"Decoy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... canyon to her death. Dead trees swayed, threatening to fall; snow slides roared and rumbled on the far steeps; the quagmire sucked with greedy lips, the trail wandered dimly,—as if it were trying to decoy her away into the fastnesses where the wilderness might claim her. No one had to tell her how easy it would be to lose the trail, never to find it again. The forests were endless; there were none to hear a wanderer's cry for help. Wet matches, an accident ...
— The Snowshoe Trail • Edison Marshall
... had a large number of the cases growing out of the robberies, to come on at once. The two men took stations, one on each side of Raven's Nest, and in thirty hours they arrested the youthful criminal, who in the interval stole four decoy letters, and paid a portion of the contents to one of the ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... believe you. The enemy are sure to come and search the house. When they come, you must get them all together here. Do not be surprised at anything you see. Take this paper. It's simply a decoy. The plans are false. Use it to get them in this room. If need be, say you ...
— The Southern Cross - A Play in Four Acts • Foxhall Daingerfield, Jr.
... the Deputy-Sheriff of Wayne County, Daniel D. Tompkins, told him the circumstances and what my suspicions were, and my plan, and asked him if he would go with me to Canada. He said he would. I told him that I would come out with my team, he and I would go to Canada and decoy Obadiah across the river, have the papers ready and arrest him in Detroit. I had made up my mind that he had the watch or knew its whereabouts. I thought he would be glad to give it up in order to get out of the scrape, ...
— The Bark Covered House • William Nowlin
... capacity in point of reasoning, did not think proper to dispute the proposal but lent a deaf ear to her repeated remonstrances, though they were enforced with every argument which she thought could soothe, terrify, shame or decoy him into compliance. In vain did she urge the excess of affection she had for him as meriting some return of tenderness and condescension: he was even proof against certain menacing hints she gave touching the resentment of a slighted woman; and he ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... at the old pair with amused, indulgent curiosity, but they were quite oblivious to their surroundings, even to Mrs. Hiram's anxiety to decoy them away. Cyrus Morgan cleared his throat and said, "It was great, Mother, great. She took the shine off the other play-actors all right. I knew that National Gazette man didn't know what he was talking about. Mother, let us go and see Josie right off. She's stopping with her aunt ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... a spot in St. James's Park, near the Bird-cage Walk; and was so called, because Charles the Second had established a decoy of ducks upon it. It was destroyed when the improvements and alterations took place in this park, about the ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... acquired the privilege of entering his library at will; sometimes to choose a book of his recommendation, sometimes to direct and seal his letters,—Sir Peter was grateful to any one who saved him an extra trouble,—and sometimes, especially at this hour, to decoy him forth into his wonted ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... fish, which are said to be its prey, and which instinctively take shelter there from their pursuers. The body of the narwhale is covered with a layer of blubber, of about two inches in thickness. This was 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 ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... him, In the midst of the mire and the grass, and mumbling "Te Deum laudamus." "Unktmee [72]—Ho!" muttered the braves, for they deemed him the black Spider-Spirit That dwells in the drearisome caves, and walks on the marshes at midnight, With a flickering torch in his hand, to decoy to his den the unwary. His tongue could they not understand, but his torn hands all shriveled with famine, He stretched to the hunters and said: "He feedeth his chosen with manna; And ye are the angels of God, sent to save me from death in the desert." His famished and woe-begone face, and ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon
... spirits of children more delicately nurtured. They had known every degree of hunger and nakedness; during the first few years of their lives they had often been compelled to subsist for days and weeks upon roots and herbs, wild fruits, and game which their fathers had learned to entrap, to decoy, and to shoot. Thus Louis and Hector had early been initiated into the mysteries of the chase. They could make deadfalls, and pits, and traps, and snares,—they were as expert as Indians in the use of the bow,—they could pitch a stone, or fling a wooden dart at partridge, ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... him to see the weak points in our barricade," he said, "besides, the other day, I was noticing that fellow coming. Criminal he may be, but he is far too good for the company he's in. I've got a feeling that he would not stand to be a decoy. Here goes, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... what they said." One was young, and the other quite old. Marguerite's aching heart almost stopped beating as she listened: was the young one Armand?—her brother?—and the old one de Tournay—were they the two fugitives who, unconsciously, were used as a decoy, to entrap their fearless ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... tenable position. An exposed outpost, on the contrary, presents to the broad eye of day its dangers and also its weaknesses. (16) Besides which, the holder of a concealed outpost can always place a few exposed vedettes beyond his hidden pickets, and so endeavour to decoy the enemy into an ambuscade. Or he may play the part of trapper with effect by placing a second exposed outpost in rear of the other; a device which may serve to take in the unwary foeman quite as ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... hot a reception, the whites kept a more respectful distance. Hovering now just out of reach of the hurtling hatchets, they, with a view to the close encounter which must soon come, sought to decoy the blacks into entirely disarming themselves of their most murderous weapons in a hand-to-hand fight, by foolishly flinging them, as missiles, short of the mark, into the sea. But, ere long, perceiving the stratagem, the negroes desisted, though not before many of them ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... which have been erected the butts used by those well-known defenders of their country, the Copperhouse Volunteer Rifles; and just below the bridge the sluggish water becomes a little lake, having probably at some time been artificially widened, and there is a little island and a decoy for ducks. On the present occasion carriages were drawn up on all the roads, and horses were clustered on each side of the brook, and the hounds sat stately on their haunches where riflemen usually ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... not uncommon for the land speculators to sell a farm to a respectable settler at an unusually low price, in order to give a character to a neighbourhood where they hold other lands, and thus to use him as a decoy ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... you credit; pretty girl, curly head. good manners. Well, she's off. Good trick, too. She was the decoy. Banin stood in the shadow with club. She brought gentleman into alley, friend did work. That's Banin's story. Perhaps a lie. You have a brother in Algiers? Thought so. Girl went out there once? So I was told. Probably there now. African officers ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... about half way to it they stopped, and, upon looking back and observing that they were not pursued, beckoned again. Upon seeing this manoeuvre, it was suspected that they might have a strong party concealed at the back of the point, to which they were anxious to decoy our people; the boat was therefore called alongside and armed and again sent after them. By this time they had embarked in their canoe and were paddling with all their strength towards the mangroves on the opposite shore, pursued by our boat until ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... and believed for a minute that his friend had been put forward as a decoy, and that his captors were immediately behind him. But that dread was removed the next moment by the appearance of the young Irishman, who, advancing jauntily, called out ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... was taken, all looting was forbidden and the soldiers were put on guard over houses which they had hoped to rob. For the soldiers there were no prizes. Louisbourg was poor. The sailors, on the other hand, were fortunate. As a decoy Warren kept the French flag flying over the harbor, and French ships sailed in, one of them with a vast treasure of gold and silver coin and ingots from Peru valued at 600,000 pounds. One other prize was valued at 200,000 pounds and a third at 140,000 pounds. Warren's own ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... had commenced to run! But the bombardment was continued for two reasons. In the first place, every house, as in Paris, was a fort; and, secondly, the Neapolitan commander could not possibly trust the white flag immediately after he had lost a whole battalion by a false flag being hoisted to decoy them into ambush, where the ground was mined. But no single fact of needless cruelty has been proved against the King of Naples, though I know, from a person attached to our Navy, and in those seas at that ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... that he might manage to decoy some of them away quietly, and drive them home for food for his family, but he soon found this could not be. For at midnight he heard a rushing noise, and through the air flew a dragon, who drove apart ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various
... it with stones. Then climbing upon the top, he slipped through between the rails; and secured the birds by tying their legs together with a stout thong of deerskin. When he had lifted them out of the trap, he again adjusted everything—leaving the 'decoy turkey' quietly feeding as before—and shouldering his prize, he marched off in triumph. His return to the house was greeted with exclamations of joy; and a rail penn was immediately built for the birds, similar to the trap ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... together until we heard the 'turkeys' gobbling. Then he followed the sound of one and I went after the other. When I came near the place I saw it was a warrior trying to decoy us." ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... as they gave no disturbance to the people of the village. From all the circumstances attending the event, few doubt that the scheme was preconcerted, and that the Mahanta and Brahman were the agents of the Gorkhalese, to decoy the youth ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... march "Forward to Richmond" in history. For the moment, it saved the city and its magazines from General Phillips, who had reached Manchester, on the opposite side of James River. Phillips retired down the river, hoping to decoy Lafayette after him, on that neck of land, now, as then, a point so critical, between the James and York Rivers,—and then to return by his vessels on the first change of wind, get in Lafayette's rear, and shut him up there. But it was another general who ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... Wood is the home in fiction of adventuresses and profligacy and Bohemian supper-parties; often have I read about those foreign Countesses, of unknown history and incredible fascination, who decoy handsome young officials of the Foreign Office to these villas, and rob them, in dim-lit, scented bedrooms, of important documents. But I at least have never too harshly blamed these young diplomatists. Silent is the street as the mysterious brougham ...
— More Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... preacher had committed the one deadly sin acknowledged amongst those wild wreckers and watermen. It was not that he had knocked a drowning man in the head, nor shown a false signal along the shore to decoy a vessel into the breakers, nor darkened the lighthouse lamp. These things had been done, but not ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... man himself, little knowing how close death had come to him, but inwardly reproached because of his passionate outbreak, he firmly believed that he had had a narrow escape from the net of the great fowler, whose decoy the old woman was, commissioned not only to cause his bodily death, but to work in him first such a frame of mind as should render his soul the lawful prey of ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... o'clock on the morning of August 28 the positions of the fighting forces were as follows: The decoy British submarines were making a track from Helgoland to the northwest, pursued by a flotilla of German submarines, destroyers, and torpedo boats, and a fleet of light cruisers. On the west—the left edge of the page, halfway up—there were the British cruisers Arethusa and Fearless accompanied ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... In a pamphlet of "A View of London and Westminster, or the Town-spy," 1725, I find this account:—"The seeming quarrel, formerly, between Mist's Journal and the Flying Post was secretly concerted between themselves, in order to decoy the eyes of all the parties on both their papers; and the project succeeded beyond all expectation; for I have been told that the former narrowly missed getting an estate ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... concealed themselves in small parties at different points from Pittsburgh to Louisville, where they laid in ambush and fired upon the boats as they passed. They frequently attempted by false signals to decoy the boats ashore, and in several instances succeeded by these artifices in capturing and murdering whole families, and plundering them of their effects. They even armed and manned some of the boats and scows they had taken, and used them as a kind of floating battery, by means of which they killed ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... of the decoy pieces was found upon him, or any other coins, for that matter; he had no money. Mr. Wake was confused, for he fully expected to convict the culprit on ...
— Try Again - or, the Trials and Triumphs of Harry West. A Story for Young Folks • Oliver Optic
... famous French landscape-gardener. Amongst the improvements this ingenious man effected were planting trees of stately height, contriving a canal one hundred feet broad and two hundred and eighty feet long, with a decoy and duck island, [The goodnatured Charles made Monsieur St. Evremond governor of Duck Island, to which position he attached a salary much appreciated by the exile. The island was removed in 1790 ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... written by some Clergyman, Rose, who lived chiefly among the mining folk. But there is a Chapter in Vol. 2 entitled '[El] Pajaro,' and giving account of a day's sport with [Pedro the Barber] who carries a Decoy Bird, which is as another Chapter to Don Quixote. Ah! I look at him on my Shelf, and know that I can take him down when I will, and that I shall do so many a time before 1878 if ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... to talking straight out to you, grandfather. I'm willing to help as far as it's in my poor power. But I want you to tell me that I'm not being used as a decoy-duck ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... have to be to one side of the unicorns to kill them," Schroeder said, "it only calls for a man to be the decoy and let the unicorns chase him between the hidden bowmen. If there's no more than one or two unicorns and if the decoy doesn't have to run very far and if the bowmen don't ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... horse speeds on its way, Kansa assembles his demon councillors, explains the situation to them and asks for their advice. If Krishna should not be killed in the forest, the only alternative, the demons suggest, is to decoy him to Mathura. Let a handsome theatre be built, a sacrifice to Siva held and a special festival of arms proclaimed. All the cowherds will naturally come to see it. Nanda, the rich herdsman, will ...
— The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry • W. G. Archer
... so situated that I could leave them unnoticed. I thought it well, however, to leave behind a small number of burghers as a decoy, so that the English should not ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... employs agents to decoy the refugees into conspiracies, in order that it may obtain a pretext for criminal proceedings against them. The fact has fallen under my personal observation. To estimate the character of these practices, and of the present attempt ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... carefully examined by reconnoitring parties, and every endeavour must be made to obtain all possible information about it from the people of the country. It must, however, be remembered that the position ostensibly occupied is not always the one the Boers intend to defend; it is often merely a decoy, a stronger position in the vicinity having previously been prepared upon which they move rapidly, and from which they can frequently bring a destructive fire to bear upon the attacking line. Their marvellous mobility enables them to do this without much risk to themselves, and also to be in ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... people who are not organized for it, by people who are wildly, earnestly seeking for the truth, when they have it at home—some on their domestic hearth, and others next door waiting for them—it can only act as a decoy to a crowd of sensation-seekers, who yearn to see a ghost as they would go to a pantomime; and this can only weaken and degrade it, and distract attention from its possible true object—science. Used vulgarly, as we have all sometimes seen it used, after misleading and crazing a small portion ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... ascetics, and much of the secret crime of India is known to be committed by men who adopt the garb of holiness. A man disguised as a fakir is often sent on by dacoits (gang-robbers) as a spy and decoy. 'Three-fourths of these religions mendicants, whether Hindoos or Muhammadans, rob and steal, and a very great portion of them murder their victims before they rob them; but they have not any of them as a class been found to follow the trade of murder so exclusively as to be ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... breaking of Christmas, and if I had had sense enough to have followed up his education on similar lines, a deal of hard work, risk to life and limb, and the loss of some little personal property might have been saved. Ever after, Christmas could not resist the decoy of a banana. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... by means of Indian ladders, and then drawing these after them. After being well fixed, and having taken up a number of stones, they began to imitate the voices and cries of the various beasts of the woods, and even that of children, to decoy him thither. Having spent some days without success, a detached party took a stroll to some distance from the rock. Before they had reached the rock again, this beast had got scent, and was in full pursuit of them; yet they reached ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... suppressed a slight maternal pang, having daughters to marry, and took her line in a moment; here was a decoy duck. Mrs. Lucas was all graciousness, made acquaintance, and took a little turn with her, introducing her to one or two persons; among the rest, to the malignant woman, Mrs. Barr. Mrs. Barr, on this, ceased to look daggers and substituted icicles; but on ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... her charge had been stolen by gypsies for the sake of her amber beads, and could not be found anywhere. What had really happened was worse even than Betty had feared. Mr. Howard had hired a sailor, who was in desperate need of money, and bribed him to decoy the child away, take her to the seaside and there drown her. Robert, the sailor, fulfilled the first part of his bargain but not the second. He carried little Mary into a remote part of Wales, but he did not do her any harm. Instead, he became extremely fond ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... named Duling, and his younger brother, went out into the woods to trap wild chickens. Duling had on his back a basket holding a decoy cock, together with the snares of running-nooses and all the parts of the trap. While they were looking for a good spot to drive in the stakes for the snare, they heard the voice of Tagamaling in the trees, saying, "Duling, Duling, come ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... I have heard that Ctesipho Was present with his brother at this riot. This is the sum of all my miseries, If he, even he, a sober, hopeful lad, May be seduc'd into debaucheries. —But where shall I inquire for him? I warrant They have decoy'd him into some vile brothel. That profligate persuaded him, I'm sure. —But here comes Syrus; he can tell me all. And yet this slave is of the gang; and if He once perceives that I'm inquiring for him, He'll never tell me any thing; a rogue! I'll ...
— The Comedies of Terence • Publius Terentius Afer
... ambassador. Sir John then sent a message to Ferro—that's a small town on the Portuguese coast to the southward—with a despatch to Sir Hyde Parker, desiring him to run away to Cape St Vincent, and decoy the Spanish fleet there, in case they should come out after him. Well, Mr Simple, so far d'ye see the train was well laid. The next thing to do was to watch the Spanish ambassador's house, and see if he sent away any despatches. Two days after the letters had been taken to him by this ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... the night I have heard the stuttering call of a blind quail, A caged decoy, under a cairn of stones, Crying for light as the quails cry ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... numerous; and so also were wreckers,—a class of men, who, in the absence of an efficient coastguard, subsisted to a large extent on what they picked up from the wrecks that were cast in their way, and who did not scruple, sometimes, to cause wrecks, by showing false lights in order to decoy vessels to destruction. ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... two more, and I have done. The Bible would, as it seems to me probable, be a sort of double book; for the righteous, and for the wicked: to one class, a decoy, baited to allure all sorts of generous dispositions: to the other, a trap, set to catch all kinds of evil inclinations. In these two senses, it would address the whole family man: and every one should find in it something to his liking. Purity should there perceive green pastures and still ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... occupied the seat opposite to mine. And in this trap of Iblis was decoy enough for a poor mouse like me. It is an age since I beheld such an Oriental gem in an American setting; or such a strange Southern beauty in an exotic frame. For one would think her from the South, or further down ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... to bird-fowlers, and on a dry day in January they take two large bunches of docks—'red docks' they call them—tied round the centre like faggots and well smeared at the top with birdlime. These are placed on the ground, by a hedge, and near them a decoy goldfinch in a cage. Goldfinches eat dock-seed, and if any approach the decoy-bird calls. The wild bird descends from the hedge to feed on the dock-seed and is caught. Goldfinches go in pairs all the winter and work along the hedges together. In spring the young green buds ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... accounts they had repeatedly received on their march were true, had ever regarded the coming of the Spaniards with an evil eye. It was scarcely possible he should do otherwise. His soft messages had only been intended to decoy them across the mountains, where, with the aid of his warriors, he might readily overpower them. They were entangled in the toils which the cunning monarch had ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... the five frigates were all running on the starboard tack with every stitch of canvas set. At 9 A. M. an American merchant-man hove in sight and bore down toward the squadron. The Belvidera, by way of decoy, hoisted American colors, when the Constitution hoisted the British flag, and the merchant vessel hauled off. The breeze continued light till noon, when Hull found he had dropped the British frigates well behind; the nearest was the Belvidera, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... to your decoy," rejoined Angelica in a positive tone. "You just went down there yourself one day and exploded some long words at the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... of the sick-room. One does not escape from being a patient because of being also a physician, and for my part I am glad to confess my sense of enjoyment in such visits, and how I have longed to keep my doctor at my side and to decoy him into a protracted stay. The convalescence he observes is for him, too, a pleasant thing. He has and should have pride in some distinct rescue, or in the fact that he has been able to stand by, with little interference, and see the disease run its normal ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... the odour of the carrion; and the undertakers hurried up, so that the experiments, begun with four subjects, were continued with fourteen, a number not attained during the whole of my previous searches, which were unpremeditated and in which no bait was used as decoy. My trapper's ruse ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... science to be accounted mere hinderances to instruction? Has grammar really been made easy by this confounding of its parts? Or are we lured by the name, "Familiar Lectures,"—a term manifestly adopted as a mere decoy, and, with respect to the work itself, totally inappropriate? If these chapters have ever been actually delivered as a series of lectures, the reader must have been employed on some occasions eight or ten times as long as on others! "People," says Dr. Johnson, "have now-a-days got a strange opinion ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... unsuspicious inlanders by alluring and entangling them in the treacherous meshes of debt, and then, by capturing and mercilessly selling their human game, liquidate the debt, insinuatingly advanced as an irresistible decoy to allure their ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... the terror he inspired from the tiger is more than a simile; but that the tiger has his decoy is something we read about in the story books, and grandfathers talk about a good deal, too. So there must be some truth in it. It is said that when a tiger devours a human being, the latter's spirit cannot free itself, and that ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... of ministers, though some are taxing them with unconstitutional harshness, (or at least with that summum jus which the Roman proverb denounces as summa injuria,) in having ever interfered at all with Mr O'Connell, others of the same faction are roundly imputing to them a system of decoy, a "laying of traps," (that was the word,) in waiting so patiently for the ripening of the Repeal frenzy. Upon the same principle, a criminal may have a right to complain that her Majesty, when extending mercy to a first crime, or a crime palliated by its circumstances, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... squealing like a Guinea hen with a sore throat, and waving his gun with one wing—arm, I mean—and there in front of him, in the foam at the edge of the surf, was two ducks as dead as Nebuchadnezzar—two of Lonesome Huckleberries' best decoy ducks—ducks he'd tamed and trained, and thought more of than anything else in this world—except rum, maybe—and the rest of the flock was digging up the beach for home as if they'd been telegraped for, and squawking "Fire!" ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... to take his gun and ammunition with him. Having safely fixed himself in a forked bough, Edward then surveyed the position of the parties. There was Humphrey in the tree, without his gun. The bull who had pursued Humphrey was now running at Smoker, who appeared to be aware that he was to decoy the bull toward Edward, for he kept retreating toward him. In the mean time, the two other bulls were quite close at hand, mingling their bellowing and roaring with the first; and one of them as near to Edward ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... that the penetrating Hamlet perceives, from the strange and forced manner of Ophelia, that the sweet girl was not acting a part of her own, but was a decoy; and his after speeches are not so much directed to her as to the listeners and spies. Such a discovery in a mood so anxious and irritable accounts for a certain harshness in him;—and yet a wild up-working ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... little son as a butt, and for a mark a shilling on the boy's cap, commanding him to carry off the shilling without the cap with his arrow. But when the wizard said he could do it, though he would rather abstain, lest the Devil should decoy him to destruction; still, being led on by the words of the chief, he thrust one arrow through his collar, and, fitting the other to his crossbow, struck off the coin from the boy's cap without doing him any harm; seeing which, when the lord asked the wizard why he had placed the ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... agitations that ensued, the dear girl told us how he had forced her into the post-chaise and driven off at full speed, determined so to compromise her that a marriage would be insisted on, or even besought by her parents. He had sent a decoy chaise on the Merton road, and driven furiously to Sundale, counting on the coast being clear. I waited not, however, to hear more, but left her in Mrs Wickham's ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... small clear lake almost emfoofomed in trees, across which an embankment, formed for the purpose of a decoy for the wildfowl with which it abounded, led into a wood which covered the opposite hill; an old forest-like wood, where the noble oaks, whose boughs almost dipped into the water, were surrounded by their sylvan accompaniments of birch, and holly, and hawthorn, ...
— The Widow's Dog • Mary Russell Mitford
... miles good work," he explained. "We build decoy fire, we leave tin can, he come; he think we go that way, but we go north." Back to the forks and up the northern branch they pulled, both Larry and Jack not only willing to have done four miles of seemingly ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... them the hunter placed the traps either in the water or on the bank at a spot where they were in the habit of going ashore, and to decoy them to that landing Oo-koo-hoo rubbed castoreum on the branches of the surrounding bushes—just in the same way as he did for mink or otter. Another way he had of setting traps was to cut a hole in the side of a muskrat's house, so that he could ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... calmly—so calmly that Kate leaped to the conviction that he was in the plot against her. The others wanted to go somewhere or do something without her, and this little brown-faced, sharp-eyed man had been told off as a kind of decoy duck. But she would circumvent them yet. She would know what ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson
... pass. The third day after, Haight came to McFarland's house and told witness and others that orders had come in from camp last night. Things hadn't gone along as had been expected, and reenforcements were wanted. Haight then went to Parowan to get instructions, and received orders from Dame to decoy the emigrants out and spare nothing but the small children who could not tell the tale." In an affidavit made by this Bishop in April, 1871, he said: "I do not know whether said 'headquarters' meant the spiritual ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... its transcendental forms, have had a great charm for a Platonic thinker. Our author was entirely devoted to study, and resisted every inducement to leave what he called his 'Paradise' at Cambridge. His friends once tried to decoy him into a bishopric, and got him the length of Whitehall to kiss the king's hand on the occasion; but when he understood their purpose, he refused to go a single step further. His life was a long, learned, happy, and holy dream. He was ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... misunderstood. But he laughed at Raymond's badly-expressed warning and rather resented Major Hepburn's kindly advice when on one occasion his Company Commander spoke plainly, though tactfully, to him on the subject. Then Violet's enemies took a hand in the game. Mrs. Trevor, having failed to decoy him to her bungalow for what she called "a quiet tea and a motherly little chat," cornered him one afternoon when he was on his way to the Residency and spoke very openly to him of the risk he ran of being entangled in the coils of such an outrageous coquette as "that Mrs. ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... short pantomime had taken place literally before his face. He saw what was going on well enough, and understood it all perfectly well. Of course the schoolmaster had been trying to make Elsie jealous, and had succeeded. The little school-girl was a decoy-duck,—that was all. Estates like the Dudley property were not to be had every day, and no doubt the Yankee usher was willing to take some pains to make sure of Elsie. Doesn't Elsie look savage? Dick involuntarily moved his chair a little away ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... smile of stern vindictive joy Brightened one moment Edwin's starting tear.— 'But why should gold man's feeble mind decoy, 'And innocence thus die by doom severe?' O Edwin! while thy heart is yet sincere, The assaults of discontent and doubt repel: Dark even at noontide is our mortal sphere; But let us hope; to doubt, is to rebel; Let ...
— The Minstrel; or the Progress of Genius - with some other poems • James Beattie
... own safety," he answered low. "The Power, the type of life, she would waken is stupendous. And if roused enough to be attracted by the patterned symbol into which she would decoy it down, it will take actual, physical expression. But how? Where is the Body of Worshippers through whom it can manifest? There is none. It will, therefore, press inanimate matter into the service. The terrific impulse ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... a dozen young ducks in the course of the day—an easy matter, for the old birds made such a fuss in attempting to decoy us away from them—pretending to be badly hurt as they say the plover does—that we could always find them by going about in the opposite direction to the old bird till we heard the young ones crying: then we ran them down, for they could not fly though they ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... FitzGibbon—General Brock's old-time sergeant-major and faithful protege—now in command of a company of the 49th, disguised as a settler, penetrated the enemy's camp, and was convinced a night attack would be successful. While the advance guard of the enemy was driving in the British decoy pickets, 800 of Vincent's force, under Harvey, surprised and charged them in the darkness, capturing two American generals, 120 prisoners, and four cannon, without ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... prayer, however you condemn me. Let me see you alone but for one moment; let me but prove to you that, guilty as I may have been, it was not from the base motives you will hear imputed to me,—that it was not the heiress I sought to decoy, it was the woman I sought ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Denys disappeared, and was eventually found by Gerard in the yard, helping Manon, his plump but not bright decoy duck, to draw water, and pouring extravagant compliments into her dullish ear. Gerard grunted and returned to table, but Denys did not come in for a ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... announcing to all the troops of his military division the results of his great campaign, General Sherman said: "Generals Thomas and Schofield, commanding the departments to our rear, returned to their posts and prepared to decoy General Hood into their meshes." If the purpose that prompted Sherman to send me back to Tennessee was to serve as a "decoy" to Hood, I must say that my part of the sport would have been more enjoyable if it had taken place earlier in ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... darkness when the chase began, and shot over to the Island. He stood telling how the Expedition, supposing the whole array of armed boats to be ahead of it, got tempted into shallows and went aground; but not without having its revenge upon the two decoy-boats, both of which it had come up with, overhand, and sent to the bottom with all on board. He stood telling how the Expedition, fearing then that the case stood as it did, got afloat again, by great exertion, after the loss of four more tides, and returned to the Island, where they ...
— The Perils of Certain English Prisoners • Charles Dickens
... you, sir, one moment, only just one moment!" And the official, or rather decoy, whispered in his ear tales of such wonderful cures as almost dissuaded him from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... where the corpse of Caesar went an hour after the extinction of his pyre. Nor will there be more remains of any of us. And the whole of Humanity, and the Earth itself, will also disappear one day. Let no one talk of the Progress of Humanity as an end! That would be too gross a decoy. ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... impudent, debauched fellow." According to his own account, the cheat lies perdu, because his unnatural father is looking for him, to send him home into the country. Number two, Shamwell, is a young man of fortune, who, ruined by Cheatley, has turned decoy-duck, and lives on a share of the spoil. His ostensible reason for concealment is that an alderman's young wife had run away with him. The third rascal, Scrapeall, is a low, hypocritical money-lender, who is secretly in partnership with Cheatley. The fourth rascal is ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... listen politely to a matter he thought pitiably unimportant compared with that which had been broken off. But the "Gosshawk" had got him in its clutches; and was resolved to make him a decoy duck. He was to open a new vein of Insurances. Workmen had hitherto acted with great folly and imprudence in this respect, and he was to cure them, by precept as well ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... trotting before us, with her nose to the ground, when suddenly she made a run through the short heather after a lapwing, which was, or pretended to be, unable to fly. I think it was trying to decoy the dog away from its nest. As we watched the chase, Tom ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... with tendencies to honour. Peschiera had taken advantage of the admiration she excited, some years ago, in a rich young Englishman, to entice this admirer into gambling, and sought to make his sister both a decoy and an instrument in his designs of plunder. She did not encourage the addresses of our countryman, but she warned him of the snare laid for him, and entreated him to leave the place lest her brother should discover ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... having been taken by a certain slave master to the Baltimore wharf, boarded a boat and after the slave dealer and the captain negotiated a deal, he, Williams, not realizing that he was being used as a decoy, led a group of some thirty or forty blacks, men, women and children, through a dark and dirty tunnel for a distance of several blocks to a slave market pen, where they were placed on ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Maryland Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... punished you cruelly, for I see that you have suffered a great deal during the last three days. My heart does not bear you any ill-will now, and I will try to restore your beautiful and unhappy wife to you, and to console her. But I must request you to leave this room. I know a charm, by which I shall decoy Fanny from that room; but in order to do so I must be alone, and nobody, save herself, must be ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... long and 250 feet wide. From one end, in the centre of which was the entrance, on either side a palisade extended, growing wider and wider, and reaching some way into the forest, somewhat in the same manner as a decoy for wild-fowl is formed. The trees were allowed to stand untouched in the interior of the corral. The palisades which enclose the corral were formed of trunks of trees about twelve inches in diameter. They were sunk three or four feet ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... Augustine says (De Serm. Dom. in Monte ii, 12) that "not only the glare and pomp of outward things, but even dirt and the weeds of mourning may be a subject of ostentation, all the more dangerous as being a decoy under the guise of God's service"; and the Philosopher says (Ethic. iv, 7) that "both excess and inordinate defect ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... nobody dared believe it. But the pilot could be seen on vision. He was known. No blueskin would be left alive long enough to be used as a decoy by the men of Weald! Presently the giant ship on its second voyage to Dara—the first had been a generation ago, when it threatened death and destruction—appeared as a dark pinpoint in the sky. It came down and down, ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... you are quite a decoy-duck, eh, Euphra?" said Mr. Arnold, laughing in reality at his own joke, which put him in great good-humour for the whole ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... talk, in the Spanish language. They charged their adversaries with being afraid to advance, or to use their expressive words, the Americans were as cowardly as squaws. To these taunts no reply was made; but to keep up the decoy, the few soldiers who were exposed to view, remained stationary, while word was passed to the rear of what was transpiring in the advance. Thus several minutes passed by; but they were not thrown away. ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... into thine house; for many are the plots of the deceitful man. As a decoy partridge in a cage, so is the heart of a proud man; and as one that is a spy, he looketh upon thy falling. For he lieth in wait to turn things that are good into evil; and in things that are praiseworthy ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... was fading away. The whole party was concealed in a dense canebrake which fringed the stream. Two of the Indians were sent forward as a decoy—a shameful decoy—to lure into the hands of two hundred warriors an unarmed man, two women, and eight or ten children. The Indians picked out some of their best marksmen and hid them behind trees and logs near the river. They were to shoot down the Indians ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... is this little bird, that the bird trappers take advantage of his disposition to make him a prisoner. They place a decoy bird on a cage trap in the attitude of defense, and when it is discovered by the bird an attack at once follows, and the fighter ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [January, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... of the Downs to the right are hereabouts very beautiful; one of the spurs is occupied by Angmering Park belonging to the Duke of Norfolk. At Poling, on a tributary of the Arun southwards, is a decoy for wild fowl. Here is a Perpendicular church containing a fourteenth-century brass to a former priest, one Walter Davey. A chapel belonging to a commandery of the Knights of St. John still stands near the church; it has been converted into ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... parts of each net to spring up and meet to form an enclosure which is, in shape, not unlike a sleeping-pal tent. When the nets have been set in a pond near the trees where the cattle-egrets roost at night and rest in the day-time, two or three decoy birds—captured egrets with their eyes sewn up to prevent them struggling or trying to fly away—are tethered in the space between the two nets; these last, being laid flat under muddy water, are invisible. Sooner or later an egret in one of the trees near by, seeing some of its ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... courageous as it is, and demonstrative of the supremacy with which man wields his "dominion over every beast of the earth," falls far short of the daring exploit of capturing a whole herd: when from thirty to one hundred wild elephants are entrapped in one vast decoy. The mode of effecting this, as it is practised in Ceylon, is no doubt imitated, but with considerable modifications, from the methods prevalent in various parts of India. It was introduced by the Portuguese, and continued ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... corresponding rank in the retinues of the envoys or consulting clients, and doubtless to collect from them, in convivial moments, all the secrets or general information which the temple required for satisfactory answers. If they personally went too far in their intrigues or stratagems of decoy, the disgrace no more recoiled on the god, than, in modern times, the vices or crimes of a priest can affect the pure religion at whose ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... apparent motion is toward cells to sleep in, and clubs to play bridge in, and amusements for evenings, and a strenuous business life, run on piratical principles, into which the women are drawn as decoy ducks? Because this is, is it going to be, as soon as a good proportion of the thinking people stand face to face with the problem? I believe it is possible to solve the problem, but only if the aid of scientifically trained women ...
— Euthenics, the science of controllable environment • Ellen H. Richards
... (second-hand if need be) with which one can obtain a definite image on the ground glass where the plate or film is to be. Focus the camera on some spot where it is expected the bird will come; usually this is on the nest or young, sometimes it is the food, a favorite perch, or some form of decoy. The next requisite is patience. If the coveted opportunity arrives, set off the shutter by hand in the {90} blind, or, where this is not possible, by means of a long thread, after carefully hiding the camera with ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... hollow square, and with numerous galleries, like European cloisters, where the youth walk, study, and play. We were shown up-stairs, into a pleasant reception-room, where two priests soon waited on us. One of these, Padre Doyaguez, seemed to be the decoy-duck of the establishment, and soon fastened upon one of our party, whose Protestant tone of countenance had probably caught his attention. Was she a Protestant? Oh, no!—not with that intelligent, physiognomy!—not with that talent! What was her name? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Officer, a Chancery Sollicitor, and a broken Apothecary, that made a tolerable good Livelihood, by calling into a Tavern all their Friends that passed by the Window in this manner. Their Custom was to sit with a Quart of White-Port before them in a Morning; every Person they decoy'd into their Company for a Minute or two, never threw down less than his Six-pence, and few drank more than one Gill; and if two or three Glasses, he seldom came off with less than one Shilling. The Master of the House constantly provided them with ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson
... playthings, in consequence of experiments which she was in the habit of making on them, were fallen into the condition of that which had been—and even that gingerbread-heart with which she had been accustomed to decoy Gabriele, had, precisely on this very day, in an unlucky moment of curiosity, gone down Petrea's throat. Petrea really possessed nothing which was fit to make a gift of. She acknowledged this with a sigh; her heart was tilled with sadness, and tears were just beginning to run down her cheeks, ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... with a coat buttoned clear to the neck, and a countenance like a funeral sermon, with no more expression than a wooden decoy duck, who was smoking a briar-wood pipe that he had picked up on a what-not that belonged to the host, knocked the ashes out ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... a standing under the Constitution regarding this slavery question. By his own argument he lives in a foreign country; by our own argument he is not rectus in curia. Were I an invading general and wanted horses, I would decoy them from the rebels with hay and stable enticements. If I wanted trench-diggers, camp scullions, or artillerists, or pilots, or oarsmen, or guides, and, being that general, saw negroes about me, I should press them into my service. Time enough to talk about the rights of some one ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... for so trim a maid," continued he of the boar, as they disappeared. "She has eyes like friar's lanterns. What a decoy she'd make ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... hedge before my windows was the decoy that gave me my best chance to study the red-headed woodpecker. Day after day, as the berries ripened, I watched the dwellers of wood and meadow drawn to the rich feast, and at last, one morning, to ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... "you miss the whole point. For a woman to ride into the Piegan camp, especially on this errand of mercy, involves her in no danger. And what possible danger would there be in having the old villain ride back with me for medicine? And as to the decoy business," here she shrugged her shoulders contemptuously, "do you think I care a bit for that? Isn't he planning to kill women and children in this country? And—and—won't he do his best to kill you?" she panted. "Isn't it right for me to prevent him? Prevent him! ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... three days ago, Sahib," the villager said, "and asked us many questions about the tigers, and were, when the soldiers came to the door, questioning me as to the tiger's place of retreat, and whether a pitfall, or a kid as a decoy, ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... that moonlit night when I floated among the vapours of these meadows, myself less than a vapour, I knew and loved Oxford as never before, as never since. Yonder, in the Colleges, was the fume and fret of tragedy—Love as Death's decoy, and Youth following her. What then? Not Oxford was menaced. Come what might, not a stone of Oxford's walls would be loosened, nor a wreath of her vapours be undone, nor lost a ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... The virtuous and Honourable, who Scorn Advantage, are a constant Prey to the vicious and dishonourable, who never Play without one. nor does the Vice Stop here: For the Sharper having Stript his Bubble of his Estate, he next Corrupts his Mind, by making him a Decoy-Duck, in Order to retrieve his Fortune as he lost It. And, from an indegent Virtuous Bubble, the Noble Youth becomes an Affluent ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... explained it, Anina proposed that she go into Tao's house alone, and decoy his men down to the boat where ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings
... baroness and her friends? Swindlers, all of them; and there isn't a doubt on my mind, whatever there may be on yours, that Miss Gwilt's manners and appearance made her a valuable member of the society in the capacity of a decoy. Her own statement is that she was innocent of all knowledge of what really went on; that she was quite ignorant of card-playing; that she hadn't such a thing as a respectable friend to turn to in the world; and that she honestly liked the baroness, for the ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... the man inside to watch the movements of migratory birds, and to send his shot into the thick of them when, unsuspecting danger, they chanced to come within range. The little building was an affut. Near to it was a sort of fixed cage, intended for decoy birds, but it had long been without tenants when I took possession of this refuge from all the human noises of the world. The other sounds did not worry me, although they often drew me from my work. The splash of a fish would take me to the water's edge, where I would watch the small pikes lying ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... Ulrich, whom everybody knows—who has not noticed the handsome, fair-haired lad in his gay clothes—will stay with the carriage and accompany it along the road towards Burgos, as far as it goes. A better decoy than he cannot be imagined, and besides he is nimble and an excellent horseman. Give him your own steed, the white Andalusian. If the blood-hounds should ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... This was evidently a decoy, and the poor fly was gradually drawn down towards it, either under the impression of its being in reality a flower, or impelled by some impulse which it could not resist. It gradually fluttered nearer and more ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. - 582, Saturday, December 22, 1832 • Various
... c. 100, appears at first sight to be directed against the stealing and abduction of children for marriage, or other improper purposes. It provides that 'Whosoever shall UNLAWFULLY, either by force or fraud, lead or take away, or decoy, or entice away, or detain any child, &c., with intent to deprive ANY parent, &c., of the possession of such child'—shall be guilty of felony. It is perfectly clear, that in the case before me, the infant was not, 'by force or fraud, led or taken away, or decoyed, or enticed away.' ...
— Ginx's Baby • Edward Jenkins
... escaped down a "thieves' ladder," which is made of silk rope and so contrived that upon the thief's reaching the ground he can detach it from the chimney-stack to which it has been fastened. Jasmine Gastrell herself it was who had sent Dulcie the telegram signed with my name, her intention being to decoy me into the Grafton Street house, where I should have shared Osborne's unpleasant experience. It was Gastrell who had murdered Churchill. Who had murdered Preston on board the boat, they declared they didn't know, nor could they say for certain ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... doubtful still. This apparently deserted building, which he was asked to enter by the back way, might be a thievish den of the worst possible character, and this girl, innocent as she certainly looked, might be a thieves' decoy. Something in his face or in his manner must have betrayed his thoughts to the shrewd Londoner; for she suddenly drew back, uttering a little cry of horror. Without another word she turned and slunk back along the passage and ...
— The Wharf by the Docks - A Novel • Florence Warden
... in their natural state they are all birds of the night) to feed in the brooks and meadows; returning again with the dawn of the morning. Had this lake an arm or two more, and were it planted round with thick covert (for now it is perfectly naked), it might make a valuable decoy. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... scent a ruse. I don't know you. Are you a decoy for blackmailers or robbers?" he ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... course its a honor at that because it shows they think you are a game bird and don't care for your own life as long as you help the cause and that is why they picked you out. Because a corporal don't carry no arms of any kind and all he is is a kind of a decoy to kep the Germans shooting at him so as to protect the regular soldiers and that is why over 80% of the casualtys in ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... what he is thinking about. Undertake, for instance, now that the fellow is singing from the top of a small tree only a few rods from where you are standing,—undertake to settle the long dispute whether his notes are designed to decoy small birds within his reach. Those whistles and twitters,—hear them! So miscellaneous! so different from anything which would be expected from a bird of his size and general disposition! so very like the notes of sparrows! They must be imitative. You ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey |
