"Covey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Oolibuck. A walk of a quarter of a mile, or less, brought them to another ravine, into which they turned, and the first thing that greeted them as they pushed their way through the stunted willows that thickly covered this gorge in the mountains was a covey of ptarmigan. These birds are similar in form and size to ordinary grouse, perhaps a little smaller. In winter they are pure white—so white that it is difficult to detect them amid the snow; but in summer their coats become brown, though there are a few of ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne
... saw a covey of the blue desert quail with their white crests erect, darting among the rocks and cactus on the hillside. It was still the close season, but he never thought of that. In an instant he was all hunter, like a good dog in sight of game. He slipped from his horse, letting ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... suddenly, "I perceive a native. Several natives, in fact. Quite a little covey of them. We will put our case before them, concealing nothing, and rely on their advice to ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... No Man's Land—queer how those old phrases last—a covey of enemy helicopters hung, waiting for the barrage to lift. A black hulk broke the surface of the water, split open: then another. Enemy sub-surface craft. The fight was being waged under water, too. A green mass spilled ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... fair sport, considering that we were only going through outlying cover for cocks. I think that we had killed twenty-seven, a woodcock and a leash of partridges which we secured out of a driven covey. On our way home there lay a long narrow spinney, which was a very favourite "lie" for woodcocks, and generally held a pheasant ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard
... with flashing eyes; 'I know where he's keeping a covey of birds up against game day—nineteen of them. I've seen them every day, and I could go to the place ...
— Fern's Hollow • Hesba Stretton
... the last covey of ptarmigan was met with. What no one would have expected to see in that frozen region—three specimens of a caterpillar were obtained one of which, as an arctic curiosity, was ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... when his own is heated! And 'tis no boy's play. Now he strikes them down! 160 His hand is on the battlement—he grasps it As though it were an altar; now his foot Is on it, and——What have we here?—a Roman? The first bird of the covey! he has fallen [A man falls. On the outside of the nest. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... they hang around here? The last idea in their heads would be the possibility of our ever drifting in alive. Hogan has gone back to Chicago to make a report to Hobart, and the rest have scattered like a covey of partridges. Not one of them has a thought but that we went down in the Seminole. Now they'll pull off their graft, and ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... up and down the little stream called Knob Creek, Abe said: 'Right up there'—pointing to the east—'we saw a covey of partridges yesterday. Let's go over.' The stream was too wide for us to jump across. Finally we saw a foot-log, and decided to try it. It was narrow, but Abe said, 'Let's ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple
... been plunged, and with an immense twanging of catgut sent them high into the air, until they were suddenly lost to our sight in the far beyond. An answer was not long in coming. In less than half a minute a crackle of firearms broke harshly on the air, and a fresh covey of bullets whistled high overhead. The enemy was plainly still on the alert inside the last enclosures, where no one might penetrate. What a pity it had ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... quite a festival. Jim Irwin was the least conspicuous person in the gathering, but the colonel, who was a seasoned politician, observed that the farm-hand had become a fisher of men, and was angling for the souls of these boys, and their interest in the school. Jim was careful not to flush the covey, but every boy received from the next winter's teacher some confidential hint as to plans, and some suggestion that Jim was relying on the aid and comfort of that particular boy. Newt Bronson, especially, was leaned on as a strong staff and a very present help in ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... and a great buzz of chatter, virulent yet oddly subdued, hummed through the chaotic ballroom. Feverish youths swore they would kill Perry or Jumbo or themselves or some one, and the Baptis' preacheh was besieged by a tempestuous covey of clamorous amateur lawyers, asking questions, making threats, demanding precedents, ordering the bonds annulled, and especially trying to ferret out any hint of prearrangement in ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... don't exactly know about that, myself," returned the soldier, slightly raising his cap and scratching his crown, as if in recollection of some narrowly escaped danger. "I reckon, tho', when I see them slope up like a covey of red-legged pattridges, my heart was in my mouth, for I looked for nothin' else but that same operation: but I wur just as well pleased, when, after talkin' their gibberish, and makin' all sorts of signs among themselves, they made ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... to his mind, or will it pass?" The wood-path the nut-tree growth all but closed over on either side she decided was safe; it could taste of nothing but his English school-boyhood, before ever she knew him. But the sudden uprush of the covey of partridges from the stubble, and their bee-line for a haven in the next field—surely danger lay that way? Think what a shot he was in the old days! However, he only said, "Poor dears, they don't know how near the thirty-first is," and seemed to be able to know that much from past experience ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... by a whirr. A covey of partridges, with wings glistening in the sun, were straggling out across the adjoining field of mustard. They soon settled in the old-maidish way of partridges, and began to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... land, in the course of which a covey of partridges was seen, and Dr. Kjellman on the diorite rocks of the island made a pretty abundant collection of plants, belonging partly to species which he had not before met with in the Arctic ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... sprang a covey of guinea-fowls, and at some springs in a valley I shot several couple of sand-grouse, darker in plumage than any I ever saw in Africa or India, and not quite so big as the Tibet bird. The chief of the village offered me a bullock; but as the beast did not ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... was plain. They were Makin people, I believe, probably staunch heathens, contemners of the missionary and his works. Of a sudden, however, a man broke from their company, took to his heels, and fled into the church; next moment three had followed him; the next it was a covey of near upon a score, all pelting for their lives. So the little band of the heathen paused irresolute at the corner, and melted before the attractions of a magic lantern, like a glacier in spring. The more staunch ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... offered to match you five dollars agin de gurl, an' I said if you was to win I wouldn't trouble you. You said if I winned I could have her. All right. I lost, an' I give up my good money. Den you went ter work wallopin' de gurl. You'd er kilt her if dis covey hadn't er lit in. All right, dat wasn't no fault er mine. An' fur all me, he kin stick dat blazin' iron clear down yer t'roat, an' I'll set yere an' ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... partridges and pheasants with such uniform want of success that Lord Stowell had truth as well as humor on his side when he observed, "My brother has done much execution this shooting season; with his gun he has killed a great deal of time." Having ineffectually discharged two barrels at a covey of partridges, the Chancellor was slowly walking to the gate of one of his Encome turnip-fields when a stranger of clerical garb and aspect hailed him from a distance, asking, "Where is Lord Eldon?" Not anxious to declare himself to the witness of his ludicrously bad shot, the Chancellor ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... looked at the river ahead. At one point Hewet read part of a poem aloud, but the number of moving things entirely vanquished his words. He ceased to read, and no one spoke. They moved on under the shelter of the trees. There was now a covey of red birds feeding on one of the little islets to the left, or again a blue-green parrot flew shrieking from tree to tree. As they moved on the country grew wilder and wilder. The trees and the undergrowth seemed to be strangling ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... Centaur, looking part and parcel of the animal upon which she stood; and then we had a regularly Dutch-built lady, who amused us with a tumble off her horse, coming down on the loose saw-dust, in a sitting posture, and making a hole in it as large as if a covey of partridges had been husking in it for the whole day. An American black (there always is a black fellow in these companies, for, as Cooper says, they learn to ride well in America by stealing their masters' horses) rode ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... on a root which projected above the soil, down he came stretched at full length. But he was not inclined to lie long on the ground; and springing up, off he scampered. At the same instant a tiger-cat leaped out of the tree; while a covey of partridges, which had been nestling in the grass close by, rose with a loud "wurr," still further alarming ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... all the dread of an invasion by the French could reconcile the people of these coasts to the necessity of impressment. Fear and confusion prevailed after this to within many miles of the sea-shore. A Yorkshire gentleman of rank said that his labourers dispersed like a covey of birds, because a press-gang was reported to have established itself so far inland as Tadcaster; and they only returned to work on the assurance from the steward of his master's protection, but even then begged leave to sleep ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... striped with twisting furrows, yellowish sea anemone from the genus Caryophylia with translucent tentacles, plus anemone with grassy tufts from the genus Zoantharia; and to complete the illusion, minnows flitted from branch to branch like a swarm of hummingbirds, while there rose underfoot, like a covey of snipe, yellow fish from the genus Lepisocanthus with bristling jaws and sharp scales, ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... brown and half dead, now washed by the dew and caressed by the sun, revived, to fade again. Arctic petrels flew across the road with joyful cries; marmots called to one another in the grass. Somewhere, far away to the left, lapwings uttered their plaintive notes. A covey of partridges, scared by the chaise, fluttered up and with their soft "trrrr!" flew off to the hills. In the grass crickets, locusts and grasshoppers kept up ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... own glasses. Bracing his powerful legs against the quivering jar of the aileron, he brushed the horizon into his eager vision. The glasses steadied. There, of a truth, black midges had appeared, coming up over the world's rim like a startled covey of quail. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... to shoot Putney or Battersea," said Travers with a grim smile, as he stood shaping her course by inches with his magic-like steering, in the midst of a little covey of pleasure boats: "with this wind we might ha' brought either on 'em about our ears ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... indispensable to an establishment which, before he entered it, never knew the want of him. As for me, he was everything to me. Mike informed me what horse was wrong, why the chestnut mare couldn't go out, and why the black horse could. He knew the arrival of a new covey of partridge quicker than the "Morning Post" does of a noble family from the Continent, and could tell their whereabouts twice as accurately. But his talents took a wider range than field sports afford, and he was the ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... covey left me all his money. I don't care a d—— red cent why you love me, only I must be sure that it's a fixed fact. Now I'll go straight out and ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... it comes to killing, that ain't in my line; but if you want me to lead him on somehow where somebody else could do the job, I think I'd be about the covey ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... penknife in his pocket. In the case of the lady in the car the similitude is clear enough. I aspire to show that the analogy applies just as surely to the young fellow and his faith. And to that end let me raise a cloud of questions as a dog might start a covey ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... Mr Ross; "they are birds that move around a good deal, and as far as the Indians' observations go the same flock or covey never sleep twice in the same place. If they did the foxes and other animals that are very fond of feeding on them would soon discover their retreats, and would make ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... I grant, do this sometimes, on very warm days in September; but let a man go out with his heavy gun and steady dog late in December, or the month preceding it, let him see thirty or more covies—as on good ground he may—let him see every covey rise at a hundred yards, and fly a mile; let him be proud and glad to bag his three or four brace; and then tell me that there is any sport in these Atlantic States so wild as ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... good shooter; he-had always kept a pointer on our former farm, and thought no harm in doing so now; when one day, having sprung a covey in our own ground, the dog, of his own accord, followed them into the justice's. My son laid down his gun, and went after his dog to bring him back: the game-keeper, who had marked the birds, came up, and seeing ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... it, and the worst was I lost my arrow: however, I found it again in the hollow of a tree. I felt it; it felt clammy. I smelt it; it smelt honey. "Oh, ho," said I, "here's a bee's nest," when out sprang a covey of partridges. I shot at them; some say I killed eighteen; but I am sure I killed thirty-six, besides a dead salmon which was flying over the bridge, of which I made the best ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... thrust my hands into my coat pockets, and fell to pacing the floor while I reflected. That is to say, I reflected after I had secured a good, firm grasp upon the thoughts which skurried helter-skelter, like a flushed covey of quail, through ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... could adequately describe Daddy Jack's imitation of the flushing of a covey of partridges, or quail; but it is needless to say that it made its impression upon the little boy. The ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris
... is found again—where do you think? only in Poland, up to the chin in Russians! Was ever such a man! He was riding home from Olmutz; they ran and told him of an army of Muscovites,(941) as you would of a covey of partridges; he galloped thither, and shot them. But what news I am telling you! I forgot that all ours comes by water-carriage, and that you must know every thing a fortnight before us. It is incredible how popular he ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... Battalion, who enjoyed during those shining autumn days their first vision of Gibraltar "grand and grey," with its covey of German prizes in harbour, and of the Mediterranean, then free of the submarine, and who half feared that the War would be over while they were still buried in the African desert, only a small number survive unscathed. Many sleep amid the cliffs ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... returned to the world, clean pearly colour, clear and definite like the glance of a child or the voice of a girl, and a golden wisp of cloud hung in the sky over the tower of the church. There was a mist upon the pond, a soft grey mist not a yard high. A covey of partridges ran and halted and ran again in the dewy grass outside his garden railings. The partridges were very numerous this year because there had been so little shooting. Beyond in the meadow a hare sat up as still as a stone. A horse neighed.... Wave ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... one particular point, intersected by a deep and brawling brook. Soon after Grace had crossed this stream, she came in view of the cottage, looking like a misshapen mound of earth; and, upon peering in at the window, which was only partially lined by a broken shutter, Covey, the lurcher, uttered, from the inside, a sharp muttering bark, something between reproof and recognition. There had certainly been a good fire, not long before, on the capacious hearth, for the burning ashes cast a lurid light upon an old table, and two or three dilapidated chairs. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 580, Supplemental Number • Various
... engineer has reason to suspect that the dog's mind is occupied with some engrossin' topic, he must stop the train. That case has been tested in this very state, where a dog was on the track settin' a covey of birds in the adjoinin' field. The railroad was held responsible for the death of that dog, because the engineer ought to have known by the action of the dog that his mind was on somethin' else beside ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... any living patience!" cried Robert Basset fierily to Arthur Tremayne. "Here all we might have hit some good hard blows at the Spaniard, and to be set to chase a covey of miserable Easterlings!" ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... from their secret coverts close beside my path. How strong an instinct of animal humanity this is, and how strange if one be more strange than another. Reflection rebukes it almost instantaneously, and yet for the life of me I cannot help wishing I had a fowling-piece whenever I put up a covey of these creatures; though I suppose, if one were brought bleeding and maimed to me, I should begin to cry, and be very pathetic, after the fashion of Jacques. However, one must live, you know; and here our living consists very mainly of wild ducks, wild geese, wild turkeys, ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... covey of partridge, they all stood up, stretching, twisting their bodies, stiff and torpid after ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... gentleman of quality, this; though he be somewhat out of clothes, I tell ye.—Come, AEsop, hast a bay-leaf in thy mouth? Well said; be not out, stinkard. Thou shalt have a monopoly of playing confirm'd to thee, and thy covey, under the emperor's broad seal, for ...
— The Poetaster - Or, His Arraignment • Ben Jonson
... o'clock, a covey of partridges were seen to pitch in the middle of the CIRCUS, Bath, supposed to have taken refuge there, after having escaped from the aim of some distant gunner. Under the effects of fright and fatigue six were easily caught by three servants, and strange as it may appear ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... is pouting forth from the swollen tops of thistles crowded with seed. In a gateway the turf has been worn away by waggon wheels and the hoofs of cart horses, and the dry heat has pulverised the crumbling ruts. Three hen pheasants and a covey of partridges that have been dusting themselves here move away without much haste at the approach of footsteps—the pheasants into the thickets, and the partridges through the gateway. The shallow holes in which they were sitting can be traced on the dust, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... that camp. Each man was busy within and without the conical-walled tents in which the troopers lie like the spokes of a wheel, with heads out like a covey of partridges. Before one tent sat the tall soldier—Abe—and the boy, his comrade, whom Crittenden had seen ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... on the floor in front of the fire and stared into it. It was pretty to look at just then, for the wood was burning redly, and at the tiniest touch a whole bevy of lovely sparks would fly out like bees from a hive, or a covey of birds, or better still, like a thousand imprisoned fairies escaping at some magic touch. Of all things, Jeanne loved to give this magic touch. There was no poker, but she managed just as well with a stick of unburnt wood, or sometimes, when she was quite sure Marcelline was ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth
... cooked meat, and bread, for his mess, in a bag, swung over his shoulder. They came on across the field until within a hundred yards of the line, when a shell struck, in the field, not far from them. The darkies scattered, like a covey of birds! Some ran one way, and some another. Some ran back to the rear, and a few ran on to us. Our cook, Ephraim, came tearing on with long leaps, and tumbled over among us crying out, "De Lord ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... penchant for brush heaps that I almost wish one might re-christen them "brush-heap sparrows." Many a time I have played a little trick on the unsuspecting birds by stealing up to a brush pile and giving it a sudden blow with my cane; then a whole covey of them would dash pellmell from their covert with loud chirps of ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... the covey the "particular" boy made a bee-line for the tree that happened to catch his eye by the light of the camp-fire. Had any of his chums thought to observe the movements of Smithy they would have discovered that for once he did not even think ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... things to the college, and if they are better than any that they have had before, he'll be head of the college. Then, by and by, somebody else will go after some more, and if they beat him he'll have to go again, or else give up his berth. That's the way they do it. This old covey knows the ropes. He has worked a traverse over 'em, and come 'way out here where nobody's ever been afore, and where they'll never think of coming.'' This explanation satisfied Jack; and as it raised Mr. Nuttall's credit, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... afternoon in 1751, towards half-past five, about a score of small boys, chattering, pushing, and tumbling over one another like a covey of partridges, issued from one of the religious schools of Chartres. The joy of the little troop just escaped from a long and wearisome captivity was doubly great: a slight accident to one of the teachers had caused the class to be dismissed half an hour earlier than ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... expanse of Two Mountains Lake, rimmed to the sky line by the vernal hills, with a silence and solitude over all, as when sunlight first fell on face of man. Here the eagle utters a lonely scream from the top of some blasted pine; there a covey of ducks, catching sight of the coming canoes, dive to bottom, only to reappear a gunshot away. Where the voyageurs land for their nooning, or camp at nightfall, or pause to gum the splits in their birch canoes, the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... spoilt in a few hours unless kept in tin boxes. Can one wonder therefore that the human system soon breaks down in this vapour bath and that sickness is very common in this part. There is not much game to be seen from the river but occasionally a covey of partridges rises from the grass and comes within ...
— A Journal of a Tour in the Congo Free State • Marcus Dorman
... their sport till late; and returning, loaded with game, had nearly reached the palace, when Corny, who had marked a covey, quitted Harry, and sent his dog to spring it, at a distance much greater than the usual reach of a common fowling-piece. Harry heard a shot, and a moment afterwards a violent shout of despair;—he knew the voice to be ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... by the advent of a covey of flying fishes and a (Sunday) "school" of porpoises, is responsible for the following, which is adventured with profuse ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... he had led in Baltimore, got him into disfavor with a master easily displeased; and, not proving sufficiently amenable to the discipline of the home plantation, he was sent to a certain celebrated negro-breaker by the name of Edward Covey, one of the poorer whites who, as overseers and slave-catchers, and in similar unsavory capacities, earned a living as parasites on the system of slavery. Douglass spent a year under Coveys ministrations, and his life there may be summed up in his own words: ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... chaser, Tires me to death; and the adorer of buzzards. They talk of covey and hawk, And never of arms, ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... little Good addvice in a Letter from you or any kind friend that I could get my freedom a Gain and my name can Be found on the Books of the Clarkes office Mr Bozal Stulers was Clarke when I was thear last and Sir a most any man can City that I Charles Covey is lawfuley a free man ... But at the same time I do not want you to say any thing about this to any one that may acquaint my Preseant mastear of these things as he would quickly sell me and there fore I do not want this known and the men that came after me Carried me to Mempears tenessee ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... possessor of the only shotgun in the garrison, therefore it has been a great pleasure to us to bring in game for all. Faye rides Bettie now altogether, so I was on Pete yesterday. We had quite a number of chickens, but thought we would like to get two or three more; therefore, when we saw a small covey fly over by some bushes, and that one bird went beyond and dropped on the other side, Faye told me to go on a little, and watch that bird if it rose again when he shot at the others. It is our habit usually for me to hold Faye's horse when he dismounts to hunt, but that time he was ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... freshman at Oxford, 1642, I was wont to go to Christ Church, to see King Charles I. at supper; where I once heard him say, " That as he was hawking in Scotland, he rode into the quarry, and found the covey of partridges falling upon the hawk; and I do remember this expression further, viz. and I will swear upon the book 'tis true." When I came to my chamber, I told this story to my tutor; said he, that ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... just it," Macleod said, almost bitterly. "You fire at a bird. You think you have missed him. He sails away as if there was nothing the matter, and the rest of the covey no doubt think he is as well as any one of them. But suddenly you see there is something wrong. He gets apart from the others; he towers; then down he comes, as dead as a stone. You did not guess anything ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... the immediate situation, Reader, did ever you see a careful setter run suddenly into the middle of a covey who were not on their feet nor close together, but a little dispersed and reposing in high cover in the middle of the day? No human face is ever so intense or human form more rigid. He knows that one bird is three yards from his nose, another the same distance from either ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade
... afternoon, almost the first time in which the two interpreters, Covey and Pratt, have not been engaged with special reference to the trial to take place in November, one of the captives named Grabeau, was requested to give a narrative of himself since leaving Africa, for publication in the papers. The interpreters, who are considerably exhausted ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... uneasily, but the others were still as partridges in stubble. Ingerman did not intend to alarm the shy bird of the covey, however. ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... say good-bye, For I must go and camp. For if the Sergeant sees me He may take me for a tramp; But if there’s any covey here What’s got a cheque, d’ye see, I’ll stop and help him smash it. Oh! don’t you pity me. I’m a swagman on the wallaby, ...
— The Old Bush Songs • A. B. Paterson
... still a hawk in spirit, was proved on an occasion of almost equal interest. A neighbour had sent us a very fine specimen of the smaller horned owl (Strix brachyotus,) which he had winged when flying in the midst of a covey of partridges; and after having tended the wounded limb, and endeavoured to make a cure, we thought of soothing the prisoner's captivity by a larger degree of freedom than he had in the hen-coop which he ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various
... Well, presently a covey got up, and away we galloped up a long slope. Suddenly a wild tally-ho from Roger. A hare had got up and was lepping across Jezebel's line. So Jezebel fairly flattened herself out to keep the hare in. But the hare was across before she could get ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... that when they pitched camp for the night on a little beach they estimated that their progress had been more than that of a pack-train in a good day's travel. That night they had for supper some fresh grouse, or "fool-hens," which fell to Jesse's rifle out of a covey which perched in the bushes not far from their camp-site. They passed a very jovial night in this camp, well content alike with their advance and with the prospects which now ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... that calthrop? Seize the knave!' Alas! the deed is done; Down went the steed, and o'er his head flew bright Apollo's son. 'Undo his helmet! cut the lace! pour water on his head!' 'It ain't no use at all, my lord; 'cos vy? the covey's dead!' ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... woice and a vistle, sez I, they'll villingly give a tanner to git rid of me! And they do! Oh, I know the walley of peace and qvietness, and never moves hon hunder sixpence! (Looking up at the house.) But I know as there's a hartist covey lives 'ere. Notice-plate says, "Mister TAMBOUR is hout." Valker! I know vot that means. I thinks as how he'll run to a shilling. Anyhow, I'll ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... they started a covey of partridges. The small brown and white shapes vanished in a skurry of dead leaves. "No doubt, no doubt!" said the soldier of fortune. "At any rate, I have rubbed off particularity in such matters. Live and let live—and each man to run the great race according ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... the effect that he will be here at four o'clock P.M.—and comes a final note from my aunt Mrs. Hedley (supposed to be at Brighton for several months) to the effect that she will be here at twelve o'clock, M.!! So do observe the constellation of adverse stars ... or the covey of 'bad birds,' as the Romans called them, and that there is no choice, but to write as I am writing. It can't be helped—can it? For take away the doubt about Miss Mitford, and Mr. Kenyon remains—and take away Mr. Kenyon, and there is Mrs. Hedley—and thus ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... Associated Words: ornithology, ornithologist, ornithological, ornithotomy, ornithography, ornithoid, ornitholite, ornithon, ornithophilous, game, ornithic, aviary, avicular, aviculture, covey, neossology paleornithollogy, taxidermy, taxidermist, preen, rookery, cote, hutch, coop, cage, avian, poult, auspice, ariel, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... At this very moment a twig snapped beneath his foot with a noise like a pistol-shot, and a covey of partridges, lying out upon the stubble beside him, made an indignant evacuation of their bedroom. The mishap seemed fatal: M'Snape stood like a stone. But no alarm followed, and presently all was still again—so still, indeed, that presently, out ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... he, addressing his saturnine friend, "s'elp me, if I ever see a pore misfort'nate cove more to my mind an' fancy—nice an' tall an' straight-legged—twelve stone if a pound—a five-foot drop now—or say five foot six, an' 'e'll go off as sweet as a bird; ah! you'll never feel it, my covey—not a twinge; a leetle tightish round the windpipe, p'r'aps—but, Lord, it's soon over. You're lookin' a bit pale round the gills, young cove, but, Lord! that's only nat'ral too." Here he produced from the depths of a capacious pocket something that glittered beneath his agile fingers. ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... stubble tries, And searches every breeze that flies; The scent grows warm; with cautious fear He creeps, and points the covey near; The men, in silence, far behind, Conscious of game, the net unbind. A partridge, with experience wise, The fraudful preparation spies: She mocks their toils, alarms her brood; The covey springs, and seeks the wood; 10 But ere her certain wing she tries, Thus to the creeping spaniel cries: ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... pines above us as we sped on; and ever I thought of Okwencha and the Dead Hunter. And the upward roar of a partridge covey bursting in thunder through the river willows was like the flight of the ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... a minute longer. Seems like I c'n just get a whiff of the steak a sizzling on the gridiron at our house; and say, when I think of it, I get wild. I'm as hungry as that bear that came to our camp, and sent us all up in trees like a covey of partridges." ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher
... thanked him, and gave him the smallest coin in her purse, which happened to be a shilling. He, in a transport at possessing what was to him a fortune, uttered a piercing yell, and darted off to show the coin to a covey of small ragamuffins who had just raced into view round the corner at which the public-house stood. In his haste he dashed against one of the group outside, a powerfully built young man, who turned and cursed him. The boy retorted passionately, ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... a-shovellin' on the coals—dare, dare! How my pore heart did beat!" And an onlooker, who had seen a bomb drop near a church, informed the visitor that it "fared to him like the body of the chach a-floatin' away—that it did and all! It made a clangin' like a covey of lorries with their innards broke loose." Another inhabitant said that he had two boys fighting. "One on 'em is in France, wherever that might be, and Jimmy's in that hare old Dardelles." He couldn't rightly ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... at this old covey—twig his shorts and long gaiters: he's some old Suffolk squire, has grown too fat for harriers, and goes out with the greyhounds twice a-week—a truly respectable member of society"—continued Mr Daggles with a sneer, when the subject of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... 'birr! birr!' and a magnificent covey rose at ten paces from me. I aimed. Pif! paf! and I saw a shower, a veritable shower of birds. There ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Now and then a covey of flying-fish might be seen skimming over the ocean, but they came out of the water to avoid the jaws of their persevering foes, the dolphins or bonitos, not because they liked it, or wished to exhibit their brilliant wings, but the wiser leviathans of the deep kept ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... scour'd, you might have seen your face; And over all, to frighten thieves, was hung Well clean'd, altho' but seldom us'd, my gun. Ah! that damn'd gun! I took it down one morn— A desperate deal of harm they did my corn! Our testy Squire too loved to save the breed, So covey upon covey eat my seed. I mark'd the mischievous rogues, and took my aim, I fir'd, they fell, and—up the keeper came. That cursed morning brought on my undoing, I went to prison and my farm to ruin. Poor Mary! for her grave the parish paid, No ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... country, they sleep in barns, and byres, or other out-houses: and when they cannot find that accommodation, they take the canvas covering from the pottery cart, and squat below it like a covey of ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... adversaries which produced a passion in the losers far keener than their fury at having lost. What made the concluding stages of this contest the more exciting was that an evening breeze suddenly arising just as a deal was ended, made the cards rise in the air like a covey of partridges. They were recaptured, and all the hands were found to be complete with the exception of Miss Mapp's, which had a card missing. This, an ace of hearts, was discovered by the Padre, face upwards, in a bed of mignonette, and he was vehement in claiming a fresh deal, on ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... desolate, with no human habitation. The only signs of life were various fine "pows"[24] stalking sedately along, or "korans," starting up with their curious chuckle rather like the note of a pheasant, or a covey of guinea-fowl scurrying across the road and losing themselves in the waving grass. Meanwhile the driver kept up an incessant conversation with the mules, and I found myself listening to his varying epithets with stupefied curiosity. During that four hours' ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... joyous throats. Mockingbirds and linnets thrilled the glad air with warblings; gold finches, thrushes and bobolinks trilled their happiest tunes; and the oriole sang a lullaby to her hanging cradle that rocked in the wind. I heard the twitter of skimming swallows and the scattered covey's piping call; I heard the robin's gay whistle, the croaking of crows, the scolding of blue-jays, and the melancholy cooing of a dove. The swaying tree-tops seemed vocal with bird-song while he played, ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... moment there was a heavy splash as a large silvery fish flung itself completely out of the water and then fell back, while the noise it made startled a covey of ducks, which went fluttering ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn
... only "shew frigates" arter all; it don't stand to reason, they can't be all clippers. He can't put the leake into me that way, so it tante no use tryin'. Well, the next time, I seed jist such another covey of partridges, same plumage, same step, and same breed. Well done, sais I, they are intarmed to pull the wool over my eyes, that's a fact, but they won't find that no easy matter, I know. Guess they must be done now, they can't show another presarve like them ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... that the sun was clearing away the morning mist, and that rest-time was nearly over; while the sudden rattle of a machine gun close by him, indulging in a little indirect fire at a well-known Hun gathering place a thousand yards or so behind their lines, disturbed a covey of partridges, which rose with an angry whirring of wings. Then came four of those unmistakable faint muffled bursts from high above his head, which betokened an aeroplane's morning gallop; and even as he automatically jerked his ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... giving. Was there ever a troubadour of old who struck upon as royal a castle in his wanderings? While he lay thus, meditating upon his blessings, little brown cottontails would shyly frolic through the yard; a covey of white-topknotted blue quail would run past, in single file, twenty yards away; a paisano bird, out hunting for tarantulas, would hop upon the fence and salute him with sweeping flourishes of its long tail. In the eighty-acre horse pasture the pony with ...
— Sixes and Sevens • O. Henry
... buttresses!" shouted those who looked down upon the fight from the windows—"get ye behind the buttresses!" And in answer the lads, scattering like a newly-flushed covey of partridges, fled to and crouched in the sheltering angles of masonry to escape ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... silvery-white breasts. They were very nervous of the ship, rising in great numbers when it had approached within a few hundred yards. One startled bird would fly up, followed by several more; then a whole covey would disturb the rest of the flock. Hamilton managed to shoot two of them from the fo'c'sle, and, after much manoeuvring, we secured one ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... you won't be singled out simply for your pretty face—there are too many pretty faces; so it is the woman who strikes some high note of conspicuousness who attracts attention. But you're like a flock of cooing doves, you Washington girls. You're as natural and frank and unaffected as a—a covey of partridges. I believe I am almost jealous of your ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... phrases, as hard and well-rounded as a pebble. The world to him was a place full of slackers, of lazy good-nature, of inefficiency. Into that softness he had come with a high explosive and an aim. He moved through life as a hunter among a covey of tame partridges—a brief flutter and a tumble of soft flesh. He had the cunning lines about the mouth, the glint in the eye, of the successful man. He had the easy generosities, too, of the man who, possessing much, can express power ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason
... and decay? If in appearance, they provoke an association of that kind, they certainly are not in good taste; and a foot or two of increased height in a wall, or a low window sufficient for the purpose intended, would give a tone of dignity, of comfort, and real utility, which a whole covey of such pretentious things could not. All such trumpery should be scouted from the dwelling house of the farmer, and left to the special indulgence of ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... waiting for the word to go. The flotilla—mother-ship, tugs and all—was out to sea long before the dawn. You would have liked the picture: the immense stretch of the grayish, winter-stricken sea, the little covey of submarines running awash, the gray mother-ship going ahead, as casually as an excursion steamer, into the ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... they came out of shadows. Hirondelle stated that he began to think the Crown Prince's army was surrendering to him. At last, when the procession stopped, he—and his mythical sixteen—marched the entire covey, without any objection from them, only abject obedience, to the ...
— Joy in the Morning • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... him to you, my lord," said Monkbarns, "body and soul: give him leave to crack off his birding-piece at a poor covey of partridges or moor-fowl, and he's yours for everI will enchant him by the intelligence. But O, my lord, that you could have seen my phoenix Lovel!the very prince and chieftain of the youth of this age; and not destitute of spirit neitherI promise ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the rescue of the blunder colt. The air was warm and clear, the sky intensely blue. Moonstone Canon grew fragrant with budding flowers. The little lizards came from their winter crevices and clung to the sun-warmed stones. A covey of young quail fluttered along the hillside under the stately surveillance of the mother bird. Wild cats prowled boldly on the southern slopes. Cotton-tails huddled beneath the greasewood brush and nibbled at the grasses. The canon stream ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... 'There's a covey of ten in thicky holler,' where you could see neither land nor bird. 'I allow 'tis ten,' he says, 'but we won't be particular to a chick.' There was nine, if you credit me, that rose out of a kind of a dimple in the ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... apprentice, a coarsely pretty little thing, used to wait for him sometimes on the doorstep. Mark Heath, coming home one night earlier than usual, found her there, took her for a walk about the block, and conveyed to her the unpleasant news that Bertram was now flying higher than her covey. After that, she came no more; and the first phase of his life in San Francisco drifted definitely back ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... Massachusetts. But no harm came from the "fi'penny-bit" blunder, and I confidently and cheerfully went to work with my saw and buck. It was new business to me, but I never did better work, or more of it, in the same space of time on the plantation for Covey, the negro-breaker, than I did for myself in these earliest years ...
— Collected Articles of Frederick Douglass • Frederick Douglass
... life; another staggered backwards into the further lode, and was drowned. But an arrow went through the brave serf's heart, and Ivo rode on, cursing more bitterly than ever, and comforted himself by flying his hawks at a covey of patridges. ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... ridge was riding his pony in short-looped circles and waving a blanket in a peculiar way above his head. From the grass nine Indians arose, stooped, and scuttled off like a covey of running quail. Over by the fires warriors were leaping on their ponies, and some were leading other ponies in the direction of the nine. An air of furtive but urgent haste characterised all these movements. Alfred ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... with gopher-holes, and the gophers themselves were everywhere. Occasionally a jack rabbit bounded across the open, from one growth of chaparral to another, taking long leaps, his ears erect. High overhead, a hawk or two swung at anchor, and once, with a startling rush of wings, a covey of quail flushed from the brush at the ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... mayn't be seeing death, friend Louis" he snorted. "There are a couple of rogues in that covey who would spit you or split you or slit you for the price ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... and a-quarter, through the expansive valleys of yesterday. Here we found the salt-caravan, there being in this place abundance of room, herbage, and a large well, all necessary for such an assembly of people and beasts. On the road we put up a covey of partridges, and a splendid solitary bird, the hobara of Soudan. Footprints of the hares and of the gazelle were ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... school about two years after Johnson left. According to Garrick's biographer, Tom Davies (p. 3), 'Hunter was an odd mixture of the pedant and the sportsman. Happy was the boy who could slily inform his offended master where a covey of partridges was to be found; this notice was a certain pledge of his pardon.' Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chief Justices, ii. 279, says:—'Hunter is celebrated for having flogged seven boys who afterwards sat as ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... them that constantly grew in volume. Men yelled, women and children screamed. Many fell flat on their faces; others tried to conceal themselves, as though they belonged to a covey of wild ducks over which a hungry eagle hovered, picking out his ...
— The Aeroplane Boys on the Wing - Aeroplane Chums in the Tropics • John Luther Langworthy
... smokeless chimneys. Their floors, guiltless of rugs or carpets, were of earthen tiles and worn into hollows where the feet of the palace-dwellers passed oftenest to and fro. A multitude of undraped windows opened like doors upon stone balconies, whither the inhabitants flew like a startled covey of birds every time the king and queen drove by in the street below, and upon which they passed always from room to room. The outer balcony looks down upon the Piazza Barberini and its famous Spouting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various
... was a flourishing covey of fifteen: Pa Tridge, Ma Tridge, and thirteen little Tridges, all brown and speckled and very chirpy. They had been born in a hollow under some big leaves beside a hedge, and they now moved about the earth, pushing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 30, 1917 • Various
... there; and you might have seen a single penny pickwick, honestly shared in lengths with a blunt knife, bestrew the glen with these apprentices. Again, you might join our fishing parties, where we sat perched as thick as solan-geese, a covey of little anglers, boy and girl, angling over each other's heads, to the to the much entanglement of lines and loss of podleys and consequent shrill recrimination - shrill as the geese themselves. Indeed, had that been all, you might have done this often; but though fishing be a fine ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... through layers of jewel-weed and mint, the white setter in the lead swung suddenly west, quartered, wheeled, crept forward and stiffened to a point. Behind him his mate froze into a silvery statue. But Gordon walked on, gun under his arm, and the covey rose with a roar of heavy wings, driving blindly through the tangle deep ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... signified a desire to change the scene, by a departure at an early period for his native vales, to breathe, as he observed, the uncontaminated air of the country—to watch the wary pointer, and mark the rising covey—to pursue the timid hare, or chase the cunning fox; and Dashall finding him inflexible, notwithstanding his glowing descriptions of scenes yet unexplored, at length consented to accompany him to Belville Hall, upon condition that they should return again in a month. This mode of arrangement ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... put up a covey of partridges, remembered how he used to shoot with Margaret's father, told himself that there was no fool like an old fool—not referring to Mr. Mildmay in the least—and took himself ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... and chummy Congressmen. Attack all along the line and you engage every force of reaction. You go forth to battle, as the poet said, and you always fall. You can lop off an antiquated bureau here, a covey of clerks there, you can combine two bureaus. And by that time you are busy with the tariff and the railroads, and the era of reform is over. Besides, in order to effect a truly logical reorganization of the government, such as all candidates always promise, you would ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... the spruce forest. Then he came to a shallow, roaring river. The horses drank the water, foaming white and amber around their knees, and then with splash and thump they forded it over the slippery rocks. As they cracked out upon the trail a covey of grouse whirred up into the low branches ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... whose base lightning flickered and thunder growled,—watching through drowsy half shut lids the speckled broods of partridges scurrying with frantic haste through the wild poppies of ripe wheat fields, the brown covey of shy doves ambushed among purple morning glories swinging in the dense shade of rustling corn; listening as in a dream to the laughter of reapers, whetting scythes in the blistering glare of meadow slopes, yet hearing all the while, the low, sweet babble of the slender stream ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... seems you started up the wrong covey this time. Good morning, lad," nodded the officer to Frank, ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... a trail of happy, monotonous whistling behind him all day, as his dog followed the winding trail of prairie-chickens, as a covey of chickens rose with booming wings and he swung his shotgun for a bead. He stopped by prairie-sloughs or bright-green bogs to watch for a duck. He hailed as equals the occasional groups of hunters in two-seated buggies, quartering the fields after circling dogs. He lunched ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... quarters to Venette, where the English lay, hard by the town. And, right in the middle of the causeway to Margny, two arrow-shots from our bridge end, he is letting build a great bastille, and digging a trench wherein men may go to and fro. The cordelier was as glad of that as a man who has stalked a covey of partridges. 'Keep my tally for me,' he said to myself; 'cut a notch for every man I slay'; and here," said Barthelemy, waving his staff, "is his first ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... a crowded street is great sport. A young man with a new revolver shooting at a mad dog is a fine sight. He may not kill the dog, but he might shoot into a covey of little children and possibly ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... 'we were speaking of the Brennans. Do you know their friends the Duffys? There are five of them. That's a nice little covey of love-birds; I don't think they would fly away if they saw a ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... he could repudiate the purchases of gold made in their names. Away from the Stock Exchange Fisk made a ludicrous and dissolute enough figure, with his love of tinsel, his show and braggadacio, his mock military prowess, his pompous, windy airs and his covey of harlots. But in Wall Street he was a man of affairs and power; the very assurance that in social life made him ridiculous to a degree, was transmuted into a pillar of strength among the throng of speculators ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... She was most adorable in the exquisite business of arranging the offer of her policeman's hand. Mr. DU MAURIER'S bobby was as delightfully honest, plain-witted, heavy-booted and friendly a fellow as ever held up a bus or convoyed a covey of children across a street. But as the Prince, who was "so blasted particular," he had a chance of showing that rare talent for the grotesque which no part has given him since his inimitable Captain Hook, I wish indeed we could see more of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 22, 1916 • Various
... the train would start up some more tempting game. A brace or two of partridges or a covey of quails would settle down in the stubble, or a cock pheasant drop head and tail and slide into the copse. Rabbits also would scamper back from the borders of the fields into the thickets or peep slyly out, making my sportsman's ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... with the help of the male, during the short time it took the plough to get to the end of the field and back, and is a remarkable illustration of devotion and ingenuity. Not for nothing indeed is the partridge a game bird, for it has been seen to attack cats, and even foxes, in defence of the covey; and I have seen, in the MS. notes of the second Earl of Malmesbury, preserved in the library at Heron Court, mention of one that drove off a carrion crow that menaced the family. Both partridge and landrail sit very close, particularly when the time of hatching is ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... haven't," he said. "Our huntsman Eryomka w as saying that on Elijah's Day he started one covey near Pustoshye, but I dare say he was lying. There are very ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... earlier volumes from the same source it is compiled from the occasional papers of Reginald Drake Biffin, and the sportsman who tries to get on without it is positively courting disaster. The first thing he knows, he will be talking to well-informed people about a flock of sparrows or a covey of weasels, and their quiet smiles will show him that he has been guilty of a ludicrous blunder. If he had read his Biffin he would have known that the correct terms are a "susurration of sparrows" and a "pop of weasels." These are small matters, perhaps, but your sportsman cannot be too ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 9, 1914 • Various
... comfort all present by singing of love. Just as this strain ends, Cato reappears, urging them to hasten to the mountain and there cast aside the scales which conceal God from their eyes. At these words all the souls present scatter like a covey of pigeons, and begin ascending the mountain, whither Virgil and ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... day in a young oak plantation, ankle-deep in oozy mud, moss, and dead fern, making havoc among the innocent birds. He was in so bloodthirsty a temper, that he felt as if he could have shot a covey of young children, had they come in his way, with all the ferocity of a ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... all around. Suppose that one of the Seven condescends to parley with him; she does so nervously and under protest, glancing ever over her shoulder, as if she expected the austere Fairy momentarily to appear; while her companions sit without winking or moving, cowering together like a covey of birds when the hawk is circling over the turnip-field. How can you expect a man to make himself agreeable under such appalling circumstances? The heart of the adventurer sinks within him. Lo! there is a rustling of robes near; what if ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... wildest grace, These northern scenes with weary feet I trace; O'er many a winding dale and painful steep, Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep, ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... very heart of the errand-boys, who were collected in a circle, plotting how to release Rosa, when Elsworthy, mortified and furious, came back from his unsuccessful assault on the Curate. They scattered like a covey of little birds before the angry man, who tossed their papers at them, and then strode up the echoing stairs. "If you don't hold your d——d tongue," said Elsworthy, knocking furiously at Rosa's ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... went off. Hautot Senior had fired. They all stopped, and saw a partridge breaking off from a covey which was rushing along at a single flight to fall down into a ravine under a thick growth of brushwood. The sportsman, becoming excited, rushed forward with rapid strides, thrusting aside the briers which stood in his path, and he disappeared in his turn into the thicket, in ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... of themselves. Off they go again, as wild as deer; but suddenly Di's whole action changes: crouching to the ground and beating her sides rapidly with her tail, she runs hither and thither, snuffing eagerly in the grass. Now Sancho comes up and catches the cold trail, for a covey has certainly been in that place to-day. Most probably they rose from the spot, frightened by the swoop of a hawk, and made for the nearest cover, for the dogs can do nothing with the scent. But that little whiff of the exciting effluvia has brought them down to their work, and a beautiful ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... glow. Flat, level, even, plane, smooth, horizontal. Flatter, blandish, beguile, compliment, praise. Flexible, pliable, pliant, supple, limber, lithe, lissom. Flit, flutter, flicker, hover. Flock, herd, bevy, covey, drove, pack, brood, litter, school. Flow, pour, stream, gush, spout. Follow, pursue, chase. Follower, adherent, disciple, partisan, henchman. Fond, loving, doting, devoted, amorous, enamored. Force, strength, power, energy, vigor, might, potency, cogency, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... everybody with glasses was looking to the south-eastward for signs of them. But at last, when they had almost been given up, the first one suddenly reappeared in the midst of a snow squall. He was hoisted in, and within the next ten minutes the whole covey, except two, ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... artillery rang out the Confederate bugles, and along the whole length of the ridge beyond the railroad long lines of infantry, streaming forward from the woods, ran down to the embankment. "The effect," said an officer who witnessed this unexpected apparition, "was not unlike flushing a covey ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... gentleman, who was from the first a very bad shot, or rather no shot at all, when out on 1st of September, having failed, time after time, in bringing down a single bird, had at last pointed out to him by his attendant bag-carrier a large covey, thick and close on the stubbles. "Noo, Mr. Jeems, let drive at them, just as they are!" Mr. Jeems did let drive, as advised, but not a feather remained to testify the shot. All flew off, safe and sound—"Hech, sir ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... called Scalding House, or Scalding Wike). The pluckers and scorchers of the feathered fowl occupied the shops between the Stocks' Market (now the Mansion House) and the Great Conduit. Just before Stow's time the poulterers seem to have taken wing in a unanimous covey, and settled down, for reasons now unknown to us, and not very material to any one, in Gracious (Gracechurch) Street, and the end of St. Nicholas flesh shambles (now Newgate Market). Poultry was not worth its ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... struck me most in Joshua's domain was the quantity and the tameness of the game. The hen partridge scarce abandoned the roost, at the foot of the hedge where she had assembled her covey, though the path went close beside her; and the hare, remaining on her form, gazed at us as we passed, with her full dark eye, or rising lazily and hopping to a little distance, stood erect to look at us with more curiosity than apprehension. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... out above the surface as he struggled desperately to regain his feet. At last he managed to get erect, and came spluttering for the bank with such a mixture of godly ejaculations and of profane oaths that, even in our terror, we could not keep from laughter. Rising from under his feet like a covey of wild-fowl, we scurried off across the fields and so back to the school, where, as you may imagine, we said nothing to our good master ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle |
