"Conch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the flag of the UK in the upper hoist-side quadrant and the colonial shield centered on the outer half of the flag; the shield is yellow and contains a conch shell, ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... six years ago I heard the name "waahoo" mentioned at Long Key. The boatmen were using it in a way to make one see that they did not believe there was such a fish as a waahoo. The old conch fishermen had never heard the name. For that matter, ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... and feet were bare. The long black hair streamed loosely. Two of them wore heavy necklaces of green stones, red pebbles, and shell beads. The last comer carried only a single string of shell beads with an iridescent conch fastened to it in front. Ear-pendants of turquoises hung from the ears of ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... CONCH. A large univalve, used as a horn by pilots, fishermen, &c., in fogs: a strombus, triton, or sometimes ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... an astringent perfume of the sea: none of your Fulton Market smells of stagnating fish, but a clean, wholesome, coralline odor, such as we may imagine supplied to the Peris "beneath the dark sea" by the scaly fellows in the toilet line down there, who are likely to keep it for sale in conch-shells,—quarts and pints. Porgy prevailed to that extent, in fact, that it came to be talked of, by-and-by, as a circulating medium; and a hard-fisted mechanic averred his intention of compensating his landlady for his board with ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... thus; her slaves ought to live and die in her service, even though their fidelity were never rewarded by a single smile. She watched them, with a frowning brow, until they disappeared, and then sought her conch in anything but a tranquil mood, haunted by the lover-like pair that had so roused her wrath, and still kept her ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... did likewise introduce the far-famed step in dancing called 'double trouble.' They were commanded by the fearless Jacobus Varra Vanger,—and had, moreover, a jolly band of Breuckelen ferry-men, who performed a brave concerto on conch shells. ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... as bewitching as any Nixes that ever spread their nets for soft-hearted young Ritters in the old German romance waters. Neptune in a triumphal progress, with his Naiads tumbling about him, was no better off than Whitey and Pypey. They had, to be sure, no car, nor conch shells, nor dolphins; but, as Thompson remarked, these were unimportant accessories, that added but little to Neptune's comfort. The nymphs were the essential. The spectacle was a saddening one for us, I confess; the more so, because our forlorn condition ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... that it must be Nicholas, whom he had never seen, and who had blown such an imperative summons on the conch the night before. Halvard's temper was communicated to him; he moved abruptly to where the ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... already rattled through the street, chasing away the latest vestige of night's sanctity with the jingle-jangle of its dissonant bells. A milkman was distributing the contents of his cans from door to door; and the harsh peal of a fisherman's conch shell was heard far off, around the corner. None of these tokens escaped Hepzibah's notice. The moment had arrived. To delay longer would be only to lengthen out her misery. Nothing remained, except to take down the bar from the shop-door, leaving the entrance free—more ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... beneath crystal bells. A collection of cross-bows, arrows, and knives recalled a Febrer, captain of a corvette belonging to the king, who made a voyage around the world near the close of the eighteenth century. Purplish bivalves and enormous nacre-lined conch shells lay upon ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... "The Divine Shepherd" and "St John." Better than all, however, are those beautiful children known as "The Children of the Shell," where the little Christ offers to his playfellow, John, the cooling draught from a conch shell they have picked up in their play. They are children drawn from the sky quite as much as the Jesus in the famous ...
— Great Artists, Vol 1. - Raphael, Rubens, Murillo, and Durer • Jennie Ellis Keysor
... this much ado about something, I was ready for my dinner, and in a quarter of an hour it was announced by the blowing of a conch. In passing through a large hall I found myself surrounded by coal-coloured gentlemen of all grades, one of whom wished to look at my dirk. He examined it very closely; it appeared to take his fancy as it was silver gilt, but ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... Chinese and Japanese arms and armour, and the various productions of the two countries, besides many strange things from the Philippine and other islands. I was specially interested in the corals and shells. There were splendid conch shells from Manilla, and a magnificent group of Venus flower-baskets, dredged from some enormous depth near Manilla. There were also good specimens of reptiles of all sorts, and of the carved birds' heads for which Canton is famous. They look very like amber, ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... and soon returned with two conch-shells filled to the brim with pure, clear sea-water. Dr. Sculpin counted three grains of white sand into one shell, and three grains of yellow sand into the other shell, with ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... of the Hinkle House was as neat a little parlor as there was in the black-waxy country. It was all willow rocking-chairs, and home-knit tidies, and albums, and conch shells in a row. And a little upright ...
— Options • O. Henry
... water near the shore we find great pink conch shells. The fish in them we have made into soup for our dinner, and very good soup we ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... still living on the continent, ruderata in high northern latitudes.* (* "Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society" volume 8 1852 page 190. Mr. Brown calls them extinct species, which may mislead some readers, but he merely meant extinct in England. See also Jeffreys, "Brit. Conch." page 174.) The Cyrena fluminalis and the Unio littoralis, to which last I shall presently allude, were not ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... after going some distance we heard a shout, and saw a man on the beach frantically waving to us, but as he would not venture near enough, we had to go on without finding out what was the matter. Shortly afterward we heard three loud blasts on a conch shell, which is always used to call natives together, but the bush being thick, we could see nothing. I myself believe it was a trap, the man evidently trying to get us ashore, so that his tribe might attack ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... be unique of its kind. It will tell both natives and strangers exactly what they want to know, and possess great scientific interest and importance. Whereas the ordinary lumber-room of clubs from New Zealand, Hindoo idols, sharks' teeth, mangy monkeys, scorpions, and conch shells—who shall describe the weary inutility of it? It is really worse than nothing, because it leads the unwary to look for the objects of science elsewhere than under their noses. What they want to know is that their "America is here," ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... glory bright. His steps in virtue's paths are bent, Obedient, pure, and eloquent. In each emprise he wins success, And dying foes his power confess. Tall and broad-shouldered, strong of limb, Fortune has set her mark on him. Graced with a conch-shell's triple line, His throat displays the auspicious sign. High destiny is clear impressed On massive jaw and ample chest. His mighty shafts he truly aims, And foemen in the battle tames. Deep in the muscle, scarcely shown, Embedded lies his collar-bone. His lordly steps are firm and free, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... elemental deity of these salt-water lakes, so different in quality from the AEgean or Ionian sea? What would he find distinctive of their spirit? The Tritons of these shallows must be of other form and lineage than the fierce-eyed youth who blows his conch upon the curled crest of a wave, crying aloud to his comrades, as he bears the nymph away to caverns where the billows plunge ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the cage of the Missing Link, and listened carefully while the Professor reeled off the familiar story of the taking of Mahdi. They witnessed the stirring and entertaining dinner, and when the Professor had finished, and Mahdi had resumed his conch in the ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... a big conch shell every morning at four o'clock, and when the first long blast was heard the lights "'gin to twinkle in every "Nigger" cabin." Charlie, chuckling, recalled that "ole Master" blowed that shell so it could-a-been heard for five miles." Some of the "Niggers" went to feed ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... fine-looking houses were great conch-shells, oblong and twisted in shape, but pink and smooth inside. Many of them were placed around lovely fountains, or ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... of the Ganges land, where grows no wine, is plainly Krishna, who carries club, discus, and conch. The Greek cities Methora and Kleisobora are Mathur[a] and Krishna-pur, 'Krishna-town'; the latter on the Jumna, the former near it on the same river, capital of the clan which venerated Krishna as its chief hero and god, the Y[a]davas. Megasthenes ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... his feet from the conch on which he had thrown himself. He stood waiting. Now was the decisive moment; and Toussaint knew it was. Yet he ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... fields came the lowing of the cows, as they waited impatiently for the bars of the pastures to be let down. A herd of sheep was driven along the road, raising a cloud of dust. From farm houses came the barking of dogs and the not unmusical notes of conch or tin horns, summoning the "men folks" ...
— The Outdoor Girls of Deepdale • Laura Lee Hope
... used to be children in the water, and mermaids too, and mermen. I saw them all in a picture at home, of a beautiful lady sailing in a car drawn by dolphins, and babies flying round her, and one sitting in her lap; and the mermaids swimming and playing, and the mermen trumpeting on conch-shells; and it is called 'The Triumph of Galatea'; and there is a burning mountain in the picture behind. It hangs on the great staircase, and I have looked at it ever since I was a baby, and dreamt about it a hundred ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... porch, or door, ere this Of Art a Tabernacle is; Nor Art alone. With May is interwove Seaweed, which Neptune's favourites love. SWINBURNE should sing in stanzas fleet, How NELSON may, at Chelsea, meet ARMSTRONG! Sound conch-shell! Let's obey Thy Proclamation made for May. Wild marine whiffs from the salt sea are straying, And the brine greets us as we ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 100, May 9, 1891 • Various
... Why, in Aitutaki you can't sell fish. The law forbids it, but do you suppose people don't fish on that account? Why, a man goes out in his canoe and fishes like mad. He brings in his canoe, and as he approaches the beach he's blowing his pu, the conch-shell, to let people know he has fish. Fish to sell or to barter? Not at all. He wants the honor of giving them away. Now, if he makes a big catch, do you see, he has renown. People say, 'There's Taiere, who caught all those fish yesterday.' That's worth ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... Room, the daughter of Rufus and Susan had Wonderful Wax Flowers, sprinkled with Diamond Dust; a What-Not bearing Mineral Specimens, Conch-Shells, and a Star-Fish, also some Hair-Cloth Furniture, very ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... carpentry resembling the work of ship calkers. Iron did not exist in these terrestrial constructions suggestive of the sailboat whose rooms were as dark as staterooms. Through the windows could be seen great conch-shells upon the chests of drawers, harsh and childish oil paintings representing frigates, and multi-colored ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... automobiles and motorcycles, and amidst the joyous sound of drums and conch shells, Miss Bletch, Mr. Wright, and myself, flower-garlanded from head to foot, drove slowly to my ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... doors, close to the car, that she might not be left alone. We had for food a strange and somewhat evil combination; wild hare and wild boar; but they seemed to suit the landscape somehow, as did the mystical music of the conch-shells, blown by passing boatmen. It was like being waked from a dream of old-time romance, by a rude hand shaking one's shoulder, to hear the voices of Sir Samuel and Lady Turnour, he mildly arguing, ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... herder of his at Dunmore's slaughter-house. I saw him jailed at Fortress Pitt; I saw him freed, too. And one fine day in '76, a-lolling at my ease in the north, what should I hear but a jolly conch-horn blowing in the forest, and out of it rolled a torrent of men in buckskin, Cresap leading, bound for that famous cattle-drive at Boston town. So I, being by chance in buckskin, and by merest chance ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers
... heart's dearest as her superior. He saw, too, why Aldobrandino had likened her to a peach-blossom, for her complexion had that even delicate flush, not white and red in spots, but roseate everywhere, like the heart of a conch shell or the ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... shell of peculiar beauty—my favorite in the whole collection—a small conch, covered with rich, dark veins. Each of the visitors successively took up this shell, and by words and gestures expressed her admiration, evidently showing that she had an eye for beauty—this was on the occasion of the parting visit ...
— Wau-bun - The Early Day in the Northwest • Juliette Augusta Magill Kinzie
... shook up his conch, and talked with him. It was interesting to talk with him—until he learned her name. Oh, yes, Blank was her name, she replied innocently, and Sir George Blank was her brother. Sir George Blank, eh? thundered old Dan Cullen on his death- bed; Sir George Blank, solicitor to the docks at ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... Maritime claims: Exclusive fishing zone: 200 nm Territorial sea: 12 nm Disputes: none Climate: tropical; marine; moderated by trade winds; sunny and relatively dry Terrain: low, flat limestone; extensive marshes and mangrove swamps Natural resources: spiny lobster, conch Land use: arable land 2%; permanent crops 0%; meadows and pastures; 0%; forest and woodland 0%; other 98% Environment: 30 islands (eight inhabited); subject to frequent hurricanes Note: located 190 km north of the Dominican Republic ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... cord made a hideous bellowing, hence its name. Bill Day had a gigantic watchman's rattle, a hickory spring on a cog-wheel. It is called in the West, a horse-fiddle, because it is so unlike either a horse or a fiddle. Then there were melodious tin pans and conch-shells and tin horns. But the most deadly noise was made by Jim West, who had two iron skillet-lids ("leds" he called them) which, when placed face to face, and rubbed, as you have seen children rub tumblers, made a sound discordant and deafening enough to have suggested Milton's expression ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... conch-shell it was proclaimed before the palace, on the beach, and at the head of the valley, that Noomai, King of Hannamanoo, and friend of Hardee-Hardee, the white, kept open heart and table for all tattooers ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... we can even see their topmasts while they are at anchor. Of sounds of men, beyond those of our own labourers, there reach us, at very long intervals, salutes from the warships in harbour, the bell of the cathedral church, and the low of the conch-shell calling the labour boys on the German plantations. Yesterday, which was Sunday - the QUANTIEME is most likely erroneous; you can now correct it - we had a visitor - Baker of Tonga. Heard you ever of him? He is a great man ...
— Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 2 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which had the mountain for its pole, the base of the axle and the cluster of beautiful-looking bamboo trees for its socket-pole, looked resplendent with that celestial armour of great lustre, took his bow Gandiva and the conch-shell given to him by the gods, commenced to exhibit those celestial weapons in order. And as those celestial weapons had been set, the Earth being oppressed with the feet (of Arjuna), began to tremble with (its) trees; ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... know," Ralph answered. "If you wouldn't think I was off my conch, I'd say it was a ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... crammed full, from floor to ceiling, with all sorts of curios, brought from foreign parts, evidently by the worthy owner of the dwelling, when returning home after his many cruisings in strange waters—conch shells from the Congo and cowries from Zanzibar; a swordfish's broken spear from the Pacific, and a Fijian war-club; cases of stuffed humming-birds from Rio, and calabashes from the Caribbean Sea; a beautiful model, in the finest ivory work, of a Chinese ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... along the valley the sound of a distant conch-shell. The soldiers groaned, roused up, and each looked for his own side-arms and ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... than the head, while in the long-eared bat their length nearly equals that of the head and body. The form is characteristic in each of the families; in most the "earlet," or tragus, is large, in some cases extending nearly to the outer margin of the conch; its office appears to be to intensify and prolong the waves of sound by producing undulations in them. In the Rhinolophidae, the only family of insectivorous bats wanting the tragus, the auditory ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... eye, nor is it heightened by that of the ear; for I was assured that during tranquil nights, particularly by listening near the ground, the confused hum of the vast British metropolis could here be compared only to the buz of a BEE-HIVE, or the sound of a CONCH! What a lesson do these considerations afford to the pride of man, whose egotism represents him to himself as the most important object of the infinite creation; for whose use, he asserts, all things were made, and ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... the next moment that it must have been eight hours at least, for the dull booming bellow of the great conch shell blown by one of the blacks rang out, and Pete started up in his bunk to stare at Nic ...
— Nic Revel - A White Slave's Adventures in Alligator Land • George Manville Fenn
... system has {232} developed. Instead of the four original castes there are now more than five hundred times that number, and the system now decrees irrevocably before birth not only what social station the newborn infant shall occupy from the cradle to the grave (or from the time the conch shell announces the birth of a man-child till the funeral pyre consumes his body, to use Indian terminology), but also decrees almost as irrevocably what business he may or may not follow. A little American girl of my acquaintance once announced ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... our festivity, the dog sprang to the door, and a sound like that of a horn or conch shell, was heard through the roar of the gale. The women started from their seats in evident consternation, swept away the remnants of the supper, and conveyed me into an adjoining closet; where they begged of me to keep close, not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... jokingly described as "a poor stick," assisted her in her communications. A conch shell was kept at the spring, some distance from the house. On this conch shell the children were taught to blow the blasts that gave Mr. Hart information. One signal was, "The enemy is at hand;" another ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris
... of the doleful conch Doth any e'er descend from the first grade, Which for its pain has ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... that we follow in its track. Whether we see the regatta or not is of no consequence, so we keep in view of that Venus in the conch-shell." ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... the vesicle of its vapour, it first makes it impalpable, and then conveys it by unknown paths to the most distant parts of the Earth. The materials of which the coral builds the island, and the sea-conch its shell, are gathered by this restless leveller from mountains, rocks, and valleys, in all latitudes. Some it washes down from the Mountains of the Moon in Africa, or out of the gold-fields of Australia, or from the mines of Potosi; others from the battle-fields ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... which had seen its best days, we were accommodated with a mouldy chamber containing two cot-beds, two chairs, and a cracked pitcher on a washstand. The mantel-shelf was ornamented with three big pink conch-shells, resembling pieces of petrified liver; and over these hung a cheap lurid print, in which a United States sloop-of-war was giving a British frigate particular fits. It is very strange how our own ships never seem to suffer any in these terrible ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... now became visible. She was a delicate-looking girl, with a pale, conch-shell complexion, brown hair as fine as silk, and pleasant, serene, gray eyes. She was dressed very simply in white, with a blue band across her hair, and a blue scarf and sash around throat and waist. Her face, though showing signs of quiet ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... in the windows, even shinier and whiter than at the Rafferties; there was an incredibly bright-coloured rug on the floor, and bright coloured pictures of Mount Vesuvius and of Garibaldi on the walls. Also there was a cabinet with many interesting treasures to look at—a bit of coral and a conch-shell, a shark's tooth and an Indian arrow-head, and a stuffed linnet with a glass cover over him. A while back Hal would not have thought of such things as especially stimulating to the imagination; but that was before he had begun to spend five-sixths of his waking hours ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... agitated and disturbed, it seems to dance everywhere with uplifted hands represented by its surges. Full of swelling billows caused by the waxing and waning of the moon the parent of Vasudeva's great conch called Panchajanya, the great mine of gems, its waters were formerly disturbed in consequence of the agitation caused within them by the Lord Govinda of immeasurable prowess when he had assumed the form of a wild boar for raising the (submerged) ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Iyeyasu and his skill in taking advantage of every error of his enemy giving confidence to his men. By noon they were bearing back the foe. Ordering up the reserves, and bidding the drummers and conch-blowers to sound their most inspiriting appeal, Iyeyasu gave order for the whole army ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... river into three or four streams, each of them wider than England's widest, the Thames. We now approached the low, reedy banks of Butler's Island, and passed the rice-mill and buildings surrounding it, all of which, it being Sunday, were closed. As we neared the bank, the steersman took up a huge conch, and in the barbaric fashion of early times in the Highlands, sounded out our approach. A pretty schooner, which carries the produce of the estate to Charleston and Savannah, lay alongside the wharf, which ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... of the owner of the boat but lacking aquatic furniture, had utilized a single-seated cutter which, painted blue of the unmerciful shade that fights with everything it approaches, was set on an especially green bit of side lawn, surrounded by a heavy row of conch shells, and the box into which the seat had been turned, as well as the bottom of the sleigh itself, was filled with a jumble of ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright |
