"Titmouse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Kentish hens may be an instance, compared to other hens: and, doubtless, there is a kind of small Trout, which will never thrive to be big; that breeds very many more than others do, that be of a larger size: which you may rasher believe, if you consider that the little wren end titmouse will have twenty young ones at a time, when, usually, the noble hawk, or the musical thrassel or blackbird, exceed not ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... got to the journey of Titmouse from London to Yorkshire in that ex-sheriff's coach he bought in Long Acre—where now the motor-cars are sold—when there came a telegram to bid me note how a certain Mr. Holt was upon the ocean, coming back to England from a little excursion. ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... shows itself constantly in Emerson's poems. He finds his inspiration in the objects about him, the forest in which he walks; the sheet of water which the hermit of a couple of seasons made famous; the lazy Musketaquid; the titmouse that mocked his weakness in the bitter cold winter's day; the mountain that rose in the horizon; the lofty pines; the lowly flowers. All talked with him as brothers and sisters, and he with them ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... hovering over one spot and then proceeding to another, like a kestrel, and at other times standing stationary on the margin of water, and then dashing into it like a kingfisher at a fish. In our own country the larger titmouse (Parus major) may be seen climbing branches, almost like a creeper; it sometimes, like a shrike, kills small birds by blows on the head; and I have many times seen and heard it hammering the seeds of the yew on a branch, and thus breaking them like a nuthatch. In North America ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... lies poor Puss!"— "Who saw her die?" asked Grandmother Mouse, Just peeping forth from her hole of a house. "I," said Tommy Titmouse, "I saw her die; I think she was choked while ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... I am of a quiet turn, and would never lift my hand to pull a trigger, no, nor a nose, nor anything but a rose," and here he took and handled one of Madam Esmond's bright pink apron ribbons. "I hate sporting, which you and the Colonel love, and I want to shoot nothing alive, not a turkey, nor a titmouse, nor an ox, nor an ass, nor anything that has ears. Those curls of Mr. Washington's ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of his pretty cousin, so the same renewing spirit touches the "silent singers," and they are no longer dumb; faintly they lisp the first syllables of the marvelous tale. Witness the clear sweet whistle of the gray-crested titmouse,—the soft, nasal piping of the nuthatch,—the amorous, vivacious warble of the bluebird,—the long, rich note of the meadowlark,—the whistle of the quail,—the drumming of the partridge,—the animation and loquacity of the swallows, and ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... more nor less than the beginning of the end of that. Just as the great refreshment caterers have mopped up the ancient multitude of coffee-houses and squalid little special feeding arrangements of the days of Tittlebat Titmouse and Dick Swiveller, so now your Hostels are going to mop up the lodging-house system of London. Of course there are other and kindred movements. Naturally. The Y.W.C.A., the Y.M.C.A., the London Girls Club Union and so forth are all ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... on the louse, how much more there is in them than mere natural history! With what a broad and tender philosophy he clothes them! how he identifies himself with the mouse and regards himself as its fellow mortal! So have Emerson's "Titmouse" and "Humble-Bee" a better excuse for being than their natural history. So have McCarthy's "For a Bunny" and "The Snake," ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... will do it, Bates," cried Vixen. "I don't jump. How can I help it if papa has given me a jumping pony? If I didn't let Titmouse take a gate when he was in the humour, he'd kick like old boots, and pitch me a cropper. It's an instinct of self-preservation that makes me let him jump. And as for poor dear, pretty little mamma," continued Vixen, addressing herself to Roderick, and changing ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... court I saw there was news. My eyes being attracted by a little commotion on a dogwood-tree, I saw a saucy tufted titmouse chasing with cries one of the wrens who had food in its beak. With most birds this proclaims the arrival of the young family as plainly as if a banner had been hung on the castle walls. Whether the tit was after the food, or trying to drive the wren off his own ground, we ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... right hand was his only ornament, and he had worn a wrist watch long before the War. He had never seen a mountain. The ocean meant Coney Island. He breakfasted at Child's. He spent two hours over the Sunday papers. He was a Tittlebat Titmouse without the ...
— Gigolo • Edna Ferber
... of those pretty little birds, the long-tailed titmouse; it is common enough, certainly, but I never fail to notice several upon the hedges and poplar trees of the "Duke's drive." There are several members of the titmouse family found in Great Britain; let me count them. First we have the great tit, then the little blue-tit, the long-tailed tit, the cole ...
— Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children • W. Houghton
... also called Black-capped Titmouse. If you look at his picture you will see his black cap. You'll have to ask someone why he is called Titmouse. I think Chickadee is the ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... always going on amongst these Blue Tits. If one was in the basket and remaining perfectly still, I knew two or three others were meditating a sudden combined assault, but it seemed as if the steady gaze of the titmouse in possession kept them at bay for a time. At length a twittering scrimmage ensued, and the combatants disappeared. I once coaxed a Blue Tit to live in the dining-room for a few days, and he made himself very happy, constantly flitting about in search ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... similar to the preceding. Like the last, these birds nest in deserted Woodpeckers' holes and natural cavities in trees, either in open woods or in the vicinity of habitations. Their eggs are sparsely spotted with reddish brown, and not usually distinguishable from those of the Tufted Titmouse. Size .70 x .54. Data.—Brownsville, Texas, May 11, 1892. Nest of moss, hair, down and wool in cavity in tree in open woods near town; ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... tree there chirped the titmouse: "Osmo's barley will not flourish, Nor will Kaleva's oats prosper, While untilled remains the country, And uncleared remains the forest, Nor the ...
— Kalevala, Volume I (of 2) - The Land of the Heroes • Anonymous
... particle of mud gets on it from the wheels; but when the mutual understanding is complete, and the affection perfect, and she is his wife, he sits still and holds the horse and lets her climb out alone. To be sure, when pretty Miss Titmouse is visiting them, he still shows himself gallant, flies from the carriage, and holds back her dress: that's because he doesn't love her nor she him, and they are not on the ground of mutual affection. When a gentleman is only engaged, or a friend, if you hem him a cravat or mend his gloves, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... events had happened in the new-made chamber of the field-voles' burrow. Hundreds of dry grass-bents, bleached and seasoned by the winter frosts and rains, had been collected there, with tufts of withered moss, a stray feather or two dropped from the ruined nest of a long-tailed titmouse in the furze, and a few fine, hair-like roots of polypody fern from the neighbouring thicket. And now, their nursery complete, four tiny, hairless voles, with disproportionate heads, round black eyes beneath unopened lids, wrinkled muzzles, and abbreviated tails—helpless midgets in form suggestive ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... 8. The tidife: The titmouse, or any other small bird, which sometimes brings up the cuckoo's young when its own have been destroyed. See note 44 to "The Assembly ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer |
