Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Dorsal   Listen
noun
Dorsal  n.  (Fine Arts) A hanging, usually of rich stuff, at the back of a throne, or of an altar, or in any similar position.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Dorsal" Quotes from Famous Books



... mother, who are no more than her chief ministers, walk before her out of the saloon, and then she—swims after them. But swimming is not the proper word. Fishes, in making their way through the water, assist, or rather impede, their motion with no dorsal wriggle. No animal taught to move directly by its Creator adopts a gait so useless, and at the same time so graceless. Many women, having received their lessons in walking from a less eligible ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope

... the surface," he told the others jokingly. "Then wouldn't we wish we'd brought along a few bombs—the kind they dropped on that Hun bridge the night we went with the raiders. Right now I could almost imagine that shark's dorsal-fin was a periscope belonging ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach

... with the eel in the pies and other gross preparations which delight the British palate. He hath, moreover, a John Bull-like air in his broad and burly shape, his smooth and unscaly superficies and the noli-me-tangere character of his dorsal fin. Pity he was unknown ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... whether the back of a cuttle-fish answers to the dorsal or ventral surface of a gasteropod. It is not decided whether the arms and funnels of the one have or have not their homologues in the other. The dorsal integument of a Doris and the cloak of a whelk are both called 'mantle,' without any evidence to show that they are really homologous. Nor do ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... grape sugar, and obtained the same results. He found that he could induce the cataractic condition invariably by this experiment, or by injecting a solution of sugar with a fine needle, subcutaneously, into the dorsal sac of the frog. The discovery was one of singular importance in the history of medical science, and explained immediately a number of obscure phenomena. The co-existence of the two diseases, diabetes and cataract, in man ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... every meal," urged X-Ray Tyson, "or we'll all be sprouting gills and dorsal fins and scales. Once a day after this ought to satisfy the trout hunger. Now it seems to me that's a bully good fire for ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone

... might frequently see the Venus (Dactyloa Edwardsii), as it is provincially called; a lizard much like the anoles of the houses, of a rich grass-green colour, with orange throat-disk, but much larger and fiercer; or, in the eastern parts of the island, the great iguana (Cyclura lophoma), with it dorsal crest like the teeth of a saw running down all its back, might be seen lying out on the branches of the trees, or playing bo-peep from a hole in the trunk; or, in the swamps and morasses of Westmoreland, the yellow galliwasp (Celestus ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various

... to be drifted towards Flora's trysting-place. But in truth there was no missing it—the low chine looming through the weather, the line of firs topping it, and, towards the west, diminishing like a fish's dorsal fin. I had conned it often enough from the other side; had looked right across it on the day when she stood beside me on the bastion and pointed out the smoke of Swanston Cottage. Only on this side the fish-tail (so to speak) had ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... on the envelopes which compose the skin of the stomach. The latter being susceptible of almost infinite distention, would be unable to replace themselves, when this effort diminishes, if they did not have a mechanical art, which, resting on the dorsal column, becomes an antagonist, and restores equilibrium. This belt has therefore the effect of preventing the intestines from yielding to their actual weight, and gives a power to contract when pressure is diminished. It should never be laid aside, or the benefit it exerts in the day will be ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... the hair over his whole body stood erect, radiating on all sides outwards. The appearance of the creature was changed in an instant, and I could perceive that the air was becoming impregnated with a disagreeable odour, which the incensed animal emitted from its dorsal gland. Without stopping longer than a moment, he rushed forward, until he stood within three feet of the ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... not fire. It seemed to the boy as if he were never going to pull the trigger, but the old gunner knew the exact moment, and just as the whale was about to 'sound' the back heaved up slightly, revealing the absence of a dorsal fin, and thus determining that it was a devil-whale in truth; at that instant ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... this loveliness was of a nature that was altogether pleasing, if once the beholder of it could get over the idea of falseness which certainly Lizzie's eye was apt to convey to the beholder. There was no unclean horse's tail. There was no get-up of flounces, and padding, and paint, and hair, with a dorsal excrescence appended with the object surely of showing in triumph how much absurd ugliness women can force men to endure. She was lithe, and active, and bright,—and was at this moment of her life at her best. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... lone, blue sea, and those who have seen him turning handsprings on a sponge lawn, or riding in his water-tight chariot with his feet over the dash-board, beside a slim young mermaid with Paris green hair, and dressed in a tight-fitting, low-neck dorsal fin, say he is a ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... origin in illustration of this important distinction, I may instance the following processes in the embryology of man, and of all the higher vertebrates, as palingenetic: the formation of the two primary germinal layers and of the primitive gut, the undivided structure of the dorsal nerve-tube, the appearance of a simple axial rod between the medullary tube and the gut, the temporary formation of the gill-clefts and arches, the primitive kidneys, and so on.* (* All these, and ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel

... fourth stages, the larvae of S. cecropia and S. gloveri are also nearly alike; the principal difference between these two species and S. cecropia being that the tubercles on the back are of a uniform color—orange-red, or yellow—while on Cecropia the first four dorsal tubercles are red, and the rest yellow. The tubercles on the sides are blue on the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various

... reddish-brown fins, with strong supporting spines that seemed to terminate in retractile claws. In the water, these fins would undoubtedly be of tremendous value in swimming and in fighting, but on land they seemed rather useless. Aside from a rudimentary dorsal fin, a series of black, stubby spines, connected by a barely visible webbing, the thing had no other external evidences of ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright

... forming the lozenges of the African. The number of pairs of false ribs (which alone vary, the true ones being always six) is fourteen, one less than in the Africanus, one more than in the Indicus; and so it is with the dorsal vertebrae, which are twenty in the Sumatranus (twenty-one and nineteen, in the others), whilst the new species agrees with Africanus in the number of sacral vertebrae (four), and with Indicus in that of the caudal ones, which ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... purpose the upper lip is very large, thick, and as it turns down suddenly at right angles with the head, it much resembles an elephant's trunk shorn off at the mouth. Its length averages from eight to fourteen feet; there is no dorsal fin, and the tail is horizontal; colour blue, and white beneath. Its means of propulsion are two paddles, with which it also crawls along the bottom, and beneath which are situated the udders, with teats exactly ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... he said, when he had wiped the spray off his face. "He had a narrow escape; the knife just grazed the spinal cord. The shock to the dorsal nerves induced temporary paralysis, and that rather misled me. He is much better now. Under ordinary conditions he would be able to get about in a few days. As it is, he will probably live as ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy

... and F, posterior cecal artery; C, appendicular artery; E, appendicular artery for free end; H, artery for basal end of appendix; 1, ascending or right colon; 2, external sacculus of the cecum; 3, appendix; 6, ileum; D, arteries on the dorsal surface of ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.

... strictly indispensable, the organs necessary to the propagation of the species and the preservation of the individual. The rest of the abdomen presents a spacious cavity, and consists simply of the integuments of the walls, except on the dorsal side, which is lined with a thin muscular layer, and supports a fine digestive canal, almost a thread. This large cavity, equal to nearly half the total volume of the insect, is thus almost absolutely empty. At the back are seen the two motor muscles ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre

... of fragment B. Posterior height of fragment C. Length of fragment at tooth-row D. Dorsal length of fragment E. Mean length of teeth F. Anterior ...
— Two New Pelycosaurs from the Lower Permian of Oklahoma • Richard C. Fox

... noticed that day wonderful effects of clouds in filaments, one group stretching along the sky in an arc from north to east like the dorsal bone and ribs ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... disposition to leave our neighborhood, or in any other way showed displeasure at the trick we had played him. On the contrary, he drew nearer the vessel, and moved indolently and defiantly about, with his dorsal fin and a portion of his tail above the water. He was undoubtedly hungry as well as proud, and it is well known that sharks are not particular with regard to the quality of their food. Every thing that is edible, and much which is ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... warned us that it was time to take our departure from the cave, when, at no great distance from us, we saw the back, or dorsal fin of a monstrous shark above the surface of the water, and his whole length visible beneath it. We looked at him and at each other with dismay, hoping that he would soon take his departure, and ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Rhinoceros, are respectively members of the same orders. These successive pairs of animals may, and some do, differ from one another immensely, in such matters as the proportions and structure of their limbs; the number of their dorsal and lumbar vertebrae; the adaptation of their frames to climbing, leaping, or running; the number and form of their teeth; and the characters of their skulls and of the contained brain. But, with all these differences, they are so closely connected ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... scales darker, slightly spotted; labial shield pale, dark edged. The dorsal and lateral scales keeled, placed in longitudinal series; the keels continued, equal; chin shields two pairs, long; throat scaly on the sides, shielded in the middle; loreal shields equal; one high anterior, and three small posterior ocular shields; temples ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey

... of its antennae and the presence of wing pads. After a brief existence the pupa emerges from the ground, and, holding on to a plant stem by means of its powerful front legs, sets free the perfect insect through a slit along the median dorsal line of the thorax. In some cases the pupa upon emerging constructs a chimney of soil, the use of which is not known. In one of the best-known species, Cicada septemdecim, from North America, the lifecycle is said to extend over seventeen years. Cicadas are particularly abundant ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... Northern India who as a means of self-inflicted penance held his arm aloft for the greater part of each day, bending the fingers tightly on the palms. After a considerable time the nails had grown or been forced through the palms of the hands, making their exit on the dorsal surfaces. There are many savage rites and ceremonies calling for the severe infliction of pain on the participants which have been described from time to time by travelers. The Aztecs willingly sacrificed even their lives in the ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... the only fin on a pike's back, the second or lower dorsal one, which cut away in the same careful manner as before. Working down toward the tail, get the broad knife as much underneath as you can, and then push the fingers underneath until they meet, and thus gradually free the flesh from the skin almost ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... see about it next time Sunday come of a Friday, and so on. But only his Uncle Moses ever gave him an actual farthing, and Dave deposited it in a cat on the mantelshelf, who was hollow by nature, and provided by art with a slot in the dorsal vertebrae. It could be shook out if you wanted it, and Dave occasionally took it out of deposit in connection with a course of experiments he was interested in. He wished to determine how far ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... blood, his black hair, his red lips, his white teeth, his pure breath, will always arouse the envy of an aged emperor. And then, every morning, he sets himself afresh to the task of earning his bread; and while his hands earn his bread, his dorsal column gains pride, his brain gathers ideas. His task finished, he returns to ineffable ecstasies, to contemplation, to joys; he beholds his feet set in afflictions, in obstacles, on the pavement, in the nettles, sometimes in the mire; his head in the light. He is firm, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... have all but divine power of mastering the loaves and fishes, then would they who followed him believe in him more firmly than other followers who had believed in their leaders. When you see a young woman read a closed book placed on her dorsal vertebrae,—if you do believe that she so reads it, you think that she is endowed with a wonderful faculty! And should you also be made to believe that the same young woman had direct communication with Abraham, by means of some invisible wire, ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... the thorax, one on the abdomen, two on the thighs, one near the patella; turn, please." Alfred turned in the water. "A slight dorsal abrasion; also of the wrists; a severe excoriation of the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... discovered, first, that he does not wish me to form any connection with Tyrrell; secondly, from Warburton's sarcasm, and his glance of reply, that there is but little friendship between those two, whatever be the intimacy; and, thirdly, that Warburton, from his dorsal positions, so studiously preserved, either wished to be uncivil or unnoticed." The latter, after all, was the most probable; and, upon the whole, I felt more than ever convinced that he was the person I ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... ridges are regarded as eyes. The Desmoscolecida move by looping their bodies like geometrid caterpillars or leeches, as well as by creeping on their setae. The mouth is terminal, and leads into a muscular oesophagus which opens into a straight intestine terminating in an anus, which is said to be dorsal in position. The sexes are distinct. The testis is single, and its duct opens into the intestine and is provided with two chitinous spicules. The ovary is also single, opening independently and anterior to the anus. The nervous system is ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... Poke relieved my mind considerably; and laying aside the bison-skin, I asked him to have the goodness to examine the localities, with some particularity, about the termination of the dorsal bone, in order to ascertain if there were any encouraging signs to be discovered. Captain Poke put on his spectacles, for time had brought the worthy mariner to their use, as he said, "whenever he had occasion to read fine print"; and, after ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... you need not at the same time bend the dorsal vertebr' of your body, unless you wish to be very reverential, as in saluting ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman

... and rip open his bowels at the moment when he turns on his side to give the deadly bite. But on that coast this dreaded fish appears singly; it is rare to see two of them together; while Santiago harbor seems to swarm with them, the dark dorsal fin of the threatening creatures just parting the surface of the sea, and betraying their presence. Lying at anchor between our ship and the shore was a trig Spanish corvette,—an American-built vessel, by the way, though belonging to the navy of Spain. It was curious ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... afraid of. And very little investigation will reveal the simple truth that they are very much afraid of sharks; and that in their book of symbolic or heraldic zoology it is the Jew who is adorned with the dorsal fin and the crescent of cruel teeth. This may be a fairy-tale about a fabulous animal; but it is one which all sorts of races believe, and certainly one ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton

... long as the circuit remains closed, any stagnant blood in the lower extremities will be efficiently forced into the general circulation. After from three to five minutes of this faradization, the surface board may be successively applied for a minute or two each to the arms, abdomen, pectoral and dorsal muscles. I believe the best results can be obtained by first going through the faradic process, then subjecting the patient to general galvanization, as above indicated, and concluding ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig

... Schleswig, which is a city quite peculiar in its appearance. One wide street runs the length of the town, with which narrow cross streets are connected, like the smaller bones with the dorsal vertebrae of a fish. There are handsome modern houses, which, as usual, have not the slightest character. But the more modest dwellings have a local stamp; they are one-story buildings, very low—not over seven or eight feet in height—capped with a huge roof of fluted red tiles. Windows, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... frequent qu'il soit, n'est guere une maladie proprement dite, mais plutot un symptome de la plus haute importance, comme il indique par le centre dorsal du grand nerf sympathique, qu'il y a une affection des organes generateurs qu'on fera bien de ne point negliger. Aussitot que ces affections ou uterines, ou ovariennes ou renales sont gueries par l'emploi de Lydia ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... and abdomen. Some kinds, as the rays, have no ribs; whilst others, as the sturgeon and eel, have very short ones. Between the pointed processes of the vertebrae are situated the bones which support the dorsal (back) and the anal (below the tail) fins, which are connected with the processes by a ligament. At the breast are the sternum or breastbone, clavicles or collar-bones, and the scapulae or shoulder-blades, ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... displays its transparent charms. Conspicuous, daring colours here are as common as on the lawn of a race course. Occasionally on the edge of a reef there comes the fish of frosted silver, with hair like purple streamers floating from the dorsal fin a foot and more behind. Some call it the "lady" fish, because of its beauty and grace, and others the diamond trevally (ALECTIS CILIARIS). More frequently is seen "the sleepy fish," salmon-shaped, of resplendent ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... and January it sometimes abounds to such a degree, that, as they are not much esteemed, I have known them sold at thirty for a penny. It keeps near the bottom commonly, at no great distance from land; but sometimes multitudes will mount together to the surface; and move along with the first dorsal fin above the water: they will even quit their native element, and spring to the distance of a yard; thus imitating the flying gurnard, though not to the same extent. In summer they are found basking in the sun, perhaps ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various

... white. The Beluga (Delphinapterus leucas), is a real whale with its most striking characteristic the white, or rather cream-coloured, skin described by some writers as very beautiful. Like the narwhal it has no dorsal fin. Though the smallest member of the whale family it is sometimes more than twenty feet long; but usually ranges from thirteen to sixteen feet. The young are bluish black in colour and may be seen swimming beside their mother who feeds them with a very thick milk. These young grow rapidly ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong

... Singphos; it is a thick, very powerful fish, a good deal resembling the Roach: one of two pounds, measures about a foot in length. Outline ovate lanceolate, head small, mouth with four filaments; eyes very large, fins reddish, first ray of the dorsal large spinous. It affects deep water, particularly at the edges of the streams running into such places. {74b} It takes a fly greedily even in quite still water; but as it has a small mouth, the smaller ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... Onager, Khar-gadh, in Pers. Gor-khar) still breeds. This would explain the "stallions of the sea" and we find traces of the ass blood in the true Kathiawar horse, with his dun colour, barred legs and dorsal stripe. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... by transition stages, and this, it is well known, is not the case. Moreover, the fact established by me ("Die Hautfarbe des Menschen", "Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien", Vol. XXXIV. pages 331-352.), that in all races the ventral side of the trunk is paler than the dorsal side, and the inner surface of the extremities paler than the outer side, cannot be explained by sexual ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... a woman should show so much intelligence, and so, raising my dorsal spine, I began to rub up against her legs and to purr lovingly with the deepest chords of ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... dorsal fin, and a brown back and white belly. On came the whale and the fish, twisting and turning as before. We all stood ready to try and send them off—though very little use that would have been, I own. Happily they floundered by just astern of the ship; but so violent were their ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... and here and there a grayling." Within an hour I get fifteen graylings to my own rod. Collectively they weigh just a little over thirty pounds. Swimming against the current, they take the fly eagerly; and one cannot hope to land a more gaudy or more gamy fish. Its big dorsal fin is rainbow-tinct, the tail an iridescent blue, and the scales pure mother-of-pearl. Mr. Keele has had "The Complete Angler" for two years with him in the fastnesses, and as he helps us prepare the catch for our evening meal over ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... BROWN BAT.—One big brown bat was obtained on July 23, 1952, from one mile west of Niobrara, Knox County. While not so dark in dorsal coloration as some specimens of E. f. fuscus from eastern Nebraska (Cass and Sarpy counties), this specimen is noticeably darker than a series of E. f. pallidus from Ft. Niobrara Wildlife Refuge, 4 mi. E of Valentine, Cherry ...
— Distribution of Some Nebraskan Mammals • J. Knox Jones

... must be balanced by an inhibitory nerve. The one furnishes the driving force, the other applies the brake. For instance, the heart muscle is supplied with motor force through the spinal nerves from the upper dorsal region, while the pneumogastric [vagus] nerve retards the action of the heart and in that way acts as ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr

... before you is a full grown nymph of what is known as a palmicinctum. It is deeply interesting as a form; but for us its interest is that it is minute, being only a millimeter in length. But it repeatedly casts the dorsal skin of the abdomen. Each skin is bordered by a row of exquisite scales; and then successive rows of these scales persist, forming a protection to the entire organism. Mark then that we not only reveal the general form of the nymph, but the lens reveals the true ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various

... and from the circumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards, he carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in almost all latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose. When not more profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena whale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil for domestic employment—as some frugal ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... haughtily through the crowds of small fry—yellow-tail, ground mullet, and trumpeters. Presently, as one of them caught sight of a small shining silvery mullet (or a luscious-looking octopus tentacle) lying on the sand, the languid grace of his course would cease, the broad, many-masted dorsal fin become erect, and he would come to a dead stop, his bright, eager eye bent on the prize before him. Was it a delusion and a snare? No! How could it be? No treacherous line was there—only the beautiful shimmering scales of a delicious silvery-sided young mullet, lying dead, ...
— The Colonial Mortuary Bard; "'Reo," The Fisherman; and The Black Bream Of Australia - 1901 • Louis Becke

... oriental, occidental pathos, bathos sacred, profane military, civil clergy, laity capital, labor ingress, egress element, compound horizontal, perpendicular competition, cooeperation predestination, freewill universal, particular extrinsic, intrinsic inflation, deflation dorsal, ventral acid, alkali synonym, antonym prologue, epilogue nadir, zenith amateur, connoisseur anterior, posterior stoic, epicure ordinal, cardinal centripetal, centrifugal stalagmite, stalactite orthodox, heterodox ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... member of the gapperi group. Dorsal stripe wide, between Chestnut and Bay (capitalized color terms after Ridgway: Color Standards and Color Nomenclature. Washington, D. C., 1912), with slight mixture of black-tipped hairs; sides and venter heavily washed with Ochraceous-Tawny. Skull flattened; rostrum proportionately short ...
— Comments on the Taxonomy and Geographic Distribution of North American Microtines • E. Raymond Hall

... india-rubber ball. Fritz was unanimously voted her rightful owner, but before his mother would hear of his entering the frail-looking skiff she declared she must contrive a swimming dress, that "should his boat receive a puncture from a sharp rock or the dorsal fin of a fish and collapse, he might yet have a chance of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... with flints, the points of which were still imbedded in the bones. In the Villevenard Cave one skull was found containing three arrow-beads with transverse points imbedded in the skull, the bone of which had closed upon them. Another arrow was lodged between the dorsal vertebrae. It is probable that these arrows had remained in the wounds; certainly that is the simplest way to account for their position. About two miles from the caves of which we have been speaking, M. de Baye discovered a sepulchre containing thirty skeletons, all of adult ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... the dorsal line; nose, upper lip, and forehead, with two inches of the end of the tail black-brown; mere edge of upper lip and whole of lower jaw hoary; a short longitudinal white stripe occasionally on the front of the neck, and some vague spots of the same laterally, ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... length to lateral diameter of base) and in having a distinct knob at the distal end. The baculum of goldmani differs slightly from that of albigula in having a less downwardly curved shaft and in having a less pronounced median dorsal depression at the proximal end. Although goldmani bears some external resemblance to lepida, the cranial characters mentioned above and the size and shape of the baculum show that goldmani is best arranged as a member of the ...
— The Pigmy Woodrat, Neotoma goldmani, Its Distribution and Systematic Position • Dennis G. Rainey

... hundred salmon laid out on the floor ready for prompt dispatch to market. They averaged 20 lb., but, silvery as they all were, I could pick out the few that had come in that morning. There was one lovely she-fish of about 23 lb., with a ventral fin literally as purple as the dorsal of a grayling, and for suggestions of pearls and opals, maiden blushes, and the like, nothing could have been more perfect than the sheen of this Tay salmon. In another hour the glory would have faded away. And all those fish had been taken by the net. The angler ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior

... typical bicycle "scorcher,"—making each particular vertebra stand out sharply under the tight drawn skin. Dr. Jonnesco quickly ran his finger along the protuberances, and finally selected the space between the twelfth dorsal and the first lumbar vertebrae—in other words, the space just above the small of the back. He then took an ordinary hypodermic needle, and slowly pushed it through the skin and tissues until it entered the small opening between the lower and upper vertebrae, not stopping until it reached ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... men, with not a mouthful in our grasp, this display of food was tantalizing. Russell, who was an expert swimmer, volunteered to dive for some conchs and shell-fish; oysters there were none. Asking us to keep a sharp lookout on the surface of the water for sharks, which generally swim with the dorsal fin exposed, he went down and brought up a couple of live conchs about the size of a man's fist. Breaking the shell, we drew the quivering body out. Without its coat it looked like a huge grub, and not more inviting. The general ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... lies on the right valve, and swims or flies with the right valve lowermost. Here equalization to the right and left of the perpendicular line passing through the centre of gravity is very marked (especially in the Vola division of the group); but the induced right and left aspect corresponds to the dorsal and ventral sides of the animal, not the right and left sides, as in the former case. Lima, a near ally of Pecten, swims with the edges of the valves perpendicular. In this case the geomalic growth corresponds to the right and left sides ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... nourished, and the muscular system especially poorly developed and very lax in tone. The most striking feature is the extreme lordosis, accompanied usually by a secondary and compensatory curve in the cervico-dorsal region, so that the shoulders are rounded, with the head poked forward. Viewed from in front the abdomen is seen to be prominent, overhanging the symphysis pubis, while the shoulders have receded far backwards. The scapulae have been dragged apart, as though by the weight of the dependent ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron

... the girl farewell, was wrought to aching thoughts and quivering lips. But his sorrow was not for Izz. That evening he was within a feather-weight's turn of abandoning his road to the nearest station, and driving across that elevated dorsal line of South Wessex which divided him from his Tess's home. It was neither a contempt for her nature, nor the probable state of ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... dorsal branches of subscapular; posterior scapular with costal and muscular branches of subscapular. Thoracic anastomosis between internal mammary and intercostals, ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell

... undescribed: it is certainly not the one (Caretta imbricata) producing the greater part of the tortoise-shell of commerce, and which is not rare in Torres Strait, distinguished by having the posterior angle of each dorsal plate projecting, so as to give a serrated appearance to the margin of the carapace which, in the present species is quite smooth. The green turtle averaged 350 pounds each, and the hawksbills about 250 pounds. Although a strong prejudice existed against the hawksbill as an article of food, we all ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... him a chain of mountains very high and blue, with white summits, which reminded him of the Alps, and gave him the feeling of having drawn near to his own country once more. They were the Andes, the dorsal spine of the American continent, that immense chain which extends from Tierra del Fuego to the glacial sea of the Arctic pole, through a hundred and ten degrees of latitude. And he was also comforted by the fact that the air seemed to him to grow constantly warmer; ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... to resist the merriment of the crew for he cast many furious and malicious glances at the vessel. Once more he backed off fur a charge to swallow thim an' this toime succeeded in holdin' thim in be a nate trick. Instid av turnin' partly on his side an' showin' his dorsal fin afther he had swallowed he kept bottom up and swam slowly away waggin' av his tail with a gratified air while a huge grin ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... trespasses this limit it may be arrested either at the tarso-metatarsal or at the ankle joint. If these be passed, it usually spreads up the leg to just below the knee before signs of arrestment appear. Further, it is seen from pathological specimens that the spread is greater on the dorsal than on the plantar aspect, and that the death of skin and subcutaneous tissues extends higher than ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... as it was then! So transparent that we saw great fish swimming about, full fathom five under us. A monstrous shark drifted lazily past, his dorsal fin now and then cutting the surface like a knife and glistening like polished steel, his brace of pilot-fish darting hither and thither, striped ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various

... back, posteriority; rear rank, rear guard; background, hinterland. occiput [Anat.], nape, chine; heels; tail, rump, croup, buttock, posteriors, backside scut^, breech, dorsum, loin; dorsal region, lumbar region; hind quarters; aitchbone^; natch, natch bone. stern, poop, afterpart^, heelpiece^, crupper. wake; train &c (sequence) 281. reverse; other side of the shield. V. be behind &c adv.; fall astern; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... spanker boom and the flapping of the sails was the only answer. Kitchell turned to Wilbur in triumph. "I guess she's ours," he whispered. They were now close enough to make out the bark's name upon her counter, "Lady Letty," and Wilbur was in the act of reading it aloud, when a huge brown dorsal fin, like the triangular sail of a lugger, cut the water between the ...
— Moran of the Lady Letty • Frank Norris

... down to the nose; its belly is of a silvery white; the upper jaw projects beyond the lower, and is surrounded with six feelers, three on each side; its pectoral fins are large, its ventral much smaller; the fin behind its anus small; its dorsal-fin large, containing eight spines; its tail, where it joins to the tail-fin, remarkably broad, without any taperness, so as to be characteristic of this genus; the tail-fin is broad, and square at the end. From the breadth and muscular strength of the tail it ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... answered in low, hoarse whispers that he had been lying in the mud and rain for several days. Then he turned his eyes up so that only the whites were visible. They remained rigidly fixed in that position. He received a dorsal injection, being too weak for chloroform. The shattered thigh was painted with picric acid and the tourniquet tightened above the injury. The surgeon cut through the leg with a circular sweep of the knife, the splintered bone offering no resistance. The limb came off in my ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... alternating city current and here a direct, continuous current from the storage-batteries of the cab below. Doctor, hold his mouth open. So. Now, have you a pair of forceps handy? Good. Can you catch hold of the tip of his tongue? There. Do just as I tell you. I apply this cathode to his skin in the dorsal region; under the back of the neck, and this anode in the lumbar region at the base of the spine—just pieces of cotton soaked in salt solution and covering the metal electrodes, to give me a good contact with ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... scabbard. The two latter are more substantial, are hollowed out like the sides of a groove and, when uniting, form a complete groove in which the filament is sheathed. This bivalvular scabbard adheres loosely to the dorsal part; but, farther on, at the tip of the abdomen and under the belly, it can no longer be detached, as its valves are welded to the abdominal wall. Here, therefore, we find, between the two joined protecting parts, a simple trench in which the filament lies ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... G——, aged 18 years, single, a native of Switzerland, was admitted to the Santa Clara County Hospital with incipient spinal disease. He was of that peculiar temperament which indicates a scrofulous cachexia. The fifth dorsal vertebra was sufficiently prominent to indicate the sight where the attack was being made by the enemy. There was considerable tenderness on pressure; slightly accelerated pulse, and elevated temperature;—in other words, a well defined case;—one which would have ...
— Report on Surgery to the Santa Clara County Medical Society • Joseph Bradford Cox

... sides and floriate back, unless heraldic accessories intervened to usurp the space occupied by the lateral ornament or (as in some of John Evelyn's or his sovereign's books) a gilt ornamental cypher formed the dorsal embellishment. ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... the teeth ending in two short awns, densely ciliated at the apex on one side, conspicuously 6- (rarely) 7-nerved, the two lateral being very strong and running into the apical teeth and the intermediate four nerves being shorter and not running up to the apex, and on the dorsal surface there is a depression, where it is membranous and the nerves on its sides sometimes anastomosing at the upper third of the glume. The second glume is shorter than the first, chartaceous to ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar

... and variety. Their wing was formed by the extension of a great fold of skin on the enormously elongated outermost finger, and they varied from the size of a sparrow to a spread of over five feet. A soldering of the dorsal vertebrae as in our Flying Birds was an adaptation to striking the air with some force, but as there is not more than a slight keel, if any, on the breast-bone, it is unlikely that they could fly far. For we know from our modern birds that the power of flight may be ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson

... unbroken by so much as a solitary ripple, save those created by our oar blades, the passage of the gig through the water, the occasional dash of half a dozen flying-fish out of the sea under the boat's stem, and once or twice the thin wake cut by the dorsal ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood

... days' incubation inject that amount of the culture corresponding to 1 per cent. of the body-weight of a healthy frog, into the reptile's dorsal lymph sac. ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... shaping to multitudinous generations of animal life. Nature yields to its suggestion and leading, and co- works, with all her best and busiest activities, to realise the human ideal; to put muscle there, to straighten that vertebra, to parallel more perfectly those dorsal and ventral lines, to lengthen or shorten those bones; to flesh the leg only to such a joint, and wool or unwool it below; to horn or unhorn the head, to blacken or blanch the face, to put on the whole body a new dress and make it and its remote posterity ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt

... water and coming toward the swimmer like an arrow at its mark, was a great black dorsal fin which bespoke the presence of the pirate ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick

... the floor. This hammer was operated by a lever or tongue at the head of the handle, the connection between the hammer at the distal end and the lever at the proximal end being effected by means of a steel-wire spinal cord down the dorsal side of the handle. Over the fist of a hammer spread a jaw of sharp teeth to take hold of the carpet. The thing could not talk; but it could do almost anything else, so fearfully and ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp

... the petals and a foot across the dorsal sepal!" said the young man in a kind of gasp, "and a Cypripedium! Sir, surely ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... to prove that in the male frog after castration the annual development of the thumb-pad and the muscles of the fore-leg does not take place, and if these organs have begun to enlarge before castration they atrophy again. When pieces of testis were introduced into the dorsal lymph-sac of a castrated frog the thumb-pads and muscles developed as in a normal frog. Geoffrey Smith and Edgar Schuster [Footnote: Quart Journ. Mic. Sci., lvii, 1911-12.] investigated the subject again with results contrary to ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... curves in the human backbone, the cervical curve being convex, the dorsal concave, and the lumbar convex, when each is regarded from the forward aspect. If we consider the sacrum and coccyx, there is really a fourth curve, this being concave, although in animals generally the coccyx curves backwards and is extended to form the tail. ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden



Words linked to "Dorsal" :   dorsal fin, abaxial, dorsal root, biology, dorsal scapular vein, ventral



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com