to the captain, and the captain came to him; but when he saw the hawk, he plucked his turban from his head, and dashed it at the hawk, and afterward ran to it, trying to catch it; and the hawk flitted from corner ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... river we are struck with more than one peculiar mode of taking fish. We see a number of cormorants perched on the sides of a boat. Now and then a bird dives into the water and comes up with a fish in its beak. If the fish be a small one, the bird swallows it as a reward for its services; but a fish of considerable size is hindered in its descent by a ring around the bird's neck and becomes the booty of the fisherman. The birds appear to be well-trained; ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... is said to have gone one hundred and fifty miles in a day and a night. These boats were about one hundred and twenty feet long and fifteen feet wide. They could be rowed in shallow water, but were not high enough to ride heavy seas safely. They had a sharp beak, which, driven against an enemy's ship, would break in its sides. The Greek grain ships and freight boats were heavier and more capable of enduring ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... table, it was Nile green. Yet the feathers were painted in flat color, without especial sheen or iridescence, and when I finally analyzed it, I found it to be a delicate calamine blue. It actually had the appearance of a too strong color, as when a glistening surface reflects the sun. From beak to tail it threw off this glowing hue, except for its chin and throat, which were a limpid amaranth purple; and the effect on the excited rods and cones in one's eyes was like the power of great music or some majestic passage in the Bible. You, who think my similes are overdone, search ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... they have thus far missed the two things she brought them out to learn: to take a fish always as he comes up; and to hit a wave always on the front side, under the crest. Gripping her fish tightly, she bends in her slow flight and paralyzes it by a single blow in the spine from her hooked beak. Then she drops it back into the whitecaps, where, jumping to the top of my rock, I can see it occasionally struggling ...
— Wood Folk at School • William J. Long
... to represent a human figure with accuracy, it is furnished with a crown, as are the figures in gold and stone, and is covered with devices that seem to refer to costume. The features are extremely grotesque, the nose resembling the beak of a bird and the mouth being a mere ridge, without indications of the lips. The face and the chest are painted with curious devices in red. The funnel and body of the vase are decorated with subjects that seem to have no connection with ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... of young Desire, and purple light of Love;" "The terror of his beak, and lightnings of his eye;" "Their feather-cinctured chiefs, and dusky loves;" "Sailing with supreme dominion Through the azure deep of air;" "Beneath the good how far, but far above the great" "High-born Hoel's harp, and soft ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... to college, but to Ashtabula, wherever that is, and I never wish to see him. But to college was America sent,—to be "hazed," and taunted, and called "E Plury," and his beak and claws inquired after, through the freshman year. I never knew how he went through,—I mean, with what feelings. Of course, he was the first scholar. But that, even, must have been but a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... partridge had fallen within a yard of me, with its beak and claws pointing to the sky, and when the line had passed where we lay Tom lagged behind to look for it. He did not find it then, whether he ever found it afterwards I am sure I don't know. ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... tender germ of the plant to break through the hard crust of the earth and, stretching toward the light, to enfold itself in the proud crown of the palm-tree. Will sharpens the beak of the eagle and the tooth of the tiger and, finally, reaches its highest grade of objectivation in the human brain. Want, the struggle for existence, the necessity of procuring and selecting sufficient food for the preservation of the individual and the species, has at last developed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... cranium, and, indeed, the whole skull, was so small as to be disagreeably suggestive of something animal. The nose, on the other hand, was abnormally large; so extravagant were its dimensions, and so peculiar its shape, it resembled the beak of some bird of prey. A characteristic of the face—and an uncomfortable one!—was that, practically, it stopped short at the mouth. The mouth, with its blubber lips, came immediately underneath the ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... erect, smooth, and branching stem. The flowers are quite large, and, in the different kinds, vary in color from clear white to various shades of purple. The seed-pods are long, smooth, somewhat vesiculate, and terminate in a short spur, or beak. The seeds are round, often irregularly flattened or compressed: those of the smaller or spring and summer varieties being of a grayish-red color; and those of the winter or larger-rooted sorts, of a yellowish-red. ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... them. There is one large thick-shelled mussel that I have found several times with a round hole drilled through the shell, just as if it had been done with a small auger, —doubtless the work of some bird with a strong beak." ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... think," said a fox to a crane, "That face, ma'am of yours is remarkably plain; That beak that you wear is so frightful a feature, It makes you appear a most singular creature." The crane, much offended at what she had heard, March'd off at full speed, without saying a word: "Oh dear!" said the fox, "Mrs. Crane, I protest You misunderstand me, 'twas only a jest." "Come, ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... junks in the bay are about 120 tons burthen, 100 feet long, with an extreme beam, far aft, of twenty-five feet. The bow is long, and curves into a lofty stem, like that of a Roman galley, finished with a beak head, to secure the forestay of the mast. This beak is furnished with two large, goggle eyes. The mast is a ponderous spar, fifty feet high, composed of pieces of pine, pegged, glued, and hooped together. A heavy yard is hung amidships. The sail ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... with me. Yesterday evening I went out with him shooting. He shot at a snipe; the bird, shot in the wing, fell into a pool. I picked it up: a long beak, big black eyes, and beautiful plumage. It looked at me with surprise. What was I to do with it? Levitan scowled, shut his eyes, and begged me, with a quiver in his voice: "My dear fellow, hit him on the head with the butt-end of your gun." I said: "I can't." He went on nervously, shrugging ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... the occident, an eagle, Is not classed among the largest, Nor belongs he to the smallest; One wing touches on the waters, While the other sweeps the heavens; O'er the waves he wings his body, Strikes his beak upon the sea-cliffs, Flies about, then safely perches, Looks before him, looks behind him, There beholds brave Wainamoinen, On the blue-back of the ocean, And the eagle thus accosts him: "Wherefore art thou, ancient hero, Swimming in the deep-sea billows? Thus the water-minstrel answered: ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... place of the old. The Merrimac is not a frigate any longer; she's the iron-clad Virginia, and we rather think she's going to make her name remembered. She's over there at the Gosport Navy Yard, and she's almost ready. She's covered over with iron plates, and she's got an iron beak, or ram, and she carries ten guns. On the whole, she's the ugliest beauty that you ever saw! She's almost ready to send to Davy Jones's locker a Yankee ship or two. Commodore Buchanan commands her, and you know who he is! She's got her full quota of officers, ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... times the Carrancha is noisy, but is not generally so: its cry is loud, very harsh and peculiar, and may be likened to the sound of the Spanish guttural g, followed by a rough double r r; when uttering this cry it elevates its head higher and higher, till at last, with its beak wide open, the crown almost touches the lower part of the back. This fact, which has been doubted, is quite true; I have seen them several times with their heads backwards in a completely inverted position. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... sobriquet was justified, for the man was so long and thin as to give the impression of bones strung on strings. He walked in jerks: his flat, narrow feet posed precisely, the head held forward, like some gaunt bird seeking with its lengthy beak for any meagre grain which might chance in its way. Somehow one felt the grain he sought must be meagre. 'The good God wills that Forstner lives,' said Madame de Ruth, 'and God knows he lives according to God's rules; but oh! how more than ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... referred, by the eminent comparative anatomist 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 ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... nest, then replace it in the nest, and secrete oneself near by with a crossbow, under a red and white umbrella, until the mother bird, finding one of her eggs resists all her endeavors to infuse warmth into it, flies off, and plunges into the nearest fire, and returns with this ring in her beak. With Schamir she will touch the boiled egg, and so restore the egg to its former condition. At that moment she must be shot, and the ring must be secured, before the falcon can return the talisman to its owner. I mean, to its dreadful owner, ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... him gently with his sharp flint beak. There was no Iktomi, but two arrows stood ready to fly. "Now, young arrow, this is the one condition. Your flight must always be in a straight line. Never turn a curve nor jump about like a young fawn," said the arrow magician. He spoke ...
— Old Indian Legends • Zitkala-Sa
... her mind for a long time, but she was interrupted by the dismal croaking of a raven overhead. Lifting her eyes, she saw in the dim light a large raven on the point of swallowing a frog which it held in its beak. 'Though I have no hope of help for myself,' she said, 'I will not let this unfortunate frog die, if I can save it; though our lots are so different, its sufferings are quite as great as mine.' She picked up the first stick which came to hand, and made the raven let go its prey. ...
— Old-Time Stories • Charles Perrault
... 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 ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... command was given, and the parrot instantly seized the sponger in its beak, and inserting it within the muzzle without the slightest difficulty, vigorously moved it backwards and forwards, and then replaced ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... there was a horny beak, like a parrot's, in the mouth, and that on the under side of the head ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... six or seven feet out of water, disappeared under the swell of the Vulcan's hull. Suddenly the tug swung her blunt beak around with the sidelong blow of an angry swine. Madden went flying to the right rail of the bridge to stare down at ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... Proconsul, 'how has the time passed with thee since I deserted Ephesus? Hast seen yet the charming Ionian girl who is to smite thy heart like the sharpened beak of a war bireme when it sends its prow into the soft pinewood sides of an enemy's ship? No? Well, I am sorry for thee, Chios. Thou deservedst a better fate. Nika told me of thy wanderings to Delos. Didst thou have pleasure in ...
— Saronia - A Romance of Ancient Ephesus • Richard Short
... superiority of a foul-mouthed Lance-Corporal who might well have been your own stable-boy, a being who can show you a deeper depth of hell in Hell, wreak his dislike of you in unfair "fatigues," and keep you at the detested job of coal-drawing on Wednesdays; who can achieve a "canter past the beak"[21] for you on a trumped-up charge and land you in the "digger,"[22] who can bring it home to you in a thousand ways that you are indeed the toad beneath the harrow. Fancy having to remember, night and ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... Daedalion would have thrown himself from the top of the rock, made him into a bird, and supported him, hovering {in the air} upon {these} sudden wings; and he gave him a curved beak, and crooked claws on his talons, his former courage, and strength greater {in proportion} than his body; and, now {become} a hawk, sufficiently benignant to none, he rages {equally} against all birds; and grieving {himself}, becomes the cause of ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... Samians branded the figure of an owl on the foreheads of their Athenian prisoners, to revenge themselves for the branding of their own prisoners by the Athenians with the figure of a samaina. This is a ship having a beak turned up like a swine's snout, but with a roomy hull, so as both to carry a large cargo and sail fast. This class of vessel is called samaina because it was first built at Samos by Polycrates, the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... shoulder stretched his wings, pressing against her cheek with his breast, tipping forward on his pink feet, until his beak reached the crumb and he took ...
— The Black Cross • Olive M. Briggs
... like a bird Slips lightly oceanward— Sail feathering smooth o'er the bay And beak that drinks the wild spray. In his eyes beams cheerily A light like the sun's on the sea, As he watches the waning strand, Where the foam, like a waving hand Of one who mutely would tell Her love, ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... 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 side, Building for ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... parliamentary bodies are swayed by a few persons—the working members are the exception. The horse-racing and cockfighting contingent in the House of Commons is well represented; the blear eyes, the poddy pudge, the bulbous beak—all these are in evidence. If one man out of ten knows what is going on, it is well; and this is equally true of Washington, for our representatives do ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... near about this time that a caricature was circulated in Rome, representing Sixtus as King Stork and the Romans as frogs vainly attempting to escape from his devouring beak. Merito haec patimur, "We suffer deservedly," was the legend of the picture, and the moral it conveyed was a true one. Rome was in such a state as to require the harshest applications, and the despotic severity ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... a sparrow," said they; but they, nevertheless, did not let her fly, but took her home with them, and every time she cried they gave her a tap on the beak. ...
— A Christmas Greeting • Hans Christian Andersen
... up, saw the hawk in full swing, not many hundred yards distant, with the bird in its beak, fluttering and struggling ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... entertain a thought of welcoming either Wantonness or Sloth? Or who in such straits, would permit themselves to be distracted either by Hypocrisy or Inconsiderateness? No, no! they are too awake then, and not one of the infernal flies of Bewilderment, which shows its beak, will buzz, during one of these storms. But Ease, smooth Ease, is the nurse of you all: in her calm shadow, and in her teeming bosom ye are all bred, and also every other infernal worm of the conscience, which will come to gnaw its possessor ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne
... the mast to the bow and stern. There was usually a deck at the bow and stern, but never in the centre of the vessel. Steering was managed by means of a huge broad oar, sometimes a couple, at the stern. A formidable "beak" was affixed to the fore-part of the ships of war, with which the crew charged the enemy. The vessels were painted black, with red ornaments on the bows; to which latter Homer is supposed to refer when he ...
— Man on the Ocean - A Book about Boats and Ships • R.M. Ballantyne |
