"Voracious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... according to their account, than a duddy betheral, set up to fright the sparrows from the peas, is like a living gentleman. The hungry players, instead of behaving like guests at the royal banquet, were voracious on the needful feast of bread, and the strong ale, that served for wine in decanters. But the greatest sport of all was about a kail-pot, that acted the part of a caldron, and which should have sunk with thunder and lightning into the earth; however, it did quite as well, ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... large flocks of sheep, and gain money by selling the wool and the fat, to make cloth and tallow. A shepherd in Australia leads a very lonely life among the hills, and he is obliged to keep ever upon the watch against the wild dogs. These voracious animals prowl about in troops, and cruelly bite numbers of the sheep, and then devour as many as they can. Happily there are no large wild beasts, such as wolves, and bears, lions, and tigers; for these would devour the shepherd as well as ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... and the sense of being wronged were producing a feeling akin to desperation. Every week there was less and less to sell from the dairy; chickens and eggs disappeared, and the appetites of those who dropped in to "kape Bridgy from bein' a bit lonely" grew more voracious. ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... thought dominated all others: where are those treasures of literature which, rich though they are, fail to satisfy their owner's voracious intellectual appetite? As houses were then built, the living and sleeping rooms were all on one main floor. Here they comprised a kitchen, dining room, medicine room, a little parlor, and two small sleeping rooms, one for the doctor and one for myself. Before many hours I had managed to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... fructifying capabilities of the "human form divine," must rejoice in beholding how effectually the fertilizing dust pushes the young Globes, Swedes, and Tankards into their rough leaves, that bid defiance to that voracious "Yorkshire bite" the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... we could know. And soon I perceived that, among other things, mother had long wished Lucia to become my wife. Through Emmy's loss and through the unchanging persistence of my passions, Satan's voracious pets, I however considered myself peculiarly fitted for a monastery, if I could only once reconcile myself to the doctrines suitable ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... glances at it we stoked the monkey-stove. Stoked it while the coal dwindled. When the last chunk had been swallowed up we hunted around for something else to burn. Newspapers, cartons, wooden boxes—everything we could find went into the voracious maw ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl
... a vulture with a broken beak, and he laid his voracious talons on the consciences of the voters. (Boos.) The ugly scowl of Sam Hussey came down upon them. He wanted to try the influence of his dark nature on the poor people. (Groans). Where was the legitimate influence of such a man? Was it in the white ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... provision for all other sorts of animals, both for those which live in lakes and marshes and rivers, and also for those which live in mountains and on plains, so there was for the animal which is the largest and most voracious of all. Also whatever fragrant things there now are in the earth, whether roots, or herbage, or woods, or essences which distil from fruit and flower, grew and thrived in that land; also the fruit which admits of cultivation, both the dry sort, which is given ...
— Critias • Plato
... into the sea until I was enabled to ascertain, approximately at any rate, our longitude. A fierce thrill went through me at the thought that this longitude was our longitude, hers and mine. On the way up, hand over hand, I observed a long shark looking at me. Realizing that the fellow if voracious might prove dangerous, I lost but little time—indeed, I may say I lost absolutely no time—in ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... time mackerel-taking, Voracious, mad for the hook, near the surface, they seem to fill the water for miles; Another time fishing for rock-fish in Chesapeake bay, I one of the brown-faced crew; Another time trailing for blue-fish off Paumanok, I stand with braced ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... state of affairs did not continue for long, and our work was soon interrupted in a rude and startling manner. Two most voracious and insatiable man-eating lions appeared upon the scene, and for over nine months waged an intermittent warfare against the railway and all those connected with it in the vicinity of Tsavo. This culminated in a perfect reign of terror in December, 1898, when they actually succeeded in bringing ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... I see myself as a boy, whose education has been interrupted, and who, intellectually, was left, for some years, altogether to his own devices. At that time, I was a voracious and omnivorous reader; a dreamer and speculator of the first water, well endowed with that splendid courage in attacking any and every subject, which is the blessed compensation of youth and inexperience. Among the books and essays, on all sorts of topics from metaphysics to heraldry, which I ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... charm. And at the making of the tea, which Kate had taken in charge with Ranald superintending, what fun there was with burning of fingers and upsetting of kettles! And then, the talk and the laughter at the lieutenant's brilliant jokes, and the chaffing of the "lumbermen" over their voracious appetites! It was an hour of never-to-be-forgotten pleasure. They were all children again, and with children's hearts were happy in childhood's simple joys. And why not? There are no joys purer than those of the open air; of grass and trees flooded with the warm light and sweet scents of ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... envy must a swine, or a much less voracious animal, be surveyed by a glutton; and how contemptible must the talents of other sensualists appear, when opposed, perhaps, to some of the lowest and meanest of brutes! but in conversation man stands alone, at least in ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... parts of the world are more deadening to civilization than the forests of the far north. Near the northern limit of the great evergreen forest of North America wild animals are so rare that a family of hunting Indians can scarcely find a living in a thousand square miles. Today the voracious maw of the daily newspaper is eating the spruce and hemlock by means of relentless saws and rattling pulp-mills. In the wake of the lumbermen settlers are tardily spreading northward from the more favored tracts in northern New England and southern Canada. Nevertheless most of the ...
— The Red Man's Continent - A Chronicle of Aboriginal America, Volume 1 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Ellsworth Huntington
... unhallowed synagogues and Sabbaths. If invited and earnestly required, these companions make themselves known and familiar to men; otherwise, being in a different state and element, they neither can nor will easily converse with them. They avouch that a heluo or great eater has a voracious elve to be his attender, called a joint-eater or just-halver, feeding on the pith and quintessence of what the man eats; and that, therefore, he continues lean like a hawk or heron, notwithstanding his devouring appetite; yet it would ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... Bold than for the Netherlanders. The marriage takes place on the 18th of August, 1477. Mary of Burgundy passes from the guardianship of Ghent burghers into that of the emperor's son. The crafty husband allies himself with the city party, feeling where the strength lies. He knows that the voracious Kabbeljaws have at last swallowed the Hooks, and run away with them. Promising himself future rights of reconsideration, he is liberal in promises to the municipal party. In the mean time he is governor and guardian of his wife and her provinces. His children ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... more destructive of all ideas of feminine delicacy, than to see a beautiful woman with one of these midnight bowls burning before her, and when her complexion is rendered livid by its flames, looking through this medium like some unknown but voracious inhabitant of ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... and digs trenches, these are all that it may destroy, or prevent some other incarnation from destroying it. Armies lay waste and destroy. Cornfields, orchards, lawns, life, and treasure are all prey for the voracious destroyer. ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... Hardcastle, the servants and men-at-arms beyond. Porridge and broth and very small ale were the fare, and salted meat would be for supper, and as Grisell knew but too well already, her own retainers were grumbling at the voracious appetites of the men-at-arms as much as did their unwilling guests at the plainness ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there about the coop on the far side of the boat, was seen to be coming round her bows, and the next thing seemed to be that the monster would detect the position of the midshipman, and then all would be over. In imagination Syd saw the voracious creature gliding rapidly toward Roylance, dive down, turn over showing its white under-parts, and then there was the blood-stained water, the wild shriek, and disappearance. But only in imagination, for as he made an effort all this cleared away from his excited brain, and the ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... cram full of thrilling situations. The number of miraculous escapes from death in all its shapes which the hero experiences in the course of a few months must be sufficient to satisfy the most voracious appetite."—Schoolmaster. ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... their senses with fear at the strange things he had caused them to see and hear. When fatigued with wandering about, and famished for want of food, he had suddenly set before them a delicious banquet, and then, just as they were going to eat, he appeared visible before them in the shape of a harpy, a voracious monster with wings, and the feast vanished away. Then, to their utter amazement, this seeming harpy spoke to them, reminding them of their cruelty in driving Prospero from his dukedom, and leaving him and his infant daughter to perish in the sea; saying that for this ...
— The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites • Eva March Tappan
... buffalo-flesh, swings it about, throwing himself into violent attitudes and strange contortions, and then eats the morsel in a voracious manner. He then kills a fowl over the corpse, letting the blood run down upon the coffin, and just before it is moved both he and the female mourners, having each a broom in their hands, sweep violently about it, as if to chase away the evil spirits and prevent their joining in the procession, ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... innumerable dwarfs bounded on to the table, and, taking their places by all the plates, in three seconds consumed the savoury viand. To complete the astonishment, the confusion, the wrath, the fury of the voracious boors, Stringstriker himself galloped up and down the whole length of the table, breaking all the vessels, and draining all the beer and brandy with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... accused of eating to such a pitch of distention that it had to squeeze itself between two close-growing trees for relief ere it returned again to the repast. There is no doubt, however, that it is to a great extent voracious and extremely cunning; and what it cannot eat it will carry off and hide. The trappers complain bitterly of it, and spare no pains to kill every one they can come across; but it is not easily to be caught, and only a very cunningly-devised bait ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... only something of a traveller, but a diligent student of history and a voracious novel reader, and, once-in-a-while, I get my history and my fiction mixed. This has been especially the case when the hum-drum of the Boulevards has driven me from the fascinations of the Beau Quartier ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... constantly ends about eight or half-past eight o'clock in a count-out. The Government delightedly look on; it is an additional argument in favour of taking away the rights and privileges of private members and turning them into the voracious maw of the Government. ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... has bestowed on the human race such profuse ABUNDANCE of all EXTERNAL conveniencies, that, without any uncertainty in the event, without any care or industry on our part, every individual finds himself fully provided with whatever his most voracious appetites can want, or luxurious imagination wish or desire. His natural beauty, we shall suppose, surpasses all acquired ornaments: the perpetual clemency of the seasons renders useless all clothes ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... massy slab, in fashion square or round. On such a stool immortal Alfred sat, And swayed the sceptre of his infant realms; And such in ancient halls and mansions drear May still be seen, but perforated sore And drilled in holes the solid oak is found, By worms voracious ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... the use of public tables, where all were to eat in common of the same meat, and such kinds of it as were appointed by law. At the same time they were forbidden to eat at home, upon expensive couches and tables, to call in the assistance of butchers and cooks, or to fatten like voracious animals in private. For so not only their manners would be corrupted, but their bodies disordered; abandoned to all manner of sensuality and dissoluteness, they would require long sleep, warm baths, and the same indulgence as in perpetual sickness. To effect ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... side had struck it, the only injury that appeared dangerous to the medical man—a large, hard lump that could be felt under the bruised skin. The boy showed no symptoms of fever; his pulse, day after day, was found never varying from eighty-two to the minute; his appetite was voracious; and the internal functions of his body only required a little ordinary medicine to keep them properly at work. In short, nothing was to be dreaded but the chance of the formation of an abscess in his left side, between the hip and ribs. He had been under medical care exactly ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... is safe from them; they squat in the grass and pounce on you. I've got a twist, my eye trying to watch them. They are ugly, voracious people without manners or ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... place, the senior officer gave us an order to proceed to Jamaica. We took leave of all the "Ballaker ladies," as the mids chose to call them. Know, reader, that the fish called by that name is a most destructive and voracious one, and as I presume they thought the ladies were of that character, some of them had too much reason to call them so. We reached Port Royal on the afternoon of the following day, but remarked we were not received with that welcome as before; ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... "Nice!" Belle's voracious mind had been so busy absorbing new knowledge that she had temporarily forgotten about her fight with her captain. "I'm just about done here. I'll be ready tomorrow, I think, to visit their library and tape up some planetological and planetographical—notice how insouciantly I toss off those ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... was done for experiment, they turned themselves and took the straightest course to the water side. But it is not only in the bustards, nor on land alone, that they have enemies to fear; tiger sharks were numerous. and so voracious, that seven were hooked along-side the ship, measuring from five to nine feet in length. These were ready to receive such of the little animals as escape their first enemies; and even one of the full grown turtle had lost a semi circular piece, equal to the tenth part ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... settlement is a log-cabin, and it is in a region which is infested by wolves. There are in the family a broken-down patient of a man, a mother, and three daughters. The house is surrounded by a pack of these voracious animals, and the inmates feel that their safety requires that the intruders should be driven away. There are three or four rifles in the house. The man creeps to one of the windows, and to the mother and daughters it is said, "You load the rifles, and hand them to me, and let me ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... habits of obedience, never ventured to touch one of her tempters till after five o'clock, but, as she was a very rapid reader, she generally contrived to devour more than a sufficient quantity every evening, so that she did not enjoy them as much as she would, had she been less voracious in her appetite, and they made her complain grievously of the dulness of the latter part of Russell's Modern Europe, which was being read in the schoolroom, and yawn nearly as much as Phyllis over the 'Pragmatic Sanction.' However, when that book was concluded, and they began Palgrave's Anglo ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... finish. He has recorded more than once how it was ever his habit to let his work be polished to the utmost before putting it in type. The citations with which his pages bristle proclaim him to be a reader almost as voracious and catholic as Burton; and Naude, with the watchfulness of the hostile critic in his heart and the bookworm's knowledge in his brain, would have been ready and able to convict him of quoting authors he had not read, if the least handle for this charge should ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... given her, at the time of her marriage, a hint of how matters had gone, yet without any details, which now she was voracious to hear. I told her of my aunt's and uncle's apparent seduction of me, nor did I hide our goings-on with young Dale, and my after-possession of Ellen and his mother, who was the last to believe herself my seducer, for as I told the ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... Mary's character may be mentioned in connection with this transfer. She had a voracious appetite; and in Elizabeth's household expenses an extra charge was made necessary of 20l. a-year for the meat breakfasts and meat suppers "served into the Lady Mary's chamber."—Statement of the expenses of the Household of the Princess ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... sometimes, she thinks, of in or good luck; of the death of a near relation, or the approach of an absent lover. By being the constant companions of her solitary hours they naturally become the objects of her superstition. These crickets are not only very thirsty, but very voracious; for they will eat the scummings of pots, and yeast, salt, and crumbs of bread; and any kitchen offal or sweepings. In the summer we have observed them to fly, when it became dusk, out of the windows, and over the neighbouring roofs. This feat of activity accounts ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... which they eat. All the horses, mules, asses, and cattle, which feed upon grass, have the same distension. This kind of food produces such acid juices in the stomach, as excite a perpetual sense of hunger. I have been often amazed at the voracious appetites of these people. You must not expect that I should describe the tables and the hospitality of our Nissard gentry. Our consul, who is a very honest man, told me, he had lived four and thirty years in the country, without having once eat or drank ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... the little man, "my children are hungry, to-night." And, turning to Koerg, he continued: "Take the gift of Klaus and go down into the sea. A crowd will swarm upon you, as persistent and voracious as any in this upper world. Ask for the wonder-mill, and sacrifice your treasures only in its exchange. I ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... with eyes wandering over that grassy wilderness, she can almost imagine it a maelstrom or some voracious monster, that swallows up all who venture upon it. As the purple of twilight assumes the darker shade of night, it seems to her as though some unearthly and invisible hand were spreading a pall over the plain to cover her dear ones, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... were an interesting looking family. Mrs. Procter, young, despite her four children, wore a little worried frown strangely at conflict with her palpable desire to make the best of things. She darted here and there, soothing the baby with a practiced hand, pouring her husband's coffee, helping voracious Peter, her busy mind anticipating all the day's tasks. Suzanna loved and admired her mother. She loved the way the luxuriant dark hair was wound round and round the small head. She loved the rare smile, ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... excitement on deck. Nearly all the passengers, many of the crew and several of the officers were watching the strange sight. The porpoises were frantically tumbling, turning and leaping to get away from their voracious enemies. ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... Luckily these voracious animals have poor eyesight. They went by without noticing us, grazing us with their brownish fins; and miraculously, we escaped a danger greater than encountering a tiger deep ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... to the old who wait The final call, the hills of youth arise More beautiful than shores of Paradise. Beside a glowing and voracious grate A dozing couple dream of yesterday; The islands of a vanished past appear, Bringing forgotten names and faces near; While lost in mist, the present fades away. The fragrant winds of tender memories blow Across the gardens of the "Used-to-be!" ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... this decayed hamlet. A few might purchase a bit of lard at rare intervals; and this they hoarded like precious jewels. Some occasionally had wheat flour; but the long, difficult transportation, and its rapid deterioration in that hot, moist climate, where swarms of voracious insects burrow into everything not cased in tin or iron, made its cost all but prohibitive. A few had goats and chickens. Some possessed pigs. And the latter even exceeded in value the black, naked babes that played in the hot dust ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... localities on the mountains that there really is a creature infesting these streams supposed by them to be a young alligator, reaching a length of twelve inches, and doubtless subsisting on fish. An alligator as a mountain-reptile had not entered into our conception: can these voracious saurians, playing in the alpine affluents of the Mississippi, possibly be identical with the vast and ugly beasts of the lower bayous and the Gulf? We leave the identification for some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... was no less famous than M. de Longuerue for his memory, and he was yet more strongly affected by the mania for books. His appetite for them was so voracious, that he acquired the name of the glutton of literature.[44] Before he died, he had swallowed six large rooms full of books. Whether he had time to digest any of them we do not know, but we are sure that he wished ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... north of Point Old and the area immediately surrounding the Rock are thick strewn with kelp. In these brown patches of seaweed the tiny fish, the schools of baby herring, take refuge from their restless enemy, the swift and voracious salmon. ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... it is proper to tip waiters, taxicab drivers, and barbers, but under no circumstances station agents and ushers, then his Odyssey will be replete with good meals and bad meals, bathing adventures, compartment-train escapades, and voracious demands for money. Or if he is a more serious soul he may while on tour have found himself at celebrated spots. Having touched base, and cast one furtive glance at the monument, he buried his head in Baedeker, read every word through, and moved on to the next celebrated spot; and thus returned with ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... first rays of spring make me more languid than ever Martha cannot be made to understand that nursing such a large, voracious baby, losing sleep, and confinement within doors, are enough to account for this. She is constantly speaking in terms of praise of those who keep up even when they do feel a little out of sorts, and says she always does. In the ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... declared, to the everlasting disgrace of Goethe, that he practiced upon the affections of women, even to old age, that he might gather food for poetry. Byron traversed Europe in search of adventure, and rummaged the scenes of legend and story for food for his voracious senses and sensibilities. His Childe Harold is nothing but the record of his tireless foraging. All men who have produced much have ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... for these destructive animals overturn the floats, and tear the passengers in pieces. The river horse, which lives only on grass and branches of trees, is satisfied with killing the men, but the crocodile being more voracious, ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... it is wounded. If the moon is at her full, they are generally numerous and good—many thousands being found in an ordinary young tree of 25 feet in height. If a few succeed in eluding the gatherer, they do so only to become a prey of as voracious animals, for the wild hogs, or quencos, of the forest relish much the soft substance of the palmiste when in a state of decomposition. It never happens, therefore, that much time passes before they discover any palmiste-tree that has been felled; ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... War-Lord of Potsdam, who had been thirsting for Weltmacht, or world-dominion, and casting about to pave the way for this result by absorbing the minor States of Northern Europe—as a shark would open its voracious jaws to swallow down a shoal of minnows, or other small fry. That this was a prominent plank in the platform of German policy must be clear to all who have read the diplomatic revelations of the last few months; but now the "Three Kings of Scandinavia," going one better than their storied colleagues ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 21, Dec. 30, 1914 • Various
... ship, a young fair face was seen floating upwards, while Charles Denham, who it appeared had sprung overboard, was striking out rapidly towards him. The attention of all on board was directed to the spot. Had it not been for fear of the voracious monster of the deep, many might have jumped overboard to assist, still they shouted and kept throwing in things, to distract, if possible, the attention of the shark, from the lad in the water. Denham knowing well the enemy he had to contend with, continued ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... that nature has bestowed on the human race such profuse abundance of all external conveniences, that, without any uncertainty in the event, without any care or industry on our part, every individual finds himself fully provided with whatever his most voracious appetite can want, or luxurious imagination wish or desire. His natural beauty, we shall suppose, surpasses all acquired ornaments; the perpetual clemency of the seasons renders useless all clothes or covering: the raw herbage ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... and the thunder of his horse's hoofs was in her ears. Hurtling thus over the pastures, breaking the year-long hush, he was the embodiment of the destructive principle, of cruelty, of the greater part of human society—voracious and carnivorous—with its curious callousness towards the nerves of ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... only a very few were still alive, and they hid in a cave in the ground from whence they never ventured. As for herself and her old husband, she went on, they had hidden in a hollow tree, and this they had never dared leave until after Sulayman killed the voracious bird, Pah. ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... to think of poor Nellie cast helpless among the tempters. She was like a child among voracious beasts of prey. No wonder she felt hard toward him! He was to blame, terribly to blame. In the highest, most exalted state of remorse he wept, not once but often. ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... loads; to see it fed to them by the "skip"; to hear them roar continually for more; to feel the savage heat generated within their bodies; to be told in shouts, above the din, something of what is going on inside these vast, voracious, savage monsters, and to see them dripping their white-hot blood when they are picked by a long steel bar in the hands of an atom of a man—this is to witness an almost ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... with Dudley's extravagancies than the affairs of Europe. He, in fact, is mad, but is to be cupped and starved and disciplined sound again. It has been fine talk for the town. The public curiosity and love of news is as voracious and universal as the appetite of a shark, and, like it, loves best what is grossest and most disgusting; anything relating to personal distress, to crime, to passion, is greedily devoured by this monster, as ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... rummaging obstinately. A young fellow went to see what they were doing, and discovered the body of the blind man, already half devoured, mangled. His wan eyes had disappeared, pecked out by the long voracious beaks. ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... undertow. Sharks are common on the Australian coast, but they will not venture into the broken water of surf beaches. But you must not bathe, except in enclosed baths in the harbours, or you run a serious risk of providing a meal for a voracious shark. ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... was soon produced, and a line was quietly provided from some of the small cordage that still remained about the masts. A piece of leather, torn from a spar, answered for the bait; and the lure was thrown. Extreme hunger seemed to engross the voracious animals, who darted at the imaginary prey with the rapidity of lightning. The shock was so sudden and violent, that the hapless mariner was drawn from his slippery and precarious footing, into the sea. The whole passed with a frightful and alarming rapidity. A common cry ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... part of mixed human natures having an individual history, which it was the bent of his mind to trace with understanding and pity. With the same innate balance he was fervidly democratic in his feeling for the multitude, and yet, through his affections and imagination, intensely conservative; voracious of speculations on government and religion, yet loath to part with long-sanctioned forms which, for him, were quick with memories and sentiments that no argument could lay dead... He was ceasing to care for knowledge—he had no ambition for practice—unless ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... he turn'd into a meer Devil, if it is not when he is fighting with his fellow Creatures and dipping his Hands in the Blood of his own Kind? Let his Picture be consider'd, the Fire of Hell flames or sparkles in his Eyes, a voracious Grin sits upon his Countenance; Rage and Fury distort the Muscles of his Face; his Passions agitate his whole Body, and he is metamorphos'd from a comely Beauteous angelic Creature into a Fury, a Satyr, a terrible and frightful Monster, nay, into a Devil; ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... make it thoroughly productive.' Elsewhere he says: 'A willow-branch may be cut with a knife and bent with a finger, but for a great and gnarled oak we must use an ax and a wedge'; and again: 'If my teeth had been less sharp, the Pope would have been more voracious.' 'Of what use is salt,' he exclaims in another passage, 'if it do not bite the tongue? or the blade of a sword unless it be sharp enough to cut? Does not the prophet say, "Cursed be he that doeth ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... Carol!" Bill shouted at her. "Don't you realize what this could mean? Don't you realize that something, only God knows what, has happened to the cellular structure of this animal, has turned it into a voracious plant-like thing that seems to grow and grow once it hits our atmosphere? Don't you realize that today they're going to open that satellite, that other one, in Washington? Suppose this is what ...
— The Day of the Dog • Anderson Horne
... the Boa have been obtained by travellers, from the Asiatics. They resemble those of the fabled dragon and hippogriff, and as they generally relate to the ravaging of whole districts by the voracious monster, a heap o' grief is connected with some of them. The gum-game, however, is much in vogue in India, and most of these snake stories may be characterized as ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... development of certain organs and systems of the body induces abnormal conditions, as, for example, an excessive disposition of fatty tissue. When the appetite is voracious, or the nutritive system uncommonly active, too much of the carbonaceous elements of the food are eliminated, or, as it often occurs, too much carbonaceous food, such as white bread, potatoes, etc., is consumed for the needs of ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... appeared a little later on, these two were not to be seen. However, no question was asked and no search made. All things were ready and the parson sat down to eat, while the three girls stood about, glancing now and then at the table. The preacher was very voracious and began his meal as though he ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... these railroads. Nominally, they are supposed to be competing lines. As a matter of fact, by means of traffic association, they become one huge, consolidated monopoly. A monopoly so dangerous, so powerful, so unscrupulous, and so voracious, that it does not hesitate in fixing and maintaining rates so exorbitant, as to be actually prohibitory, at least so far as two-thirds of the city dwellers are concerned. Meanwhile the monopoly arbitrarily depresses rents and land values ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... He was voracious at the supper-table, and that made the landlady no kinder to him. He ate like a wolf at every meal on Sunday, and his fellow-boarders chaffed him; but the lady of the house looked as if she would fain ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... modern people do not read these great authors is that they are not encouraged to do so. The very best way to instil a love of Thackeray into the modern world is to make the modern world read just so much of him that its voracious appetite is ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... upon the animal one day while taking a stroll a short distance from our camp. It was as large as a shilling, reddish in colour, and from the fierce, rapid way in which it ran about hither and thither as if in search of prey, it had an exceedingly horrible and voracious aspect. The hole of this creature is visible only when its owner is absent from home. It is quite evident either that there are no thieves among the lower animals there, or that there is nothing in the hole to steal, for when he goes out he leaves the door open behind him. When ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... apparently resting on a solid foundation of devilgrass. It sprawled kittenishly, its deceptive softness faintly suggesting fur; at once playful and destructive. My optimism of the night before was dashed; this voracious growth wasnt going to dwindle away of itself. It would have ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... Well, look here—I will explain! It is the party leaders that must be exterminated. A party leader is like a wolf, you see—like a voracious wolf. He requires a certain number of smaller victims to prey upon every year, if he is to live. Just look at Hovstad and Aslaksen! How many smaller victims have they not put an end to—or at any ...
— An Enemy of the People • Henrik Ibsen
... forget to mention the broiled dishes, the invention of which is attributed to hunters, and which Rabelais continually refers to as acting as stimulants and irresistibly exciting the thirst for wine at the sumptuous feasts of those voracious heroes (Fig. 120). ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... these women were starving, and judging by the voracious manner in which they tackled pedestrians openly on the streets at night there was ample ground for that belief. Men were followed and grabbed by the arm who had no intention or desire to make or receive ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... with Mrs. Delacour, who has an estate adjoining to Mr. Horton's, about her tenants, whose houses in the village were burnt. Now I have, in as few words and parentheses as possible, told you all I know of Mr. Hartley's history; but your curiosity still looks voracious." ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth
... cattle was their chief wealth; that they counted it no infamy to commit robberies, and that in their view violence and murder were in no way displeasing to God; that the country was overgrown with woods, which abounded in wolves and other voracious animals,' &c. It was, no doubt, very provoking that such stories should be repeated 130 years after the plantation of Ulster, and Harris undertook, with laudable patriotism, to show 'how far this ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... Abraham Lincoln, "American society and the United States Government are demoralized and overthrown, it will come from the voracious desire of office—this wriggle to live without toil, from which I am not free myself." These words ought to be written up in the largest characters in every schoolroom in the United States. The confession with which they conclude is as true as the rest. Mr. Lincoln, we are told, took ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... to the amphitheatre, several beasts were let loose upon them; but none of the animals, though hungry, would touch them. The keeper then brought out a large bear, that had that very day destroyed three men; but this voracious creature and a fierce lioness both refused to touch the prisoners. Finding the design of destroying them by the means of wild beasts ineffectual, Maximus ordered them to be slain by the sword, on the 11th ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... stuffed with all sorts of learning. His application was equal to that of a German professor. His lively imagination, trained in the school of Puritan theology, and nourished on the traditionary legends of New England, of which he was a voracious and indiscriminate collector, was still further stimulated by fasts, vigils, prayers, and meditations almost equal to those of any Catholic saint. Of a temperament ambitious and active, he was inflamed with a great desire of "doing good." Fully conscious of all his gifts, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... before, the lightning flashing more vividly, a terrific shock was felt, which made her tremble as if about to part asunder; the tall masts bent like willow wands, and fell with a crash into the sea; and the voracious waves came curling up, foam-crested, astern, and sweeping everything before them. The howling of the fierce hurricane overpowered the agonised shrieks of the drowning crew, as they were carried overboard; ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... severe look, knitting his brow, and lowering his eyebrows.] Now, sir, you are a very pretty fellow indeed. You come here and tell me you are a moderate man; but upon examination, I find by your own showing that you are a most voracious glutton. You said you were a sober man; yet, by your own showing, you are a beer-swiller, a dram-drinker, a wine-bibber, and a guzzler of punch. You tell me you eat indigestible suppers, and swill toddy to force sleep. I see that you chew tobacco. Now, sir, what human stomach can stand this? ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... desires. They are almost unconscious, and there exists within them a sort of terrible obliteration. They have two mothers, both step-mothers, ignorance and misery. They have a guide, necessity; and for all forms of satisfaction, appetite. They are brutally voracious, that is to say, ferocious, not after the fashion of the tyrant, but after the fashion of the tiger. From suffering these spectres pass to crime; fatal affiliation, dizzy creation, logic of darkness. That which crawls in the social third lower ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... dogs had already begun to be very voracious. Everything that came in their way disappeared; whips, ski-bindings, lashings, etc., were regarded as delicacies. If one put down anything for a moment, it vanished. With some of them this voracity went so far that we had ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... Emperor, he strove in vain to make the troubled and feverish years of his power produce a literature. He himself was one of the most voracious readers of novels that ever lived. He was always asking for the newest of the new, and unfortunately even the new romances of his period were hopelessly bad. Barbier, his librarian, had orders to send parcels of fresh fiction to his majesty wherever he might ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... it, and the patient breaks into a profuse perspiration, which leaves him pale, weak, and exhausted. He becomes rapidly and markedly emaciated, even although in some cases the appetite remains good and is even voracious. ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... the later Romans for his gluttony and voracious appetite. During the four months of his reign he is said to have spent seven millions sterling on the pleasures of his table. When at last the people rose against him, and the soldiers proclaimed another emperor, Vitellius was found hiding in his palace. ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... of all the usual courtesies of the table; the voracious rapidity with which the viands were seized and devoured; the strange uncouth phrases and pronunciation; the loathsome spitting, from the contamination of which it was absolutely impossible to protect our dresses; the frightful manner of feeding with their knives, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... but one, which, being wounded, flapped and swam toward the shore, where it was suddenly sucked down by a reptile or fish. Those they secured dropped silvery little arrows, apparently, back into the water in the shape of the tiny voracious fish that had forced their way already between their ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... satisfied, and the half-starved, mal-shaped brain cells, the prey of vampirism, are in a constant state of suction, ever trying to draw in mental sustenance from the healthy brain cells around them. Idiots and epileptics are the cephalopoda of the land—only, if anything, fouler, more voracious, and more insatiable than their aquatic prototypes. They never ought to be at large. If not destroyed in their early infancy (which one cannot help thinking would be the most merciful plan both for the idiot and the community in general), those ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... personages, we tracked some of the story in detail. This vein when explored will quarry untold riches. It has been observed that financiers of mark, like great musicians, are special pituitary types. Also that the financiers are voracious meat eaters and the musicians inordinately fond of sweets. Differences in anterior and posterior predominances might account for this. That we are playing here with no phantasy is proven by the fact that we can effect changes of tastes as well as of intellectual ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... whose instructive conversation so far blinded me to the miserable state in which I was, that I actually forgot it. This was Langer, afterwards librarian at Wolfenbuettel. Eminently learned and instructed, he was delighted at my voracious hunger after knowledge, which, with the irritability of sickness, now broke out into a perfect fever. He tried to calm me by perspicuous summaries; and I have been very much indebted to his acquaintance, ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... a defender, nor a friend, in this voracious crowd; the French colony itself appeared satisfied with the fall of a courtier who had so long monopolized the roads to favour. To attempt to snatch this prey from the Bey, excepting by a striking triumph ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... man loved flowers, and he had planted the barren strip of land adjoining the fence separating the school yard from the alley with cannas and elephant's ears. He was puttering among them, now seeking voracious parasites, now examining a leaf which hinted in its faded coloring of fast approaching frosts, when boys' voices coming from the ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... supposition was correct: there existed in Australia small flies which laid their eggs in the white scales, and these eggs hatched into grubs which devoured the pests. He also found a remarkable little ladybird, a small, reddish-brown convex beetle, which breeds with marvellous rapidity and which, with voracious appetite, and at the same time with discriminating taste, devours scale after scale, but eats fluted scales only—does not attack other insects. This beneficial creature, now known as the Australian ladybird, or the Vedalia, Mr. Koebele at once began ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... hour when its roaming and hungry tenants were known to be most in motion; and the rustling of a leaf, or the snapping of a dried twig beneath the light tread of the smallest animal, was apt to conjure images of the voracious and fire-eyed panther, or perhaps of a lurking biped, which, though more artful, was known to be scarcely less savage. It is true, that hundreds experienced the uneasiness of such sensations, who were never fated to undergo the realities ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Mr. Lang rejoined us, accompanied by a gentleman whom he introduced to me as Mr. Leopold, the painter of the picture which I was to see in the course of the evening. Although my reading had necessarily been limited, Miss Darry's persistent training, and my own voracious appetite for information in everything relating to the arts, had given me a somewhat superficial knowledge of the pictures, style, and personal appearance of the best old and modern painters. In spite of some obstinate facts tending to a different conclusion, I had ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... for her part, was certainly not delicate; but she was simple and without malice, and Ralph liked her for her silent acceptance of her diminished state. Sometimes, as he sat between the lonely primitive old couple, he wondered from what source Undine's voracious ambitions had been drawn: all she cared for, and attached importance to, was as remote from her parents' conception of life as her impatient ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... Blackwater, had begun life as an Irish peer, with more money than the majority of his class; an initial advantage soon undone by an insane and unscrupulous extravagance. He was, however, a fine, handsome, voracious gentleman, born to prey upon his kind, and when he looked for an heiress he was not long in finding her. His first wife, a very rich woman, bore him one daughter. Before the daughter was three years old, Lord Blackwater had developed ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lines that presage swiftness. You may catch the big horn pouts at any season, but these little chaps are peculiar to the dog days. I have an idea they hibernate in the mud at bottom until warm weather calls them forth, and that by next spring, so voracious is their appetite and such their agility in satisfying it, they are as big as the others of their kind. So eager are these gourmands for bait that if but one is in a pool you may catch him, throw him back and catch him again times without number, provided ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... were very voracious, and I had a special antipathy to them, on account of their preying so on the crayfish—a crustacean of which I was particularly fond, and which the natives also liked very much, but were afraid to capture for fear their hands might come in ...
— Amona; The Child; And The Beast; And Others - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... elephant is so abundant, that in feeding he never appears to be impatient or voracious, but rather to play with the leaves and branches on which he leisurely feeds. In riding by places where a herd has recently halted, I have sometimes seen the bark peeled curiously off the twigs, as though ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... represented with great teeth, and therefore the same name was given to gluttons. The Harpies, to whom the two voracious poets are also compared, were monsters with the face of a woman, the body of a vulture and hooked beak ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al
... understood what a foolish bargain he had made he was not in a position to rid himself of Aristide; Angele's dowry was involved in speculations which were turning out unfavourably. He was exasperated, stung to the heart, at having to provide for his daughter-in-law's voracious appetite and keep his son in idleness. Had he been able to buy them out of the business he would twenty times have shut his doors on those bloodsuckers, as he emphatically expressed it. Felicite secretly defended them; the young man, who had divined her dreams of ambition, would every evening ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... cried Alicia. "I knew you had some brain concealed among that mop of yellow silk floss! I'll do that same, and be thankful if my voracious cousin leaves me enough room for a ...
— Two Little Women on a Holiday • Carolyn Wells
... John, was the voracious leech, with Empson, who sucked the vitals of the people, to feed the avarice of Henry ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... Towards the summit fluttered myriads of sea-fowl, and especially those of the web-footed species with long, flat, pointed beaks—a clamorous tribe, bold in the presence of man, who probably for the first time thus invaded their domains. Pencroft recognized the skua and other gulls among them, the voracious little sea-mew, which in great numbers nestled in the crevices of the granite. A shot fired among this swarm would have killed a great number, but to fire a shot a gun was needed, and neither Pencroft nor ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... may still add, that the mildness of the climate of Louisiana may have an effect upon the disposition of the bears, and prevent them from being so voracious as those of our continent; but I affirm that carnivorous animals retain the same disposition in all countries. The wolves of Louisiana are carnivorous as well as those of Europe, although they differ in other particulars. ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... a more palpable instance of the facility with which good natured and voracious piety is made to swallow the most flimsy arguments, if only agreeable to its wishes and wants, than the case under consideration. This Psalm, containing these passages, "they parted my raiment among ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... the predicament in which many thousand people are today. Like the boy, they have skinny purses, voracious appetites and mighty yearnings to make the best possible impression within their means. Perhaps having been "invited out," they learn by actual demonstration that the herbs are culinary magicians which convert cheap cuts and "scraps" ...
— Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses • M. G. Kains
... But merely to say that he was an apothecary's assistant very inadequately describes the man; for, in addition to that, he was both a poet and a painter in thought and feeling, if not in actual fact. He was also a voracious reader of everything that treated of adventure, from the story of the Flood, and Jonah's memorable voyage, to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and everything else of a like character that he could lay hands upon. Altogether, he was a very ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... taught; but Lodge was a creature of teaching — Boston incarnate — the child of his local parentage; and while his ambition led him to be more, the intent, though virtuous, was — as Adams admitted in his own case — restless. An excellent talker, a voracious reader, a ready wit, an accomplished orator, with a clear mind and a powerful memory, he could never feel perfectly at ease whatever leg he stood on, but shifted, sometimes with painful strain of temper, from one sensitive muscle to another, uncertain whether to pose ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... confidence in the 'original way of writing books,' the way of the first author, who must have looked at things for himself, 'since there were no books for him to copy from;' and he challenges the reader to prove that this original way is not the best way. 'Where,' he asks, 'are the amusing books from voracious students and ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... streams that flow into it. The guavina, of which I made a drawing on the spot, is 20 inches long and 3.5 broad. It is perhaps a new species of the genus erythrina of Gronovius. It has large silvery scales edged with green. This fish is extremely voracious, and destroys other kinds. The fishermen assured us that a small crocodile, the bava,* which often approached us when we were bathing, contributes also to the destruction of the fish. (* The bava, or bavilla, is very common at ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... almost the whole of his time to his children, teaching them in doors and out, and directing them in their reading. It was understood that Sam would be sent north to attend College the next year, and meantime he had become a voracious reader. He read all sorts of books, and as he remembered and applied the things he learned from them, it was a common saying in the country round about, that "Sam Hardwicke knows pretty nearly everything." Of course that was not true, but he knew a good deal ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston
... distance is too great for him; he simply rests on his wings and sweeps easily from ocean to ocean. He is, however, rarer in the Atlantic than in the Pacific Ocean, and he avoids the heat of equatorial regions. He sails in any other direction he pleases, where he has most prospect of satisfying his voracious appetite. ...
— From Pole to Pole - A Book for Young People • Sven Anders Hedin
... Australia, is an animal domesticated among the aborigines of that country. He is a dog of wolf-like shape, who does not bark, but utters only a mournful howling. He is used by the wretched natives both for the chase and as an article of food; and is a fierce and voracious creature—not hesitating to launch himself on the larger kinds of animals. He is especially employed in hunting the kangaroo; and sometimes terrible combats occur between the dingo and the larger species of kangaroos—resulting always ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... in a rather more decorous manner among the aristocrats at Father John's end of the table—though even here they were carried on in a somewhat rapid and voracious fashion. The priest helped Feemy and Ussher, Mary and her husband; and then remarking that he had done all the hard work of the evening, and that he thought it was time to get a bit himself, he filled a moderate plate for his own consumption, and passed the joint ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... is one of the best, as it is one of the most common, of our fresh-water fishes, and is found in nearly all the lakes and rivers in Britain and Ireland, as well as through the whole of Europe within the temperate zone. It is extremely voracious, and it has the peculiarity of being gregarious, which is contrary to the nature of all fresh-water fishes of prey. The best season to angle for it is from the beginning of May to the middle of July. Large numbers of this fish are ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... plants are so distant from each other, much of the ground is left unoccupied and unproductive. In the second place, the fruit grower is at the mercy of the strawberry's worst enemy, the Lachnosterna, or white grub. Few fields in our region are wholly free from them and a few of the voracious pests would leave the ground bare, for they devour the roots all summer long. In the third place, where so much of the ground is unoccupied, the labor of mulching, so that the soil can be kept moist and the fruit ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... have left the nest. Like all its family the young hawk-cuckoo has a healthy appetite. In order to satisfy it the unfortunate foster-parents have to work like slaves, and often must they wonder why nature has given them so voracious a child. When it sees a babbler approaching with food, the cuckoo cries out and flaps its wings vigorously. Sometimes these completely envelop the parent bird while it is thrusting food into the yellow mouth of the cuckoo. The breast of the newly-fledged ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... alley. It was mine by right of long acquaintance. We were neighbors for twenty years. Yet I never knew why it was called Cat Alley. There was the usual number of cats, gaunt and voracious, which foraged in its ash-barrels; but beyond the family of three-legged cats, that presented its own problem of heredity,—the kittens took it from the mother, who had lost one leg under the wheels of a dray,—there was nothing specially remarkable about them. It was not an alley, ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... possible. In giving this and kindred fruits partial shade, they should not be compelled to contend to any extent with the roots of trees. This will ever prove an unequal contest. No fruit can thrive in dense shade, or find sustenance among the voracious roots ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe |
