"Boa" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... glide over the beautiful sea anemone, half animal, half vegetable, with its colors as variegated as a rose garden. Seaweed and kelp wave to us as we pass, long-stemmed sea grasses moving by the action of the waves, like a feather boa worn by some sea nymph, twist and turn like a thing alive; tall, feathery plumes, as white as snow, or as green as emerald, toss to and fro, and make obeisance to old Neptune. Sea onions, with stems thirty feet long, and bulbous air-filled sacks, reach out their ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... districts (concelhos, singular - concelho); Boa Vista, Brava, Calheta, Maio, Mosteiros, Paul, Praia, Porto Novo, Ribeira Grande, Sal, Santa Catarina, Santa Cruz, Sao Domingos, Sao Nicolau, Sao ...
— The 2002 CIA World Factbook • US Government
... municipalities (concelhos, singular - concelho); Boa Vista, Brava, Maio, Mosteiros, Paul, Praia, Porto Novo, Ribeira Grande, Sal, Santa Catarina, Santa Cruz, Sao Domingos, Sao Filipe, Sao Miguel, ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... jangled sweet music every step he took, drove up to the door of Judge Bernard. A young man stepped out, whom we recognize as Pownal. He entered the house, and in a few minutes returned with Anne Bernard, muffled in cloak and boa, and carrying a muff upon her arm. Health glowed in her cheek and happiness lighted up her eyes. Pownal assisted her into the sleigh, and carefully disposing the robes about her, took his seat by her ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... issued on the Boulevard, and a few steps brought us in view of the stately white shrine on Claremont Heights. But I looked instead at her brilliant face against the velvety background of black hat and feather boa. ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... That these really do exist, and in most cases have no special function in the animal economy, is admitted by the first authorities in comparative anatomy. The minute limbs hidden beneath the skin in many of the snake-like lizards, the anal hooks of the boa constrictor, the complete series of jointed finger-bones in the paddle of the manatee and the whale, are a few of the most familiar instances. In botany a similar class of facts has been long recognised. Abortive stamens, rudimentary floral envelope and undeveloped carpels ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... mamma, who was in her attitude, holding up the end of her boa as a visionary tambourine, and Mr. Walker, who was looking at her, and in his amusement at the mother's performances had almost forgotten the charms of the daughter—both turned round at once, and looked at her with many expressions of ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... might have drawn the other stem in excusable ignorance, or under some false impression of being able to improve upon nature; but this is conclusive and unpardonable. Again, take the stem of the chief tree in Claude's Narcissus. It is a very faithful portrait of a large boa-constrictor, with a handsome tail; the kind of trunk which young ladies at fashionable boarding-schools represent with nosegays at the top of them, by ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... say riding, I said wyding, walking in the water. Mr. Bulky was wyding, one morning, with rod in hand, when, all of a sudden, he felt something on his leg. Looking down, he sawr a big black water-snyke coiled round his boot, and jabbing awy at his leg. It hung on to him like a boa-constrictor, and squeezed his leg so tight that it gyve him a bad attack of gout. He had to get on shore and sawr it in two with his knife before the snyke would leave go. Fortunately, the brutes are not venomous, but that beggar's teeth scratched Mr. Bulky's boots up pretty ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... quickened his pace to keep step with hers. Miss Nugent with her chin sunk in a fur boa looked neither to the right nor the left, and turning briskly into the alley, turned the handle of Mr. Wilks's door and walked in, leaving her ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... go there often? How ever do you find the time for such things?" asked Kitty, busily cutting from a big sheet the touching picture of a parent bird with a red head and a blue tail offering what looked like a small boa constrictor to one of its nestlings, a fat young squab with a green head, yellow body, and no tail ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... shore with the hand which was left, and escaped without further injury. In those desert regions, where man is constantly in strife with animated or inanimated nature, they daily speak of similar or corresponding means by which it is possible to escape from a tiger, a great boa, or a crocodile. Every one prepares himself against a danger which may any day befall him, 'I knew,' said the young girl calmly, when praised for her presence of mind, 'that the crocodile lets go his hold when you plunge your fingers in his eyes.' Long after my return ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... Boa has a silky sheen, like that of the finest Rep, and, when taking a nap in the sun, his Damascened appearance may remind the pious spectator of a scene damned by the intrusion of a similar reptile several thousand ...
— Punchinello, Vol.1, No. 12 , June 18,1870 • Various
... banyan trees. In one part of the garden, winding paths led through a tangled tropical growth so dense and wild that one felt as if in the midst of an African jungle where a tiger might spring forth or a boa constrictor drop ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... shawl," although she may have on point-lace and diamonds. In his more modern aspect he tells you that a girl at the Junior Promenade had on a blue dress with feathers around her neck—which you must translate into meaning anything from blue satin to organdie, and that between dances she wore a feather boa. ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... before a hillock of which he sits cross-legged, and putting his five fingers into it, makes a large bolus, which he pushes into his mouth. He repeats this till all is gone, and then he sleeps like a boa- constrictor until he recovers his activity; or else he feeds on great flat cakes of wheat flour, off which he rends jagged-pieces and lubricates them with some spicy and unctuous gravy. All our ways of life, our meats and drinks, and all our notions ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... waited not (as ghosts oft use) To be 'dearheaven'd!' and 'oh'd!' But briskly said: "Good-evenin'; what's the news? Consumption? After boa'd? ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... something, did not say it, and was moving quickly away. But in the doorway he came face to face with Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch; the latter stood aside. The captain shrank into himself, as it were, before him, and stood as though frozen to the spot, his eyes fixed upon him like a rabbit before a boa-constrictor. After a little pause Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch waved him aside with a slight motion of his hand, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of the boa-constrictor is a wonderful picture. A boy must be hard to please if he wishes for anything more ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... vanity immensely that nobody ever spoke of her as "Mrs. Tiralla," plain and simple, but always as "the beautiful Mrs. Tiralla." When he drove with her through Gradewitz—he on the box, she on the seat behind, in her veil and feather boa—everybody stared. And even in Gnesen the officers dining at the hotel used to rush to the window and crane their necks in order to see the beautiful Mrs. Tiralla drive past. Then Mr. Tiralla would crack his ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... negroes, monkeys and alligators. There was one in particular, about a whole boat's crew sitting down on what they thought was a fallen tree, but which suddenly swept them all over on their faces, and turned out to be a boa-constrictor, and would have embraced one of them if he had not had the sail of the boat coiled round the mast, and palmed off upon him, when he gorged it contentedly, and being found dead on the next landing, his skin was used to cover ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Boa-Constrictors are also found, but they are rare, and I have never seen one in freedom. They are the most harmless of all snakes in the Philippines. Sometimes the Visayos keep them in their houses, in cages, as pets. Small Pythons are common. The snakes most to ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... heard of the Hudson's Bay Company? Ten to one you have worn a piece of fur which it has provided for you; if not, your pretty little sister has—in her muff, or her boa, or as a trimming for her winter dress. Would you like to know something of the country whence come these furs?—of the animals whose backs have been stripped to obtain them? As I feel certain that you and I are old ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... that; she didn't want to seem unappreciative. It was true she had a new set, warm and serviceable, but—well, a short-haired, dark-brown collarette hasn't the allure of a fluffy, snow-white boa. ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... that I really wished to read it over and over again at some intervals of time, and to have the pleasure of seeing my sister Harriet read it, before I should write to you. She has come to us, and has just been enjoying it, as I knew she would. For my part, I was long in the state of the boa constrictor after a full meal—and I am but just recovering the powers of motion. My mind was so distended by the magnitude, the immensity, of what you put into it! I am afraid that if you had been aware how ignorant I was you would not have sent me this dissertation, because you would ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... bromide," he added. "But travel certainly broadens one. Every day I have been in the Congo, I have been assimilating new ideas." Upsher nodded vigorously in assent. An older man could have told Everett that he was assimilating just as much of the Congo as the rabbit assimilates of the boa-constrictor, that first smothers it with saliva and ...
— Once Upon A Time • Richard Harding Davis
... a rule in dis house dat nobody can use huh chiny or fo'ks or spoons who ain't boa'ding heah, and de odder day when yuh asked me to bring up a knife and fo'k she ketched me coming upstairs, and she says, "Where yuh goin' wid all dose things, Annie?" Ah said, "Ah'm just goin' up to Miss Laura's ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... be on the lake, or sliding on the snow, And breathing on your hands to make the circulation flow, Nestling your nose among the furs of which your boa's made,— The Fahrenheit here registers a hundred in ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... :boa: [IBM] /n./ Any one of the fat cables that lurk under the floor in a {dinosaur pen}. Possibly so called because they display a ferocious life of their own when you try to lay them straight and flat after they have been coiled for some time. It is rumored within IBM that ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... only by the principal characters, is opened and Lady Cicely Trevor enters. She is young and very beautiful, and wears a droopy hat and long slinky clothes which she drags across the stage. She throws down her feather hat and her crepe de what-you-call-it boa on the boa stand. Later on the valet comes in and gathers them up. He is always gathering up things like this on the stage—hats and boas and walking sticks thrown away by the actors,—but nobody notices him. ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... bearing restored courage. With head erect, the intrepid Tarasconian slowly and calmly made the circuit of the booth, passing the seal's tank without stopping, glancing disdainfully on the long box filled with sawdust in which the boa would digest its raw fowl, and going to take his stand before the ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... Both Gaspar Cortereal and his brother Miguel disappeared from history somewhere in the waters of Hudson's {26} Bay or Labrador; but they were followed by other adventurous sailors who have left mementos of their nationality on such places as Cape Raso (Race), Boa Ventura (Bonaventure), Conception, Tangier, Porto Novo, Carbonear (Carboneiro), all of which and other names appear on the earliest maps of the north-eastern waters of ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... the captains of the liners, and he no more resembled them than did he resemble the bluff-faced, gruff-voiced skippers I had read about in books. By his side stood a woman, of whom little was to be seen and who made a warm and gorgeous blob of colour in the huge muff and boa of red fox in which she ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... got me a new silk dress and fur boa, my daughter bestowed a fine pair of No. 6 kid gloves, and each of my sons contributed a pair of skates and a sled. There is nothing like having Santa Claus remember you well, is there?" answered ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... sais I, "Doctor. But what do you suppose was the object Providence had in view in filling the world with beasts of prey? The east has its lions, tigers, and boa-constrictors; the south its panthers and catamounts; the north its bears and wolves; and the west its crocodiles and rattle-snakes. We read that dominion was given over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... ungainly knees seemed to come straight out of her groin. She looked like a seated cow. Her companion was like a terrapin, with her little black evil-looking head at the end of a neck which was too long and very stringy. She kept shooting it out of her boa and drawing it back with the most incredible rapidity. The rest of her body bulged out flat. These two delightful persons were the dressmakers sent for by the Custom-house to value my costumes. They glanced at me in a furtive way, and ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... near Rio there are great snakes called the anaconda, a sort of boa-constrictor on a large scale. Once, while walking in the woods with some friends, we found a little Indian boy dead on the ground, one of these big snakes lying within a foot or so of him, also dead; the snake had ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... Domingos and True to take care of them, were to remain at the camp. Arthur and I had our axes, for without them we could make no progress. I had my gun; Arthur a spear, with bow and arrows, which Naro had presented to him. Thus armed, we hoped to defend ourselves against any jaguar or boa we might meet. We had little to fear from any other wild animals. As we had seen no traces of natives, we did not expect to meet with any. We soon gained the point I had reached in the morning. After this, we had to hew a path for ourselves through ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... transformed into and worshipped as local gods. Also this particular specimen was, I presume, of a new variety, since, according to Ragnall, it both struck like the cobra or the adder, and crushed like the boa-constrictor. It is possible, however, that he was mistaken on this point; I do not know, since I had no time, or indeed inclination, to examine its head for the poison fangs, and when next I passed that way it ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... trees, looming weird and gigantic with their buttressed trunks, all knotted and entwined with hanging lianas and curiously hung with air plants dropping from the branches. Gay-colored birds flashed in the patches of sunlight that filtered through the trees. The Cuban boa-constrictor or Maja, big and cowardly, wound its great length away, and the air was full of the rich—and not always pleasant—insect life characteristic of ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... helplessness—the monster ate it! The lipless jaws gaped widely. The shapeless hands forced in the head of the animal. The throat muscles expanded hugely: and in less than a minute it had swallowed its living prey as a boa-constrictor swallows a monkey. ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... off Shaftesbury Avenue the parts of a woman were shown separate. In the left hand was her skirt. Twining round a pole in the middle was a feather boa. Ranged like the heads of malefactors on Temple Bar were hats—emerald and white, lightly wreathed or drooping beneath deep-dyed feathers. And on the carpet were her feet—pointed gold, or patent leather slashed ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... you proudest of?" said Mattie to Bertie. "I'm proudest of my new red-top boots," said Bertie. "I'm proudest of my new black hat," said Clay. Mattie was proudest of her muff and boa. Little Bell was proudest of her ...
— The Nursery, May 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... kissed everybody else they liked, or could catch there. The entertaining Captain has narrated an effective anecdote of an enraged elephant, and a precious big boar speared in a savage jungle—to which he might have added, with no more personal risk than Mrs. Brown may experience when hunting for a boa in her wardrobe. And, Mr. Mouldy, the city merchant, who dealt in rags, sang about a little excitable pig, and "Mac Mullin's Lament;" whilst Mr. Snobbins—who it was hoped would sit and be silent,—has broken the spell, dared to remember ...
— Christmas Comes but Once A Year - Showing What Mr. Brown Did, Thought, and Intended to Do, - during that Festive Season. • Luke Limner
... cultivating Common Sense. A dangerous policy, as I was sometimes warned; but for that very reason all the more necessary. The more Bigotry writhed and raged, the more I felt that our policy was telling. Borrowing a metaphor from Carlyle's "Frederick," I likened Superstition to the boa, which defies all ponderous assaults, and will not yield to the pounding of sledge-hammers, but sinks dead when some expert thrusts in a needle's point ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... he said stiffly, and then went on: "We shall have to go down now to this fearful lunch, but you had better take your sable boa with you. The great hall is so enormous and all of stone, it may be cold. I will get it for you," and he went back and found it lying by her coat on the chair, and brought it, and wrapped it round her casually, as if she had been a stone, ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... grew to the size of a boa-constrictor. The brook behind me roared in my ears like Niagara. The snake began to drive his head toward me, showing his fangs as though he were making a reconnoissance of the air before his spring. ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... has one infallible, perhaps because it is automatic, regard for its own comfort and well-being—it cannot be induced to tie itself into a knot. It is in mind that once in the old country a very long and very cold lethargic boa constrictor became benumbed and forgot the primal instinct of the family, and paid for its absent-mindedness with its life. But the ordinary snake under extraordinary conditions, whatsoever its length, is most careful to disentangle itself even when knots are designed for the special purpose ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... all. Hoc egomet oculis meis vidi. Birmingham anglers who win prizes with takes of four-and-a-half ounces would have recoiled in affright from the monster, even as he lay dead in the entrance hall of the Greville Arms. Old women stand at the street corners with silver eels like boa-constrictors, for which they wish to smite the Saxon to the tune of sixpence each. I vouch for the pike and eels, but confess to some dubiety re the story of a fat old English gentleman, who said, "I ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... creature for which no human language has a name, form without substance, a being without life, or life without action. She was under the spell of that timid curiosity which impels women to seek perilous excitement, to gaze at chained tigers and boa-constrictors, shuddering all the while because the barriers between them are so weak. Although the little old man's back was bent like a day-laborer's, it was easy to see that he must formerly have been ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... the sound of a tree falling in a perfectly calm night like this, as if the agencies which overthrow it did not need to be excited, but worked with a subtle, deliberate, and conscious force, like a boa-constrictor, and more effectively then than even in a windy day. If there is any such difference, perhaps it is because trees with the dews of the night on them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... linking her in front. Shaky on his pins, poor old sot. His farewell concerts. Positively last appearance on any stage. May be for months and may be for never. Remember her laughing at the wind, her blizzard collar up. Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. Brrfoo! Blew up all her skirts and her boa nearly smothered old Goodwin. She did get flushed in the wind. Remember when we got home raking up the fire and frying up those pieces of lap of mutton for her supper with the Chutney sauce she liked. And the mulled rum. Could see her in the ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... Kuurokeetch Longbilled cockatoo Kartpoerappa Pelican Kappatch Banksia cockatoo Kirtuuk Boa snake Kuunamit Quail 7. Kararu (Kiraru, Dieri[83], Parnkalla & Nauo[84], Kararawa) Yandairunga[85], Urabunna[86] Matteri 8. Tinewa Yandrawontha, Yowerawarika[87] Koolpuru (? Emu) 9. Yungo (? Kangaroo) Mattera Kurnandaburi[88] ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... fatal boa-constrictor Charming those who soon must die, She can so transfix her victim By ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... that, and guarded against it. I shall fill the jungles with animated life—elephants, lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, giraffes, zebras, crocodiles, boa constrictors, and other specimens of natural history indigenous to that ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... that you had boa-constrictor habits," she gasped. "Why, Tom Cameron! you must have ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson
... of the fortress, the thunder of whose footsteps, as he approached the house with uncommonly fierce strides, had perhaps broken his slumbers. A frown was on his brow, and the grasp of his hand, in which every finger seemed doing the duty of a boa-constrictor, spoke of a spirit up in ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... searched them with characteristic vigour and lack of ceremony, sometimes entering by the side door, and sometimes by the front, and caring very little whether the owners were at home or not. Mr. Humphrey Crewe discovered her in a boa-stall at Wedderburn,—as his place was called,—for it made little difference to Victoria that Mr. Crewe was a bachelor of marriageable age and millions. Full, as ever, of practical suggestions, Mr. Crewe proposed to telephone to Ripton and put an advertisement in the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... "boa," as it is commonly designated by Europeans, the "anaconda" of Eastern story), which is supposed to crush the bones of an elephant, and to swallow the tiger, is found, though not of so portentous dimensions, in the cinnamon gardens within a mile of the fort of Colombo, where ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... gladden the heart of a gorilla. Every larger palm-trunk was a fernery; every dead bole was an orchidry; and huge fungi, two feet broad, fed upon the remains of their victims. Climbers, chiefly papilionaceous, and llianas, bigger than the biggest boa-constrictor, coiled and writhed round the great gloomy trees which rained their darkness below. In the sunlight were pretty jasmines (J. grande), crotons and lantanas, with marantas, whose broad green leafage was lined with pink and purple. ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... to be looked for? Hangmen and Catchpoles may, by their noose-gins and baited fall-traps, keep down the smaller sort of vermin; but what, except perhaps some such Universal Association, can protect us against whole meat-devouring and man-devouring hosts of Boa-constrictors. If, therefore, the more sequestered Thinker have wondered, in his privacy, from what hand that perhaps not ill-written Program in the Public Journals, with its high Prize-Questions ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... at all. She just stood still, looking at Jimsy until it seemed as if she were all eyes. "It comes so suddenly,"—Carter had told her—"like the boa constrictor's hunger ... and then he ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... does. It looks gay. Some of the hook-and-ladder trucks are just one mass of golden-rod and hydrangeas, and some of them are all fixed with this red-white-and-blue paper rope, sort of chenille effect, or more like a feather boa. Everybody has on white cotton gloves, and those entitled to carry speaking trumpets have bouquets in the bells of them, salvias, and golden-rod, and nasturtiums, and ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... hundred miles? May he not cut off it, as his due, twenty-five miserable little miles in the train?' Sleep coming over me after my meal increased the temptation. Alas! how true is the great phrase of Averroes (or it may be Boa-ed-din: anyhow, the Arabic escapes me, but the meaning is plain enough), that when one has once fallen, it is easy to fall again (saving always heavy falls from cliffs and high towers, for after these there is no more falling).... Examine the horse's knees before you buy him; ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... of bells at the door hastened the completion of the meal. The boys might have sat there longer and, like boa-constrictors, gorged ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... asserts that this treatment of the human pigeon is cruel, we can only reply, with a correspondent of the Times who writes to rebuke the humanitarians who would rob a poor boa of his squealing rabbit—away with such cant! Is a married woman to be stinted of her "small pleasures" because prudes affect to think the means by which they are obtained unfeminine? As well might they think it unfeline in pussy to ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... his confidence in his capacity being ably supported by his appetite, he undertook a contract to which he was unequal in the matter of expansion. He couldn't disgorge, being in the predicament of the boa-constrictor who swallows a hen head first, and finds her go against the grain when he would fain reconsider the subject. The head of the inside fish was partially digested, but that process had imparted no gratification to either party, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... invention," that phrase! The bodily wants of a reptile are elastic. If an alligator or a boa-constrictor catches a dog he can swallow him whole and enjoy that one meal in unriotous bliss for weeks. Thereafter if he must put up with no more than a minnow or a mouse he can do that for weeks in unriotous patience. In a spring in one of our Northampton ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... wedding ring which had been placed there such a short time before. Had she been robbed? There were no signs of violence visible nor even such disturbances as usually follow despoliation by a criminal's hand. The boa of delicate black net which encircled her neck rose fresh and intact to her chin; nor did the heavy folds of her rich broadcloth gown betray that any disturbance had taken place in her figure after its fall. If a jewel had flashed at ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... arouse alarm and discontent among the Spanish people; but on its Government their influence was as benumbing as that which the boa-constrictor exerts on its prey. In vain did Charles IV. and Godoy strive to set a limit to the numbers of the auxiliaries that poured across the Pyrenees to help them against fabled English expeditions. In vain did they ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... either to kill, or, if possible, recapture it at the very earliest opportunity. Though the Advertiser has succeeded in temporarily securing three lions, a chimpanzee, a couple of hyaenas, and a young hippopotamus in the Vicarage drawing-room, and has managed to envelope a boa-constrictor in a lawn-tennis net, yet, as five full-grown Bengal tigers, and about thirty other wild beasts of a miscellaneous character are at large in the village, and have, to his knowledge, already ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... their own countrymen. On our return to the coche d'eau, our fat companion lighted his cigar, and hastened to lie down in the cabin, observing, "Il faut que je me repose un peu, pour faire ma digestion;" and Monsieur C., instead of leaving him quietly in his state of torpidity, like a boa refreshed with raw buffalo, began to argue with us on the superior nicety of the French in eating. "Nous aimons les mets plus delicats que vous autres," quoth he; at which we laughed, and pointed to the cabin. We found, upon explanation, however, that Mr. C., though ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... all-glorious, of course. She certainly looked like an old vulture, in a pelisse of gray velvet, with a chinchilla boa round her long, bare neck, and her big beak, with marabouts overshadowing it, of the same color. Monsieur de Talbrun —well! Monsieur de Talbrun was very bald, as bald as he could be. To make up for the want of hair on his head, he has plenty of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... morning the mission station was excited over the loss of their only donkey. The donkey had been feeding in the field and a boa-constrictor had captured him, squeezed him into pulp, dragged him a hundred yards down to the river bank, and was preparing to swallow him. The missionaries, all with guns, took aim and fired, killing the twenty-five-foot boa-constrictor. The boa ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various
... Two porters accompanied her, carrying her smart bags, and, even with so much assistance, she was draped with extra garments, which hung from her arms in varying and seductive shades of green. She herself was in green of a subtle olive shade, and her plumes and boa, her chains and chatelaine, her hand-bags and camera, marked her as the traveler triumphant and expectant. Like an Arabian princess, borne across the desert to the home of her future lord, she came panoplied with splendor. The consciousness of ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... at the Golden Arms Inn, of a sea bathing place on the coast, and stopped for about an hour. Some time after the party had returned to D—- House, Mrs. C—- discovered that she had lost a very fine boa, which she supposed she must have left at the Inn. On enquiry, no trace of the boa could be found; but, about two months after Mrs. C—-'s return to London, she received a parcel with a boa somewhat torn, accompanied by the accompanying (sic) ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... up drowsily into his eyes. "You don't have to be such a boa-constrictor," she suggested. "You are not a cave-man, after all, you know, if you are taking a lady without asking her." Then she contentedly whispered: "I'm going to ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... in the night, I shall divide them both into quarter-watches, and have one man on duty all the time; for we may be boarded by a huge crocodile or a boa-constrictor if we are not on the lookout. But Achang is a pilot for these rivers. ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... allowed to poke them; so I missed seeing several of the most curious. An ugly cobra laid and blinked at me through the glass, looking quite as dangerous as he was. There were big and little snakes,—black, brown, and speckled, lively and lazy, pretty and plain ones,—but I liked the great boa best. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... midst of an affecting appeal in Court on a slander case delivered himself of the following flight of genius. "Slander, gentlemen, like a boa constrictor of gigantic size and immeasurable proportions, wraps the coil of its unwieldy body about its unfortunate victim, and, heedless of the shrieks of agony that come from the utmost depths of its victim's soul, loud and ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... I reckon, stranger, as how hit sorter is. He was a-stayin' at Tom's house, the furriner was, a-dickerin' fer a piece o' lan'—the same piece, mebbe, that you're atter now—an' Tom keeps him thar fer a week to beat him out'n a dollar, an' then won't let him pay nary a cent fer his boa'd. Now, stranger, that's Tom. ...
— 'Hell fer Sartain' and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... with serpent coil Around my heart its fatal fold; And though my struggling bosom toil, To heave the monster from its hold— It will not from its victim part. By day or night, in down or dell, Where'er I roam, still, still my heart Is pressed by that sad serpent spell. Aye, as the strangling boa clings Around his prey with fatal grasp, And as he feels each struggle, wrings His victim with a closer clasp; Nor yet till every pulse is dumb, And every fluttering spasm o'er, Releases, what, in death ...
— Poems • Sam G. Goodrich
... quack, as they call them, would hit upon sooner than one who is in the beaten track. Do you know, Richard, my dear boy, I've often thought that if we could by any means appropriate to our use some of the extraordinary digestive power that a boa constrictor has in his gastric juices, there is really no manner of reason why we should not comfortably dispose of as much of an ox as our stomachs will hold, and one might eat French dishes without the wretchedness ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... "I'm real glad it wasn't a snake, because they always give me the creeps, you remember, I hate 'em so. Just think what a fine pickle we'd be in now if a monster anaconda or a big boa constrictor or python, broke loose from a show, should climb up on our bridge boat, and start to chasin' us all overboard. Things look bad enough as they are without our takin' on a bunch of new trouble. ...
— Afloat on the Flood • Lawrence J. Leslie
... way towards the edge, and had just reached it and were pulling themselves out when a hideous shape rose out of the water behind them. It was like the head of an octopus joined to the body of a boa-constrictor, but head and neck were both of the same ghastly, livid grey as the other two creatures. It was evidently blind, too, for it took no notice of the brilliant glare of the searchlight, but it moved rapidly towards the two scrambling forms, its long white feelers ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... many varieties of this large family; some, like the rattlesnake, cannot climb or swim, but crawl along the ground, the terror of unwary travellers who may tread upon them in the dim forest-paths; others are Water-snakes; some, like the Boa and Python, are dreaded, although not venomous, because, of their enormous strength, and power of crushing their victims in their close embrace; others, like the Cobra, for their deadly bite; while many—we might almost say most—snakes are ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... Casino. He remembered the faded, white-rose face, with its peevish crumples that were not yet lines, and the false little smile that tried to draw attention away from them. He noticed that she was no longer shabby, but wore a smart new dress and hat, with a huge boa of ostrich feathers half covering her thin, bare neck. There was a glint of jewels about her as she moved. The man with the young, weak voice gazed at her admiringly, with a half-pitiful, half-comic air of pride in being seen with so ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... snakes! He says, are there snakes?" said Dick, apostrophising the sea. "Why the last time as ever I was there, they caught a boa-constrictor as was—" ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... elevation of 2,600 ft., then descending to 2,450 ft., we crossed two streamlets which afterwards joined a fairly important torrent. One was called the Rio Boa Vista. We gradually then rose to 2,750 ft. on another flat tableland to the east of the Serra de Callos, with its sides eroded in two distinct terraces, the higher one being almost a straight wall from two-thirds up the side of the range. In the lower portion a number of rounded mounds were to ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... made to go and see the Boa Constrictor soon after its first arrival at the Zooelogical Gardens, Sydney Smith, who was to have been there, failed to come; and, questioned at dinner why he had not done so, said, "Because I was detained by the Bore Contradictor—Hallam"—whose propensity to controvert ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... witch's cauldron, their fluffy laces burnt and blackened. Chiffon fichus torn in ribbons strewed the carpet. An ivory fan had been trampled into fragments on the hearth-rug, and a snow-storm of feathers from a white boa had drifted over the furniture. On the wash-stand a spangled white tulle hat lay drowning in a basin half ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... thoughts. It could easily now have darted away, but it felt that it was driven to bay, and began to show fight in the most vicious fashion, snapping its flat beak, hissing, snorting, rattling its plumage, and undulating its long neck, as it danced about, till it looked like a boa constrictor which had partially developed ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn
... careful. She put on her neat black hat and jacket and went out. She had scarcely gone a hundred yards before she came straight up against Louisa Clay. Louisa looked very stylish in a large mauve-colored felt hat, and a fur boa round her neck; her black hair was much befrizzed and becurled. Alison shrank from the sight of her, and was about to go quickly by when the other ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... whenever the announce bills came out for her annual night. There was Mrs Lenville, in a very limp bonnet and veil, decidedly in that way in which she would wish to be if she truly loved Mr Lenville; there was Miss Gazingi, with an imitation ermine boa tied in a loose knot round her neck, flogging Mr Crummles, junior, with both ends, in fun. Lastly, there was Mrs Grudden in a brown cloth pelisse and a beaver bonnet, who assisted Mrs Crummles in her domestic affairs, and took money at the doors, and dressed the ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... stranger's embarrassment; then she went on to find Catherine. The two left behind exchanged a few banal questions and answers. Langham had only allowed himself one look at the dazzling face and eyes framed in fur cap and boa. Afterwards he stood making a study of the ground, and answering her remarks in his usual stumbling fashion. What was it had gone out of her voice—simply the soft callow sounds of first youth? And what a ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to be looked for? Hangmen and Catchpoles may, by their noose-gins and baited fall-traps, keep-down the smaller sort of vermin; but what, except perhaps some such Universal Association, can protect us against whole meat-devouring and man-devouring hosts of Boa-constrictors? If, therefore, the more sequestered Thinker have wondered, in his privacy, from what hand that perhaps not ill-written Program in the Public Journals, with its high Prize-Questions and so liberal Prizes, could have proceeded,—let ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... the Old World is quite as formidable as the boa in the New. Perhaps it is even more to be dreaded; for, notwithstanding its great length—twenty-five to thirty feet—it is exceedingly nimble and its muscular strength is immense. There are numerous authentic stories on record of its having crushed the buffalo and the tiger in its huge constricting ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... blood. Reader,—the consternation and horror which succeeded this "new development," are, without exaggeration, perfectly indescribable. The people drew long breaths, as though they had escaped from the fangs of a boa constrictor; the old ladies charged their daughters, that should Miss —— be seen in that village again, by no means to permit themselves to be seen in the street with her; and many other charges ...
— The American Prejudice Against Color - An Authentic Narrative, Showing How Easily The Nation Got - Into An Uproar. • William G. Allen
... us and stopped tending his ash-cake, peas, and fat back long enough to squint over the top of the "specks dat Ole Mis had give him back in '70", then he took a long look at the mahogany clock that had "sot on her parlor fish boa'd". In spite of his ninety-six years his memory of the old days is still fresh and his body surprisingly active for ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... a warm climate having prevailed, which is borne out by the discovery of a serpent, Palaeophis typhoeus (see Figure 193), exceeding, according to Professor Owen, twenty feet in length, and allied in its osteology to the Boa, Python, Coluber, and Hydrus. The compressed form and diminutive size of certain caudal vertebrae indicate so much analogy with Hydrus as to induce Professor Owen to pronounce this extinct ophidian to have been marine. (Palaeontological Society Monograph ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... Portugalie in Guineam ad tentandum terrain. Et renunciavit ipse serenissimo regi prout navigaverat ultra jam navigata leuchas 600, videlicet 450 ad austrum et 150 ad aquilonem usque montem per ipsum nominatum Cabo de boa esperanca quem in Agesimba estimamus. Qui quidem in eo loco invenit se distare per astrolabium ultra lineam equinoctialem gradus 35. Quem viagium pictavit et scripsit de leucha in leucham in una carta navigationis ut oculi visum ostenderet ipso serenissimo regi. In quibus ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske
... They usually sleep on the ground, with the exception of those who are Mahants, and they sometimes have no metal vessels, but use bags made of strong cloth for holding food and water. Men's names have the suffix Boa, as Datto Boa, Kesho Boa, while those of boys end in da, as Manoda, Raojida, and those of women in Bai, as Gopa Bai, Som Bai. The dead are buried, not in the common burial-grounds, but in some waste place. The corpse is laid on ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... should be terrible and deadly' The eye of the boa-constrictor, while fascinating its prey, is lovely. No royal crown holds such a jewel; it is a ruby with the emerald's green light playing ever upon it. Yet the deer that sees it loses all power of motion, and trembles, and awaits his death and even so, to compare ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... the serene, triumphant smile of a successful athlete. Suddenly a loud peal of laughter echoed from the doorway,—a woman stood there, richly dressed in silk and fur, with diamonds sparkling in her ears and diamonds clasping the long boa at her ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... take that smoothness and that sleeke subjection! I am myself, as great in good as he is, As much a master of my Countries fortunes, And one to whom (since I am forc'd to speak it, Since mine own tongue must be my Advocate) This blinded State that plaies at boa-peep with us, This wanton State that's weary of hir lovers And cryes out 'Give me younger still and fresher'! Is bound and so far bound: I found hir naked, Floung out a dores and starvd, no friends to pitty hir, The marks of all ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... head of the bed may be higher than the foot. Above all, it must be free from big stones and serpentine roots of trees. A root that looks no bigger that an inch-worm in the daytime assumes the proportions of a boa-constrictor at midnight—when you find it under your hip-bone. There should also be plenty of evergreens near at hand for the beds. Spruce will answer at a pinch; it has an aromatic smell; but it is too stiff and humpy. Hemlock is smoother and more ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... has been often seen to contemplate with deep interest. This, to be sure, might proceed from a provident regard to health, for it is a well-known fact that he has frequently returned home in the evenings, distended like a Boa-Constrictor after a gorge; yet no person was ever able to come at the cause of his inflation. There were, to be sure, suspicions abroad, and it was mostly found that depredations in some neighboring orchard or garden had been committed a little ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... very least, dear Lady Harriet! Only too delighted, I'm sure!... Now do take off your boa, and come nearer the fire. You'll find this quite a comfy chair, I think. Tea will be brought in presently.... Oh, you really must, after trapesing all that way across the Common. I can't tell you how pleased I am to see you. I've so often wished to make your acquaintance, ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey
... de Inglaterra Ruy de Sousa-pessoa principal e de muyto bon saber e credito; de que el Rey muyto confiua: e ho doutor Ioam d'Eluas, e fernam de Pina por secretario. E foram por mar muy honradamente cum muy boa companhia: hos quaes foram en nome del rey confirmar as ligas antiquas com Inglaterra, que polla-condican deltas ho nouo Rey de hum zeyno e do outro era obrigado a mandar confirmar: e tambien pera monstrarem ho titolo que el rey tinha no senhorio ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... door called her upstairs. She came down again, followed by a young girl of pleasant countenance, though pale and anxious-looking. The visitor's dress was very plain, and indicated poverty; she wore a long black jacket, untrimmed, a boa of cheap fur, tied at the throat with black ribbon, a hat of grey felt, ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... tried a few weeks of this sort of thing, and have done a summit or two; in imagination we have also been up Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, and the Matterhorn, and a few of the Hymalaya peaks, and most of the mountains in the moon, and several of the fixed stars, and—haw—are now rather boa-ord with it all than otherwise!" There were men who had done much and who said little, and men who had done little and who spoke much. There were "ice-men" who had a desire to impart their knowledge, ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... nigger Souf w'at he bought fum 'im, he'd lack ter buy 'im back ag'in. Chloe 'mence' ter pick up a little w'en ole mis' tol' her 'bout dis letter. Howsomeber, bimeby Mars' Dugal' got a' answer fum de spekilater, who said he wuz monst'us sorry, but Jeff had fell ove'boa'd er jumped off'n de steamboat on de way ter Wim'l'ton, en got drownded, en co'se he could n' sell 'im back, much ez he'd lack ter ...
— The Conjure Woman • Charles W. Chesnutt
... what direction should we go? Very probably we should fall into the hands of savages, who would keep us in slavery; at all events, we should have to encounter several wild beasts and venomous serpents,—the mighty boa, or anaconda, or the still more terrible bush-master, or labarri, so dreaded in ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... gratified with the perusal of Jane Eyre. Mr. Thackeray is a keen ruthless satirist. I had never perused his writings but with blended feelings of admiration and indignation. Critics, it appears to me, do not know what an intellectual boa-constrictor he is. They call him "humorous," "brilliant"—his is a most scalping humour, a most deadly brilliancy: he does not play with his prey, he coils round it and crushes it in his rings. He seems terribly in earnest in his war against the ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... his life, whereas if a rattlesnake has harmed him he usually cures himself. Besides these there were the omnipresent garter snakes, and the grey or silver coach-whip, both harmless. The bull snake is said to grow to an enormous size, and is a kind of North American python or boa. About five miles from our camp was an old hut, which was occupied by a sheep-herder whom I knew. One night he heard a noise, and looking out of his bunk saw by the dim light of the fire an enormous snake crawling out of a hole in the ...
— A Tramp's Notebook • Morley Roberts
... nearly approaching one of friendship between man and snake known to me is the case of Tyrrell, the Zoo snake keeper, and his "laidly worms." But, then, the friendship is mostly on Tyrrell's side, and, moreover, Tyrrell is rather more than human, as anyone will admit who sees him hang boa constrictors round his neck. Of course one often hears of boys making pets of common English snakes, but a boy is not a human creature at all; he ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the grandissimus, as the mariners call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the forecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of it, towards ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... to be beautiful and admired. I want two new dresses; a hat with plumes, and a silk petticoat that rustles. I want some new kid gloves and a feather boa (a long one made of ostrich feathers). I wish——" The small, blunt pencil had been lifted in air for the space of three minutes before it again descended; then, with cheeks that burned, Miss Philura had written the fateful words: ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... great silver buckle of her belt seemed to depress the centre of her body, catching the light stuff of her white blouse like a clip. She wore a short black jacket with mother-of-pearl buttons and a ragged black boa. The ends of her tulle collarette had been carefully disordered and a big bunch of red flowers was pinned in her bosom stems upwards. Lenehan's eyes noted approvingly her stout short muscular body. Rank rude health glowed in her face, on her fat red cheeks and in ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... arrondissement of Ville-aux-Fayes. To avoid too many explanations it is necessary to state, once for all, succinctly, the genealogical ramifications by means of which Gaubertin wound himself about the country, as a boa-constrictor winds around a tree,—with such art that a passing traveller thinks he beholds some natural ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... the boa-constrictor in the Zoo were gems of humanity in comparison with those of the negroid-Egyptian's as he turned to obey, and then stopped mulishly until a third little reminder chipped splinters from the marble at his heel, whereupon he ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... time he kept his self-command. His face was only a bit paler, a bit tighter than usual; he was only a trifle slower and more fastidious in his speech. It was midnight when he left Clifford peacefully slumbering in somebody's arm-chair, with a long suede glove dangling in his hand and a plumy boa twisted about his neck to protect his throat from drafts. He walked through the hall and down the stairs, and found himself on the sidewalk in a quarter he did not know. Mechanically he looked up at the name of the street. The name ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... there are more," said Jack. "So much the worse for them if there are, sir. I want the 'taters, and I'd have 'em if the place was full of boa-constrictors as big ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... who first put me up to the idea. I asked him a simple question about the habits of the Sigalion Boa, a certain worm in whose ways I was taking an interest at the time, and he at once replied that he himself was not in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... the king and those of his wives are situated in two large parks. The doors and the pillars of the verandahs are adorned with fairly well executed carvings, representing such scenes as a boa killing an antelope, or a pig, or a group of ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... to eat, and after dinner feels herself sleepy, like a boa constrictor, eructs loudly, drinks water, hiccups, and, by stealth, if no one sees her, makes the sign of the cross over her mouth, ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... Rosa came in dressed to go out with me. She had a white boa, I remember, and a white felt hat with a broad brim. She looked from one to the other and then back at me. 'What's ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... to the serpents of the genus Python, allied to the boa-constrictor. They attain enormous size in the forests, some specimens having been obtained over twenty-two feet long. Young ones are often kept by the natives in their houses to kill the rats; these snakes ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... one else. In another moment he was seated on the window-seat entranced, dazed and blissfully content with his fate, docile as the rabbit in the presence of the boa constrictor. ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... dreamed. The long processions of monkeys, who kept pace with them along the tree-tops, and proclaimed their wonder in every imaginable whistle, and grunt, and howl, had ceased to move their laughter, as much as the roar of the jaguar and the rustle of the boa had ceased to move their fear; and when a brilliant green and rose-colored fish, flat-bodied like a bream, flab-finned like a salmon, and saw-toothed like a shark, leapt clean on board of the canoe to escape the rush ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... few steps from the church door, is a stone in which are carved fourteen rings: they announce that fourteen farms were given to the cloister, in order that he who moulders here might have this place, fourteen feet within the church door. It was Boa Johnson Grip, a great sinner; but the cloister's power was greater than that of all sinners: the stone on his grave records it with no ordinary significance ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... Drummond—Mrs. Huntley Drummond—and spoke to a lady-like assemblage in a blizzard of draughts. To quote my beloved and early friend, Mr. John Hay, "I chill like mutton gravy," and had it not been for my chairwoman who left the stage to bring me my fur boa, I must have contracted a permanent catarrh which would have reduced my voice to a whisper. I was relieved—a feeling which I thought the audience shared—when ...
— My Impresssions of America • Margot Asquith
... a quaint spectacle to the Lowestoft fishermen, for Posh assures me that he always went to sea in a silk hat, and generally wore a "cross-over," or a lady's boa, round his neck. Now a silk hat and a lady's boa aboard a longshore punt would be about as incongruous as a court suit in a shooting field. But FitzGerald was not vain enough to be self-conscious. He knew when he was comfortable, and that was enough for his healthy ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... up at me as I buttered his toast, piping hot from the range. "Well, Lady Bird, you're not the kind that'll need paprika, anyway!" he announced as he fell to. And he ate like a boa-constrictor and patted his pajama-front and stentoriously announced that he'd picked a queen—only he pronounced it kaveen, after the manner of our ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... 28. The Boa Bidarra, or Rhamnus Jujuba of Linnaeus. This is a round yellow fruit, about the size of a gooseberry; its flavour is like that of an apple, but it has the astringency ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... wild confusion; the fierce wild-boars, bristling in their rage; the bounding leopards; the swift antelope, of every species; the savage panthers; jackals, and foxes, and all the screaming and shrieking infinities of the monkey tribe. Occasionally, amongst the dense mass could be perceived the huge boa-constrictor, rolling in convolutions—now looking back with fiery eyes upon his pursuers, now precipitating his flight—while the air was thronged with its winged tenants, wildly screaming, and occasionally dropping down dead with fear. To crown the whole, ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... a moment before wore scales, now wore a skin—such is the nature of that dragon. It was no longer a crocodile: it was a boa. The skin, lead-coloured and dirty, looked thick, and was crossed by heavy wrinkles. Here and there, on its surface, bubbles of surge, like pustules, gathered and then burst. The foam was like a leprosy. It was at this moment that the hooker, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... staring at me, as if there was something perfectly frightful in my face. I felt quite startled for the moment, for, of all the ways in which men have looked at me, no man ever looked at me in that way before. Did you ever see the boa constrictor fed at the Zoological Gardens? They put a live rabbit into his cage, and there is a moment when the two creatures look at each other. I declare Mr. Bashwood ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Then we see the shadow, a monstrous being pursuing through a lonely street at night a little burgher in a hurry to reach his bed. The "shudder" is there. Kubin has read Baudelaire. His Adventure resembles a warrior in No Man's Land confronted by a huge white boa-constrictor with the head of a blind woman, and she has a head upon which is abundant white ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... pains to equip this brilliant but inexperienced young man with everything he could by any possibility need during his absence. The great trunk filled itself until it bulged with its contents like a boa-constrictor who has swallowed his blanket. Best clothes and common clothes, thick clothes and thin clothes, flannels and linens, socks and collars, with handkerchiefs enough to keep the pickpockets busy for a week, with a paper of gingerbread and some lozenges for gastralgia, and ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... in a blue dress; a hat, encircled by a long pink feather, crowned a face that was beautiful, were it not that it was marred by its many adornments. Gilt earrings glistened in the ears, a dark curly fringe covered forehead and eyebrows, and the chin was embedded in a tawdry feather boa of a muddy hue. An excited flush lay on her cheeks as she looked at the gay crowd within, searching ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... beyond all conception! Perfect epistolary Boa Constrictors. I speak with feeling, for I have myself suffered under their ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... beaming from among her tumbled curls, at once turned happy and expectant, and when her hat had been straightened and her boa removed so that her necklace could gleam resplendently about her fair, round throat, she was seated against a tree-trunk and listened with all her ears to the titles Mrs. ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... Richardson, who follows Vossius in a fanciful etymology from the Greek [Greek: derkomai blepein] to see. Sharpness of sight, it is true, was attributed to the mythologized reptile, but the primitive draco was nothing but a large serpent, supposed to be the boa. This sense must accordingly be comparatively modern. The eagle is the universal type of keenness of vision. The reptile's way of moving himself without legs is his most striking peculiarity; and if we derive dragon ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... pretty auburn hair standing near, leaning against the gunwale—with an "outside berth" and so more exposed to the cold air. This same lady was able to distribute more of her wraps to the passengers, a rug to one, a fur boa to another; and she has related with amusement that at the moment of climbing up the Carpathia's side, those to whom these articles had been lent offered them all back to her; but as, like the rest of us, she was encumbered with a lifebelt, she ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... we never wanted to go back there to live, any of us, and I went up to pass the papers and close the thing out. Well, I did have an offer for it from a feller that wanted to open a boa'din'-house there and get the advantage of Jeff's improvements, and I couldn't seem to make up my mind till I'd looked the ground over. Fust off, you know, I thought I'd sell to the other feller, because I could see in a minute what a thorn it 'd be in Jeff's flesh. But, dumn ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... audacity and her steel-trap quickness of mind. She has a dead white skin, green eyes, and most wonderful hair, hair the color of a well-polished copper samovar. She is an extremely thin woman who affects sheathe skirts and rather reminds me of a boa-constrictor. She always reeks of Apres londre and uses a lip-stick as freely before the world as an orchestra conductor uses a baton or a street-sweeper a broom. She is nervous and sharp-tongued ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... evident horror of their intended victims, confined in the same cages, was distinctly mentioned. The gratification of mere curiosity does not justify the infliction of such torture on the lower animals. Surely the sight of a stuffed boa-constrictor ought to content a reasonable curiosity. Imagine what would be felt if a child were subjected to such a fate, or what could be answered if the present victims could tell their agonies as well as feel them! ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 433 - Volume 17, New Series, April 17, 1852 • Various
... little or no misery or abject want; that the people were interested in petty happenings of no ultimate value whatsoever; that an Oriental dance and pantomime given in New York by "society" women, led by Mrs. Waldorf Astor, where a rich young woman reaped astonishment and admiration by coiling a live boa constrictor around her neck, was one of the great events of the day, because the newspapers devoted two columns to it, whereas scarcely any mention was made of armies of ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... human food for the nourishment of animals is, however, being discouraged; and for the future guinea-pigs and broken glass will be the staple diet of boa-constrictors and ostriches respectively. Peppermint- balls for grizzly bears are to be discontinued; ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... car load of trunks and bags and bundles, a big bunch of umbrellas and parasols, golf sticks, tennis racquets and all sorts of queer things, and was dressed in a most conspicuous and elaborate manner. She was represented as striding up and down a railway platform covered with diamonds, boa, flashy hat and fancy finery, while the English girl, in a close fitting ulster and an Alpine hat, leaned quietly upon her umbrella near a small "box," as they call a trunk, and a modest traveling bag. But that picture isn't accurate. According to my observation ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis |
