"Ibis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... water-fowl were very numerous, the stately native companion stalking near the margins. The large funnel ant-hills occurred from 2 to 15 feet high. The Fitzroy wallaby was plentiful, and the Leader shot an emeu. Some large flights of white ibis, and slate-colored pigeons passed high overhead, flying north, which might be a good indication. Peter was sent back to seek for Lottie, but ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... of our after-supper conversation, and then it generalised to the different species of wading birds of America, and at length that singular creature, the "ibis," became the theme. This came round by Besancon remarking that a species of ibis was brought by the Indians to the markets of New Orleans, and sold there under the name of "Spanish Curlew." This was the white ibis (Tantalus albas), which the zoologist stated was ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... crocodile; another dreads the ibis, feeder on serpents; here shines the golden image of the sacred ape; here men venerate the fish of the river; there whole towns worship a dog."—Juvenal, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... paid to them at their death. Lucian says: "In Egypt the temple is a building of great size and splendour, adorned with precious stones and decorated with gold and with inscriptions; but if you go in and look for the god, you find an ape or an ibis or a goat or a cat." The same statement is made by Clement of Alexandria; and Celsus, the early Roman assailant of Christianity, speaks to the same effect. Thus the popular religion of Egypt, before and after the Christian era, had animals for its principal objects. ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... names—go in for mere scholastic recitations which nobody understands, and the boys hate. Others burst out in full-blown theatricals. King's College acts on the motto, Medio tutissimus ibis. It keeps the old scholastic recitations, but gilds the pill by adding the accessory of costume. I can quote Latin as well as Dr. Pangloss, and certain lines were running in my mind all the time I was in King's College Hall. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... they do look like," he said. "They look like that bird you see on the Nile, the sacred Ibis, they—" ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... effluvium from the mud was sufficiently offensive even when walking round the margin, and I already felt some warning symptoms of the heavy atmosphere of Famagousta, which might, if neglected, have terminated in ague. I shot a fine specimen of the glossy ibis, and I otherwise contented myself with watching the variety of ducks, coots, teal, and other water-fowl through my glass, as they enjoyed themselves in flocks upon the surface of the ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... god of the learned and of physicians. The Ibis was sacred to him, and he was usually represented as Ibis-headed. Ra created him "a beautiful light to show the name of his evil enemy." Originally the Dfoon-god, he became the lord of time and measure. He ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... knows not that infatuate Egypt finds Gods to adore in brutes of basest kinds? This at the crocodile's resentment quakes, While that adores the ibis, gorged with snakes! And where the radiant beam of morning rings On shattered Memnon's still harmonious strings; And Thebes to ruin all her gates resigns, Of huge baboon the golden image shines! To mongrel curs infatuate cities bow, And cats and ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... or in secret rooms; I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshiped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Brahma, through all the forests of Asia; Vishnu hated me; Seeva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris; I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried for a thousand years, in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers, at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles, and was laid, confounded with all unutterable ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... attraction. The sight of running water, too, was a never- failing joy, also the odours which greeted me in that moist green place—odours earthy, herby, fishy, flowery, and even birdy, particularly that peculiar musky odour given out on hot days by large flocks of the glossy ibis. ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... it is in reality of ancient origin, as we have it on good authority that it was practised by the ancient Egyptians, who, it is believed, acquired their knowledge from observing a bird called the Ibis, a species of Egyptian snipe. The food of this bird, gathered on the banks of the Nile, was of a very constipating character, and it was observed, by the earliest naturalists, to suck up the water of the river and using its long bill for a syringe, inject it into ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... the top of a mangrove-tree, digesting his morning meal of fresh fish, and is clearly unwilling to stir until the imminence of the danger compels him at last to spread his great wings for flight. The glossy ibis, acute of ear to a remarkable degree, hears from afar the unwonted sound of the paddles, and, springing from the mud where his family has been quietly feasting, is off, screaming out his loud, harsh, and defiant Ha! ha! ha! long before the danger ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... of the Setting Sun. Probably gods and goddesses never enjoyed themselves so much as in Ancient Egypt; and though it does seem a drawback from our artistic point of view for Hathor to have the head or ears of a cow, for wise Thoth to have the long beak of an ibis, and so on, it was for them only an amusing kind of masquerade or 'tete' party, on the walls of the temples and tombs. At home, they could be what they liked. Think how interesting for the Egyptians to have all these queer gods, and what variety it gave to their lives. Perhaps the ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... large quantities of aquatic grass, duckweed, &c. The water is a little darker in colour than at Cairo. People remove and build their huts on the higher forest lands adjacent. Many white birds (the paddy bird) appear, and one Ibis ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... up their dead in the skins of oxen before burying them. The Egyptians also embalmed the ibis, the ox, the cat, the crocodile, and other animals deified by them, and the bodies of these creatures were then placed in vast subterranean chambers, where they have been discovered in the present day in great ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... he passed first into a vestibule, on the sides of which were stairways under cover, leading up to a portico. Winged lions sat by the stairs; in the middle there was a gigantic ibis spouting water over the floor; the lions, ibis, walls, and floor were reminders of the Egyptians: everything, even the balustrading of the stairs, was of ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... minister, "Thou art not only diligent, but pious; not only pious, but watchful as an ibis over water. The gods have poured out on thee every virtue: they have given thee serpent cunning, with the eye of ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus
... Cadmus and his sister a white bull; Leda as swan, and Dolida as dragon; And through the lofty object I become, From subject viler still, a god. A horse was Saturn; And in a calf and dolphin Neptune dwelt; Ibis and shepherd Mercury became; Bacchus a grape; Apollo was a crow; And I by help of love, From an inferior thing, do ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... think they belong to the ibis family. Look at that 'coon scurrying up that log, running from the water. He's been trying to scoop out a dinner of fish, too. Nearly everything feeds on fish down here, even many of the wild ducks. Got him ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... of the British Museum is a statue of the deity IBIS, between two mummies. This attracted the attention of Sibthorp, as he lounged through the room the other day with a companion. "Why," said his friend, "is that statue placed between the other two?" "To preserve it to be sure," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... dearly than those of any other animal, whether biped or quadruped. "He who has voluntarily killed a consecrated animal," says this writer, "is punished with death; but if any one has even involuntarily killed a cat or an ibis, it is impossible for him to escape death: the mob drags him to it, treating him with every cruelty, and sometimes without waiting for judgment to be passed. This treatment inspires such terror, that, if any person happen to find one of these animals dead, he goes ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... very rare and are admitted to the list of North American species because of the fact that during the years a few stragglers from other parts of the world have been found on our continent. Thus the Scarlet Ibis from South America, and the Kestrel and Rook from western Europe, are known to come to our shores only as rare wanderers who had lost their way, or were blown hither by storms. Eighty-five species of the birds now listed for North America are of this extra-limital ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... sea-trout in the tide of the greater Saguenay. There, in the salt water, where men say the salmon never take the fly, H. E. G——, fishing with a small trout-rod, a poor, short line, and an ancient red ibis of the common kind, rose and hooked a lordly salmon of at least five-and-thirty pounds. Was ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... have them now," said Mr. Bobus, foreseeing the possibility of the return being single: "Ibis! ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... resembles a toucan. Its long legs and proportionally long toes, coupled with the rather long neck and bill, indicate with certainty a wading bird of some kind, and in default of anything that comes nearer, an ibis may be suggested; though if intended by the sculptor as an ibis, candor compels the statement that the ibis family has ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... African and Asiatic deserts, are all tinted and mottled so as to resemble with wonderful accuracy the average colour and aspect of the soil in the district they inhabit. The Rev. H. Tristram, in his account of the ornithology of North Africa in the first volume of the "Ibis," says: "In the desert, where neither trees, brushwood, nor even undulation of the surface afford the slightest protection to its foes, a modification of colour which shall be assimilated to that of the surrounding country is absolutely necessary. Hence without exception the upper ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... was taken from the poem in which Callimachus attacked Apollonius Rhodius under the name of Ibis. Cf. ...
— The Student's Companion to Latin Authors • George Middleton
... there was a knock one day at the door of our Ibis old mother, and behold, the boatman and Christine stepped into the room. She had come on a visit to spend a day: a carriage had to come from the Herning Inn to the next village, and she had taken the opportunity to see her friends once ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... its food by day, instead of hunting for it by night, mankind would have ocular demonstration of its utility in thinning the country of mice, and it would be protected and encouraged every where. It would be with us what the ibis was with the Egyptians. When it has young, it will bring a mouse to the nest about every twelve or fifteen minutes. But, in order to have a proper idea of the enormous quantity of mice which this bird destroys we must examine the pellets which it ejects from its stomach in the place of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... reached the Nueces. Where we struck it first the bed was dry, except in occasional deep, malarial-looking pools, but a short distance below there began to be a running current. Great blue herons were stalking beside these pools, and from one we flushed a white ibis. In the woods were reddish cardinal birds, much less brilliant in plumage than the true cardinals and the scarlet tanagers; and yellow-headed titmice which had already built ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... essentially a river of silence and mystery. The ibis is always to be seen, standing alone, seemingly absorbed in meditation. The camels turn their beautiful soft eyes upon you as if you were intruding upon their silence and reserve. Never were the eyes in a human head so beautiful as a camel's. There is a limpid ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... all the brakes and briars in his way, his contact with which seldom failed to terminate in his discomfiture. Experienced travellers, therefore, always kept in mind the advice of Apollo to Phaeton (In medio tutissimus ibis) and selected the middle course, which ensured them a pleasant voyage at a moderate elevation, equally removed from ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... see. Such a wicked boy was he! Chased the ibis round about, Plucked its longest feathers out, Stamped upon the sacred scarab Like an unbelieving Arab, Put the dog and cat to pain, Making them to howl again. Only think what he would do— Tease the awful Apis too! Basking by the sacred Nile ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... stand still. We may make an arrangement between two litigants who cannot both get what they want; but not if they will not even tell us what they want. The keeper of a restaurant would much prefer that each customer should give his order smartly, though it were for stewed ibis or boiled elephant, rather than that each customer should sit holding his head in his hands, plunged in arithmetical calculations about how much food there can be on the premises. Most of us have suffered from a certain sort of ladies ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... springs, and, for a well fed, lazy Princess nothing could have been more charming than to be borne thus beneath the waving palm-trees, and by the banks of the streams where the lotus blossomed at the water's edge, and the Ibis sniffed the cooling breeze. ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton |
