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Plumage   Listen
noun
Plumage  n.  (Zool.) The entire clothing of a bird. Note: It consist of the contour feathers, or the ordinary feathers covering the head, neck, and body; the tail feathers, with their upper and lower coverts; the wing feathers, including primaries, secondaries, and tertiaries, with their coverts; and the down which lies beneath the contour feathers.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Plumage" Quotes from Famous Books



... illustrates very strikingly the subject of protective coloration of animals. Two companion cases are shown, each occupied by specimens of the same species of birds and animals—in one case in their summer plumage and pelage and in the other clad in the garb of winter. The surroundings in the case have, of course, been carefully prepared to represent the true environments of the creatures at the appropriate seasons. The particular birds and animals exhibited are the willow-grouse, the weasel, and a ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams

... other they watched the starry flocks hurtling about them. The birds wheeled around, fled away, and again returned. There were winged serpents; might which would put to flight the degenerate eagle; plumage before which the birds of paradise would show dull as clay. These wings dipt in the dawn flashed ceaselessly. Ah, what plumage of white fire rayed out with pinions of opalescent glory! What feathered sprays of burning amethyst! What crests of scarlet and gold, of citron and wavy ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... ornithologist to pass up the river. A hundred times a day flocks of small paroquets fly screaming over our heads and settle behind the trees. Large, green, blue, and scarlet parrots, the araras, fly in pairs, uttering penetrating, harsh cries, and sometimes an egret with her precious snow-white plumage would keep just ahead of us with graceful wing-motion, until she chose a spot to alight among the low bushes ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange

... bird was almost as Herodotus described her, of the make and size of the eagle, with a plumage partly red and partly golden. If we go by the point by noon, perhaps you may ...
— Tales of Fantasy and Fact • Brander Matthews

... love,— And seeming to make sacred all the lake. Didst thou not marvel at its queenly flight, And feel a reverence in thine inmost soul? What tempted thee to shoot the fatal shaft, And slay the bird and grieve the loving King?... See where the deadly arrow smote its breast! Behold the snowy plumage splashed with blood! The spreading pinions drooping helpless now, And in its eye the agony of death! Slain by thy cruel heart that knows no shame! Dost thou not see how ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel

... face of the woman who had saturated her handkerchief with it, a scent which went with her perfectly and made her unhappily definite; suited to her clumsily dyed hair, to her soiled white shoes, to the hot red hat smothered in plumage, to the restless stub-fingered hands, to the fat, plated rings, of which she wore a great quantity, though, surprisingly enough, the large diamonds in her ears were pure, and of a very ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington

... Xochiquetzal, "plumage of flowers," was the deity of the artists, the painters, weavers, engravers on metal, silver and goldsmiths, and of all who dealt in fine colors. Her figure was that of a young woman with gay garments and jewelry (Duran, ...
— Rig Veda Americanus - Sacred Songs Of The Ancient Mexicans, With A Gloss In Nahuatl • Various

... leave them and hurry away, that they may not hear their cry. They know they shall meet them again later on, when they are grown big. Then as Mayrah softly blows, the flowers one by one open, and the bees come out again to gather honey. Every bird wears his gayest plumage and sings his sweetest song to attract a mate, and in pairs they go to build their nests. And still Mayrah softly blows until the land is one of plenty; then Yhi the sun chases her back whence she came, and the flowers droop and the birds sing only in the early morning. ...
— Australian Legendary Tales - Folklore of the Noongahburrahs as told to the Piccaninnies • K. Langloh Parker

... torn up, and the vegetation trodden down. Following this trail, they struck back into the woods, where in places the gloom cast by the thick foliage was so dense that there was a mere twilight, startling as they went numbers of birds of grey and sombre plumage, whose necks and heads, and the sounds they uttered, were so reptilian that the three terrestrials believed they must also possess poison fangs. "The most highly developed things we have seen here," ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... now dawned on the earth one of those still, golden times of November, full of dreamy rest and tender calm. The skies above were blue and fair, and the waters of the curving bay were a downward sky—a magical under-world, wherein the crimson oaks, and the dusk plumage of the pine, and the red holly-berries, and yellow sassafras leaves, all flickered and glinted in wavering bands of color as soft winds swayed ...
— Betty's Bright Idea; Deacon Pitkin's Farm; and The First Christmas - of New England • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... everybody knew—had come so low, despite his gentle birth, as to have been one of a company of strolling players. Had Mr. Wilding been other than she now learnt he was, he would surely not cherish an attachment for a person so utterly unworthy. Clearly, they were birds of a plumage. ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini

... conceptions. "To this end the builders employed carving and sculpture, together with all manner of costly stuffs of silk and velvet, gorgeous fringes and tassels of silver and gold, flowers, fruits, shrubs, mirrors, furs, and plumage of rare birds.... Young patricians, in fleet and narrow craft, propelled by swift rowers, preceded the champions and cleared the way for them, obliging the spectators to withdraw on either side.... They knelt on sumptuous cushions in the prows ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... lean nearer While I lie and long? I see their soft plumage And catch their windy song, Like the rise of a high tide Sweeping full and strong; I mark the ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti

... well set your mind at ease. You wouldn't, in this instance, have had to spend any of your own money; and at your marriage by and bye, I would still have borne in mind the exceptional regard you had shown the Chao family. But now that you've got your full plumage, you've forgotten your extraction, and chosen a lofty branch ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... doubtless, for a forlorn orphan; but happening one day to see a small negro girl peacocking round in a flaming scarlet petticoat, she struck for bright colors in her own apparel, and carried her point at last. It was as if a ground-sparrow had changed her gray feathers for the burning plumage of some tropical wanderer; and it was natural enough that Cyprian Eveleth should have called her the fire-hang-bird, and her little chamber the fire-hang-bird's nest,—using the country boy's ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... capable of containing a large army of pigeons, but the regard which the Lady de Tilly had for the corn-fields of her censitaires caused her to thin out its population to such a degree that there remained only a few favorite birds of rare breed and plumage to strut and coo upon the roofs, and rival the peacocks on the terrace ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... not have the sweet voice which the fox in his flattery attributed to him, but he has a good, strong, native speech, nevertheless. How much character there is in it! How much thrift and independence! Of course his plumage is firm, his color decided, his wit quick. He understands you at once and tells you so; so does the hawk by his scornful, defiant whir-r-r-r-r. Hardy, happy outlaws, the crows, how I love them! Alert, social, republican, ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... interrupted stretch of it in the Comus: in this poem there may be something, which might have been corrected by the revising judgment of its author; but its errors in thought and language, are so few and trivial that they must be regarded as the inequality of the plumage, and not the depression or unsteadiness of the wing. The most splendid results of Shakspeare's poetry are still separated by some interposing defect; but the poetry of Comus may be contemplated as a series of gems strung on golden wire, where the sparkle ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various

... were alive, and had eyes. They seldom roused up, unless I brought them fish, of which they had a supply four times a day, and then they would stand on their legs and open their beaks far apart, each waiting for its share. They were a great happiness to me, and I watched their gradual increase of plumage and of size, which was very rapid. I gave them all names out of my Natural History book. One was Lion, then Tiger, Panther, Bear, Horse, and Jackass (at the time that I named them, the last would have been very appropriate to them all); ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat

... beautiful, her features were striking and regular, though they could not be called pre-eminently beautiful, whilst her complexion was fair and elegantly transparent. Her hair, which was as dark in color as the plumage of the raven, as it clustered in short, rich, silken curls over her small white neck, gave conclusive evidence, when combined to a pair of large, languishing black eyes, that she was not born beneath the ruddy influence of England's cold and vacillating climate. And such ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker

... organized beings—the many lines of divergence from a central type, the increasing efficiency and power of a particular organ through a succession of allied species, and the remarkable persistence of unimportant parts, such as colour, texture of plumage and hair, form of horns or crests, through a series of species differing considerably in more essential characters. It also furnishes us with a reason for that "more specialized structure" which Professor Owen states to be a characteristic of recent compared with extinct forms, ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace

... their eggs in about ten days, and in a week the little ones are able to fly, though the old birds continue to supply them with honey for some time longer. The Mexican Indians give the name of Sunbeam to the humming-bird, either in reference to its bright plumage ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill

... forest. Glad of the spring, and of love, and of morning, the wild birds were singing: Jays to each other called harshly, then mellowly fluted together; Sang the oriole songs as golden and gay as his plumage; Pensively piped the querulous quails their greetings unfrequent, While, on the meadow elm, the meadow lark gushed forth in music, Rapt, exultant, and shaken with the great joy of his singing; Over the river, loud-chattering, aloft in the air, the kingfisher ...
— Poems • William D. Howells

... delighted with the Mexican birds. Their plumage is superlatively splendid. They beat ours in show, but to my mind do not equal them in harmony. I have written this letter with my sword fastened to my side, my pistols within reach, not knowing but that the next moment I may ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden

... the shape of a bird fits it for moving rapidly in the air, and all parts of its body are arranged so as to give it lightness along with strength. The soft and delicate plumage of birds protects them from cold or moisture; their wings, though so delicate, are furnished with muscles of such power as to strike the air with great force, whilst their tails act like the rudder of a ship, so that they can direct ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various

... curtains for a dream.— What comes? A mighty swan, With plumage like a sunny gleam, And folded airy van! She comes, from sea-plains dreaming, sent By sea-maids to my shore, With stately head proud-humbly bent, And slackening ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... see it brush the dew From bough and budding spray. And deemed its snow-white plumage grew More beauteous, day ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... argue. At first it is seen far off, like a beautiful bird of rare plumage, among flowers, on a morning in spring; it comes nearer, it is timid, it advances, it recedes, it poises on swiftly beating wings, it soars out of sight, but suddenly it is nearer than before; it changes shapes, and grows vast and terrible, till its flight is like the rushing ...
— Marietta - A Maid of Venice • F. Marion Crawford

... Doves of the Spirit," said Christ, "and to you I will commit that which ye have seen. Henceforth shall your plumage be white and your voices ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith

... from the house-tops to the streets, or hovered about the plaza and bosky alamedas of poplar, pepper and eucalyptus trees in search of stray grains of corn. Humming-birds and butterflies flashed their wings and gorgeous plumage in the sunshine as they darted in and out among the foliage in the patios and gardens at the rear of the houses, luxuriant with fruit and flowers as was attested by the orange and lemon, pomegranate and fig trees, heavy with ripening fruit and the delicately ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... to sit upon my finger, and eat his sugar and water out of a teaspoon with most Christian-like decorum. He has but one weakness,—he will occasionally jump into the spoon and sit in his sugar and water, and then appear to wonder where it goes to. His plumage is in rather a drabbled state, owing to these performances. I have sketched him as he sat to-day on a bit of Spiraea which I brought in for him. When absorbed in reflection, he sits with his bill straight up in the air, as I have drawn him. Mr. A—— reads Macaulay to us, and you should see the ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various

... find are a lot of impossible legends about a sandy-haired scrub of an infantry lieutenant. How he is invulnerable—how he can jump over elephants—how he can fly. That's the toughest nut. One old gentleman described your wings, said they had black plumage and were not quite as long as a mule. Said he often saw you by moonlight hovering over the crests out towards ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... curious fact that, while the plumage of the parrots' breasts is always gaudy and brilliant in the extreme, that of their backs is usually the colour of the general tone of the region they inhabit. In woods, where the bark of trees is chiefly bright yellow and green, their backs are of these colours. In the ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... Crump did not fail to tell Lumley Limpiter of her own former triumphs, and to sing him "Tink-a-tink," which we have previously heard, and to state how in former days she had been called the Ravenswing. And Lumley, on this hint, made a poem, in which he compared Morgiana's hair to the plumage of the Raven's wing, and Larkinissa's to that of the canary; by which two names the ladies began soon to be known in ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray

... The rain the night before had given fresh tints to the green of grass and foliage. The whole earth, indifferent to the puny millions that struggled on its vast bosom, seemed refreshed and revitalized. A modest little bird in brown plumage perched on a bough near them, and, indifferent too, to war, poured forth a brilliant ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... object. We made a landing on a small island, and since our bags were as thoroughly soaked as we were ourselves, we had to disrobe and spread our entire toilet in the sun to dry as well as possible. At some distance a flock of pelicans were taking their rest on a sandbank and sunning their white plumage as if in derision of our plight. Suddenly we saw that our raft had got loose and was floating off. One of the agas immediately jumped after it and fortunately reached it. If he had failed we should have been left on a desert island in nothing but ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... the bridle the pony or jaco which was destined to carry me in my expedition. It was a beautiful little animal, apparently strong and full of life, without one single white hair in its whole body, which was black as the plumage ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... the membranes which unite the anterior phalanges of the claws. It is the first example of a nocturnal bird among the Passeres dentirostrati. Its habits present analogies both with those of the goatsuckers and of the alpine crow.* (* Corvus Pyrrhocorax.) The plumage of the guacharo is of a dark bluish grey, mixed with small streaks and specks of black. Large white spots of the form of a heart, and bordered with black, mark the head, wings, and tail. The eyes of the bird, which are dazzled by the light ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... elegance. On tables of unique pattern are scattered the most costly gems of art and vertu—choice paintings adorn the walls—flowers, rare and beautiful, lift their heads proudly above the works of art which surround them, and in splendid Chinese cages, birds of gorgeous plumage have learned to caress the rosy lips of their young mistress, or perch triumphantly on her snowy finger. Here are books, too, and music—a harp—a piano—while through a half open door leading from a little recess over which ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... risen, plumage puffed out, strutting with wings bowed and tail spread, facing the dog. The sudden pigmy defiance thrilled her. "Brave! Brave!" she exclaimed, enraptured; but at the sound of her voice the bird crouched like ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers

... fruit and caught it ere it reached the water; while ungainly toucans plumped clumsily down upon the branches, and sat, in striking contrast, beside the lovely pompadours, with their claret-coloured plumage and delicate white wings. ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne

... king-fisher saw his plumage bright Vieing with fish of brilliant dye below; Whose silken fins, and golden scales' light Cast upward, through the waves, a ruby glow: There saw the swan his neck of arched snow, And oar'd himself along with majesty; Sparkled his jetty eyes; his feet did show Beneath ...
— Poems 1817 • John Keats

... a deep wicker chair and breathed in the glory and the freshness of the scene. Across the broad river, right ahead of the boat, a flock of parroquets was flying, screeching their raucous chorus. The sun caught their brilliant plumage, and she saw, as it seemed, ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace

... life abounds in the pack, and the birds that came to visit the ship were a source of perpetual interest. The pleasantest and most constant of these visitors was the small snow petrel, with its dainty snow-white plumage relieved only by black beak and feet, and black, beady eye. These little birds abound in the pack-ice, but the blue-grey southern fulmar and the Antarctic petrel were also to be seen, and that unwholesome scavenger, the ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley

... the middle of October, Pocahontas stood in the back yard surrounded by a large flock of turkeys. They were handsome birds of all shades, from lightish red to deep glossy black; the sunlight on their plumage made flashes of iridescent color, green, purple, and blue, and that royal shade which seems to combine and reflect the glory of all three. Their heads were bent picking up the corn their mistress threw from the little ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... the streets are white with the unburied bones of those who have looked upon the eidolon Lathi, that reigns over the city." So the White Ship sailed on past the walls of Thalarion, and followed for many days a southward-flying bird, whose glossy plumage matched the sky out of which ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft

... Prussia; his food the mollusks which swarm among the reed-beds where he builds; and feeding on those from reed-bed to reed bed, all across what was once the German Ocean, has come the beautiful little bird with long tail, orange tawny plumage, and black moustache, which might have been seen forty years ago in hundreds on ever ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... rare forms flaunt their gorgeous colors and perfume the air with strange delicious odors; great trees with tufts of far-reaching leaves cast their welcome shade, and long vines trail gracefully from their living supports. Wonderful birds with brilliant plumage flit about, as through the openings in the trees glimpses are given of long waves rolling gently upon the glistening beach. It is only necessary to give free rein to the imagination and to visualize the scenes that the skilful ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester

... that Deborah thoroughly disapproved. All right, that was her way, he thought. But this was Laura's way, shedding the gloom and the tragic side as a duck will shed water off its back, a duck with bright new plumage fresh from the shops of the Rue de la Paix and taking some pleasure out of life! What an ardent gleaming beauty she was, he thought as he watched this daughter of his. And underneath his enjoyment, too, though Roger would not have admitted it, was a sense of relief ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole

... of this century men played the beau rôle in life’s comedy. As in the rest of the animal world, our males were the brilliant members of the community, flaunting their gaudy plumage at home and abroad, while the women-folk remained in seclusion, tending their children, directing the servants, or ministering to ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory

... All eyes were directed to the shore, and a large bird was seen to drop upon the ground. The captain started the boat, and ran her up to the bank. Clinch leaped ashore, and soon brought the bird on board. Its plumage was highly colored and ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic

... after in the train, Frank slipped easily into asking him to come and see him; and in the easy atmosphere of the studio the acquaintanceship soon ripened into intimacy, and after a preliminary ruffling of plumage, Sally restored her old sweetheart to all the rights of wrong. Life went well amid incessant secrets, letter-writing, and tea parties. Grace came to the studio to lunch sometimes, and she had been betrayed into a promise not to say a word about Meason. ...
— Spring Days • George Moore

... upon the arms of his chair, derricked himself up, and went over to the mirror. He peered at himself and seemed to rearrange his countenance, much as a woman would smooth the ruffled plumage of her hat. ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day

... persuaded herself that her strong inclination to sit down was owing to want of exercise, and the heaviness of her eyelids a freak of imagination; so, speedily smoothing her ruffled plumage, she ran down to tell her father ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... pond-lilies; we behold brilliant flowers growing in tall trees, and others, very sweet and lowly, blooming beneath our feet. Vivid colors flash before our eyes, caused by the blue, yellow, and scarlet plumage of the feathered tribe. Parrots and paroquets are seen in hundreds. Storks, ibises, and herons fly lazily over the lagoons, and the gorgeous peacock is seen in his wild condition. The elephant is also a native ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... two or more fat opossums, which, when roasted, made a rich and savoury meal. Parrots of the most brilliant plumage, like winged flowers, flew in flocks from tree to tree, so tame that you could kill them with a stick, and so beautiful that it seemed a sin to destroy them. Black cockatoos, screaming harshly the while, tore long strips of bark from the messmate, ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless? Insects can sting, and even the meekest of beasts will fight when brought to bay. The birds whose plumage is sought to deck some bonnet can fly from its pursuer, the furred animal whose coat you covet for your own may hide at your approach. Alas! The only flower known to have wings is the butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer. If they shriek in ...
— The Book of Tea • Kakuzo Okakura

... ventured over to us. With the seine we had very little success, catching only a few mullets, neither did we get any thing by the trawl or the dredge, except a few shells; but we shot several birds, most of them resembling sea-pies, except that they had black plumage, and red bills and feet. While we were absent with our guns, the people who staid by the boats saw two of the Indians quarrel and fight: They began the battle with their lances, but some old men interposed and took them ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr

... time to notice such things, but somehow they impressed themselves upon my mind, and I could not help letting my eyes rest upon a pair of the most magnificent trogons I had ever seen. They were in the full beauty of their gorgeous golden-green plumage, which contrasted strongly with their brilliant scarlet breasts. Where they were perched there was an opening among the trees and the full blaze of the sun came down upon their backs, crests, and yard-long tail-feathers ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... to her new home a collection of rare birds in such numbers that the room over the kitchen was devoted to the cages of cockatoos, parakeets, parrots and nonpareils. Here these feathered friends in spectrum-hued plumage lived among the potted plants and charmed the little bride with their beauty and sweet tricks. Other appendages included a chimpanzee, and a small Chinese slave boy, bought by her father from one of the innumerable sampans in the harbor of Canton. "Chinese Tom" was reared and educated by Melissa ...
— Seaport in Virginia - George Washington's Alexandria • Gay Montague Moore

... clouds were explained variously as Phaiakian ships with bird-like beaks sailing over this lake, or as bright birds of divers shapes and hues. The light fleecy cirrhi were regarded as mermaids, or as swans, or as maidens with swan's plumage. In Sanskrit they are called Apsaras, or "those who move in the water," and the Elves and Maras of Teutonic mythology have the same significance. Urvasi appears in one legend as a bird; and a South German prescription for getting rid of the Mara asserts that ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske

... was a smouldering in the nest; a heap of embers enveloped in smoke lay before the Tufters; in a moment the smoke parted and out of the embers soared with crimson and golden plumage the new Phoenix! ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder

... silks and tissues of tender and. harmonious colors, and decorated with birds' plumage of varied hues, arrested the eye. These spacious alcoves were each furnished with a domed skylight, adorned with hanging tassels and glittering ornaments. Ladies were busy in nearly all of these compartments in instructing children under ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn

... over her forehead, her eyes roved past him, searching the littered room for the twentieth time in the hour, looking, seeking—and suddenly they fell on something—a crushed and rumpled hat of her own, a milliner's masterpiece, laden with florid plumage, lying almost behind him on a couch end where some prying detective had dropped it, with a big, round black button shining dully from the midst of its damaged tulle crown. She knew that button well. It was the imitation-jet head of a hatpin—a steel hatpin—that was ten inches ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... I hear in accents low, The sportive kind reply: Poor moralist! and what art thou? A solitary fly! Thy joys no glittering female meets, No hive hast thou of hoarded sweets, No painted plumage to display: On hasty wings thy youth is flown; Thy sun is set, thy spring is gone— We ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... who at the end of heaven sits, a Joetun in an eagle's plumage: from his wings comes, it is said, the wind, ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... colored, Glistening in the silver sunshine, Glimmering in the golden moonlight, Many-colored as the rainbow, Fitting ornaments for heroes, Jewels for the maids of beauty. This the origin of sea-pearls And the blue-duck's beauteous plumage. ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... and laughed and chatted so gayly, and pulled his whiskers so saucily, and then, springing up, began arraying herself in such an astonishing daintiness of device, and fluttering before him with such a variety of well-assorted plumage, that John was quite taken off his feet. He did not care so much whether what she willed to do were, "Wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best," as feel that what she wished to do must be done at ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... whose pine-trees the distant air began to tinge with blue. On the curving bluffs on either side the trees stood in stately crowds; hardly a leaf had fallen, except from the golden walnut-trees; the colour of the foliage was for the most part like the plumage of some green southern bird, iridescence of gold and red shot through. To her right, where a part of the long hill had been cleared of trees, the sun shone upon bare gullies in the soap-stone cliffs, making the colour of that particular brown bit of earth very vivid. Everywhere ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... at thy word, the distant troops rejoice, From every quarter scour the fields of air, And to the general rendezvous repair; Each from the mingled rout disporting turns, And with the love of kindred plumage burns. Thy potent will instinctive bosoms feel, And here arranging semilunar, wheel; Or marshalled here the painted rhomb display Or point the wedge that cleaves th' aerial way: Uplifted on thy wafting breath they rise; Thou pav'st ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... showers of rain, put us out of danger. While we lay, as it were, becalmed, several of the islanders came off with hogs, fowls, fruit, and roots. Out of one canoe we got a goose, which was about the size of a Muscovy duck. Its plumage was dark-grey, and the bill and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... structure is common to the coral and the plumage of birds, and to how large a part of animate and inanimate nature. The same independence of law on matter is observable in many other instances, as in the natural rhymes, when some animal form, color, or odor, has its counterpart in some vegetable. ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau

... American goldfinch, chewink or ground robin, pewee or phoebe bird, chickadee, fly catcher, knat catcher, mouse hawk, whippoorwill, snow bird, titmouse, gull, eagle, buzzard, or any wild bird other than a game bird. No part of the plumage, skin or body of such bird shall be sold or had ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... funeral, society went home to rest and gossip and exchange its sombre clothing for its most brilliant plumage. Nearly two years before, society had taken Cotton Mather Thayer to its bosom. Now it was making ready to burn much incense in his honor, and its first step in the process was to make his opening night of opera one of the most brilliant events of the winter. With this laudable end ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... with its blue and green and gold, its wood and water, its misty-blushing snows, its spaciousness and its atmosphere. In the sky a million fluffy little cloudlets floated like a flock of fantastic birds, with mother-of-pearl tinted plumage. The shadows were lengthening now. The sunshine glanced from the smooth surface of the lake as from burnished metal, and falling on the coloured sails of the fishing-boats, made them gleam like sails of crimson silk. But I wonder how much of ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland

... was an aviary, with tropical plants and splashing fountains—and birds of many gorgeous hues; I gazed from one to another of the splendid creatures, wondering how many of them were paying for their plumage in the same way as my present companion. It would have taken a more practiced eye than mine to say which, for if I had been asked, I would have taken Claire for a diplomat's wife. She had not less than a thousand dollars' worth of raiment ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... were not really birds, but the leaves of the burdock tree, which shone with the colors of a peacock's tail. The lion and the tiger, gentle and tame, were springing about like playful cats among the green bushes, whose perfume was like the fragrant blossom of the olive. The plumage of the wood-pigeon glistened like pearls as it struck the lion's mane with its wings; while the antelope, usually so shy, stood near, nodding its head as if it wished to join in the frolic. The fairy of paradise next made her ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... of every age and colour in the gardens of Flora," said she, catching the ball on the rebound. "There are presumptuous ones, whom the first breath of the zephyr despoils of their plumage and discolours; others, more reserved and less frivolous, keep their glamour and prestige for a much longer time. For the rest, the latter seem to me to rejoice without being vain in their advantages. And at bottom, what should any insect gain by ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan

... the ducks, and as I held them all three by their orange legs, and looked down at their beautifully-coloured plumage, all soft browns and chestnuts, and with wing-spots of lovely green, and having a head of the same colour, my conscience smote me, and I found myself wondering what the ducks thought that beautiful morning when they were having their baths and preening themselves ready for a long flight or a good ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn

... morasses harbour thousands of alligators, whose roar had a singular effect as it rose above the breeze. Flocks of aquatic birds were to be seen on every side, the most numerous being the pelican, and a bird of the cotinga species, about the size of an English throstle, the plumage of which, being jet black and flamingo red, had a beautiful effect in the sunshine, as they flew or settled in ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell

... and invention enough legitimately belonging to them for any nation to be justly proud of, without plucking peacock's feathers from others, and sending them throughout the length and breadth of the Republic as the plumage of the American eagle. How many useful inventions have they not made in machinery for working wood? Is not England daily importing some new improvement therein from the American shores? Look again at their perfect and beautiful invention for ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... present of some stuffed humming-birds, perched on varnished twigs under a glass case. I always looked at them while I was reading in the nursery; they stood on the bookshelves which were my special property. These birds with their lovely, shining, gay-coloured plumage, conveyed to me my first impression of foreign or tropical vividness of colouring. All that I was destined to love for a long time had something of that about it, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... blind and so black, Who carried the Emmet, his friend, on his back; And there came the Gnat and the Dragon-fly too, With all their relations, green, orange, and blue. And there came the Moth, with her plumage of down, And the Hornet with jacket of yellow and brown; And with him the Wasp, his companion, did bring; But they promised that evening to lay by their sting. Then the sly little Dormouse peeped out of his hole, And led to the ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown

... of the poultry, and with never a sound but the sudden crowing of some rooster to break upon their babble and their laughter. The feathers amidst which they found themselves were of all sorts—turkey's feathers, long and black; goose quills, white and flexible; the downy plumage of ducks, soft like cotton wool; and the ruddy and mottled feathers of fowls, which at the faintest breath flew up in a cloud like a swarm of flies buzzing in the sun. And then in wintertime there was the purple plumage of the pheasants, the ashen grey of the ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola

... we heard two voices instead of one outside our window, and behold! Mrs. Bantam had taken another mate—a fine handsome fellow, so graceful in form and brilliant in plumage that we at once pronounced him a fit companion to our favorite hen. They were evidently on the best of terms, croaking and cackling to each other, and exchanging sage opinions about us as we watched them from the open door. I am sure she must have told him all about her long illness ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... present at a family festival of the Forsytes have seen that charming and instructive sight—an upper middle-class family in full plumage. But whosoever of these favoured persons has possessed the gift of psychological analysis (a talent without monetary value and properly ignored by the Forsytes), has witnessed a spectacle, not only delightful in itself, but illustrative of an obscure human problem. In plainer words, he has gleaned ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the Peacock, that elegant bird, The sight of whose plumage her master may please, I then should not wonder that you are preferr'd To the yard, where in affluence you live ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... and Macao the partridge, although far from numerous, is quite common, and a bag of three or four would represent a good day's work. These birds resemble the red-legged variety so common in England, but are considerably larger, while the plumage, although practically identical in colour, is far more brilliant. A curious feature about them is that they are never flushed in coveys and very rarely in pairs, but are almost invariably single birds, which fact, together with their large size and gorgeous plumage, leads ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready

... position of England, surrounded by the sea on all sides, has provoked in its inhabitants the passion of travelling over the sea, and they came to know, before continental nations, of the parrots and other birds of brilliant plumage so often ...
— Jacobean Embroidery - Its Forms and Fillings Including Late Tudor • Ada Wentworth Fitzwilliam and A. F. Morris Hands

... is a bird, a little bird, of plumage bright and gay, Free as the tenants of the sea, free as its finny prey; In wintry storms she lays her eggs, the briny sands among, And twice seven days sweet calms succeed where billows roared along. These are the sailor's Halcyon Days, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XVII. No. 473., Saturday, January 29, 1831 • Various

... early stage of development the sexes are indistinguishable, and throughout life the traces of this early community of sex remain. The hen fowl retains in a rudimentary form the spurs which are so large and formidable in her lord, and sometimes she develops a capacity to crow, or puts on male plumage. Among mammals the male possesses useless nipples, which occasionally even develop into breasts, and the female possesses a clitoris, which is merely a rudimentary penis, and may also develop. The sexually inverted person does not usually possess ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... princess very much, for she could not understand such an extraordinary thing as a bird who talked in words like a man, yet kept still the piping voice of a nightingale. But soon she began stroking his beautiful plumage, and caressing him. ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)

... water-ouzel upon her knee. It was a lifelike sketch, but she had a great capacity for painstaking and she was not altogether pleased with the drawing. The bird stood on a stone an inch or two above a stream, its white breast harmonizing with the flecks of snowy froth, and the rest of its rather somber plumage of the same hue as a neighboring patch of shadow. This was as it should be, except that, as the central object of a picture, it was too inconspicuous. She was absorbed in contemplating it when Mrs. Gladwyne was shown in. Clarence's mother did not pay many visits and Millicent fancied ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... and a large bird, descending from the sky, alights on the top of her head-dress, from which he scatters the blue powder. His plumage, of orange colour, seems composed of metallic scales. His dainty head, adorned with a silver tuft, exhibits a human visage. He has four wings, a vulture's claws, and an immense peacock's tail, which he displays in a ring behind ...
— The Temptation of St. Antony - or A Revelation of the Soul • Gustave Flaubert

... and announced the slightest change in the mode, so that his elegant sisters could appear on the avenue in advance of the other fashion- plates. As they sailed away on a sunny afternoon in their gorgeous plumage, the envy of many a competing belle, ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe

... obedient Suka heard; With wings and plumage of a bird He rose in eager speed and through The air upon his errand flew. Borne o'er the sea with rapid wing He stood above the Vanar king, And spoke aloud, sublime in air, The message he was charged to bear. The Vanar heard the words he spoke, And quick redoubling stroke ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... gay plumage, and the traces of four-footed animals, showed that they could have been in no want of food. A search of an hour and a half or more, however, convinced Mr Norman that if the crew had landed there, they must have soon taken their departure, either inland or along the coast, for not the slightest ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... is splendid in plumage, and in shape is far more graceful than his domesticated brother. In early winter the wild ducks fly overhead in a wedge-shaped phalanx, and by and by they pair, and if disturbed start up with a sudden quack, ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... to sleep in some arctic wilderness, and then be transferred by a power, such as we read of in tales of enchantment, to a valley in a tropical country, where, on awaking, he might find himself surrounded by birds of brilliant plumage, and all the luxuriance of animal and vegetable forms of which Nature is so prodigal in those regions. The most reasonable supposition, perhaps, which he could make, if by the necromancer's art he were placed in such a situation, would be, ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... footsteps and movements of labor and duty. No one has a sweeter or higher ministry for Christ than a business man or a serving woman who can carry the light of heaven in their faces all day long. Like the sea fowl that can plunge beneath the briny tide with its beautiful and spotless plumage, and come forth without one drop adhering to its burnished breast and glowing wings because of the subtle oil upon the plumage that keeps the water from sticking, so, thank God, we too may be so anointed with the Holy Ghost that sin, sorrow and defilement ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson

... domesticated specimen of the same age. She stroked the back of a hawk which was absolutely quiet without being tied or having its wings cut. He sat with his back toward us and as she stroked him merely turned his head, immediately resuming his former position. All the birds were in perfect plumage at that time, the month of November, and in ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz

... discovered near the hives, and forthwith he is executed as a bee-eater. "He ought to be killed for his looks, if nothing else!" He is thus often sacrificed really on account of his appearance, while pretending he is a villain. It is true his "feathers" will not vie in brilliancy with the plumage of the humming-bird, and do not gratify ideality—therefore he is dispatched. The next week the complaint is made that the little bugs, that he might have destroyed, "have eaten up all the little cucumbers and cabbages." His food is probably small insects. Whoever has seen ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby

... in oil, having the same proportion as flaxseed; otherwise it rates in value the same as grain. A little, not too much, fed whole is well relished by fowls and is said to give luster to the plumage in fitting birds for shows. Sunflower is greatly overrated for poultry purposes. It is an ungainly plant of no use for forage and its seed is so well liked by the sparrows that the only way to keep them till ripe is to cover the ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson

... chamber contiguous to her own. They soon became as familiar with the fair-haired Saxon girl as if she were a born sister of their brood; and her customary white robe bore such an analogy to their snowy plumage that the confraternity of artists called Hilda the Dove, and recognized her aerial apartment as the Dovecote. And while the other doves flew far and wide in quest of what was good for them, Hilda likewise spread her wings, and sought such ethereal and imaginative sustenance ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... upon roots, berries, the cedar-apple, &c. which it eats sitting upon its hind-legs, and holding them up to its mouth with the paws. Its skin is much valued by the Kamtschadales, is both warm and light, and of a bright shining colour, forming, like the plumage of some birds, various colours when viewed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr

... birds. For what could I say of him that is not known to every one—that he is the tallest of fowls, land or water, of a most singular shape, and has black-tipped crimson wings folded under his delicate rose-colored plumage? These other books referred to, written, let us say, from thirty or forty years to a century or two ago, amuse us in a way their poor dead authors never intended. Most amusing are the dead ones who take themselves seriously, whose books are pulpits quaintly carved ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... heard a little sound, The flutter of a feeble wing, And saw upon the grave-like mound A bird that never more would sing. I took it up, and first I laid The quivering plumage to my cheek, Then tenderly upon my breast, And sorrowed, seeing ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... and confidence from a man of Major Bridgenorth's reserved and cautious disposition, gave full plumage to Mistress Deborah's hopes; and emboldened her not only to deliver another letter of Julian's to the young lady, but to encourage more boldly and freely than formerly the intercourse of the lovers when Peveril ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott

... a new world, in the midst of untamed and savage nature. Now the jaguar—the beautiful panther of America—appears upon the shore; and now the hocco,* (* Ceyx alector, the peacock-pheasant; C. pauxi, the cashew-bird.) with its black plumage and tufted head, moves slowly along the sausos. Animals of the most different classes succeed each other. "Esse como en el Paradiso," "It is just as it was in Paradise," said our pilot, an old Indian of the Missions. Everything, indeed, in these regions ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... of motion. 'They shall mount up with wings as eagles.' Some good commentators find in this a parallel to the words in the 103rd Psalm, 'My youth is renewed like the eagle's,' and propose to translate it in this fashion, 'They shall cast their plumage like the eagle.' But it seems much more in accordance with the context and the language to adopt substantially the reading of our English version here, or to make the slight change, 'They shall lift up their wings as the eagle,' implying, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... remembered less for itself than its effects. There was a something—which those who have but read him can with difficulty conceive—that marred the impression of his most sublime and glowing displays. In vain did his genius put forth its superb plumage, glittering all over with the hundred eyes of fancy—the gait of the bird was heavy and awkward, and its voice seemed rather to scare than attract. Accordingly, many of those masterly discourses, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... and leaves of cottonwood, or the snapping of dead wood, as old Keno moved leisurely about from one spot to another. Side by side, on a jutting crag that leaned far out over the brook, sat a splendid pair of golden eagles, joyously preening their plumage in the spring sunshine. The birds aroused no special interest in Ralph's mind, however, on this particular morning; he had seen them many times before, while rambling over the mountains with his father. But the sight of their glittering napes ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler

... patriotic tremendous chances for the display of courage and self-sacrifice. Patriotism ever has that advantage, as the world is now constituted; but patriotism and provincialism are sisters under the skin, and they who can only see bloom on the plumage of their own kind, who prefer the bad points of their countrymen to the good points of foreigners, merely write themselves down blind of an eye, and panderers to herd feeling. America is advantaged in this matter. She lives so far ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy

... themselves beside her. "We had scarce said good-morning when I must be haled before my lady for that box of the Hollandaise." The swan was a huge white creature of his kind, with fiery eyes. There was satin texture delightful to the touch in the firm and glistening plumage of his swelling breast. Le ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood

... clear water paved with veined onyx. I lay down beside it, and with my pale fingers I touched the broad leaves. One of the priests came towards me and stood behind me. He had sandals on his feet, one of soft serpent-skin and the other of birds' plumage. On his head was a mitre of black felt decorated with silver crescents. Seven yellows were woven into his robe, and his frizzed hair ...
— A House of Pomegranates • Oscar Wilde

... is only about three and a half inches in length, and weighs, it is said, three-sixteenths of an ounce; the plumage above is pale olive yellow; chin and throat yellow; breast and belly dusky white. It inhabits India, and particularly the Islands of Ceylon. The eggs are white, and not much larger than what ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various

... the richness and variety of their goods the most splendid establishments of European capitals. Of these the most tempting, and the most dangerous to enter with a well-filled purse, is the famous feather-flower manufactory of Mme. Finot, where the gorgeous plumage of humming birds and others of the feathered tribe is fabricated into wreaths and bouquets of all kinds. Although the absence of sewerage is everywhere apparent, the town is well supplied with water from numerous large fountains, filled by pipes from an aqueduct ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... Of soft enchantment. Now Salmala's peak Shines high in air, and Ceylon's dark green woods Beneath are spread; while, as the strangers wind Along the curving shores, sounds of delight Are heard; and birds of richest plumage, red And yellow, glance along the shades; or fly With morning twitter, circling o'er the mast, 140 As singing welcome to the weary crew. Here rest, till westering gales again invite. Then o'er the line of level seas glide on, As the green deities of ocean guide, Till Ophir's ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... where he had won His plumage of resplendent hue, His native fruits and skies and sun, He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various

... courting affairs. How could any self-respecting young cock bird or male insect go and pay his addresses in a dusty, dirty, faded coat? Of course, it wasn't to be thought of. The other chap, who waited, would get all the running. But to-morrow there would be no further need to wait at all. Plumage and coats would be spring-cleaned, and expectations for the coming summer of the highest. Well-filled storehouses, leaf-cosy nests, glorious hunting-grounds. Never mind these boisterous winds and the violent way they ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... a clump of palms which were fairly ablaze with bird color. There were magnificent hyacinth macaws; green parrots with red splashes; toucans with varied plumage, black, white, red, yellow; green jacmars; flaming orioles and both blue and dark-red tanagers. It was an extraordinary collection. All were noisy. Perhaps there was a snake that had drawn them by its presence; but we could find no snake. The assembly ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... inscrutability. But during the privacy of dessert his mystic mood took flight; he hopped, as it were, onto a higher perch; he stretched the wing of victory and gazed at it admiringly; there was an effect as of the preening of young plumage, the ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... my aged friend had often himself seen, in his own boyish days, sweeping round the cliffs and over the broad expanse of the Susquehanna. They were easily distinguished, he said, by the residents of that district, by their peculiar size and plumage, being of a breed not known to our native ornithology, and both being males. For many years, it was affirmed,—long after the outlaw had vanished from the scene,—these gallant old rovers of the river ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... the many tribes of feathered birds, wild geese or cranes or long-necked swans, on the Asian mead by Kaystrios' stream, fly hither and thither joying in their plumage, and with loud cries settle ever onwards, and the mead resounds; even so poured forth the many tribes of warriors from ships and huts into the Skamandrian plain. And the earth echoed terribly beneath the tread ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)

... the larger birds measure from twelve to thirteen feet. The bird, when caught, was held firmly down, and despatched by the doctor with the aid of prussic acid. He was then cut up, and his skin, for the sake of the feathers and plumage, divided amongst us. The head and neck fell to my share, and, after cleaning and dressing it, I hung my treasure by a string out of my cabin-window; but, when I next went to look at it, lo! the string had been cut, and my albatross's head ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles

... Like plumage of the raven is her heavy silken hair, Which she binds with scarlet blossoms—with strings of wampum rare; And the crimson hue that flushes her soft though dusky cheek Is like the sunbeam's parting blush upon the mountain ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon

... pilosity[obs3]. brush, hair, beard, shag, mane, whisker, moustache, imperial, tress, lock, curl, ringlet; fimbriae, pili, cilia, villi; lovelock; beaucatcher[obs3]; curl paper; goatee; papillote, scalp lock. plumage, plumosity[obs3]; plume, panache, crest; feather, tuft, fringe, toupee. wool, velvet, plush, nap, pile, floss, fur, down; byssus[obs3], moss, bur; fluff. knot (convolution) 248. V. be rough &c. adj.; go ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... delicate flowers grew familiarly in the fields; the woods were replenished with sweet barks and odors; the gardens matured the fruits of Europe, of which the growth was invigorated and the flavor improved by the activity of the virgin mould. Especially the birds, with their gay plumage and varied melodies, inspired delight; every traveller expressed his pleasure in listening to the mocking-bird, which carolled a thousand several tunes, imitating and excelling the notes of all its rivals. The humming-bird, so brilliant in its plumage, and so delicate in its ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin

... north-west and the familiar landmarks of his childhood came into sight, flooded with the June sunshine—the ruined mine-shafts staring up so starkly, the glory of white cattle in the golden light, the first glimpse of the pale roofs of Cloom itself, prismatic as a wood-pigeon's plumage, all these things struck at his heart with a keener shock than did anything personal, and made thought of his mother sink away from him. Behind the cluster of grey buildings he saw the parti-coloured fields stretching away—green pasture, brown arable, pale emerald of the young corn—all ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... hard during the last night, but thawed during the day, which made travelling worse and worse, as the sun acquired power. We passed a few horns of deer, killed three ptarmigans, and saw a pair of ducks. The plumage of the cock grouse was still quite white, except near the tip of the tail, where the feathers were of a fine glossy black; but in every hen which we had lately killed, a very perceptible alteration was apparent, ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... surmise, the same that comes from mists that swirl in gorges of the hills or haunt old ancient woods. The sigh of the wind seemed to be for his peculiar ear. The nod of the saugh leaf on the banks was a salutation. There is, in a flutter of the tree's young plumage, some hint of communication whose secret we lose as we age, and the boy, among it, felt the warmth of companionship. But the sights were for the errant moments of his mind; his thoughts, most of the ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro

... mountains, too, will be broken off and set up into a republic, and allied with that most glorious of all republics, France. Believe me, the Jacobins have not been idle, and there have been strange-looking birds of French plumage dodging between the General's house at Clarksville ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... reconciliation would perhaps throw her into his arms. But now it seemed to him that an age had passed since those days. His love had certainly not faded. There had never been a moment when that had been on the wing. But now the azure plumage of his love had become grey as the wings of a dove, and the gorgeousness of his dreams had sobered into hopes and fears which were a constant burden to his heart. There was time enough, still time enough for happiness if she would yield;—and time enough ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... at night. His warm rays melt the snow and awaken the few little hardy flowers that can grow in this short summer. The icy coat breaks away from the clear running water, and great flocks of birds with soft white plumage come, like a snowstorm of great feathery flakes, and settle among the black rocks along the seashore. Here they lay their eggs in the many safe little corners and shelves of the rock; and here they circle ...
— The Seven Little Sisters Who Live on the Round Ball - That Floats in the Air • Jane Andrews

... of sagacity deserves to be recorded. "During the great flood of the 4th of September, 1829, when the river Tyne was at it height, a number of people were assembled on its margin. A swan appeared with a black spot upon its plumage, which on its nearer approach proved to be a live rat. It is probable, that the latter had been borne into the water by some object, and observing the swan, had taken refuge on its back for ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... crossing and recrossing the various lines of flight. The first thrice-repeated roar of rising had given place to the clear, sustained whistling of wings, low, penetrating, inspiring. In the last flight had been a band of several hundred snow geese; and against the whiteness of their plumage the sun shone. ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... the perfume there, And bathed in a fountain's spray; And I smoothed the wings and the plumage rare Of a bird for his roundelay, And fluttered a rag from a signal-crag ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... to accomplish this act of vengeance, his enormous owl, whose white plumage was marked with black spots, was seen hovering ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne

... great rivers, hedged in by thick dark forest walls, are far gloomier to the sight. But those magnificent forests, peopled with creatures of all sorts, and especially with an infinite number of birds, of the most varied and dazzling plumage, have the irresistible attraction that hangs about ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville

... are not lonely in their rural home. The plainly-dressed sparrows and the brilliant yellow-birds look in upon them, and, now and then, their cousin, the oriole, comes, clad in the richest golden plumage, and sings them a song. If he had dipped his feathers in the gorgeous sunset he could not be more beautiful. The delicate little humming-birds sip nectar from the deep horns of the honeysuckle; and the red-winged starling, in his glossy black coat, and his ...
— The Nest in the Honeysuckles, and other Stories • Various

... inches, than the plumage of his companions, waved the crest of the gigantic del Pulgar; and, as Moor after Moor went down before his headlong lance, his voice, sounding deep and sepulchral through his visor, shouted out—"Death to ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... displayed before the sun his gorgeous tail. 'Observe (said he) how the vivid blue of the sapphire glitters in my neck; and when thus I spread my tail, a gemmy brightness strikes the eye from a plumage varied with a thousand glowing colours.' At this moment, a nightingale began to chant forth his melodious lay; at which the peacock, dropping his expanded tail, cried out, 'Ah what avails my silent unmeaning beauty, when ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding

... feathers attached, or with the horny skin of the legs still adhering to them. Charred bones have been found in connection with native "ovens;" and the traditions of the Maories contain circumstantial accounts of gigantic wingless Birds, the "Moas," which were hunted both for their flesh and their plumage. Upon the whole, therefore, there can be no doubt but that the Moas of New Zealand have been exterminated at quite a recent period—perhaps within the last century—by the unrelenting pursuit of Man,—a pursuit which their wingless condition rendered ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... received at the famous Battle of the Pines, when our tribe, overcome by numbers, was driven from its ancient camping-ground. Of late years the jays have visited us only at intervals; and in winter their bright plumage, set off by the snow, and their cheerful cry, are especially welcome. They would have furnished Aesop with a fable, for the feathered crest in which they seem to take so much satisfaction is often their fatal snare. Country boys make a hole with their finger in the snow-crust just large enough to ...
— My Garden Acquaintance • James Russell Lowell

... about the horse and cart, setting his face for the police barrack, which could be seen shining in the distance in the plumage of a magpie. The two men who stood by came over, and from the other side another man and three old women. With Mac-an-Ward, Mrs. Mac-an-Ward, and the three young Mac-an-Wards, they grouped themselves around Festus Clasby, and he was vaguely conscious that they were grouped with some ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly

... a moment imagine the scene. Not the moment of struggle, but the pause that succeeds. The angels of good have triumphed, and though the plumage of their wings may droop, they are white and dazzling so as no "fuller of earth could whiten them." The moonlight of peace rests upon the battle field, where evil passions lie wounded and trampled under feet. Strains ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz

... answered the voice. "I, the king of the Manitous; or, as you white men call me, Nick of the Woods." And with these words there seemed to perch on the tree trunk, whence the voice proceeded, what seemed a magnificent bird of bright green plumage, and there beside it, visible, stood ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady

... views in air her fabrics rise, And paints with brighter bloom the flowers, Bids Dryads people all the bowers, And Echoes speak from every hill, And Naiads pour each little rill, And bands of Sylphs with pride unfold Their azure plumage mix'd with gold, My heart remembers with a sigh That you are now no longer nigh. The magic scenes no more engage, I quit them for your various page; Where, with delight I traverse o'er The foreign paths you trod before: Ah not in vain those paths you trac'd, With heart ...
— Poems (1786), Volume I. • Helen Maria Williams

... removed, and carefully boiled down to make oil; and the krang, or carcass, was left as a decoy to molliemauks and ivory-gulls,—these latter birds having for the first time been seen by me to-day. They are decidedly the most graceful of sea-birds; and, from the exquisite purity of their plumage when settled on a piece of ice or snow, it required a practised eye to detect them. Not so the voracious and impertinent mollies—the Procellaria of naturalists. Their very ugliness appeared to give them security, and they are, ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn

... with a bird on his wrist, and Fanny thought she had never seen one of more beautiful colours. Most of its plumage was of the richest scarlet, while the top of its head was of a deep purple. On its breast was a broad yellow collar; the wings were green, changing to violet towards the edges, and while the feathers on ...
— Norman Vallery - How to Overcome Evil with Good • W.H.G. Kingston

... Companions seen in the act of floating down to earth from the lower limbs of a shrivelled red-gum tree. The bigger of these two great cranes had a stature of something over five feet, and his fine blue-grey plumage covered an amount of flesh which would have made a meal for quite a number of dingoes. Yet it was not so much as food, but rather as a guide and indication, that Black-tip regarded the cranes. He knew that they would ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... charm of canoe excursions in this country. A ragged drapery of long, faded grass hung from the lower branches of the trees, marking the height of the last rise of the river,—some eighteen or twenty feet above its present level. Here and there a white heron stood on the shore, his snowy plumage glittering in the sunlight; numbers of ciganas (the pheasants of the Amazons) clustered in the bushes; once a pair of king vultures rested for a moment within gunshot, but flew out of sight as our canoe approached; and now and then an alligator showed his head above water. As we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... reptiles are found some less desirable specimens, such as tarantulas. The natives of the island hold the old tradition of the ancients, that one bitten by a tarantula will dance himself to death. The plumage of Australian birds is varied and brilliant, and the natives make pretty fans by arranging the feathers in assorted colors; while a sort of head-dress worn by both men and women on the occasion of their marriage, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various

... she proved that she was uninjured by getting on her feet. She stared at her disturber bewilderedly, then, perceiving her bonnet, stooped to pick it up, and stood for a moment trying sleepily to poke it into shape and readjust its tawdry plumage. But all of a sudden she gave a start and began looking around her with recovered energy. She missed something, evidently. Gorham followed the direction of her gaze as it shifted, and as his glance met the line of the road he perceived a little ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... the change is not to render the cock more attractive to the hens, for how could it serve the hens (if the choice lies with them) to be made more attractive to the cocks? Then again an old hen who is past laying, often assumes, to a considerable extent, the plumage of the cock. When these ornaments are the exclusive possession of the male, they are often displayed for other purposes than the gratification of the female. The possessors seem to be conscious of their beauty, and to take ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland

... in more favoured times when rain had fallen, a few puddles of water in the bed of the nullah, and one flock of sheep to keep the place alive. Gazelles were numerous, and many small birds in gaudy plumage flitted about the trees, amongst which the most beautiful was the Lamprotornis superba, a kind of Maina, called by the Somali Lhimber-load (the cowbird), because it follows after cows ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke

... neglected! Talk about conceit as much as you like, it is to human character what salt is to the ocean; it keeps it sweet, and renders it endurable. Say rather it is like the natural unguent of the sea-fowl's plumage, which enables him to shed the rain that falls on him and the wave in which he dips. When one has had all his conceit taken out of him, when he has lost all his illusions, his feathers will soon soak through, and he will ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various

... nothing as yet, except a few eider ducks, and one or two ice-birds—the most graceful winged creatures I have ever seen, with immensely long pinions, and plumage of spotless white. Although enormous seals from time to time used to lift their wise, grave faces above the water, with the dignity of sea-gods, none of us had any very great inclination to slay such rational human-looking creatures, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... most time to start, and you're not dressed yet, are you?" glancing a trifle scornfully from her own gay plumage to ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley



Words linked to "Plumage" :   web, bastard wing, hackle, quill, plume, down feather, bird, marabou, pinion, calamus, body covering, keratin, spurious wing, scapular, aftershaft, ceratin, flight feather, animal material



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