"Bird of prey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... deeply read. She knows as much As average sixth-form boys; But not the greatest sage could touch The high, aggressive joys That imp her wing, like bird of prey, When in my ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, March 21, 1891 • Various
... lay all over the Western world, the shadow of a fierce bird of prey hovering over its victim. Ever since Ferdinand expelled the Moors out of Granada, Spain had been nursing insensate dreams of universal empire. She was endeavouring to destroy the infant system of European ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... unsuspecting mice: "There's a pretty collection of rogues gathered together," observes Grimalkin; "if there is not a plot among them, burn my tail and whiskers." In the last, we behold a Kite just about to pounce on some chicken: "The world's over-run with iniquity," says the bird of prey; "and these troublesome miscreants will not let honest hawks sleep in security." We shall return to the subject of these Government spies and the troubles of 1817 in the ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... perfecting his arrangements and building boats on the Rhine; he had propounded riddles which Maurice had spent three of the best campaigning months in idle efforts to guess, and when he at last moved, he had swept to his mark with the swiftness and precision of a bird of prey. Yet the greatest of all qualities in a military commander, that of deriving substantial fruits from victory instead of barren trophies, he had not manifested. If it had been a great stroke of art to seize reach Deventer, it was an enormous blunder, worthy of a journeyman soldier, to fail to ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Julie had awaked from her swoon, with her hand on my forehead. I entered as one enters a sanctuary or a sepulchre, and looked around; the wooden beds, the presses, the stools were all gone. The sound of my footsteps frightened a nocturnal bird of prey, that heavily flapped its wings, and after beating against the walls, flew out with a shrill cry through the open window into the orchard. I could scarcely distinguish the place where I had knelt during that terrible ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the harmony of lineament which was his when he was an infant, as his mother never tires of regretfully recalling, will be restored. Until that time Philip must be content to carry the suggestion of an attractive and eager young bird of prey. ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... wise god The voracious bird of prey Far away; so the wolf's father To pieces must be torn. Odin's friend got exhausted. Heavy grew Lopt. Odin's companion ...
— The Younger Edda - Also called Snorre's Edda, or The Prose Edda • Snorre
... tossed off, but not without its evil implication; and I felt his eyes intently fixed upon me as he sat hunched up on the rail in his sodden sleeping-suit, like some huge, ill-omened bird of prey. ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... his stick, which had a crooked handle. His shadow similarly waved a long black arm which made Yourii think of the black wings of some infuriated bird of prey. ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... of this crowd of beggars and shamefaced creatures, some lordly carriage passed from time to time containing a Fox, or a thieving Magpie, or some other ravenous bird of prey. ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... dream or to a duty; self-sacrifice is the surest means of securing repose. One of the early Buddhas who preceded Sakya-Mouni obtained the nirvana in a singular way. He saw one day a falcon chasing a little bird. "I beseech thee," he said to the bird of prey, "leave this little creature in peace; I will give thee its weight from my own flesh." A small pair of scales descended from the heavens, and the transaction was carried out. The little bird settled itself upon ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... The face set on the long, ravaged throat, once so subtly alluring, had turned hawklike and cruel. It seemed shrivelled, too, and, between the narrow linen bandages she still wore, it had the cunning malice of some bird of prey peering from ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... impression I receive; much less do images which compare man to a puny creature helpless in the claws of a bird of prey. The reader should examine himself closely on ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... as her word. The period of convalescence was to poor Mrs. Mason—a sickly, plaintive creature at the best of times—one long struggle and misery. Louie represented to her a sort of bird of prey, who was for ever descending on her child and carrying it off to unknown lairs. For neither mother nor nurse had Louie the smallest consideration; she despised and tyrannised over them both. But her hungry fondness ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Hifeli over this place, with a sudden rush a fierce eagle swooped down to attack the calf, beating the air with its wings to drive the calf to the edge of the precipice,—and although the lad struck at the bird of prey with his mountain staff until the air was filled with feathers it was to no avail. The calf plunged over the ledge and was dashed to death on the rocks beneath, where the eagle descended and promptly reappeared flying heavily away, bearing the dead body of the calf in ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... a hawk or some other bird of prey. Were we, like him, as sure of a dinner That on our stomachs would comfortably stay; Or were the fried ham a shade or two just thinner, That must confront us at closing of the day: Then might you sing like Theocritus or Virgil, Then might we each make a metrical essay; But verse ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... one side an Alpine needle, as it were, of black basalt, girdled with snow. On the other a threaded waterfall. The red morning-tint that shone in the drops had a strange look,—one would say the cliff was bleeding;—perhaps she did not mean it. Below, a stretch of sand, and a solitary bird of prey, with his wings spread over some unseen object.—And on the very next page a procession wound along, after the fashion of that on the title-page of Fuller's "Holy War," in which I recognized without difficulty ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... dear Schwarzwald I now rest, And near me rush the healing waters out, On high a bird of prey soars o'er his nest, And in the brook are sporting tiny trout. From charcoal kilns the smoke clouds are ascending, With iris-coloured hues the sun embrace, And stately giant pines in rows unending, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... even seen the grasshopper, full of audacity, launch itself in pursuit of the Cigale, who fled in terror. So the sparrow-hawk pursues the skylark in the open sky. But the bird of prey is less ferocious than the insect; it pursues a creature smaller than itself. The locust, on the contrary, assails a colossus, far larger and far more vigorous than its enemy; yet the result is a foregone conclusion, in spite of this disproportion. With its powerful mandibles, like pincers of steel, ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... thread. This is due to its alarmingly small range, the insignificant number of individuals now living, the openness of the species to attack, and the danger of its extinction by poison. Originally this remarkable bird,—the largest North American bird of prey,—ranged as far northward as the Columbia River, and southward for an unknown distance. Now its range is reduced to seven counties in southern California, although it is said to extend from Monterey Bay to Lower ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... had seen, spread on the neighboring heath, the human remains which had stained with clouted blood the scattered stones among the flowering broom. He learned also that a bark had been seen far out at sea, and that, like a bird of prey, a royal vessel had pursued, overtaken, and devoured the poor little bird that was flying with such palpitating wings. But there D'Artagnan's certainties ended. The field of supposition was thrown open. Now, ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... burned yellow with the sun, and marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the other of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and his high, thin, fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old bird of prey. ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... enormous zygomatic arches, are covered with scars on the head and trunk, and are often tatooed. Habitual homicides have a glassy, cold, immobile, sometimes sanguinary and dejected look; often an aquiline nose, or, in other words, a hooked one like a bird of prey, always large; the jaws are large, ears long, hair woolly, abundant and rich (dark); beard rare, canine teeth, very large; the lips are thin. A large number of swindlers and forgers have an artlessness, and something clerical in their manner, which ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... under the chin, and a long black veil, closely encircled her thin, sallow face. A number of deep wrinkles had impressed their transverse furrows in her forehead of yellow ivory; her marked and prominent nose was bent like the beak of a bird of prey; her black eye was knowing and piercing; the expression of her countenance was at once ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... learning to swim, and could not yet cooerdinate the movements of my hands and feet. My bird was purring gently, with the propeller turning slowly. It seemed thoroughly domesticated, but I knew that I had but to pull back on that manet to transform it into a rampant bird of prey. Before starting again I looked about me, and there was Drew racing all over the field. Suddenly he started in my direction as if the whole force of his will was turned to the business of running me down. ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... sky, the air-liner hovered like a gigantic bird of prey, her gallery-rails lined with motionless watchers. The Master observed every move through powerful glasses. Over his ears a telephone headpiece, which he had slipped on, kept him in close touch with the men in the nacelle, via the steel cable. This cable formed a strand between East and West; ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... woman's small, pale eyes twinkled with a tiger's bloodthirsty greed. Her broad, flat nose, with nostrils expanded into oval cavities, breathed the fires of hell, and resembled the beak of some evil bird of prey. The spirit of intrigue lurked behind her low, cruel brow. Long hairs had grown from her wrinkled chin, betraying the masculine character of her schemes. Any one seeing that woman's face would have said that artists had failed in ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... mouthful of teeth irregular but white. Then he extended a lean, brown hand whose fingers glittered with many rings, and caught Master Vallance by his fat shoulder, into whose flesh the grip seemed to sink like the resistless talons of a bird of prey. Slowly he swayed Master Vallance backward and forward, while over the dark face rippled a succession of leers, grins, and grimaces, which had the effect of making Master Vallance feel thoroughly uncomfortable. Nor did the stranger's ...
— The Lady of Loyalty House - A Novel • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... was a victim to a disease without hope, which growing more envenomed from year to year, took him, while yet young, from those who loved him, and laid him in his still grave. As in the fair form of some beautiful victim, the marks of the grasping claws of the fierce bird of prey which has destroyed it, may be found; so, in the productions of which we have just spoken, the traces of the bitter sufferings which devoured his ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... a bird of prey is well defined; there is no mistaking him. His claws, his beak, his head, his wings, in fact his whole build, point to the fact that he subsists upon live creatures; he is armed to catch them and to slay them. Every bird knows a hawk and knows him from the start, and is on the lookout ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... her sunburnt, tanned face suggesting more than ever the beak of a bird of prey. But her eyes remained very keen, sharpened as it were by ferocity. She no doubt failed to get rich fast enough, for she continued wailing, complaining of her calling, of the increasing avarice of parents, of the demands of ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... ravening bird of prey Descending, to his eyry wild Bore, with exulting cries, away The powerless ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy
... record where a certain stipulated sum of money has been paid for years to a professional black-mailer, who held letters written to him by a lady whose acquaintance was made at a matinee. We were cognizant of a case in which the bird of prey, not content with his own extortions, handed over the lady's letters, on his death-bed, to a confederate, who continued successfully to maintain the payment of hush-money until death removed the weak ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... ugly with his purple skin and bristles for whiskers; he looks like a wild boar with the eyes of a bird of prey. But he'll make the finest chief-justice of a provincial court. Now don't be uneasy! in ten minutes he shall be singing to you Isabelle's air in the fourth act of Robert le Diable: 'At thy feet I kneel'—you promise, don't you? to send Arthur back ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... the Frankfort forests and the foresters did their best to entrap him and make him their prisoner, but for a long time he eluded them. At length his time came, and he who had lived the wild, free life of a bird of prey was in a narrow cell at the top of Eschenheimer tower, judged guilty of so many crimes that he was ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... that the peculiarity of the eye is the size of the iris rather than the size of the ball. These eyes are not soft like the mother's, after all; they are ungentle, beautiful as they are; they have the dark and splendid flame of the eyes of a great bird—a bird of prey. ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... dropped. But he watched the huge mountaineer with interest. There was no more famous character in all those hills than the giant before him—yet his face was kind and was good-humoured, but the nose and eyes were the beak and eyes of some bird of prey. The little girl had disappeared for a moment. She came back with a blue-backed spelling-book, a second reader and a worn copy of "Mother Goose," and she opened first one and then the other until the attention of the visitor was caught—the black-haired youth watching ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... suspicion of unknown strength in this lone rider, strength like that of a machine which is stopped but only needs a spark of fire to plunge it into irresistible action. Strangely enough, the youthful figure seemed in tune with that region of mighty distances, with that white, cruel sun, with that bird of prey hovering high, high in ...
— The Untamed • Max Brand
... press, who have a love for flinging stones at the little innocents, and pretend that it is their duty, and that every wren or sparrow is likely to destroy a whole field of wheat, or to turn out a monstrous bird of prey. Leave we these vain sports and savage pastimes of youth, and turn we to the ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... grew wild and were pledged less for the sake of the toasted than for that of the wine itself, wits grew more barbed and less restrained by caution; recklessness hung a moment, like a bird of prey, above us, then swooped abruptly down in the words of that ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... which, though dark at the base, is a beautiful green at the summit. The appearance of a water-eagle, with its grayish-white head, disturbed the aquatic fowls; as if by enchantment, some of them hid among the rushes, but the bird of prey passed over without taking any notice of such game, which it doubtless considered unworthy of itself. A tantalus settled down at about twenty paces from us, and plunged into the stream ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... fearsome bird, we deem; Though feathered tribes hold him in great esteem; A bird of prey, he whizzes through the air, And clutches his pale victim by the hair. Gory and grewsome,—he is the mainstay Of the historic ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells
... masterly way. He has moved with a big central column on the railway, while at the same time other columns, stretched far to right and left, moved parallel and threatened to outflank and enclose the enemy at every stand. So with wings beating and body steadily advancing, like some great kite or bird of prey, we have flapped our ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... of the bed, Dangerfield, with his flashing spectacles and snowy aspect, and a sort of pant, rose up straight, and looked into her eyes, like a white bird of prey disturbed over ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... sitting down, when a sound of voices struck their ears and, through the opening in the fly of the tent, they caught sight of a person in a general's uniform, very tall, very thin, looking like a bird of prey, but presenting a fine appearance in a long black tunic. With his hand on the hilt of his sword, he was striding along the road in the ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... the hare. She is our property, and I have issued an injunction that she shall not go into the newspapers.' Everard was entirely of a contrary opinion concerning the episode of eagle and hare, though it was a case of a bird of prey interfering with an object of the chase. Nevil wrote home most entreatingly and imperatively, like one wincing, begging him to contradict that and certain other stories, and prescribing the form of a public renunciation of his proclaimed part in them. 'The hare,' he sent ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... thou some bird of prey. Some wolf that comes to feed upon my soul? Wilt thou not go? Why liest thou in wait For me here in the dawning light like some Wild beast that ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... but that bird of prey did not appear. "A watched pot never boils," said Henry at last, trying to conquer his impatience; and he turned his mind from the task of following the automobile driver to the even more difficult task ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... bird of prey, All tense the muscles of her seemly flanks; She, the coy creature that the idle day Sees idly riding in the ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... now, and he came to the conclusion, that there were qualities in that tall, thin, somewhat effeminate personality which he had not detected during their brief meeting of the morning. Von Kerber was good-looking, with something of the dignity and a good deal of the aspect of a bird of prey. His slender frame was well-knit. His sinuous hands hinted at unexpected strength. Were Royson told that his possible employer was a master of the rapier he would have credited it. And the Baron, for his part, was rapidly changing the ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... arranging his golden mantle around him in shining, picturesque folds,—while Theos, withdrawing slightly into the background, stood leaning against a piece of tapestry on which the dead figure of a man was depicted lying prone on the sward with a great wound in his heart, and a bird of prey hovering above him expectant of its grim repast. Kneeling on one knee close to Sah-luma, the harp- bearer put the harp in tune, and swept his fingers lightly over the strings,—then came a pause. A clear, small bell chimed sweetly on the stillness, and the King, raising himself a little, signed ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... forest, he heard his voice among the salley bushes which hid the waters of the foss. 'My blossom,' it said, 'I hate them for making you weave these dingy feathers into your beautiful hair, and all that the bird of prey upon the throne may sleep easy o' nights'; and then the low, musical voice he loved answered: 'My hair is not beautiful like yours; and now that I have plucked the feathers out of your hair I will put my hands through it, thus, and thus, ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... on the old hag in a half-threatening, half-coaxing whisper, as she came up quite close, and fastened on her victim like a bird of prey. ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... panting of the horses throbbed through the still, cold air. The pale-blue shadows on the western side of the road grew longer. The sun, declining through its shallow arch, dropped behind the tree-tops. Darkness followed swiftly, as if it had been a bird of prey waiting for this sign to swoop down upon ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... arose and approached him with his battle-ax. The man saw clearly now what was to happen and buried his face in his hands. Too often had the hunter-warrior stood over his fallen quarry to feel pity; he knew no more of this than a bird of prey, and he sank his three-pronged battle-ax into the soldier's skull and wiped it on his pony's shoulder saying: "Another dog's head; I will leave him for the women and the boys. If he had thrown away his iron moccasins his fire ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... Berkley Junior was not precisely similar, but connected with the same feelings and associations. I dashed down four steps at a time, precipitated myself on him like a bird of prey, and wrung his hands again and again with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... boasting of his prowess. 20. A duck and a gull. 34. A corrobory, or native dance. 65. A crab. 30. A native in a hut, with portion of the matting with which they cover their habitations. 67. A kangaroo. 71. Appears to be a bird of prey, having seized upon a kangaroo-rat. 32. Shark ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... vultures flapped round him; and there was no strong, wise man to give the booby counsel or to drag him by main force from his fate. There was no pity for the boy's youth; he was a mark for every obscene bird of prey that haunts the Turf; respectable betting men gave him fair play, though they exacted their pound of flesh; the birds of Night gave him no fair play at all. In a few short months he had poured a quarter of a million into the bursting pockets of the Ring, and he was at last "posted" for the ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... small purple cap, from under which his snow-white hair curled downwards to his shoulders. With his long beak-like nose and his single gleaming eye, which shone brightly from under a thick tuft of grizzled brow, he seemed to Alleyne to have something of the look of some fierce old bird of prey. For a moment he smiled, as his eye lit upon the banner of the five roses waving from the hamlet; but his course lay for Pampeluna, and he ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... moaning sound over the adjacent hills, and waking the forests from their repose, came rushing over the village, whirring and fluttering aloft like flights of the boding night-raven, or the more powerful bird of prey that had given its name to the chieftain ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... his glance searched the room, I saw that his face was flushed and his eyes swimming and bloodshot. There was in his look, as I remember it now, something of the inflamed yet bridled cruelty of a bird of prey. ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... again, and by rolling and tumbling about, drew off his attention from her young, and thus preserved her brood a second time. I have also seen, when a kite has been hovering over a covey of young partridges, the old birds fly up at the bird of prey, screaming and fighting with all their might to preserve their brood." Partridges should be chosen young; if old, they are valueless. The young ones are generally known by their yellow ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... very much diminished in size, the same principle still prevailed. The letter itself was formed of some fabulous long-necked and long-tailed animal or bird, mostly a dragon as conceived by the medival artist. The head framed more or less on that of the mastiff or lion, or both; the legs of a bird of prey; the body and tail of a serpent; wings of heraldic construction to suit the form of the letter. While the body of this unspeakable beast formed the body of the letter, the tail was indefinitely extended to sweep ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... this hot July morning, like a large bird of prey at the very convenient window of her garden-room, the ample bow of which formed a strategical point of high value. This garden-room, solid and spacious, was built at right angles to the front of her house, and looked straight down the very interesting street which debouched at its ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... At the apex, which is very acute, the iron is filed as sharp as a knife, and pork is hung on each of the sides. When this is thrown in the wake of the ship, the bird settles on the water to feed. The upper part of its beak is hooked like that of a bird of prey, and as the albatross opens its beak and bites at the pork, you give a jerk, so that the triangle catches the upper part of the beak by two small notches, and the bird is left hanging. If the line should break, the whole thing simply falls off and the bird is unharmed. In hauling in, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... was so small as to be disagreeably suggestive of something animal. The nose, on the other hand, was abnormally large; so extravagant were its dimensions, and so peculiar its shape, it resembled the beak of some bird of prey. A characteristic of the face—and an uncomfortable one!—was that, practically, it stopped short at the mouth. The mouth, with its blubber lips, came immediately underneath the nose, and chin, to all intents ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... stood silent and unmoving about the room, their attention rigidly focused on a figure in the center. Brion wondered how he knew they were men—only their eyes showed, eyes completely empty of expression yet somehow reminding him of a bird of prey. ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... helplessness of a large number of fishing craft congregated in a comparatively small area of sea, the destroyer dived to the attack like some giant bird of prey, unable in the gloom which shrouded the earth to distinguish the ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... Through Norway's song and Denmark's strain: On flowing Thames and Forth, in flood, Pour Haco's war-song, fierce and rude. O'er England's strength, through Scotland's cold, His warrior minstrels marched of old— Called on the wolf and bird of prey To feast on Ireland's shore and bay; And France, thy forward knights and bold, Rough Rollo's ravens croaked them cold. Sing, sing of earth and ocean's lords, Their songs as conquering as their swords; Strains, steeped in many a strange belief, Now stern as steel, now soft as grief— Wild, witching, ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... Hanseatic League it was nominally shut, but he pushed in by sufferance of the janitor, and found a berth, which had just been given up, in one of the saloon-deck rooms. It was that or nothing; and he felt rich enough to pay for it himself if the Bird of Prey, who had cabled him to come out to Carlsbad as his secretary, would not stand the difference between the price and that of the lower-deck six-in-a-room berth which he would have taken if he had ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and screaming as before. On looking up in the direction in which she seemed to gaze, I discovered a black spot just under the clouds, but was unable at first to decide what it was. However, it soon appeared to be a bird of prey, though at first at too great a distance to be distinguished. I have seen one of those mother turkeys continue in this agitated state for four hours at a stretch, and her whole brood pinned down to the ground, as it were, the whole of that ...
— Anecdotes of Animals • Unknown
... least save the sea eagle," cried Daphne, and ordered the steward, who was already having the dead fowl carried off, to care for the wounded bird of prey; but when the latter struck furiously with his beak at the Biamite who attempted to remove it, Hermon again turned to the girl, saying: "I thank you in the eagle's name for your good will, you best of women; but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... concealed her enormous frame; and other clouds which floated higher formed the ample sleeve from which escaped vapors more subtle and vague, making a bony arm terminating in an index finger, dry and crooked, like that of a bird of prey, pointing out far, ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the Australian crow. It is a bird of prey and perhaps the best-hated bird in the world. An Australian bushman will travel a whole day to kill a crow. For he has, at the time when the sheep were lambing, or when, owing to drought, they were weak, seen the horrible cruelties of the crow. This evil bird will attack ...
— Peeps At Many Lands: Australia • Frank Fox
... made great wars, they rode like heroes forth, And, worthy, won broad lands and towers and towns, So firmly won that thirty years of strife Made of their followers dukes, their leaders kings! While you! like jackal and the bird of prey, Who lurk in copses or 'mid muddy beds— Crouching and hushed, with dagger ready drawn, Hide in the noisome marsh that skirts the way, Trembling lest passing hounds snuff out your lair! Listen at eventide on lonesome path For traveller's ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... When he came in at night she could hear him throw down his glazed hat, which fell with a dull thud, like a shovelful of clay, on the table. The black cloak hung against the wall rustled like the wings of some huge bird of prey. She could hear his every movement, and she spent most of her time listening to him with morbid horror, while he—all unconscious—hummed his vulgar songs and tipsily staggered to his bed, under which the poor woman's sick fancy ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... he cried, "my destined prize, 'Tis not for thee to shield: 'Tis mine by right and toilsome flight O'er hill and dale and field. Hunger and thirst oppress me sore, And I am faint with toil: Thou shouldst not stay a bird of prey Who claims his rightful spoil. They say thou art a glorious king, And justice is thy care: Then justly reign in thy domain, Nor rob the birds of air." Then cried the king: "A cow or deer For thee shall straightway bleed, Or let a ram ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... listener's heart. The door was slightly ajar and Archie took the liberty of looking into the room. Roseleaf lay stretched out in a great chair, and Gouger leaned over him, appearing for all the world like some sinister bird of prey. Mr. Weil felt for the first time in his life that there was something uncanny in the aspect of the book reviewer. He did not think he could ever be close friends with him again. And what did Shirley mean by saying that Lawrence had "agreed" with him when he heard such ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... were charged with some extremely light gas which served to buoy up the misshapen and semi-solid mass in the rarefied air. The creature moved swiftly along, keeping pace easily with the monoplane, and for twenty miles or more it formed my horrible escort, hovering over me like a bird of prey which is waiting to pounce. Its method of progression—done so swiftly that it was not easy to follow—was to throw out a long, glutinous streamer in front of it, which in turn seemed to draw forward the rest of the writhing body. So elastic and gelatinous was it that never for ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... melancholy or languor.[6] He had a broad forehead furrowed with wrinkles by the time he was thirty, and a thick mane of hair, or, as E. Legouve puts it, "a large umbrella of hair, projecting like a movable awning over the beak of a bird of prey."[7] ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... and Professor Bianconi of Bologna, who has written much on the subject, concludes that it was most probably a bird of the vulture family. This would go far, he urges, to justify Polo's account of the Ruc as a bird of prey, though the story of it's lifting any large animal could have had no foundation, as the feet of the vulture kind are unfit for such efforts. Humboldt describes the habit of the condor of the Andes as that of worrying, wearying, and frightening ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... coffin-cart man who came on occasions to drive the men to their last resting place. The Coffin cart was a melancholy looking vehicle resembling in appearance a dilapidated old crow, as much as anything, or a large bird of prey with its torn black canvas sides that flapped mournfully like huge wings in the wind as Pierre drove it along the streets. I could never repress a shiver when I saw it flapping along. The driver was far from being a sorry individual with his crisp ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... 'What a bird of prey the mind is!' muttered he; 'how it devours the body!' He turned away, and once more his eye rested on the picture which hung against the wall. Some strange feeling seemed to spring into existence as he did so; for his breath came thick and hard; his heart beat, until ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... that her cousin had the eyes of a bird of prey. So black and fierce they were, in the greyish white face under the shaggy hair. But she was not afraid. Rather she felt her ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the main motor stopped. Only a quiet purring from the wings took its place. The helicopter-plane hovered almost motionless, quiet and deadly like a sinister bird of prey. It began to drop straight down through the dark. ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... a little child were there. He followed the sound, and at last came to a high tree, and at the top of this a little child was sitting, for the mother had fallen asleep under the tree with the child, and a bird of prey had seen it in her arms, had flown down, snatched it away, and set it ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... three years, and during that time the barbarian King of Wu annexed several neighbouring towns, whilst Tsin and Ts'u ravaged the surrounding country in turn, in their rival efforts to secure a predominant influence there. Here it was, too, that a bird of prey, pierced with a strange arrow, fell near the prince's palace: from the wood used in making the arrow and the peculiar stone barb employed to tip it, Confucius was able to explain that the bird must have flown from (modern) Manchuria. (This annual flight of bustards and geese, to and from the ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... hour Of guilty pride and power Full on the circumcised Thy vengeance fell. Then the fields were heaped with dead, Then the streams with gore were red, And every bird of prey, and every beast, From wood and cavern ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was as swift afoot as she was soft, for one of these great owls had very nearly caught her, while she was eating a filbert that she had found in a cleft branch, where a nuthatch had fixed it, while she pecked a hole in the shell. Some bird of prey had scared away the poor nuthatch, and Velvet-paw no doubt thought she was in luck when she found the prize; but it would have been a dear nut to her, if Nimble, who was a sharp-sighted fellow, had not seen the owl, ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... others the sounds which I conjured up appeared to be uttered by Bartle or Gideon. I would stop to listen, but only the roar of some distant waterfall or the murmur of a nearer rapid struck my ear. Or now and again I heard the cry of some bird of prey, as it swooped down from its lofty eyrie towards the carcass which it had espied far ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... La Meffraye had been seen hovering like an unclean bird of prey about the playing grounds of the village children at Saint Benoit on the edges of the forest. At nine the frightened villagers heard the howl of a day-hunting wolf, and one Louis Verger, a woodman who was cutting bark for the tanneries ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... of great usefulness to gardener, agriculturist, and landowner alike, for there is not another bird of prey which is so great a destroyer of ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... blotted out, but I knew he was creeping nearer and nearer, and felt that he had by slow degrees reached the side of Brace's charpoy, and was bending himself down, till his fingers, now spread out like the long ugly talons of some horrible bird of prey, were within a few inches of poor Brace's throat, then nearer and nearer till he seized his prey, and as a dull, low sound of painful breathing rose in the dark room, I knew that it was time to swing my arm round, snatching the sword from the scabbard, ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... is observed, that the Pike is a fish that breeds but once a year; and that other fish, as namely Loaches, do breed oftener: as we are certain tame Pigeons do almost every month; and yet the Hawk, a bird of prey, as the Pike is a fish, breeds but once in twelve months. And you are to note, that his time of breeding, or spawning, is usually about the end of February, or, somewhat later, in March, as the weather proves colder or warmer: and to note, that his manner of breeding ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... the principle in the two crimes is the same? Is it because the millionaire swindler has, in fact, been given rights under the law that is denied to the smaller fry? Or is it because the larger bird of prey makes enough to go all around? Certain it is, however, that Labor in its contests with Capital never got a decision in its favor yet - in time to be ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... huge bird of prey he ran swiftly back across the flags and disappeared behind the mass of stones, and Cuxson, not daring to move for fear of tightening the thongs, sat almost numb with anxiety as he wondered if his luck would hold at the ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... marry the street-walkers, the kept mistresses of yesterday... Jennechka, there is the scope for your unbridled vengeance; while I will admire you from a distance... For you—you are made of this stuff—you are a bird of prey, a spoliator... Perhaps not with such a broad sweep—but you will cast ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... bit about one day marrying a well brought-up young man—most likely she would never marry. What tempted and charmed and delighted her was to lure other women's husbands away from them. She was a little daemonic wrecker; she often appeared to him like a little bird of prey, that would fain have made him, too, her booty. He had studied her very, very closely. For the rest, she had had no great success with him. "She did not get hold of me, but I got hold of her—for my play. Then I fancy" (here he chuckled again) "she consoled herself with ...
— The Master Builder • Henrik Ibsen
... tragedy that underlies all comic things. Could there be a deeper pathos, after all, than simply being funny? This absurd old man, with his lean, crooked figure, his mottled skin, and his piercing bloodshot eyes, like the eyes of an overgorged bird of prey, appeared now as an object that moved one to tears, not to laughter. And yet because of this very quality which made him pitiable—this vulture-like instinct to seize and devour the smaller—he stood to-day the most conspicuously envied figure ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... Michael Moon standing under the garden tree, looking over the hedge; hunched like a bird of prey, with his large pipe hanging down his long blue chin. The very hardness of his expression pleased her, after the nonsense of the new engagement and the shilly-shallying of her ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... cottage, and its branches, heavy with the luscious fruit, drooped upon the low roof. A grapevine grew in front, and its graceful tendrils twined in and out through the sashless windows and the broken door. A bird of prey was perched upon the house, and, as we approached, with a fearful scream ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... enough that my roundheaded father-in-law, Fairfax, had the island from the Long Parliament; and was ass enough to quit hold of it at the Restoration, when, if he had closed his clutches, and held fast, like a true bird of prey, as he should have done, he might have kept it for him and his. It had been a rare thing to have had a little kingdom—made laws of my own—had my Chamberlain with his white staff—I would have taught Jerningham, in half a day, to look ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Mark, my lad. At home, in England, the kingfishers sit on twigs over the streams, and dive into the water and catch fish. Here, in the East, numbers of them sit on twigs in the forest paths and catch beetles, so there's no knowing what a bird of prey would do in a ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... "Lucky the man who has such a friend," he said aloud—"Sans peur et sans reproche! He could not betray a "—the waving of wings above him caught his eye—"he could not betray an aasvogel." His look followed the bird of prey, the servitor of carrion death, as it ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... climates, snakes are consumed by scarcely any beast or bird of prey except the stork, and they have few dangerous enemies but man, though in the tropics other animals prey upon them. [Footnote: It is very questionable whether there is any foundation for the popular belief in the hostility ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... smiling gratitude at the pleasing task. The smile conveyed to her ladyship promise of satisfaction, even amusement, in the torture of a forced confession from this child who would play the woman. Turning to me her face, with cheeks fallen in, long sharp nose, hard bright glittering eyes of a bird of prey, the snowy hair piled high around the temples, it was that of one keenly searching out the tenderest spot into which to drive the knife. Her first words were all flattery. "Much has been heard, and ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... and insidious glances, wicked mouths, and brawny necks; almost all offered a frightful resemblance to the brute. On the cunning features of this, one would find the subtle perfidy of the fox; on another, the sanguinary rapacity of the bird of prey; on a third, the ferocity of the tiger; and on another, again, the animal stupidity of the brute. The circular walk of this band of silent beings, with bold and contemptuous looks, an insolent and cynical laugh, pressing one against the other, at the bottom of this ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Grierson, and conceived an intense aversion for him. I wondered how I had ever been able to stand him, to work with him. I saw him in a sudden flash as a cunning, cruel bird of prey, a gorged, drab vulture with beady eyes, a resemblance so extraordinary that I wondered I had never remarked it before. For he had the hooked vulture nose, while the pink baldness of his head was relieved by a few scanty tufts ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... level of les Causses, the roof of that gnome-land where we had journeyed together yesterday. From snow-covered billows which should have been sprayed with mountain wild-flowers by now, a fierce blast pounced down on us like a swooping bird of prey. We felt the swift whirr of its wings, which almost took our breath away, and made the Aigle quiver; but like a bull that meets its enemy with lowered horns, the brave car's bonnet seemed to defy the wind and face it squarely. We swept ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... observing a doe and fawn drinking at a pool, we saw a magnificent golden eagle swoop down, catch the startled fawn and lift it from the ground. Mr. Compton and I, having such arrows in our quivers, let fly at the struggling bird of prey. We came so close that the eagle loosened the grip of his talons and the fawn dropped to earth and sped off with its mother, safe ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... the moment engaged in the pleasing pastime of hectoring a scared little five-year-old who ought still to have been in the kindergarten, pricked up his ears at the cry and, like a hungry bird of prey leaving a mouse for a lamb, promptly swooped down upon the new game. His movement was the signal for the gathering of a crowd, and, before Bob was fairly aware that he was the object of attention, he had become ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... The little, but extremely swift lapwings (Vanellus cristatus) boldly attack the birds of prey. "To see them attacking a buzzard, a kite, a crow, or an eagle, is one of the most amusing spectacles. One feels that they are sure of victory, and one sees the anger of the bird of prey. In such circumstances they perfectly support one another, and their courage grows with their numbers."(19) The lapwing has well merited the name of a "good mother" which the Greeks gave to it, for it never fails to protect other aquatic birds from the attacks ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... open a bombardment from many directions. Searchlights mounted at advantageous points threw their narrow pencils of light into the skies. The people in different sections of the city caught a fleeting glance of a huge airship that floated sullenly along, like some bird of prey from out of the past—a new pterodactyl that instead of seizing its victims dropped death ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... had been speaking straight ahead of her, into the air, as if, absorbed in her own bitter thoughts, she had for the moment forgotten her companion. At the girl's question she turned with a quick movement suggestive of the swoop of a bird of prey. ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... attention and sympathy, but the movement of her fan almost gave her away, for it grew rapid now and again, and when Lord Turfleigh came up beside her, his hawklike eyes glancing sharply, like those of a bird of prey, from their fat rims, she shot an angry and unfilial ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... circumvent the fraudulent, and swooping relentlessly upon the victims of misfortune. The occupation revolted him, but at present he saw no other way of supporting the genteel appearances which—he knew not why—were indispensable to his life. He subsisted like a bird of prey; he was ever on the look out for carrion which the law permitted him to seize. From the point of view forced upon him, society became a mere system of legalised rapine. 'You are in debt; behold the bond. Behold, too, my authority for squeezing out of you the uttermost ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing |
