"Waterfowl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you'll come, marm, for massa and Miss Lizzy and Massa John has quite set their heads on having you with them to spend Christmas, and Massa John told me to tell you how he had bagged a fine passel of waterfowl and wild turkeys, and I myself has made a trap for Massa Willie ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... full view of the sea. They perceived the island of Awaji lying in the distance, as if it were floating on the horizon, and also several boats with sailors, singing as they rowed to the shore over the calm surface of the water, like waterfowl in their native element. Over their heads flocks of wild geese rustled on their way homeward with their plaintive cry, which made the thoughts of the spectators revert to their homes. ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... an abundance of white partridges about the ship, that they killed a hundred dozen of them; and, on the departure of these, when spring came, they found a great plenty of swans, geese, ducks, and other waterfowl. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... before them was wild and dreary. At some distance off appeared a mass of long rushes, beyond which extended a sheet of water, the opposite shore of which was scarcely visible. Numerous flocks of waterfowl were hovering over the marshy banks of this lake, which I found was of very considerable extent, though inferior to that of Titicaca, the largest in ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... the wood the lake lay a glittering mirror before Owen, about a mile wide; he could not determine its length, for the lake disappeared into a distant horizon, into a semblance of low shores, still as stagnant water, reflecting the golden purple of the sunset, and covered with millions of waterfowl. The multitude swimming together formed an indecisive pattern, like a vague, weedy scum collected on the surface of a marsh. Ducks, teal, widgeon, coots, and divers were recognisable, despite the distance, by their prow-like heads, their balance on the water, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... before the train was due; and when it drew up to the platform the first person to jump out was Captain De Stancy in sportsman's attire and with a gun in his hand. Somerset nodded, and De Stancy spoke, informing the architect that he had been ten miles up the line shooting waterfowl. 'That's Miss Power's carriage, I ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... medals, books, plants, and natural things. Sir Thomas had a collection of the eggs of all the birds he could procure, that country being frequented by several birds which seldom or never go farther into the land—as cranes, storks, eagles, and variety of waterfowl. He led me to see all the remarkable places of this ancient city, being one of the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... of the sun. The young earl raised his glasses and gazed southwards along the face of the dissolving curtain. Through and between the ghostly wreaths and wisps of vapor he could see the winged habitants of the swamps—flamingoes, cranes, pelicans, ibises, storks, geese, all the countless tropical waterfowl—swimming and wading about the reedy lagoons or circling up to fly to other feeding grounds. Opposite the steamer the glasses showed with startling distinctness a number of hideous crocodiles crawling out on a slimy mudbank to bask in ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... side of Mexico is arid and flat, and where the waters of the Lagunas, covered with their gay canoes, once surrounded the city, forming canals through its streets, we now see melancholy marshy lands, little enlivened by great flights of wild duck and waterfowl. But the bleakness of the natural scenery was concealed by the gay appearance of the procession—the scarlet and gold uniforms, the bright-coloured sarapes, the dresses of the gentlemen (most, I believe, Spaniards), with their handsome horses, ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... friend Gavin Hamilton. Thence they passed on a visit to Mr. Ramsay at Ochtertyre on the Teith, a few miles west from Stirling. They then visited Sir William Murray at Ochtertyre in Strathearn, where Burns wrote his Lines on scaring some waterfowl in Lock Turit, and a pretty (p. 077) pastoral song on a young beauty he met there, Miss Murray of Lintrose. From Strathearn he next seems to have returned by Clackmannan, there to visit the old lady who lived in the Tower, of whom he had heard from Mr. Ramsay. In this short journey the ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... vines; spraying gossamer vines, with gorgeous crimson, purple, and yellow blooms; and long streamers that dipped to trail in the waters. Below them were broad pads of lotus and water lilies; with alligators like barnacled logs, and cormorants swimming about, and bright-eyed waterfowl. The shadows in the forest were light clear green, and the shadows under the hanging jungle near the water were dull green; and the very upper air itself, in that hot steaming glade, seemed delicately green, too. Butterflies were among the vine blossoms, ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... ash, and alder. at 17 miles passed a rock near the middle of the river, about 100 feet high and 80 feet Diamuter, proceed on down a Smoth gentle Stream of about 2 miles wide, in which the tide has its effect as high as the Beaten rock or the Last rapids at Strawberry Island,- Saw great numbers of waterfowl of Different kinds, Such as Swan, Geese, white & grey brants, ducks of various kinds, Guls, & Pleaver. Labeach killed 14 brantjoseph Fields 3 & Collins one. we encamped under a high projecting rock on the Lard. Side, here the mountains leave the river ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... on the Warwick River—infantry, and a cavalry company, and a battalion from New Orleans. Around us were green flats, black mud, winding creeks, waterfowl, earthworks, and what guns they could give us. At the mouth of the river, across the channel, we had sunk twenty canal boats, to the end that Burnside should not get by. Besides the canal boats ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... were very fine and bright. The humming-bird, also, came frequently and flew about the ship, while at anchor; but it can scarcely be supposed, that it can be able to subsist here during the severity of winter. Waterfowl, upon the whole, are in considerable plenty; and there is a species of diver, about the size of a partridge, which seems peculiar to the place. Torsk and halibut were almost the only kinds of fish that were obtained by our voyagers. Vegetables, of any sort, were few ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... "nobody shoots them on the lake; they're as tame as barnyard waterfowl. Yet, the instant these same ducks leave this lagoon where they know they're protected they become as wild and wary and as difficult to get a shot at ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... the dark outlines of the Green Mountains, that rose high in the western heavens, casting, by their huge shadows, an impenetrable pall of darkness over the intervening space beneath, from which not a sound rose to the ear, save an occasional short croak of some waterfowl, or the low, sullen dash of the waters ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... strongly resembling a three-decker, had three guns on board, all of whom stood upright throughout the action. Her we christened the Man of War. The smaller craft skirmished in her vicinity, and for two hours the battle raged furiously. No distance was too great, no waterfowl too small or insignificant for their attention; but endurance has its limits, and at last we noticed that even the Man of War was silenced, having fired upwards of 600 rounds. Slowly and solemnly the "Fleet" worked its way back ...
— Wild Ducks - How to Rear and Shoot Them • W. Coape Oates
... almost unimproved and uninhabited, because the draining of the ponds upon them would reduce the income of proprietors who derive large profits by supplying the faithful, in Lent, with fish, and with various species of waterfowl which, though very fat, are, ecclesiastically speaking, meagre.]prevented the adoption of measures to remove it, and the growing political and commercial importance of the large towns in more healthful localities absorbed the attention of ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... and Padua fled before the invasion of Attila, and retired to the Isle of Gradus, and Rivus Altus, or Rialto. Theodoric's minister, Cassiodorus, who describes the condition of the fugitives some seventy years after they had settled on the "hundred isles," compares them to "waterfowl who had fixed their nests on the bosom of the waves." (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, etc., 1825, ii. 375, note 6, and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... had anticipated, we found game very scarce as we travelled slowly across the vast plains. There were only herds of antelope and sometimes flocks of waterfowl, with here and there a lonely bull straggling aimlessly along. At first our party was small, but as we proceeded on our way we fell in with some of the western bands of Sioux and Assiniboines, who ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... a piping whistle was heard from some rail, or the call of a waterfowl, which made the horses raise their heads, look round, and then, uttering a low sigh, go on cropping the grass again, after looking plaintively at their masters, as if protesting against being turned out to graze with their reins about their legs and ...
— The Dingo Boys - The Squatters of Wallaby Range • G. Manville Fenn
... — Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially As Waterfowl Habitat; note ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... more numerous became the waterfowl. Ducks swam among the flags, or rose with a rush and splashing. Coots and moorhens dived and hid in the reeds. The lesser grebe sank at the sound of the paddle like a stone. A strong northern diver raised a wave as he hurried away under the water, his course marked by ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... potable; it is inhabited by the Guesiks, or Guia-Sicks of the Yoloffes, or Black Crocodiles of Senegal; but it would be easy to destroy these animals. In September, this lake seems wholly covered with white nymphaea, or water-lilly, and in winter time it is frequented by a multitude of waterfowl, among which, are distinguished by their large size, die great pelican, the fine crested crane, which has received the name of the royal-bird, the gigantic heron, known in Senegambia by the venerable ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... began to train the lad in athletic sports and to teach him all the arts of war and combat practised throughout the islands, until he had attained great proficiency in them. He also taught him the arts of running and jumping, so that he could jump either up or down a high pali, or run, like a waterfowl on the surface of the water. After this, one day Kalelealuaka went over to Wailua, where he witnessed the games of the chiefs. The youth spoke contemptuously of their performances as mere child's play; and when his remark was reported ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... could get quite close to the waterfowl. Herons came, with a great bold noise as of opening doors and shutters, out of the boughs of a plantation which they frequented at the side of the mead; or, if already on the spot, hardily maintained their standing in the water as the pair walked by, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... theme of poets she must assume her winsome mood, must "soothe and heal and bless" the human heart after the clamor of politics, the weariness of trade, the cruel strife of society. To read Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" or Bryant's "To a Waterfowl" is to understand the above criticism. But the nature which the Colonists first looked upon seemed wild and strange and often terrible. Their somber forests were vast, mysterious, forbidding; and they knew not what perils lurked in them or beyond them. The new climate might give them ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... and a tick which must have come here as a parasite on the birds; a small brown moth, belonging to a genus that feeds on feathers; a beetle (Quedius) and a woodlouse from beneath the dung; and lastly, numerous spiders, which I suppose prey on these small attendants and scavengers of the waterfowl. The often-repeated description of the stately palm and other noble tropical plants, then birds, and lastly man, taking possession of the coral islets as soon as formed, in the Pacific, is probably not ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... average of three-quarters of a mile, surrounded by sandhills and very little timber round it, and that little of the most miserable description of box; a considerable quantity of rushes and a little grass round the margin, and lots of waterfowl. For the latter half of the day's travel we were pursuing a course from North 20 degrees West to North 10 degrees West, and as much as north ...
— McKinlay's Journal of Exploration in the Interior of Australia • John McKinlay
... first, and the goat-herds who tended their flocks on the slopes of Mount Ida looked up in fear when they saw the dark shadows of their wings and marked the monster birds making their way out to sea. From the river beds the waterfowl arose from the reeds, and with great outcry flew with all their swiftness to escape them. And down by the seashore the mariners' hearts sank within them as they watched, believing that a sight so strange must be a portent of disaster. Homewards they went ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... all six children were waddling about in the not very clear water, for the stirred-up mud at the edge had quite spoiled the look of things for the time being, and I am sure the waterfowl, and the fish, and even the water-rats were extraordinarily frightened at the strange things that ...
— The Christmas Fairy - and Other Stories • John Strange Winter
... full of life. Flocks of waterfowl and solemn companies of storks circle over the swamps. The wet meadows are covered with herds of black buffaloes, wallowing in the ditches, or staring at us sullenly under their drooping horns. Little bunches of horses, and brood ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... laughed very gently. Then the two stood silent, looking out over the dim valley, hand in hand. The scent of the gardens was about them. Moving lights showed through the many windows of the great house. The waterfowl called sleepily. The churring of the night-hawks was continuous, soothing as the hum of a spinning-wheel. Somewhere, away in the Warren, a fox barked. In the eastern sky, the young moon began to climb above the ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Bufflehead Ruddy Red-Breasted Merganser Common Merganser Hooded Merganser Whistling Ducks White-Winged Scoter Surf Scoter Black Scoter Common Eider Oldsquaw Harlequin Swans Canada Geese Brant Snow White-Fronted Geese At a Glance Guide Comparative Sizes Of Waterfowl Wetlands ...
— Ducks at a Distance - A Waterfowl Identification Guide • Robert W. Hines
... was a part of the ancient Palace of Whitehall, which was thus immediately connected with the Park. The canal had been constructed, by the celebrated Le Notre, for the purpose of draining the Park; and it communicated with the Thames by a decoy, stocked with a quantity of the rarer waterfowl. It was towards this decoy that Fenella bent her way with unabated speed; and they were approaching a group of two or three gentlemen, who sauntered by its banks, when, on looking closely at him who appeared to be the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... night winds fret afar, The North winds moan. The waterfowl are gone To cover o'er the sand-dunes; dawn alone Shall call them from the sedges. ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... that our lives are precious in the sight of God, and poets have taken up the thought and woven it into immortal verse. No uninspired writer has exprest it more beautifully than William Cullen Bryant in his Ode to a Waterfowl. After following the wanderings of the bird of passage as it seeks first its southern and then its ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... north out of the limestone country that fed the gray armies till Sheridan put a stop to that. Then it rams through the high wall of the Blue Ridge and out of the Valley into the Piedmont, and still gathering strength from tributaries like the Monocacy, dotted with big islands and frequented by waterfowl and good fish, moves powerfully downcountry past further mists and layers of history to Great Falls and the rushing, crashing descent through the gorge to tidewater ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior
... the center of the wide, sun-baked mudflats were the mecca of a host of things. They teemed with imprisoned fish. Ducks and other waterfowl swarmed to them. Jacanas, birds with wide-spreading toes, ran nimbly over the lily pads on the surface, seemingly skating across the water itself. And, crocodiles migrated from a distance to these havens of security ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... with a more impetuous sweep; and this forced him to prolong his stay on the island. Part of the day he wandered about with an old cross-bow, which he found in a corner of the cottage, and had repaired in order to shoot the waterfowl that flew over; and all that he was lucky enough to hit he brought home for a good roast in the kitchen. When he came in with his booty, Undine seldom failed to greet him with a scolding, because he had cruelly deprived the happy joyous little creatures ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... October wind rises, rustling the leaves and rippling the surface of the water, so that no loon can be heard or seen, though his foes sweep the pond with spy-glasses, and make the woods resound with their discharges. The waves generously rise and dash angrily, taking sides with all waterfowl, and our sportsmen must beat a retreat to town and shop and unfinished jobs. But they were too often successful. When I went to get a pail of water early in the morning I frequently saw this stately bird sailing ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... the waterfowl, and Catharine learned from Indiana how to skin them, and so preserve the feathers for making tippets, and bonnets, and ornamental trimmings, which are not only warm, but light and very becoming. They split open ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... island. Yet Lancelot, who was wonderfully quick at noting things, thought that he detected signs here and there which went to show that we were not the first men who had ever explored it. There were few land fowls—only eagles of the larger sort, but five or six sorts of small birds. There were waterfowl in abundance of many varieties, with shellfish to our hands, and good fish for the fishing, so between the sea and the land we were in no fear of want of victual, ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... cloud was in the heavens, the air was balm itself, the soft evening stillness was only now and then broken by some babbling parroquet, by the whistling tones of the mockingbird, or the sudden rising of a flock of waterfowl, thousands of which floated on the broad bosom of the Natchez, and dressed their plumage for their winter flight. Along a narrow path between the forest and the palmetto field above referred to, a female figure was seen tripping towards a small opening in the wood, formed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... boy kicks the cover off on circus morning, this Northland flings aside her winter wraps and stands forth in her glorious garb of summer. The brooklets murmur, the rivers sing, and by their banks and along the lakes waterfowl frolic, and overhead glad birds, that seem to have dropped from the sky, sing joyfully the almost endless song of summer. At the end of the long day, when the sun, as if to make up for its absence, lingers, loath to leave us in the twilight, beneath ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... Ride of Collins Graves Paul Revere's Ride Sheridan's Ride Good News to Aix Dying in Harness Plutarch's Humanity The Horses of Achilles The War Horse Pegasus in Pound The Horse From "The Foray" On Landseer's Picture, "Waiting for Master" The Waterfowl Sea Fowl The Sandpiper The Birds of Killingworth The Magpie The Mocking-Bird Early Songs and Sounds The Sparrow's Note The Glow-Worm St. Francis to the Birds Wordsworth's Skylark Shelley's Skylark Hogg's Skylark The Sweet-Voiced Quire A Caged Lark The Woodlark Keats's ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth
... blessed with many unique natural resorts of animal life and I have been particularly impressed with the invasions that have been made on the wonderful nesting places of the waterfowl. In my repeated stays on the coast of Gaspe and the islands of the Gulf, now running over a dozen years, I have had my attention forced to the hideous sacrifices of bird life that are constantly going on; for example in the Magdalen islands with their extraordinary array ...
— Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... histories, which have done honor to our literature, had appeared. Our school-books depended, so far as American authors were concerned, on extracts from the orations and speeches of Webster and Everett; on Bryant's Thanatopsis, his lines To a Waterfowl, and the Death of the Flowers, Halleck's Marco Bozzaris, Red Jacket, and Burns; on Drake's American Flag, and Percival's Coral Grove, and his Genius Sleeping and Genius Waking,—and not getting very wide awake, ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... pushed into the sinuous channel of Lone Moose, breasting its slow current with steady strokes, startling flocks of waterfowl at every bend, gliding hour after hour along this shadowy waterway that split the hushed reaches of the woods. It was very still and very somber and a little uncanny. The creek was but a thread in that illimitable forest which pressed so ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the bittern sound his drum. Goldsmith (D. V. 44) calls the bird "the hollow-sounding bittern;" and in his Animated Nature, he says that of all the notes of waterfowl "there is none so dismally hollow as the booming ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... coloured and ever varying foliage of the banks, to sweep swiftly but silently around abrupt bends into long vistas of still water, startling the great Kamchatkan eagle from his lonely perch on some jutting rock, and frightening up clouds of clamorous waterfowl, which flew in long lines down the river until out of sight. The navigation of the upper Kamchatka is somewhat intricate and dangerous at night, on account of the rapidity of the current and the frequency of snags; ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... tell him everything That happens in the trees, Cricket in the gander-grass Sings of all he sees; Rimes from bats and butterflies, Crabs and waterfowl; But the best of all he ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... of white ducks leaving a little pond, all walking a-row and quacking, and wriggling their fat tails. How absurd a thing to suddenly close my throat so that I could not find my voice to answer Boyd; for ever before me grew the almost forgotten vision of Guy Park, and of our white waterfowl on the river behind the house, where I had seen them so often from my chamber window leaving the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... is very strong, and the river rushes and breaks like the rapids of the St. Lawrence. For several miles from its source it never freezes even in the coldest winters. During the season of ice this open space is the resort of many waterfowl, and is generally enveloped in a cloud of mist. At the head of the river rises a mass of rock known as Shaman Kamen (spirit's rock). It is held in great veneration by the natives, and is believed to be the abode of a spirit who constantly overlooks the ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... seven lie, Float in calm heavenly, Life passing evenly, Waterfowl, waterfowl! often I dream For a rest Like your ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... where we have moored, the bamboo poles of fishermen are planted. Kites hover ready to snatch up fish from the nets. On the ooze at the water's edge stand the saintly-looking paddy birds in meditation. All kinds of waterfowl abound. Patches of weeds float on the water. Here and there rice-fields, untilled, untended,[1] rise from the moist, clay soil. Mosquitoes ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... to say, the *fowles of ravine* *birds of prey* Were highest set, and then the fowles smale, That eaten as them Nature would incline; As worme-fowl, of which I tell no tale; But waterfowl sat lowest in the dale, And fowls that live by seed sat on the green, And that so many, that wonder was ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... natives of this island. They declared they had never seen watermen equal to them, even among the voyageurs of the Northwest; and, indeed, they are remarkable for their skill in managing their light craft, and can swim and dive like waterfowl. The partners were inclined, therefore, to take thirty or forty with them to the Columbia, to be employed in the service of the company. The captain, however, objected that there was not room in his vessel ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... of Kamtschatka are not enlivened by singing-birds; indeed land-birds are all scarce; but there are infinite numbers of waterfowl of many species. Immense flocks of them are to be seen upon the lakes, rivers, morasses, and even the sea itself, in the vicinity of the shore. Fish is abundant, especially in the months of June and July. A single draught of ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... forthcoming we walked to the edge of the swamp, and looked over it. It was apparently boundless, and vast flocks of every sort of waterfowl flew from its recesses, till it was sometimes difficult to see the sky. Now that the sun was getting high it drew thin sickly looking clouds of poisonous vapour from the surface of the marsh and from the scummy pools ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... P.M.—We are to try a channel, such as it is, to-morrow morning. I landed for a walk. Wade took a gun with him. We saw quantities of waterfowl of all kinds. The plain on the left bank of the river is bounded on the other side by a pretty lake. The plain is subject to inundations, and seems to be covered by a bed of sand of about five feet in thickness. The people cultivate it by trenching ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... a few long-haired, grazing cattle on my voyage, that eyed me but cursorily. I passed unmolested among the waterfowl, between the never-silent rushes, beneath a sky refreshed and sweetened with storm. The boat was enormously heavy and made slow progress. When too the tide began to flow I must needs push close in to the bank ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... the strength of the salt in the ground and the wrack, for with high tides the place is often flooded. We would graze young beasts there all the summer with a herd-boy at the watching of them. A lonely eerie place for a night vigil, with nothing but waterfowl and cushies for company; and on a Sabbath I went there (for a man must see his beasts, no matter for the evil example of stravaging on the Lord's Day), and when I would be through with the queys I walked on the little path, on the short turf well past the grazing, ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... of spring, and Hawker noticed the curious apparition of grey geese and swallows in company on the first day of April, 1839. This wedge formation of flight over land and sea is not only peculiar to these waterfowl, but is not apparently adopted by any other long distance migrants. No satisfactory explanation of their preference for flying in this order has been found, but it is thought to lessen the air resistance, which must be a consideration for these short-pinioned fowl that weigh heavy in proportion ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... quantity of driftwood, which served for our fires. The evening was mild and clear; we made a pleasant bed of the young willows; and geese and ducks enough had been killed for an abundant supper at night, and for breakfast next morning. The stillness of the night was enlivened by millions of waterfowl. ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... large circle of distinguished French sporting friends to bring their rods over with a view to salmon-fishing in the Serpentine. Trout, there may be; no doubt, there are, but we have some doubts about salmon. Your suggestion that if you can't get a rise you might perhaps "bang away" at the waterfowl, certainly has a more promising sound, but we would advise you to commence your sport early, for fear of hitting the bathers. You will require the permission of the Duke of CAMBRIDGE. This you will ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 29, 1890 • Various
... and swamps of the Northwest grows the Wild Rice, (Zizania aquatica,) a plant which was' formerly very important to the Indians as food, and now attracts vast flocks of waterfowl to feed upon it in the season. In autumn the squaws used to go in their canoes to these natural rice-fields, and, bending the tall stalks over the gunwale, beat out the heads of grain with their paddles ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... wild animal alone and unaided, and he was in no condition to do it, either. We say alone and unaided, because Bert would have been of no assistance to him. Bert was a famous shot with his double-barrel, and no boy in the settlement could show more game, after a day spent among the waterfowl, than he could; but he was too timid and excitable to be of any use to one placed in a situation of danger. Even the sight of a deer dashing through the woods, or the whirr of a flock of quails as they unexpectedly ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... A.M. till 7 P.M. Vast treeless marshes in wet season—now teeming with waterfowl: say fifty miles accomplished to-day through the ever-winding river. The wood from the last forest is inferior, and we have only sufficient fuel for five hours left upon the steamer. The diahbeeah in tow carries about twenty hours' fuel: thus, should we not arrive ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... Other than waterfowl had chosen this secluded spot for their favourite dwelling-place. The osprey could be seen wheeling about in the air, now shooting down like a star upon the unfortunate fish that had approached too near the surface, ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... with waterfowl and other game of all kinds. Every vetturino who is returning to Rome, on passing by, buys a quantity, for a mere trifle, from the peasantry, who employ themselves much a la chasse, and he is certain to sell them again at Rome for three or four times the price he paid, and even then ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... eucalyptus, acacias of various kinds, and the dark-leaved casuarinas. The next day, an excursion was made up the river Nepean, a tributary of the Hawkesbury, on which trip many valuable facts of natural history were obtained, Bougainville enriching his collection with canaries, waterfowl, and a very pretty species of kingfisher and cockatoos. In the neighbouring woods was heard the unpleasant cry of the lyre-pheasant and of two other birds, which feebly imitate the tinkling of a hand-bell and the jarring noise of the saw. These are not, however, the only feathered ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... others. We once caught in an hour 6000 fishes like bleaks. Of birds, there are pelicans as large as swans, of a white colour, with long and large bills. Herons, curlews, boobies, ox-eyes, and various other kinds of waterfowl. On land, great numbers of grey parrots, and abundance of pintados or Guinea fowls, which are very hurtful to their rice crops. There are many other kinds of strange birds in the woods, of which I knew not the names; and I ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... gardens. They were in full bloom and beauty, crowded with flowers and fraueleins and foreigners of all nations. The little lake sparkled in the sunshine, and the waterfowl skimmed over it in all directions. But it's little I cared for such matters. I was looking for Dora, sweet ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... dangerous thing to do. The result is that the osier-beds on the eyots and by the backwaters—the copses of the river—are almost devoid of life. A few moorhens creep under the aquatic grasses and conceal themselves beneath the bushes, water-voles hide among the flags, but the once extensive host of waterfowl and river life has been reduced to the smallest limits. Water-fowl cannot breed because they are shot on the nest, or their eggs taken. As for rarer birds, of course they have not the slightest chance. The fish have ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... To a Waterfowl, Fourth Reader, p. 377, the moral lesson must occupy the first place. There the teacher should show how the author has enforced the lesson of confidence in God's guidance by the incident of the migrating waterfowl, the imagery, the music, the arrangement of parts, and the similarity of his own position to that of ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... their ears, and I was really afraid that the poor fellows, who were found to be only boys, would be drowned in endeavouring to avoid him. I could scarcely distinguish them at length from the numerous waterfowl floating around. In vain I called to their pursuer to come back, Piper was not to be baffled by boys, and continued to walk through the water like a giant, brandishing a short spear, or, as the boys would probably ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... is making that noise?" I muttered. "Some silly fool, I suppose, trying to think he's a waterfowl. Cut it out!" ...
— Frenzied Fiction • Stephen Leacock
... persistently as to become a nuisance, and the only way to get rid of it is to whistle or sing myself. For instance, I may be mentally reciting for my solace and delectation some beloved lyric like "The Waterfowl," or "Tears, Idle Tears," or "Break, Break, Break"; and all the while, between the lines, this fiend of a subcerebral vocalist, like a wandering minstrel in a distant square, insists on singing, "Cheer, Boys, Cheer," or, "Tommy, make room for your uncle" (tunes I cannot abide), with words, accompaniment, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... experiment at least had a certain influence in improving the young man's Latinity. Another favourite dissipation was that of translating English masterpieces into the ancient tongue; there still survives among Page's early papers a copy of Bryant's "Waterfowl" done into Latin iambics. As to Page's personal appearance, a designation coined by a fellow student who afterward became a famous editor gives the suggestion of a portrait. He called him one of the "seven slabs" of the college. And, as always, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... finished jerking their buffalo meat and venison, Dick took the fine double-barreled shotgun which they had used but little hitherto, and went down to the lake in search of succulent waterfowl. The far shore of the lake was generally very high, but on the side of the cabin there were low places, little shallow bays, the bottoms covered with grass, which were much frequented by wild geese and wild ducks, many of which, owing ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... soon on the prairie, stumbling over hummocks and floundering into ponds, yet going as quietly as I could, turning now and again to look back at the distant glow or to listen to the rifles popping around the fort. The night was cloudy and pitchy dark. Twice the whirring of startled waterfowl frightened me out of my senses, but ambition pricked me on in spite of fear. I may have gone a mile thus, perchance two or three, straining every sense, when a sound brought me to a stand. At first I could not distinguish it because of my heavy breathing, but presently ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... afternoon, as the sun was making rainbows in the cloud of spray thrown from the fountain in Kew Gardens, Sholto Douglas appeared there amongst the promenaders on the banks of the pond. He halted on the steps leading down to the basin, gazing idly at the waterfowl paddling at his feet. A lady in a becoming grey dress came to the top of the steps, and looked curiously at him. Somehow aware of this, he turned indifferently, as if to leave, and found that the lady was Marian. Her ripened beauty, her ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... talks beautifully; but I regret to say that I do not understand a word of its language. One summer we had several fine specimens in the great flying-cage, with the big and showy waterfowl, condor, griffon vulture, ravens and crows. One of those magpies often came over to the side of the cage to talk to me, and as I believe, make complaints. Whether he complained about his big and bulky cagemates, or the keepers, or me, I ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... themselves. "Thanatopsis," for example, was followed by "The Yellow Violet," which was followed by the "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," and the song beginning "Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow." The exquisite lines "To a Waterfowl" were written at Bridgewater, in his twentieth year, where he was still pursuing the study of law, which appears to have been distasteful to him. The concluding stanza sank deeply into a heart that needed ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... banks, especially to the south-west. A great number of water-plants grow on its borders; amongst which I particularly noticed a delicate seaweed [96], as fine as horse hair, but intertwined in such close and endless ramifications that it forms a flooring strong enough to support the largest waterfowl. I saw hundreds of them hopping about and eating the shell fish and prawns, which swarmed amidst the meshes of the net-like seaweed and fell an easy prey to their feathered enemies. The natives, too, were in the habit ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... observer of all that occurred around him is proved by his writings. With great minuteness he has described his life at the ranch home and while in the saddle, both in winter and summer, telling of his experiences while rounding up cattle and while bringing down waterfowl and larger game of various kinds. He likewise describes the trained hunters he has met at different seasons of the year, and tells of what they have done or were ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... an inn close beside the lake and, after a late supper, snuggled into our fur bags to be lulled to sleep by that music most dear to a sportsman's heart, the subdued clamor of thousands of waterfowl settling ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews
... small lake Kallolo had discovered a large quantity of wild rice, on which numberless waterfowl fed. We collected an ample supply of the seed, and found it very useful in lieu of other farinaceous food. After it had been well stewed, it assisted to fricassee macaws, parrots, and monkeys, which formed our staple diet. We had long ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... was the outflow of a romantic little lake that lay hidden away among the wooded hills that bounded the horizon, an irregular sheet of water a league in circumference, dotted with islands and abounding with fish and waterfowl that haunted its quiet pools. That primitive bit of nature had never been disturbed by axe or fire, and was a favorite spot for recreation to the inmates of the Manor House, to whom it was accessible either by boat up the ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... daybreak the girls would go down with their brothers to the river, and watch the waterfowl on its surface; they were so amusing as they dabbled and played in the water, unsuspicious of danger. Their favorites, though, were the beautiful scarlet flamingoes, with their slender legs, and their long, ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... thoughts go coursing down lowlands and up highlands, It is because the startled game are leaping from their lair; If her thoughts dart homeward to the reedy river islands, It is because the waterfowl rise startled here ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... Bobby interminable. He was very cold; his fingers ached; the anticipations of the day had all been used. The sudden rise of waterfowl near at hand aroused in him no excitement; their presence was just now useless from the ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... they found an abundance of drift-wood for their camp fire. The game they had taken furnished their supper. They made for themselves soft beds of the tender willow twigs, and in a mild atmosphere, beneath a starlit sky, slept soundly till morning. The voices of millions of waterfowl, around them, did not disturb ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... piece of water about two miles broad, four or less long, full of sedgy islands, the abodes of waterfowl, but some are solid enough to be cultivated. The bottom is mud, though sandy at the east shore: it has no communication with the Luapula. (28th November, 1867.) The Lunde, Chungu, and Mandapala are said to join and flow into Moero. Fish are in great abundance (perch). ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... whole, the Mafulu people having less artistic skill in this respect than the people of the lowlands. The ornaments include feathers of parrots, cockatoos, hornbills, cassowaries, birds of paradise, bower birds and some others. One never or rarely sees feathers of sea-birds, or waterfowl, or Goura pigeons (which, I was told, are not found among the mountains), as the Mafulu people in their trading with the people of the plains take in exchange things which they cannot themselves procure, rather than feathers, which ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... of all that vast country lying between the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay on the east and the mountains of the Far West, constitute the principal nursery of North American waterfowl, whence, in autumn, come the flocks of Ducks and Geese that in winter darken the Southern {70} sounds and lakes. One stream moves down the Pacific Coast, another follows the Mississippi Valley to the marshes of Louisiana and Texas, while a ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... of the lake acted in an ordinary way, and therefore need no description. It was strange, however, that this was the only lake seen in all my Rocky Mountain touring where I found waterfowl. At Seven Lakes, Moraine Lake, and others in the vicinity of Pike's Peak, not a duck, crane, or coot was to be seen; and the same was true of Cottonwood Lake, twelve miles from Buena Vista, right in the heart of the ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... A waterfowl cut the air in his sharp, whistling flight. The last white shimmer of daylight faded from the surface of the lake. The lovers floated on, gently, joyously, into their ocean of ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... the sun chanced to be unusually bright and the geese and ducks were observed to take a southerly course in large flocks. On the morning of the 20th we came to a party of Indians encamped behind the bank of the river on the borders of a small marshy lake for the purpose of killing waterfowl. Here we were gratified with the view of a very large tent. Its length was about forty feet, its breadth eighteen, and its covering was moose-deer leather with apertures for the escape of the smoke from the fires which are placed at each end; a ledge of wood was placed on the ground on both sides ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... which saw the publication of The Spy, the first significant American novel—there appeared at Boston a little pamphlet of forty-four pages, bound modestly in brown paper boards, and containing eight poems. Two of them were "To a Waterfowl" and "Thanatopsis," and that little volume marked the advent of the first American poet—William Cullen Bryant. Out of the great mass of verse produced on our continent for two centuries after the Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock, his was the first ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... little sense of calamity came with them—at first. So graceful they were. So fitted—like waterfowl—to every mood of air and tide; their wings all furled, their neat bodies breasting the angry flood by the quiet power of their own steam and silent submerged wheels. So like to the numberless crafts which in kinder days, under friendly ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable |
