"Waterfowl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... first, and the goat-herds who tended their flocks on the slopes of Mount Ida looked up in fear when they saw the dark shadows of their wings and marked the monster birds making their way out to sea. From the river beds the waterfowl arose from the reeds, and with great outcry flew with all their swiftness to escape them. And down by the seashore the mariners' hearts sank within them as they watched, believing that a sight so strange must be a portent of disaster. Homewards they went in haste to offer sacrifices on ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... cresses and white water-lilies, with hardy bulbs, which, half unfolding themselves beneath the sun's warm rays, reveal the golden-colored germs which lie concealed in their milk-white covering; murmuring waters, on the bosom of which the black swans majestically floated, and the restless waterfowl, with their tender broods covered with silken down, darted restlessly in every direction, in pursuit of the insects among the flags, or the frogs in their mossy retreats. Perhaps it might have been the enormous hollies, with their ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... some ninety feet, and an island had been made. The place seemed to be a veritable sportsman's paradise! Dearly would Isaac Walton have loved to dwell here! From the windows of the old house he would have loved to listen to the splash of the trout, the cawing of the rooks, and the quack of the waterfowl, while all the air is filled with the cooing of doves and the songs of birds. At night he could have heard the murmuring waterfall amid a stillness only broken at intervals by the scream of the owl, the clatter of the goatsucker, or the weird barking ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs
... and retired to the Isle of Gradus, and Rivus Altus, or Rialto. Theodoric's minister, Cassiodorus, who describes the condition of the fugitives some seventy years after they had settled on the "hundred isles," compares them to "waterfowl who had fixed their nests on the bosom of the waves." (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, etc., 1825, ii. 375, note 6, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... addition to the avian chorus. Those magpie-robins that have not brought nesting operations to a close are singing vigorously. The king-crows are feeding their young ones in the greenwood tree, and crooning softly to them pitchu-wee. At the jhils the various waterfowl are nesting and each one proclaims the fact by its allotted call. Much strange music emanates from the well-filled tank; the indescribable cries of the purple coots, the curious "fixed bayonets" of the cotton teal and the weird cat-like mews of the jacanas form the ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... the adventurous emigrant found his promised land. It was indeed a beautiful region. The sun shines upon none more so. The scenery, which, however, probably had but few attractions for David Crockett's uncultivated eye, was charming. The soil was fertile. The streams abounded with fish and waterfowl; and prairie and forest were stocked with game. No family need suffer from hunger here, if the husband had a rifle and knew how to use it. A few hours' labor would rear a cabin which would shut out wind and rain as effectually ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... hold the anchor rope a moment and give it an easy pull. The tugging strain was suddenly gone and the Venture veered away like a frightened waterfowl. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... be the theme of poets she must assume her winsome mood, must "soothe and heal and bless" the human heart after the clamor of politics, the weariness of trade, the cruel strife of society. To read Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey" or Bryant's "To a Waterfowl" is to understand the above criticism. But the nature which the Colonists first looked upon seemed wild and strange and often terrible. Their somber forests were vast, mysterious, forbidding; and they knew not what perils lurked in them or beyond them. The new ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... under the conjoined influences of spring tides and a strong easterly wind. Towards evening, finding among the contents of our game-bags several ducks, of two species—Anas superciliosa, the black duck of the colonists, the richest and best flavoured of all the Australian waterfowl, and A. punctata, or teal, we had them cooked bush fashion, for supper. The night being fine, we enjoyed our bivouac upon the top of a sandhill, near the sea, by the side of a dead Pandanus, which served as firewood—although it was judged expedient to keep watch by ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... rode out of the wood the lake lay a glittering mirror before Owen, about a mile wide; he could not determine its length, for the lake disappeared into a distant horizon, into a semblance of low shores, still as stagnant water, reflecting the golden purple of the sunset, and covered with millions of waterfowl. The multitude swimming together formed an indecisive pattern, like a vague, weedy scum collected on the surface of a marsh. Ducks, teal, widgeon, coots, and divers were recognisable, despite the distance, by their prow-like heads, their balance on the water, ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... no doubt appear very enticing to the lovers of such things, to hear of the gorgeous colors and prodigious size of butterflies, moths and beetles; the varieties of reptiles, the flying foxes, the gigantic crocodiles; the countless species of waterfowl, et hoc genus omne; but one very serious fact is apt to escape the observation of the general reader, that wherever insect and reptile life is most abundant, so sure is that locality full of ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... rarities, especially medals, books, plants, and natural things. Sir Thomas had a collection of the eggs of all the birds he could procure, that country being frequented by several birds which seldom or never go farther into the land—as cranes, storks, eagles, and variety of waterfowl. He led me to see all the remarkable places of this ancient city, being one of the largest and noblest ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the distance hulloaing to scare the rooks, she started, her ears pricked to catch the sound, her muzzle wrinkled up and her nose twitched, and she would then press herself against his legs. They walked round the garden and down to the pond where there were ornamental waterfowl, teal, widgeon and mandarin ducks, and seeing these again gave her great pleasure. They had always been her favourites, and now she was so overjoyed to see them that she behaved with very little of her usual ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... proceeding from the attendants on the funeral barge, all the subordinate sounds of lamentation were hushed at once, as the raven ceases to croak and the hawk to whistle whenever the scream of the eagle is heard. The boats, which had floated hither and thither upon the lake, like a flock of waterfowl dispersing themselves on its surface, now drew together with an appearance of order, that the funeral flotilla might pass onward, and that they themselves might fall into their proper places. In the mean while the piercing din of the war pipes ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... sense of calamity came with them—at first. So graceful they were. So fitted—like waterfowl—to every mood of air and tide; their wings all furled, their neat bodies breasting the angry flood by the quiet power of their own steam and silent submerged wheels. So like to the numberless crafts which in kinder days, under friendly ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... beautifully; but I regret to say that I do not understand a word of its language. One summer we had several fine specimens in the great flying-cage, with the big and showy waterfowl, condor, griffon vulture, ravens and crows. One of those magpies often came over to the side of the cage to talk to me, and as I believe, make complaints. Whether he complained about his big and bulky cagemates, or the keepers, or me, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... base of Obsidian Cliff is Beaver Lake, the home of numerous beavers and a great resort for waterfowl during a part of the year. After passing Obsidian Cliff, hot springs become more numerous until we reach Norris Geyser Basin. In this locality the odor of sulphur is strong and unpleasant. A little farther on a loud roar startles us, ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... ancient satyr. The road traversed a low swampy country, from which the rank moisture arose in a hot palpable mist, and crossed several shallow lagoons, from two to six feet deep of tepid, muddy, brackish water, some of them half a mile broad, and swarming with wild waterfowl. On these occasions, our friend the Satyr was signalled to make sail ahead on his donkey to pilot us; and as the water deepened, he would betake himself to swimming in its wake, holding on by the tail, and shouting, "Cuidado Burrico, Cuidado que no ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... native hills, and who, in his last years, sat at the door of his early home and looked across the valley of the Westfield to the little town of Plainfield upon the wooded heights beyond, whose chief distinction is that there he wrote the "Waterfowl"; for this graver ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Mountains, that rose high in the western heavens, casting, by their huge shadows, an impenetrable pall of darkness over the intervening space beneath, from which not a sound rose to the ear, save an occasional short croak of some waterfowl, or the low, sullen dash of the ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... concerned themselves. "Thanatopsis," for example, was followed by "The Yellow Violet," which was followed by the "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," and the song beginning "Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow." The exquisite lines "To a Waterfowl" were written at Bridgewater, in his twentieth year, where he was still pursuing the study of law, which appears to have been distasteful to him. The concluding stanza sank deeply into a heart that needed ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... served for our fires. The evening was mild and clear; we made a pleasant bed of the young willows; and geese and ducks enough had been killed for an abundant supper at night, and for breakfast next morning. The stillness of the night was enlivened by millions of waterfowl. ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... head of the school-class, were written in the poet's own boyhood. His most famous poem, "Thanatopsis," was composed when he was but eighteen years of age. When you, too, are eighteen you will more than enjoy it, if you do not do so already. But you will like a song of his youth,—lines "To a Waterfowl,"—and the beautiful poem entitled "June," which has been very much quoted of late because of the fulfillment of his wish that when he should come to lie at rest within the ground, ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... was stalking through the land, there were wicked little whirlwinds to raise the sand and fling it in blinding showers on to the unlucky travellers, water-holes had dried to mud puddles, and the broad lagoons, beloved of waterfowl, were thickets of wilted reeds, with never a trace of moisture ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... Bufflehead Ruddy Red-Breasted Merganser Common Merganser Hooded Merganser Whistling Ducks White-Winged Scoter Surf Scoter Black Scoter Common Eider Oldsquaw Harlequin Swans Canada Geese Brant Snow White-Fronted Geese At a Glance Guide Comparative Sizes Of Waterfowl Wetlands ...
— Ducks at a Distance - A Waterfowl Identification Guide • Robert W. Hines
... they passed on a visit to Mr. Ramsay at Ochtertyre on the Teith, a few miles west from Stirling. They then visited Sir William Murray at Ochtertyre in Strathearn, where Burns wrote his Lines on scaring some waterfowl in Lock Turit, and a pretty (p. 077) pastoral song on a young beauty he met there, Miss Murray of Lintrose. From Strathearn he next seems to have returned by Clackmannan, there to visit the old lady who lived in the Tower, of ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... of this artificial lake there were two islands, thickly wooded. In the smaller, which lay behind Emily and Hubert, there was one small island covered with reeds and low bushes, and this was a favourite haunt for the waterfowl, which now came swimming forward, not daring to approach too ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... experiment at least had a certain influence in improving the young man's Latinity. Another favourite dissipation was that of translating English masterpieces into the ancient tongue; there still survives among Page's early papers a copy of Bryant's "Waterfowl" done into Latin iambics. As to Page's personal appearance, a designation coined by a fellow student who afterward became a famous editor gives the suggestion of a portrait. He called him one of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... sloughs of all that vast country lying between the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay on the east and the mountains of the Far West, constitute the principal nursery of North American waterfowl, whence, in autumn, come the flocks of Ducks and Geese that in winter darken the Southern {70} sounds and lakes. One stream moves down the Pacific Coast, another follows the Mississippi Valley to the marshes of Louisiana ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... lie, Float in calm heavenly, Life passing evenly, Waterfowl, waterfowl! often I dream For a rest Like your ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... dragged forth to the light of day and despatched by a blow on the head. It was to the honey-laden blossoms of this tree that the noisy cockatoos and parrots used to flock. Let the kangaroo be wary and waterfowl shy, but whilst he had his beloved gum-tree, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... Mayest thou not run aground. May not the wave seize thee; Mayest thou not taste the impurities of the river; Mayest thou not see the face of fear. May the fish come to thee without escape; Mayest thou reach unto plump waterfowl. For thou art the orphan's father, the widow's husband, The desolate woman's brother, the garment of the motherless. Let me celebrate thy name in this land for every virtue. A guide without greediness of heart; A great one without any meanness. ...
— Egyptian Tales, First Series • ed. by W. M. Flinders Petrie
... VHF very-high-frequency W WADB West African Development Bank WAEMU West African Economic and Monetary Union WCL World Confederation of Labor WCO World Customs Organization; see Customs Cooperation Council Wetlands Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially As Waterfowl Habitat WEU Western European Union WFC World Food Council WFP World Food Program WFTU World Federation of Trade Unions Whaling International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling WHO World Health Organization WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization WMO ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... friends to bring their rods over with a view to salmon-fishing in the Serpentine. Trout, there may be; no doubt, there are, but we have some doubts about salmon. Your suggestion that if you can't get a rise you might perhaps "bang away" at the waterfowl, certainly has a more promising sound, but we would advise you to commence your sport early, for fear of hitting the bathers. You will require the permission of the Duke of CAMBRIDGE. This you will get through ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 29, 1890 • Various
... to float down-stream, that at last they began to grow shy, and the sportsmen were enabled to direct some of their charges of small shot at specimens of beautiful birds that came within range, as well as at the abundant waterfowl—ducks and geese—that gathered morning and evening to feed, but often to become food for the hideous reptiles that lurked beneath the ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... was a very lonely and a very beautiful place, though the neighbourhood generally pronounced it damp and rheumatic. The cottage, sheltered under a grove of firs, looked straight out on the water, and over a bed of water-lilies. All round was a summer murmur of woods, the call of waterfowl, and the hum of bees; for, at the edges of the water, flowers and grasses pushed thickly out into the sunlight from the ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... looking, as Mr. Middleton said, "well-groomed and much refreshed," Mrs. Middleton touched the bell; the doors leading into the dining room were thrown open; and the guests were invited to sit down to a delicious supper of fresh fish, oysters, crabs, and waterfowl, which had been spread there in honor of Mr. Brudenell's arrival; but which was equally appropriate to ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... persistently as to become a nuisance, and the only way to get rid of it is to whistle or sing myself. For instance, I may be mentally reciting for my solace and delectation some beloved lyric like "The Waterfowl," or "Tears, Idle Tears," or "Break, Break, Break"; and all the while, between the lines, this fiend of a subcerebral vocalist, like a wandering minstrel in a distant square, insists on singing, "Cheer, Boys, Cheer," or, "Tommy, make room for your uncle" (tunes I cannot abide), with ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... thoughts go coursing down lowlands and up highlands, It is because the startled game are leaping from their lair; If her thoughts dart homeward to the reedy river islands, It is because the waterfowl ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... provisions than they had anticipated. For three months they had such an abundance of white partridges about the ship, that they killed a hundred dozen of them; and, on the departure of these, when spring came, they found a great plenty of swans, geese, ducks, and other waterfowl. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... shore. A telephone call to Bootstrap would bring security men rushing at eighty miles an hour, and parachute troopers a good deal faster. But even before they arrived the Chief would lead the powerhouse crew ashore armed with the shotguns they kept for shooting waterfowl in and out ...
— Space Platform • Murray Leinster
... and Nelly wandered on; all fear of pursuit soon left them. Ducks, geese, and other waterfowl, came in myriads with the spring. Roy had brought with him his gun (the one he was wont to use in hunting), and bow and quiver. They fed on the fat of the land. Summer advanced, and game became less plentiful; still, there was more than ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... Ah! this is the glory of true poetry, that it clothes the commonest things with a new interest, and forever after they become objects of love, at least of meditation. Who that has read the same author's 'Lines to a Waterfowl,' does not gaze with other than a sportsman's pleasure upon even a wild duck, if it flies past him after sunset. But there goes a flock of pigeons, and here over our heads; one! two! three! more than a hundred in each! What ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... the night winds fret afar, The North winds moan. The waterfowl are gone To cover o'er the sand-dunes; dawn alone Shall call them from the ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... an unwonted alacrity to his movements, waddling grotesquely like a hastening waterfowl. Between him and the secretary they dressed my Lord the Seneschal, and decked him out till he was fit to compare with a bird of paradise for gorgeousness of colouring if not for harmony of hues and ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... is blessed with many unique natural resorts of animal life and I have been particularly impressed with the invasions that have been made on the wonderful nesting places of the waterfowl. In my repeated stays on the coast of Gaspe and the islands of the Gulf, now running over a dozen years, I have had my attention forced to the hideous sacrifices of bird life that are constantly going on; for example in the Magdalen islands with their extraordinary array of ...
— Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... 100 feet high and 80 feet Diamuter, proceed on down a Smoth gentle Stream of about 2 miles wide, in which the tide has its effect as high as the Beaten rock or the Last rapids at Strawberry Island,- Saw great numbers of waterfowl of Different kinds, Such as Swan, Geese, white & grey brants, ducks of various kinds, Guls, & Pleaver. Labeach killed 14 brantjoseph Fields 3 & Collins one. we encamped under a high projecting rock on the Lard. Side, ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... brown moth, belonging to a genus that feeds on feathers; a beetle (Quedius) and a woodlouse from beneath the dung; and lastly, numerous spiders, which I suppose prey on these small attendants and scavengers of the waterfowl. The often-repeated description of the stately palm and other noble tropical plants, then birds, and lastly man, taking possession of the coral islets as soon as formed, in the Pacific, is probably not quite correct; I fear it destroys the ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... their labours. They now again alter their course to south-west and travel six miles in that direction along the shore, over excellent land, but clear of timber. On the downs, or plains to-day they had seen several flocks of emus and wild turkeys. The water near the shore was covered with waterfowl of various descriptions, some of which were new to them, and by the time they had halted for the night, they had procured an ample supply of black swans and ducks. They stopped for the night at seven o'clock in a ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... Etta's death, in the glow of an April sunset, a Canadian canoe was making its stealthy way up the river. The paddle crept in and out so gently, so lazily and peacefully, that the dabchicks and other waterfowl did not cease their chatter of nests and other April matters ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... in the center of the wide, sun-baked mudflats were the mecca of a host of things. They teemed with imprisoned fish. Ducks and other waterfowl swarmed to them. Jacanas, birds with wide-spreading toes, ran nimbly over the lily pads on the surface, seemingly skating across the water itself. And, crocodiles migrated from a distance to these havens of security ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller |
