"Insect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... will not rest quiet. I must move elsewhere. [Moving a few steps off, and casting a glance around.] How now! he is following me here. Help! my dear friends, help! deliver me from the attacks of this troublesome insect. ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... with horror at the description I had given of those terrible engines, and the proposal I had made. "He was amazed, how so impotent and grovelling an insect as I" (these were his expressions) "could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner, as to appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and desolation which I had painted as the common effects of those destructive machines; whereof," he said, "some evil genius, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... the grass, jostling the horses and their riders, and leaving them far in the rear. The screaming eagle rode high above among the clouds of smoke, and many smaller birds fell suffocated to the ground; while all the insect tribe took wing, and everything that had life strove to escape ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... of his collection. At certain seasons of the year the Euplectella speciosa, Gray, or Venus baskets, locally known as Regaderas, can be obtained in quantities; they are found in the Cebu waters. The Eup. spec, is the skeleton secretion of an insect of the Porifera division. The basket is a series of graceful fretted spirals. Also fine Pina stuffs can ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... reach Buddha's heaven. The belief in the transmigration of souls explains the vegetarian diet of the Buddhist. No zealous Buddhist will touch meat or even eggs, neither will he kill the smallest insect, lest he should thus inadvertently murder a relative.[2] The men care but little for any religion beyond a ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... of her complicated heart there existed at this minute a little pang of disappointment, for a reason she would not allow herself to recognize. Oak had not once wished her free that he might marry her himself—had not once said, "I could wait for you as well as he." That was the insect sting. Not that she would have listened to any such hypothesis. O no—for wasn't she saying all the time that such thoughts of the future were improper, and wasn't Gabriel far too poor a man to speak sentiment to ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... inventions, and crushed under the foot of a passer-by. But there is another danger! When they meet with the form that answers to their soul, and which not unfrequently is that of a baker's wife, they do as Raphael did, as the beautiful insect does, they die ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... a Fly one day disputed as to their respective merits. "Vile creeping insect!" said the Fly to the Ant, "can you for a moment compare yourself with me? I soar on the wing like a bird. I enter the palaces of kings, and alight on the heads of princes, nay, of emperors, and only ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... has five fingers. The peculiar thing about these hands is that the middle finger is elongated a great deal—it is about twice as long as the others. This is to enable it to scoop a special sort of insect out of special cracks in the special trees it frequents. Now, how did the finger begin to elongate? A little lengthening would be absolutely no good, as the cracks in the trees are 2 inches or 3 inches deep. It must have varied from the ordinary length to one twice as long at once. ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... and bids that the lamps be put out: on its return to the abode of the dead it will suffer for having shown itself: it describes the fiery torments which will be its lot. Poor fool! it has been lured to its destruction, like the insect of summer that flies into the flame. Summoning the winds to its aid, it puts out the ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... among the tall weeds or under the trees by the half-hour, staring at vacancy. This distressed her very much; then to her great relief and joy she discovered that I was there with a motive which she could understand and appreciate: that I was watching some living thing, an insect perhaps, but oftener a bird—a pair of little scarlet flycatchers building a nest of lichen on a peach tree, or some such beautiful thing. And as she loved all living things herself she was quite satisfied that I was not going queer in my head, for that ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... flitting, white-fire insect Little, dancing, white-fire creature, Light me with your little candle, Ere upon my bed I lay me, Ere in sleep I ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... when they are nobly chosen, and both are bad when they are basely chosen; but of the two, I repeat, it is restraint which characterizes the higher creature, and betters the lower creature: and, from the ministering of the archangel to the labour of the insect,—from the poising of the planets to the gravitation of a grain of dust,—the power and glory of all creatures, and all matter, consist in their obedience, not in their freedom. The Sun has no liberty—a ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... together, and seem to share a common life. One of these insects fastens itself on some hidden rock; sometimes it may be on an extinct volcano which is not lofty enough to appear above the waves, and on this foundation they begin to build, the insect, as it shapes its cells of coral, filling them with beings like itself, so that every tiny chamber has its inmate. Soon the whole rock is covered below the water with a fine network of delicate coral, and from the tops of the ...
— Famous Islands and Memorable Voyages • Anonymous
... and no oyster on it, he felt as though it had escaped, but he made no sign. He went on talking with the lady as though nothing had happened. He glanced down at his shirt bosom, and was at once on the trail of the oyster, though the insect had got about two minutes start of him. It had gone down his vest under the waistband of his clothing, and he was ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... if, as your royal and imperial highness were walking in your garden, an insect appealed plaintively to you not to crush it, you would turn aside, and so avoid doing the poor creature ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... far past, while an ashy whiteness and a general smell of dampness were the abiding peculiarities of the apartment. The eyes of the owner had become possessed of a microscopic power of discovering the minutest speck that might have been envied by any scientific observer of insect life. ...
— Little Tora, The Swedish Schoolmistress and Other Stories • Mrs. Woods Baker
... and slept awhile; then awoke to the worst solitude a vexed soul knows—those terrible "small hours" of the morning. Then, every mere insect of evil omen that daylight has kept in bounds grows to the size of an elephant, and what was the whirring of his wings becomes discordant thunder. Then palliatives lose their market-value, and every clever self-deception that stands between us and acknowledged ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... generally grow in groups, it is very probable that some flowers are pollinated by the wind. The fact that many pandans have very fragrant blossoms makes it almost certain that in the majority of cases insect pollination takes place. In a few forms that have a very disagreeable odor, pollination is effected by ...
— Philippine Mats - Philippine Craftsman Reprint Series No. 1 • Hugo H. Miller
... August holiday at the seaside in apartments, and suffered many things in consequence—an uninterrupted succession of mixed odours of cooking from early morning till late at night; fleas and other insect pests, which seemed to thrive mightily on the powders put down for their extermination; landladies afflicted with spasms and inordinate thirst, and landladies' cats with unappeasable appetites; cramped ...
— The Harmsworth Magazine, v. 1, 1898-1899, No. 2 • Various
... this grass?" he asked timorously. "A snake," he added, looking up at her confidingly, "is the only insect I am afraid of." ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... the curse of large districts in the United States, sowing its evil seeds broadcast in our land, and daily closing its iron grasp upon its victims, who could wish for the extermination of so useful an insect as the mosquito? ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... against fate—to try to escape the inevitable issue—is almost puerile. When the duration of a centenarian and that of an insect are quantities sensibly equivalent—and geology and astronomy enable us to regard such durations from this point of view—what is the meaning of all our tiny efforts and cries, the value of our anger, our ambition, our hope? For the dream of a dream it is absurd to raise these make-believe ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Miranda," said Marchmont mater; "the pet you mean is the last sweet insect you have collected; is it not, my dear child?" she said, anxious for the fair fame of the owner of the fine exhibit ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... wooded to the peak, the lawns And winding glades high up like ways to Heaven, The slender coco's drooping crown of plumes, The lightning flash of insect and of bird, The lustre of the long convolvuluses That coil'd around the stately stems, and ran Ev'n to the limit of the land, the glows And glories of the broad belt of the world, All these he saw; but what he fain had seen He could not see, the kindly ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... saturnine face. Racey knew the latter by sight and reputation. The man was one Skeel and rejoiced in the nick-name of "Alicran." The furtive scorpion whose sting is death is not indigenous to the territory, but Mr. Skeel had gained the appellation in New Mexico, a region where the tail-bearing insect may be found, and when the man left the Border for the Border's good the name ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... by that infinite variety of decoration in which she revels, binding tree to tree in a tangle of anaconda-like lianas, and dwindling down from these huge cables to airy webs and hair-like fibres that vibrate to the wind of the passing insect's wing. ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... datu was not dead, only badly stunned. The next morning, as he was walking around his granaries, they exploded with a loud noise; and all the rice flew away in the form of insects, and vanished from his sight. This kind of insect which originated from the rice we call doron (from the Spanish word duro), on account of ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... I used to listen, in bed, to your music at school." Interesting would be a record of the germs and first causes of all the greatest poets' conceptions! The elder Brunei's first hint for his "shield," in constructing the tunnel under the Thames, was taken from watching the labor of a sea-insect, which, having a projecting hood, could bore into the ship's ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... who—but of her anon. I said with men, and with the thoughts of men, 60 I held but slight communion; but instead, My joy was in the wilderness,—to breathe The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,[131] Where the birds dare not build—nor insect's wing Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge Into the torrent, and to roll along On the swift whirl of the new-breaking wave Of river-stream, or Ocean, in their flow.[132] In these my early strength exulted; or To follow through the night the moving moon,[133] 70 The stars and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... when this happened, there came from one side or the other a volley of rifle shots, that sounded like the crack of stock-whips, and once or twice a bullet passed over their heads with the buzz as of some vicious stinging insect. Here and there, where the bottom lay in soft and clayey soil, they walked through mud that came half-way up to the knee, and each foot had to be lifted with an effort, and was set free with a smacking suck. Elsewhere, if the ground was gravelly, the rain ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... The male is a beautiful, tiny, two-winged midge, but the female is a wingless, footless, little sack, without eyes or other organs of special sense, which lies motionless under a flat, thin, circular, reddish scale composed of wax and two or three cast skins of the insect itself. The insect has a long, slender, flexible, sucking beak, which is thrust into the leaf or stem or fruit of the orange on which the "scale bug" lives, and through which the insect sucks the orange sap, which is its only food. It lays eggs under its body, ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... diseases and insect pests increased, winds broke down many of the unpruned trees, frosts often blighted the entire crop of fruit, and the uncultivated, sod-choked trees produced fruit that was less in quantity and ...
— Checking the Waste - A Study in Conservation • Mary Huston Gregory
... insect or fly enters the ear a number of safe methods may be developed. If the ear is immediately turned to a bright light the insect may come out of its own accord. It may be floated out with salt water, ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague
... words of the Siddhas, Devala came down, descending from one region to another in due order. Indeed, he repaired to his own sacred asylum very quickly, like a winged insect. As soon as he entered his abode he beheld Jaigishavya seated there. Then Devala, beholding the power derived through Yoga of Jaigishavya's penances, reflected upon it with his righteous understanding and approaching that great ascetic, O king, with humility, addressed the high-souled ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... some day. What reward do they expect? It is this—to rest as Buddha does—to sleep forever and ever. This is the reward they look for. Every one in Burmah thinks he has been born a great many times into the world,—now as an insect,—now as a bird,—now as a beast, and he thinks that because he was very good,—as a reward he was made a man. Then he thinks that if he is very good as a poor man, he shall be born next time to be a rich ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... whirring sound, there flew into the room a big insect, two inches long ... it flew in, circled round, ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... trotting. Flowers. Armadillo. Fire-flies. Singular Fandango. Epiphytes. The Junta. Indian Life. Decorative Art. Horses. Jalapa. Anglo-Mexicans. Insect-life. Monte. Fate of Antonio. Scorpion. White Negress. Cattle. Artificial lighting. Vera Cruz. Further Journey. St. Thomas's. Voyage to England. Future ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... would stand forth in sufficient importance to make the swing of the tyrant's hand effective. But as it is, the man's poverty and friendlessness and meagerness of life render it difficult to find out vulnerable points of attack. He remains hidden (perdue) and, like the midge of the egg of an insect (nit), is safe ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... upon it fiercely. Its propeller was a shimmering, cobwebby disk before it. It seemed to hang motionless—so short was Bell's view of it—between earth and sky: a fat glistening body as of a monstrous insect. Bell could even see ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... noises of the earth Come with softest rustle; The shy, sweet feet of life; The silky mutter of moth-wings Against my restraining palm; The strident beat of insect-wings, The silvery trickle of water; Little breezes busy in the summer grass; The music of crisp, whisking, scurrying leaves, The swirling, wind-swept, frost-tinted leaves; The crystal splash of summer rain, Saturate with the odours ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... Clarke, without being more than pleased to recognise in the border the indefatigable Barberini bee? We are human enough to glance at the pictures of sacred scenes as on a tale that is told, but that potent insect makes us at once acquainted with a family of renown, puts us on a friendly footing with a great cardinal of the house, reminds us of sundry wanderings of our own in Rome; and then, suddenly flashes from its wings a memory of the great ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... Then you have a peep into the winding maelstroem-funnel of another of the spider family. Poe must have suffered metempsychosis into the body of a blue-bottle, when he wrote his "Descent into the Maelstroem"; for such an insect, hanging midway down that treacherous, sticky descent, and seeing Death creeping up from the bottom to grasp him, might have a clear idea of what was undergone ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... waiting beast of prey desired, and so, with the infinite patience of the wild hunter, the ape-man crouched motionless and silent as a graven image until the fruit should be ripe for the plucking. A poisonous insect buzzed angrily out of space. It loitered, circling, close to Tarzan's face. The ape-man saw and recognized it. The virus of its sting spelled death for lesser things than he—for him it would mean days of anguish. He did not move. His glittering eyes ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... certain person, in an inn far down in a valley of Westmoreland, and in the little town called Kirby Lonsdale, was busy reading the Caledonian Mercury—for it was not more easy to say where the winged Mercury of that time would not go, than it is to tell where a certain insect without wings, "which aye travels south," might not be found in England as an immigrant. It was at least no wonder that the paper should contain an account of the romance wrapped up in the case Napier versus Napier; and certainty, if we could ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... country where the pay is cruelly inadequate, where but few horses, sheep, or cattle can exist, where the natives are unbelievably lazy and insolent, and where, while there is no society of congenial spirits, there is a superabundance of animal and insect pests. Still, so great are gold, ivory, and rubber, and so many are the men who will take big chances for little pay, that every foot of the West Coast is preempted. As the ship rolls along, for hours from the rail you see miles and miles of steaming yellow sand ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... prudence was powerless, achieved their total destruction. For two whole years clouds of locusts traversed the country regularly with the Monsoon,[109] and reduced the hopes of the cultivator to nothing. When two days from Lucknow, we ourselves saw the ravages committed by this insect. It was perfect weather; suddenly we saw the sky overcast; a darkness like that of a total eclipse spread itself abroad and lasted a good hour. In less than no time we saw the trees under which we were camped stripped of their leaves. The next day as ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... the wisest of men and the greatest of poets and have them graven in immortal marble. They will represent only the supreme summits of achievement since the beginning of the world. Pascal shall be entitled to but one thought, Newton to but one star, Darwin to but one insect, Galileo to but one grain of dust, Tolstoi to but one charity, Heinrich Heine to but one verse, Shakespeare to but one cry, Wagner ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes
... interesting, from the variety of moisture-loving plants which took Dale's attention, and the brightly coloured insects, which took that of Saxe, while the mule was perfectly content to wait while a halt was called to capture insect or secure plant; the solemn-looking animal standing fetlock-deep in the water, and browsing on the herbage in the various ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn
... note, p. 101. Cf. Johnson's criticism of Edwards as recorded by Boswell: "Nay (said Johnson) he has given him some sharp hits to be sure; but there is no proportion between the two men; they must not be named together. A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still" (ed. Birkbeck ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... to bear. The southerly winds are very unfavorable to their growth, and parts opened by the knife admit the air, and kill the bloom. This tree is perhaps more infested by ants than any other; and the black contracted appearance of the leaves is much attributed to this insect. From this persuasion, which is pretty general, various methods have been tried to keep them off. Human ordure laid round the boll of the tree will prevent their appearing so long as it retains moisture, but not longer; tar has been applied ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... controversy, Milton invests with the moral indignation of a prophet denouncing the enemies of Jehovah. He expends a wealth of vituperative Latin which makes us tremble, till we remember that it is put in motion to crush an insect. ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... supposed to have been intended as charms, have been found on several mummies, which, at various times, have been brought to Europe. Plutarch informs us that the soldiers wore rings, on which the representation of an insect resembling our beetle, was inscribed; and we learn from Aelian, that the judges had always suspended round their necks a small figure of Truth formed of emeralds. The superstitious belief in the virtues of talismans is yet far from being extinct, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... graceful as a thistledown, soaring through space without a seeming motion of the wings, emitting a whirring sound from wings and tail feathers, and darting, now and again, with the swiftness of light after some insect that comes under his ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... monkeys and even of leopards darted among the trees. But the country—whether forest, mud-flat, or prairie—was always damp and feverish: a wet land steaming under a burning sun and humming with mosquitoes and all kinds of insect life. ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... spoke up a little boy with black hair, and eyes which would have been bright if the lids had not shut them out of sight,—"I know; Utah is inhabited by a religious INSECT called Mormons." ...
— Dotty Dimple at Play • Sophie May
... over a face, when the wind tosses great branches to and fro; but the Muse was not favourable. A few birds scattered here and there at wide intervals on either side of the valley sang the little broken songs of late autumn; and there was a great stir of insect life in the grass at my feet. The path up to this coign of vantage, where I think I shall make it a habit to ensconce myself a while of a morning, is for a little while common to the peasant and a little ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... found some little grazing, from a plant called ahgul. Starting at sunrise, they had another fatiguing day, over the same kind of desert, without seeing one living thing that did not belong to the kafila, not a bird, nor even an insect; the sand is beautifully fine, round, and red. It is difficult to give the most distant idea of the stillness and beauty of a night scene, on a desert of this description. The distance between the resting places is not sufficiently great, for the dread of want of water ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... full of the odour of musk, as from the unseen presence of some musk-breathing insect or animal. The shadows were deep and mysterious, the rays of light which pierced the foliage, already touched by the finger of autumn, seemed like shafts of moonlight shining through the storied windows of a cathedral. A ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... he pulled at the fabric, he was unable to tear it. So, still wearing the livery of the off-world men, Ross continued on his way, hardly caring where he went or how. The mud plastered on him by his frequent falls was some protection against the swarm of insect life his passing stirred into attack. However, he was able to endure a swollen face and slitted eyes, being far more conscious of the wrenching feeling within him than the ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... sprouting grass! In a blur the violets pass. Whispering from the wildwood come Mayflower's breath and insect's hum. Roses carpeting the ground; Thrushes, orioles, warbling sound: Swing me low, and swing me high, To the warm ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... close to him would notice the intruder, might even retreat before the menace of more mosquitoes, and the rapturous twilight opportunity for opening his confidence would pass forever. His instinct was all to protect her. But how? To slap at the insect with his cap or his hand was unthinkable. He found himself blushing at the very thought! Yet how to warn her without acknowledging that his attention had been concentrated on the lower graceful silhouette? ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... a night, how sweet, how sweet is life, Even to the insect piper with his fife! And must your troubled face still bear the blight Of strength that runs itself to waste in strife? For love's own heart should throb through all the light Of such ...
— Songs, Merry and Sad • John Charles McNeill
... scratch in his hand while performing a post-mortem examination. All that medical science could suggest was done to no avail. * * * * * In the summer of 1896 a young woman 22 years of age was bitten on the leg by an insect. Several physicians were called in but their treatment gave no relief; blood-poisoning set in; it was decided to amputate the leg, but before it could be done she died. * * * * * In July, 1896, a veterinary ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... kinds by the names of angurek warna and katong'ging; the first of which I apprehend to be the anggrek bunga putri (Angraecum scriptum, R.) and the other the anggrek kasturi (Angraecum moschatum, R.) or scorpion-flower, from its resembling that insect, as the former does the butterfly. The musky scent resides at the extremity of ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... dish for eight days. They were, in reality, not leaves, but insects, which, from their resembling leaves, are enabled to escape the attacks of other creatures; indeed, they were the well-known leaf-insect of ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... seemed! Sometimes a twig would snap, or a buzzing insect would pause, as if to look at her, but no one came ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... chin in both hands. The old circuit rider and his wife had gone to bed. A whippoorwill was crying with plaintive persistence far up a ravine, and the night was deep and still about her, save for the droning of insect life from the gloomy woods. Straight above her stars glowed thickly, and in a gap of the hills beyond the river, where the sun had gone down, the evening star still hung like a great jewel on the velvety violet curtain of the night, and upon that her eyes were fixed. On the spur above, her keen ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... of the affections of men do indeed live, we are told, in the insect world. So beautifully ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... fortified mission of Ste. Marie. Round it were some two thousand Hurons to whom Father Daniel ministered. Father Daniel was just closing the morning services on July the 4th, 1648. His tawny people were on their knees repeating the responses of the service, when from the forest, humming with insect and bird life, arose a sound that was neither wind nor running water—confused, increasing, nearing! Then a shriek broke within the fort palisades,—"The enemy! the Iroquois!" and the courtyard was in an uproar indescribable. Painted redskins, naked but ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... mineral, animal, vegetable kingdom—each helps him to realize, however faintly, her many manifold beauties: to give some idea, however slight, of that glorious flood of colour, which light lets loose upon the world. Metal, ore, earth, stone; root, plant, flower, fruit; beast, fish, insect—in turn aid the arduous task. The painter's box is a very museum of curiosities, from every part of the universe. For it, the mines yield their treasures, as well as the depths of the sea: to it come Arab camel, and English ox, cuttle-fish ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... full information on all branches of Nature study," broke in the bookagent, with a tired note sounding in his voice for the first time; "forestry, insect life, bird migration, reclamation of waste lands. As I was saying, no man who has to deal with the varied interests ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... a Dutch entomologist, born at Amsterdam, where he settled as a doctor, but turning with enthusiasm to the study of insect life, made important contributions to, and practically laid the foundations of, entomological ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... hall-mark of ownership. But a compromise was finally agreed upon, whereby we were to run the beeves through the chute and cut the brush from their tails. In a four or five year old animal this tally-mark would hold for a year, and in no wise work any hardship to the animal in warding off insect life. In case of any loss on the trail my employer agreed to pay one dollar a head for regathering any stragglers that returned within a year. The proposition was a fair one, the ranchmen yielded, and we ran ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... walking vanity bag: idle, shiftless, eager for compliments, and without two ideas in her vain little head. "Whoever is at the bottom of the affair, she isn't," was his mental comment. "She is just a gadfly, just a gaudy, useless insect, born without a sting, or the spirit to use one if she ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... as St. Ambrose calling Jesus "the good scarabaeus, who rolled up before him the hitherto un-shapen mud of our bodies;" a thought which seems to have been borrowed as much from the hieroglyphics as from the insect's habits; and perhaps from the Egyptian priests in some cases, using the scarabous to denote the god Horus-Ra, and sometimes the word only begotten. We trace this thought on the Gnostic gems where Ave see a winged griffin rolling before him a wheel, ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... repelling in Mr. Hanks. Indeed, he seemed rather a mild man, but when he turned on me a pair of large spectacles I felt suddenly as though I were a curious insect being examined under magnifying-glasses. Mr. Hanks, with his thin, pale face and dishevelled hair, appeared more an entomologist than a militant editor. In a moment, however, I saw him in action. He shot his bare arm across the littered desk, he seemed to try to destroy his brass bell, and ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... blameful, scolding myself, condoling with myself, vowing the whole problem a plague and a cheat. This idle wandering might have lasted until dawn, had it not been for my neighbour in the room to my left, who began to talk with a low buzz as of a night-insect humming in a bed-curtain. The surging of the voice amused me; I lay quite still and listened to it. Now it rose loud—I gleaned a word, and was pleased; now it fell—and I fretted; but anon another voice was added to the first, and, if the one had pleased me, the ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... and while he was marvelling at her imperturbability, he had heard her screaming with fright at the sight of an ear-wig. He had rushed to her help, imagining that she was in terrible danger, and had found her trembling and shuddering because this pitiful insect had crawled on to her dressing-gown.... He had been very frightened when he heard her screaming to him for help, and he suffered so strange a reaction when he discovered that her trouble was trivial ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... child of nature—one who knew more about his mother than any other child she had. Yet he was not a Calvinist. He did not get his inspiration from any book, but from every star in the heavens, from the insect in the sunbeam, from the flowers in the meadows, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll
... jessamine, Rear'd high their flourish'd heads between, and wrought Mosaic, under foot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay Broider'd the ground, more colour'd than with stone Of costliest emblem other creature here, Beast, bird, insect, or worm, durst enter none, Such was their awe of man. In shadier bower More sacred and sequester'd, though but feign'd, Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor nymph Nor Faunus haunted. Here, in close recess, With flowers, garlands, and sweet smelling herbs, Espoused ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... bursts of rage which no experience had succeeded in teaching him to curb. He howled till the dirt sticking about the vaulted ceiling, and the earth choking up the air-hole, dropped piecemeal to the ground, and every insect that had ears covered them up the best way it could to prevent its becoming instantaneously deafened by the horrid sound; then tearing round and round and round the confined space of his cell, till there seemed to him fifty windows instead of ...
— The Adventures of a Bear - And a Great Bear too • Alfred Elwes
... do all kinds of work. Indispensable, absolutely necessary. Perpetually, continually. Centiped, an insect with a great number of feet. Economize, to save. Dispatch, diligence, haste. Penstock, a wooden tube for conducting water. Chores, the light work of the household either within ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... nature with a sense of greater space and freedom. It suggests besides, that the universe is not rough-hewn, but perfect in its details. Nature will bear the closest inspection; she invites us to lay our eye level with the smallest leaf, and take an insect view of its plain. She has no interstices; every part is full of life. I explore, too, with pleasure, the sources of the myriad sounds which crowd the summer noon, and which seem the very grain and stuff of which eternity is made. Who does not remember the shrill roll-call of the harvest fly? ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... on the parchment refused to give way to further polishing, however, and remembering a bottle of ammonia I kept for insect bites, I mixed some with kaffir beer and poured it on the head of the tomtom. One touch of the handkerchief was sufficient once the strong alkali got to work, and out came the grand old face of Nelson and ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... to booklovers!—the same eye is occupied by all the grotesquerie of insect life in the revel over that unhappy tome lurking in the plum tree's crevice of Browning's Garden Fancy, which creeps and crawls with beetle and spider, worm and eft.[33] Or it is night and moonlight by the sandy shore, and for a moment—before love ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... resemblances above mentioned between ant and human societies, there are nevertheless three far-reaching differences between insect and human organization and development to ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... otherwise be possible. The wasp now walked entirely round the hole, pushing carefully back the loose sand which seemed likely to fall in again. This done, she was up and away. She was in search now of the insect near which to lay her egg, but although she came in sight of several, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. V, August, 1878, No 10. - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... V.50: All diligence of spirit.] "With the whole bent of my mind." A happy phraseology; in ridicule, at the same time that it was in conformity with the style of the airy, affected insect ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... you insist upon your bitter Osher smile, why shut your eyes to the palpable analogy suggested? Naturalists assert that the Solanum, or apple of Sodom, contains in its normal state neither dust nor ashes, unless it is punctured by an insect (the Tenthredo), which converts the whole of the inside into dust, leaving nothing but the rind entire, without any loss of color. Human life is as fair and tempting as the fruit of 'Ain Jidy,' till stung and poisoned by ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... pavement—it wants a jail and a poor-house more. The idea of a pavement in a one-horse town composed of two gin-mills, a blacksmith-shop, and that mustard-plaster of a newspaper, the Daily Hurrah! The crawling insect, Buckner, who edits the Hurrah, is braying about this business with his customary imbecility, and imagining that he ...
— Editorial Wild Oats • Mark Twain
... ear," said Benoni, still playing the same notes, so that the constant monotony of them buzzed like a vexatious insect in Nino's hearing. Still the old man sawed the bow over the same strings without change. On and on, the same everlasting chord, till Nino thought ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... struggle of a day when all this great, yet minute world lived, slept, woke and worked, subject to one Will—a Will mighty enough to control the universe, precise enough to make perfect and beautiful the down upon the wing of an insect invisible except under a powerful microscope? Why should she fret, or ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... each beauteous flower, Iris all hues, roses, and jessamin, Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought Mosaick; underfoot the violet, Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay Broidered the ground, more coloured than with stone Of costliest emblem: Other creature here, Bird, beast, insect, or worm, durst enter none, Such was their awe of Man. In shadier bower More sacred and sequestered, though but feigned, Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor Nymph Nor Faunus haunted. Here, in close recess, ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... a very dismal goal, according to your theory," grumbled the Old Maid. "I should hate to feel myself an insect in a hive, my little round of duties apportioned to me, my every action regulated by a fixed law, my place assigned to me, my very food and drink, I suppose, apportioned to me. Do think of ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... it, And I must hear that word again? 'Tis bitter; Importunate it comes upon me, like an insect That, driven once away, returns to buzz About my face.... The victory is in vain! The field is heaped with corpses; scattered wide, And broken, are the rest—a most flourishing Army, with which, if it were still united, And it were mine, mine truly, I'd engage To overrun all Italy! ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... out the season. She made special pets of the birds, locating nest after nest, and immediately projecting herself into the daily life of the occupants. "No one," she says, "ever taught me more than that the birds were useful, a gift of God for our protection from insect pests on fruit and crops; and a gift of Grace in their beauty and music, things to be rigidly protected. From this cue I evolved the idea myself that I must be extremely careful, for had not my father tied a 'kerchief over my mouth when he lifted me for a peep into ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... faintest sound startled me! A falling leaf; a blade of grass moved by an insect; a snake or a lizard gliding out of my path; the squeal of a monkey; the fluttering of a bird's wings as it flew up to its perch, all ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... plagues of locust, no animal or insect pests to destroy our crops or herbage. Rabbits had been introduced and turned loose at various times, but, instead of multiplying until they had become as numerous as the sand on the seashore, as had been the case in other parts of Australia, ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... the branches at the edge of the clearing others could be detected sitting with outstretched antenna ready to take flight at the least alarm. It was a glorious spot, and one which will always live in my memory as exhibiting the insect-life of the tropics in unexampled luxuriance. For the three following days I continued to visit this locality, adding each time many new species to my collection-the following notes of which may be interesting to entomologists. October 15th, 33 species of beetles; ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... said," he began at length, withdrawing his eyes reluctantly from an usually large insect upon the ceiling and addressing himself to the maiden, "that there are few situations in life that cannot be honourably settled, and without any loss of time, either by suicide, a bag of gold, or by thrusting a despised antagonist over ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... bars of gold and light vibrated over the tawny waters, and darkness fell like a black sword, cutting the day from the night. The voices of the birds from the tree-tops, here and there died down, and as if to enhance the silence, insect voices came from under the grass. I got on my elephant's back and sat there quietly, for as the evening Silence goes by, each man must make his prayer. As the Silence walked on, I could see the grass waving in zig-zag curves across the river. It was always ...
— Kari the Elephant • Dhan Gopal Mukerji
... I had got into mischief in the shape of an ant's nest, and gave me the first instalment of a lesson I learned in due time very thoroughly, that the beauties of Jamaica are to be enjoyed with a very cautious regard to the paramount rights of the insect creation. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... could it be? Scavengers? The web gives us a complete census on everything inside it. The only animals inside the ring are more wart-hogs and, despite their appearance, they aren't carnivorous. Strictly grass-eaters. Besides, no animal, no insect, no process of decay could completely consume animals without a trace. There are no bones, no ...
— The Planet with No Nightmare • Jim Harmon
... watery lane, and the roll of the oars in the rowlocks ceased, the silence became profound, almost oppressively so, marked and emphasised as it was by the lap and gurgle of the water against the boat's planking. Not a bird was here to be seen; not even an insect—except the mosquitoes, by the by, which soon began to swarm round us in numbers amply sufficient to atone for the absence of all other life. But the picture presented to our view by the long avenue of variegated foliage, looped and festooned in every direction with ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... gazing indolently at whatever or whoever happened along; instead of wretched cobble-stone pavements, I walked on a firm foundation of coral, built up from the bottom of the sea by the absurd but persevering insect of that name, with a light layer of lava and cinders overlying the coral, belched up out of fathomless perdition long ago through the seared and blackened crater that stands dead and harmless in the distance now; instead of cramped and crowded ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said Wendy, writing her essay on Insect Pests, "to have to find out whether your insect has a biting or a sucking mouth, so as to know whether you must spray the beastie direct, or apply poison to the plant. I'd feel rather like a dentist examining ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... all the tribes of animated beings, has a power been given to nullify this feeling. Beast, bird, and insect, attend to the wants of their offspring, accordingly as those wants require much or little assiduity. But woman, if she will, can drug and stupefy this feeling. She can commit the charge of her child to dependants ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... the Brahminical trinity, was born under it. This tree is extensively planted around the temples of the Hindus, and many religious devotees pass their lives under its shade for its sanctifying influence. It is useful for other purposes; for the lac-insect feeds upon its leaves, and the women get a kind of caoutchouc from its sap, which ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... in the Orient. While readily inoculated by artificial means, the chinquapins, especially varieties of the northern bush forms, quite often escape natural infection, doubtless because of their small size, smooth bark, and less liability to insect attacks. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... of vision which could not see at a glance that fly and insect were one and the same, is, as you say, enough to account for its being the writer's only sonnet (there is one more however which I ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... course, they must take SOME new course or die. There is nothing strange in the fact that similar beings puzzled similarly should take a similar line of action. I grant, however, that it is hard to see how change of food and treatment can puzzle an insect into such "complex growth" as that it should make a cavity in its thigh, grow an invaluable proboscis, and betray a practical knowledge of difficult ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... vines. A quail killed in a potato field in Pennsylvania and examined by a government entomologist had in its stomach the remains of one hundred twenty-six bugs. The quail is one of the most valuable insect-eating birds of its size in the world; and yet there are so-called sportsmen all over the land, thousands of them, who insist on having legal authority to kill every quail they can find during at least three months of each year. Then there is a whole army of game-hogs ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... when preparing vegetables for the table, the stalks and stems, and the peelings of apples, potatoes, etc., should all be used for stock, care being taken, of course, to cleanse them well first, cutting out any insect-eaten or ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... resented the vicious slap and flew straight for Sary's red head. She unceremoniously ducked and ran. But the insect buzzed after her with evil intent, so Sary ran for her sanctuary, slamming the screen door safely between herself and her pursuer. The audience watching beside the table laughed ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... American, flea means a small insect armed with a bayonet, who is wont to jab it into you and then hop, skip, and jump to the next place to be attacked. There is an advantage in having fleas on you instead of "cooties" in that in one of his extended jumps said flea is liable to land on the fellow next ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... seen a fly that had fallen into syrup crawling over the floor, dragging its sticky legs and wings along with the utmost difficulty. It was plain that the wretched insect must die, though it still struggled, and made frantic efforts to regain its feet. At the time he had turned away from it in disgust, and now he saw it again, as in a feverish dream. Then he suddenly thought of a fight that he had once witnessed between ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... express their sufferings. Once, indeed, Harry was caught twirling a cock-chafer round, which he had fastened by a crooked pin to a long piece of thread: but then this was through ignorance and want of thought; for, as soon as his father told him that the poor helpless insect felt as much, or more than he would do, were a knife thrust through his hand, he burst into tears, and took the poor animal home, where he fed him during a fortnight upon fresh leaves; and when he was perfectly ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... flitting, white-fire insect, Little, dancing, white-fire creature, Light me with your little candle, Ere upon my bed I lay me, Ere in ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... well out at sea between Mazzorbo and Murano. The ruddy arches overhead were reflected without interruption in the waveless ruddy lake below. Our black boat was the only dark spot in this sphere of splendour. We seemed to hang suspended; and such as this, I fancied, must be the feeling of an insect caught in the heart of a fiery-petalled rose. Yet not these melodramatic sunsets alone are beautiful. Even more exquisite, perhaps, are the lagoons, painted in monochrome of greys, with just one touch of pink upon a western cloud, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... rise again; Nikkolay nodded to someone out of sight. A cool hand touched his chin, and he smelled a woman's perfume, nothing at all like Elaine's. Something like a small insect bit him on the neck. The ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... singing its wings. Poor wee beastie! let me save it, if it be not too late." And she chased the insect most patiently until the blue-gray wings fluttered ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... a Time Margaret Benson To a Mouse Robert Burns The Grasshopper Abraham Cowley On the Grasshopper and Cricket John Keats To the Grasshopper and the Cricket Leigh Hunt The Cricket William Cowper To a Cricket William Cox Bennett To an Insect Oliver Wendell Holmes The Snail William Cowper The Housekeeper Charles Lamb The Humble-Bee Ralph Waldo Emerson To a Butterfly William Wordsworth Ode to a Butterfly Thomas Wentworth Higginson The Butterfly Alice Freeman Palmer Fireflies Edgar ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... kind!— which had been displayed in the workmanship, I rapidly arrived at the conclusion that it was the most uncomfortable carpet I had ever seen. I wagged my finger at the repeated portrayals of the— to me!—unspeakable insect. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... tay see, wau wau tay see, Flitting white fire insect, Waving white fire bug, Give me light before I go to bed, Give me light before I go to sleep! Come, little dancing white fire bug, Come, little flitting white fire beast, Light me with your bright white flame, Light me with your ...
— Two Indian Children of Long Ago • Frances Taylor
... invaded them! Mosquitoes—myriads of them—buzzed busily about, seeking whom they might devour! The mosquito of the Philippines is well entitled to be called an insect of prey. He is a big fellow, tireless, always hungry and a valiant fighter. The men who lay on the ground carefully wrapped themselves in their blankets, with their hands tucked in. Their heads and necks were protected by collapsible nets that they ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... to the Senate on the 10th of February last information touching the prohibition against the importation of fresh fruits from this country, which had then recently been decreed by Germany on the ground of danger of disseminating the San Jose scale insect. This precautionary measure was justified by Germany on the score of the drastic steps taken in several States of the Union against the spread of the pest, the elaborate reports of the Department of Agriculture being put in evidence to show the danger ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... her mouth to wail. Then she suddenly changed her mind, climbed down, and going over to Huz began whispering vigorously into his ear. Her warm breath tickled Huz and he flopped his ear to drive away the annoying insect. Jilly beamed, calling joyfully to her mother: "Huz say ess, Mamma, ...
— Chicken Little Jane on the Big John • Lily Munsell Ritchie
... contrasted with broad masses of rich grey-brown shadow—they agreed that it was incomparably more beautiful when viewed by the full light of day and in all the glory of brilliant sunshine. A thousand gorgeous colours on leaf and blossom, on gaily-plumaged bird and bright-winged insect, charmed their eyes and enriched the foreground of the picture; while the dense masses of foliage, with their subtle gradations of colour, light, and shade, as they gradually receded into the background, and finally melted into the rich purply grey of the extreme distance, balanced ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... very top layer of fluffy, crumbly, moist soil mixed with leaf material and humus, are the animals that begin the process of humification. Many of these primary decomposers are larger, insect-like animals commonly known to gardeners, including the wood lice that we call pill bugs because they roll up defensively into hard armadillo-like shells, and the highly intrusive earwigs my daughter calls pinch bugs. There are also numerous types ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... that future study may tell man enough about insects to enable him to eradicate them. This, however, is more than can be reasonably expected, for the more we cultivate the earth the better we make conditions for these enemies. The insect thrives on the work of man. And having made conditions ideal for the insect, with great expanses of cultivated food fitted to his needs, it is an optimist who can believe that at the same time we can make other conditions which will be so unfavorable as to cause him to disappear ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... sun, the god of their worship, a core of seeds and fringe of petals representing their best effort to mimic the flaming disc and far-flung corona of the sun. Man seeks less ardently, and so more ineffectively in his will and imagination to image God. In the reverent study of insect and animal life we gain some hint of what we have been and what we may become—something corresponding to the grub, a burrowing thing; to the caterpillar, a crawling thing; and finally to the butterfly, a ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... the old man, with the air of an officious waiter, lifted it with a flourish, disclosing, inside the cracked font, a white pudding-basin, inside which, again, reposed a species of beetle known as a "devil's coach-horse." The Archdeacon, peering in and evidently recognizing the insect and its popular designation, and looking much shocked, exclaimed with some warmth: "Dear me! I should scarcely have expected to find ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... still——" he said. "I don't recommend the Amazon, a huge river of course, but unless you are interested in rubber or entomology. The insect ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... with only half-interest at the gorgeous insect; then, turning away a little impatiently, "I don't know how you can be out here so much and not try to make it a little tidier," she said vexedly. "I only wish I had a machine, or shears or something, and more time, and I would do ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... place. But Brentano loves the Rhine, and Eichendorff's landscape is genuinely Silesian. Caroline and Dorothea know nothing of the mood which makes Bettina throw herself prone in the grass to watch an insect crawl over her hand. ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... Assyrians, Virgil is the most ancient writer, who expressly mentions the soft wool which was combed from the trees of the Seres or Chinese; [62] and this natural error, less marvellous than the truth, was slowly corrected by the knowledge of a valuable insect, the first artificer of the luxury of nations. That rare and elegant luxury was censured, in the reign of Tiberius, by the gravest of the Romans; and Pliny, in affected though forcible language, has condemned the thirst of gain, which explores the last ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... of honour and happiness will come, said the doctor, 'days when you will think no more of Miss Pew than of an insect which once stung you.' ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... go on and leave him; so we stopped to rest, and watch him as he was hopping and bounding along through a tolerably open sunlit part, full of growth of the most dazzling green. Now he neared the insect; now it dashed off again, and led him a tremendous chase, till, just as the doctor shouted to him to return, we saw him make a dab down with ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... soldiers on each side of the engine wind the arm down until it is almost level with the ground. When the arm is set free, it springs up and hurls the stone forth from its sling." In early times the weapon was called a "scorpion," for like this dreaded insect it bore ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... upon him night and day like that insect which, having once entered the brain of an elk, gnaws ceaselessly at it until the miserable victim's last breath is drawn. While he retained for Pepeeta a devotion which tormented him with its intensity, his guilt made him tremble in her presence. ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... obtained the grace of Mahadeva can never succeed to devote oneself to Mahadeva for a single day or for half a day or for a Muhurta or for a Kshana or for a Lava (very small unit of time). At the command of Mahadeva I shall cheerfully become a worm or an insect, but I have no relish for even the sovereignty of the three worlds, if bestowed by thee, O Sakra. At the word of Hara I would become even a dog. In fact, that would accord with my highest wish. If not given by Maheswara, I would not have the sovereignty of the very deities. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Should a Boeotian attach it to an insect's wing, and, taking advantage of a violent north wind, throw it by means of a tube into the arsenal and the fire once get hold of the vessels, everything would soon be devoured by ...
— The Acharnians • Aristophanes
... for the first time—could deliver a wound twice as deep and deadly as the ordinary wasp. She was, in short, a queen-wasp; a queen of the future, if Fate willed; a queen as yet without a kingdom, a sovereign uncrowned, but of regal proportions and queenly aspect, for all that; for in the insect world royalties are fashioned upon a super-standard that marks them off from the ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... warm summer day had the ephemeron insect frolicked round the oak tree's head—lived, moved about, and found itself happy; and when the little creature reposed for a moment in calm enjoyment on one of the great fresh oak leaves, the tree ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen
... to the living Banded Ant-eater (Myrmecobius) of Australia (fig. 158). Amphilestes and Phascolotherium (fig. 184) are also believed by the same distinguished anatomist and palaeontologist to have been insect-eating Marsupials, and the latter is supposed to find its nearest living ally in the Opossums (Didelphys) of America. Lastly, the Stereognathus of the Stonesfield Slate is in a dubious position. It may have been a Marsupial; but, upon the whole, Professor ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... did; but if he is restrained from bad actions by no higher motive than fear of present punishment, his goodness cannot be very great. A good man, Charles, always takes delight in conferring happiness on all around him; nor would he offer the smallest injury to the meanest insect that was capable of feeling. 'I am sure,' said the boy, 'I have often seen you kill wasps, and spiders too; and it was but last week that you bought a mouse-trap yourself to catch mice in, although you are so angry now with me.' 'And pray,' resumed ...
— The Life and Perambulations of a Mouse • Dorothy Kilner
... Sea-Urchin or a Star-Fish. Neither can I present the structural elements of the Mollusk plan, without reminding them of an Oyster or a Clam, a Snail or a Cuttle-Fish,—or of the Articulate plan, without calling up at once the form of a Worm, a Lobster, or an Insect,—or of the Vertebrate plan, without giving it the special character of Fish, Reptile, Bird, or Mammal. Yet I insist that all living beings are but the different modes of expressing these formulae, and that all animals have, within ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... conditions in the low-lying Nyassaland and Uganda borders in the summertime caused the British soldiers more suffering and deaths than their enemies. Insect pests like the tsetse fly swarm around Lake Victoria Nyanza, while different fevers of peculiarly malignant varieties lie in wait to attack the European. There is the terrible sleeping sickness that spares neither white nor black race. The great lake cannot be bathed in without danger for its abounds ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... the insect race, ordained to keep The silent sabbath of a half year's sleep! Entom'd beneath the filmy web they lie And wait the influence of a kinder sky; When vernal sunbeams pierce the dark retreat, The heaving tomb distends with vital heat; The full ...
— The History of Insects • Unknown |
