"Ibis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the Roman world of that day than the genuine Greek national poetry, and which, if they were not quite so venerable as the Iliad, possessed at any rate an age sufficiently respectable to pass as classics with schoolmasters. The love-poems of Euphorion, the "Causes" of Callimachus and his "Ibis," the comically obscure "Alexandra" of Lycophron contained in rich abundance rare vocables (-glossae-) suitable for being extracted and interpreted, sentences laboriously involved and difficult of analysis, prolix digressions full of mystic combinations ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... particular work we may derive a most instructive lesson, that in certain points, as of religion in relation to law, the 'medio tutis—simus ibis', is inapplicable. There is no 'medium' possible; and all the attempts as those of Baxter, though no more were required than 'I believe in God through Christ,' prove only the mildness of the proposer's temper, but as ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... the god of the learned and of physicians. The Ibis was sacred to him, and he was usually represented as Ibis-headed. Ra created him "a beautiful light to show the name of his evil enemy." Originally the Dfoon-god, he became the lord of time and measure. He is the weigher, the philosopher among the gods, the lord of writing, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... summit or in secret rooms: I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshiped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Bramah through all the forests of Asia: Vishnu hated me; Seeva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris: I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried for a thousand years in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed with cancerous kisses by crocodiles, and laid, confounded ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... of just indignation." He gladly testified to the consideration with which Douglas was wont to treat the South, but he warned the young Senator from Illinois that the old adage—"in medio tutissimus ibis"—might lead him astray. He might think to reach the goal of his ambitions by keeping clear of the two leading factions and by identifying himself with the masses, but ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... "I imagine it has two. It is the custom of many birds of this species to stand for hours on one leg. It is of the same family as the stork, the heron and the ibis." ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... decrees. The bird-madness is so clear, that many actually bear the names of birds. There is a halting victualler, who styles himself the partridge; Menippus calls himself the swallow; Opuntius the one-eyed crow; Philocles the lark; Theogenes the fox-goose; Lycurgus the ibis; Chaerephon the bat; Syracosius the magpie; Midias the quail;(1) indeed he looks like a quail that has been hit hard over the head. Out of love for the birds they repeat all the songs which concern the swallow, the teal, the goose or the pigeon; in each verse you see wings, ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... is a monster, part crocodile, part lion, part hippopotamus. This terror will eat the heart of Ani if it is found corrupt. At last he is declared justified. Thoth, the ibis-headed God of Writing, records the verdict on his tablet. The justified Ani moves on past the baffled devourer, with the mystic presence of his little wife rejoicing at his side. They go to the awful court of Osiris. She makes sacrifice with him there. ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... mountains to the left, the porters' tiny fires before the little white tents; and in the distance, from the direction of V.'s boma, the irregular throb of the dance drum and the occasional snatch of barbaric singing borne down on the night wind from where his Wakambas were holding an n'goma. A pair of ibis that had been ejected when we made camp contributed intermittent outraged and raucous squawks from the tiptop of ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... this useful bird caught his food by day instead of hunting it by night, mankind would have ocular demonstration of its utility in thinning the country of mice, and it would be protected and encouraged everywhere. It would be with us what the ibis was with the Egyptians." The ibis is a bird that was found so useful in destroying locusts and serpents in Egypt, that in olden times it was made a capital crime for any one to destroy it. Nay, the idolatrous Egyptians went further, ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... "In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe is Horatian, 'Medio tu tutissimus ibis.'" Don Juan, Canto V. stanza xvii. lines ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron
... among the bushes there were flocks of the red-breasted oriole. The common black vulture is generally to be seen sailing overhead, the great Muscovy ducks fly past with a rushing sound, offering a striking contrast to the great wood-ibis, which sails along with noiseless wings in flocks of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... seated at the bottom of the steps, a priest commenced a solemn air upon a long wind-instrument of music. Half-way down the steps stood another flamen, holding in one hand the votive wreath, in the other a white wand; while, adding to the picturesque scene of that eastern ceremony, the stately ibis (bird sacred to the Egyptian worship) looked mutely down from the wall upon the rite, or stalked beside the altar at ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... Ibis, n. There are twenty-four species of this bird distributed over all the warmer parts of the globe. Those present ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... himself, some of his near relatives were, both by the ties of kindred and of ancient friendship. For these, and other reasons it may be conceived what joy and thankfulness to Providence he felt for the result of ibis affair, which at once relieved him from a distressing dilemma, and promised to put a speedy period to his labours in Scotland." - Mackay's "Life of General Mackay."] - and he was at once committed a prisoner to the Castle ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... from the northward. Another creek also joined it from the southward; as subsequently observed by Mr. Roper. Beyond these creeks, several lagoons or swamps were seen covered with ducks, and several other aquatic birds, and, amongst them, the straw-coloured Ibis. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... produce 'alluciations?" said Pyecroft in a whisper. "Because I've just seen a sacred ibis walkin' arm in arm ...
— Traffics and Discoveries • Rudyard Kipling
... of a rusty hinge; there were hawks and buzzards of many different kinds, and red-breasted orioles in the bushes, and black vultures flying overhead, and Muscovy ducks sweeping past with whizzing wings, and flocks of the great wood-ibis sailing in the air on noiseless pinions, and hundreds of other birds that it would require an ornithologist to name; and myriads of insects,—especially ants and spiders, great and small,—that no entomologist could chronicle in a lifetime; all these were heard and seen at once; while ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... where the regent was, and how occupied? The prince was in his studio, finishing an etching commenced by Hubert, the chemist, who, at an adjoining table, was occupied in embalming an ibis, by the Egyptian method, which ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... were tendered more dearly than those of any other animal, whether biped or quadruped. 'He who has voluntarily killed a consecrated animal,' says this writer, 'is punished with death; but if any one has even involuntarily killed a cat or an ibis, it is impossible for him to escape death: the mob drags him to it, treating him with every cruelty, and sometimes without waiting for judgment to be passed. This treatment inspires such terror, that, if any person happen to find ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... the instrument she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat—semi-stool, semi-cushion. The ladies were round her; none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? They never sang so. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality—so unlike a school-girl? Decidedly not. It was strange, it was unusual. What was strange must be wrong; what was unusual must be ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... punt touched at the landing platform below Sylvia's house the fellow did not get out, but gave the call of an ibis—a weird, beautifully mystic call that is rarely heard and almost impossible to imitate. Smilax appreciated this, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... Oh, what pathos in these few words! But doubtless they will. Many during the war of the Boxers were "gathered" unto Him, emulating the zeal and courage and faith of the martyrs of the early days of the Church. As the hen is sacred in the eyes of the Chinaman, sacred as the peacock to Juno or the ibis to the Egyptians, they swear by her head, and an oath thus taken may ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... was frequently seen to dart out from the banks, but we profess ignorance on this point. There were fish-hawks also, magnificent fellows, which sat in regal dignity on the tops of the mangrove trees, and the glossy ibis, with others of the feathered ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... gratitude to the gods, for multiplying the people of the country. The crocodile was also advanced to the dignity of a god. If one killed any of the sacred animals designedly, he was put to death,—if involuntarily, his punishment was referred to the priests; but if a man killed a hawk, a cat, or an ibis, whether designedly or not, he died without mercy. During a severe famine, when the Egyptians became cannibals, not one of them was known to have tasted the ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... passed during the day, on which ducks and other water-fowl were very numerous, the stately native companion stalking near the margins. The large funnel ant-hills occurred from 2 to 15 feet high. The Fitzroy wallaby was plentiful, and the Leader shot an emeu. Some large flights of white ibis, and slate-colored pigeons passed high overhead, flying north, which might be a good indication. Peter was sent back to seek for Lottie, but returned ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... North African and Asiatic deserts, are all tinted and mottled so as to resemble with wonderful accuracy the average colour and aspect of the soil in the district they inhabit. The Rev. H. Tristram, in his account of the ornithology of North Africa in the first volume of the "Ibis," says: "In the desert, where neither trees, brushwood, nor even undulation of the surface afford the slightest protection to its foes, a modification of colour which shall be assimilated to that of the surrounding ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... was a knock one day at the door of our Ibis old mother, and behold, the boatman and Christine stepped into the room. She had come on a visit to spend a day: a carriage had to come from the Herning Inn to the next village, and she had taken the opportunity ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... topic of our after-supper conversation, and then it generalised to the different species of wading birds of America, and at length that singular creature, the "ibis," became the theme. This came round by Besancon remarking that a species of ibis was brought by the Indians to the markets of New Orleans, and sold there under the name of "Spanish Curlew." This was the white ibis (Tantalus albas), which the zoologist stated was found in ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... himself flying from the wrath of Oriental Deities. "I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris: I had done a deed, they said, which the Ibis and the Crocodile trembled at." The morbid inspiration is clearly the same in both cases, and there can be little doubt that Crabbe's poem owes its inception to opium, and that the frame work was devised by him for the utilisation ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... yellow, sinuous form of a great puma whisked amid the brushwood, and its green, baleful eyes glared hatred at us over its tawny shoulder. Bird life was abundant, especially the wading birds, stork, heron, and ibis gathering in little groups, blue, scarlet, and white, upon every log which jutted from the bank, while beneath us the crystal water was alive with fish ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... differences often do, degenerated into the bitterest personal strife. There are references to the quarrel in the writings of both. Callimachus attacks Apollonius in the passage at the end of the "Hymn to Apollo", already mentioned, also probably in some epigrams, but most of all in his "Ibis", of which we have an imitation, or perhaps nearly a translation, in Ovid's poem of the same name. On the part of Apollonius there is a passage in the third book of the "Argonautica" (11. 927-947) which is of a polemical nature and stands out from the context, and the well-known ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... seeing that the popular imagination still continued to run riot over his supposed enormities. The midnight hallucinations of De Quincey seemed to be repeating themselves in a whole nation. He had committed crimes worthy of the Borgias. He had done a deed which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. Miss Arundell boldly defended him against her mother, though she admitted afterwards that, circumstances considered, Mrs. Arundell's opposition ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... kill members of other species. In 1902 a sick brant goose was killed by its mates; and so were a red-tailed hawk, two saras cranes, two black vultures, a road-runner, and a great horned owl. An aged and sickly wood ibis was killed by a whooping crane; and a night heron killed ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... joy, also the odours which greeted me in that moist green place—odours earthy, herby, fishy, flowery, and even birdy, particularly that peculiar musky odour given out on hot days by large flocks of the glossy ibis. ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... twice-great and thrice-great god, dwelt in them. The profession of the scribe was considered to be most honourable, and its rewards were great, for no rank and no dignity were too high for the educated scribe. Thoth appears in the papyri and on the monuments as an ibis-headed man, and his companion is usually a dog-headed ape called "Asten." In the Hall of the Great Judgment he is seen holding in one hand a reed with which he is writing on a palette the result of the weighing of the heart of the ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... an authority on rare birds," Jack admitted softly as he continued to use his eyes to advantage, "but I've got a hunch that skin he's handling right now might be a roseate spoonbill—I'm sure it isn't a red ibis, ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... are now filled only with air, all that was within them has disappeared. My spirit also, mindful of the beginning of things, seeks to call upon the savior who was here where I am, during the centuries of the gods, upon Thot-Ibis, that great wise one, upon Imhotpu, son of Phtah of Memphis. Where is the place in which the Nile is born? Who is the god or goddess concealed there? What ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... out of so poignant a memory no more formidable barrier than a forgotten path arises," said the leader, observing him closely. "Know you, then a house bearing as a sign the figure of a golden ibis?" ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... underworld: my place of incubation is unseen and my egg is not cracked. I have done away with all my iniquity, and I shall see my divine Father, the lord of eventide, whose body dwelleth in Annu. I travel(?) to the god of night(?), who dwelleth with the god of light, by the western region of the Ibis (i.e., Thoth)." ...
— Egyptian Literature
... lighter-coloured leaves of the enormous calabash. The depressions were filled with jungle of more or less density, while here and there opened glades, shadowed even during noon by thin groves of towering trees. At our approach fled in terror flocks of green pigeons, jays, ibis, turtledoves, golden pheasants, quails and moorhens, with crows and hawks, while now and then a solitary pelican winged its way to ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... So we did. Oswald, Alice, Noel, and Denny voted for the river of the ibis and the crocodile. Dicky, H. O., and the other girls for the region of ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... throats and scythe-like bills, stood in melancholy attitudes, and beside them were the white and scarlet ibis, and the purple gallinule. Roseate spoonbills waded through the shallows, striking their odd-shaped beaks at the crabs and cray-fish; and upon projecting limbs of trees perched the black darter, his long snake-like neck stretched eagerly over the water. In the air a flock of buzzard ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... The osprey, notwithstanding the abundance of his scaly prey, is not common: probably the field is too limited for him. Ducks are the attraction of the other large species. In summer, ducks are rather secondary among the water-birds, the ibis, water-turkey, and flamingo imparting a tropical character to the scene that somewhat obscures the more familiar forms. There is even a survival here of birds that have nearly disappeared from the American fauna,—the paroquet, once so common ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... seems to feel himself under of eking out their effect by points of bright foreground color, and thus we have been encumbered with caftans, pipes, scymetars, and black hair, when all that we wanted was a lizard, or an ibis. It is perhaps owing to this want of earnestness in study rather than to deficiency of perception, that the coloring of this artist is commonly untrue. Some time ago when he was painting Spanish subjects, his habit was to bring out his whites in relief from transparent bituminous ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... temple, the altar-piece, if I may use the term, was the Ganesa of the Hindoos, but not seated on the lotus leaf, but on the Chinese rat. On each side of this were two little candelabras, formed of the Egyptian ibis, holding the oil cups in its beak. I also found the Hounyman, or monkey god of the Hindoos, and Budhist figures. I once observed some sepoys playing and laughing at a bronze image they had picked up at the pagoda of Syriam, and on examining it, I was surprised to find ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Every sound in the air cries out that word to me: the bee that wings across the tower hums it in my ear; the booming alarm-bell rings it forth; my heart, my failing heart, beats it while I speak. I would have carried a snake to the sacred ibis-nest, and thenceforth hope was hollow as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... weary, he could rest as the old god Tum, of the Setting Sun. Probably gods and goddesses never enjoyed themselves so much as in Ancient Egypt; and though it does seem a drawback from our artistic point of view for Hathor to have the head or ears of a cow, for wise Thoth to have the long beak of an ibis, and so on, it was for them only an amusing kind of masquerade or 'tete' party, on the walls of the temples and tombs. At home, they could be what they liked. Think how interesting for the Egyptians to have all these queer ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson |
