"Bittern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the eye of the sportsman—and the Lancashire gentlemen of the sixteenth century were keen lovers of sport—the country had a strong interest. Pendle forest abounded with game. Grouse, plover, and bittern were found upon its moors; woodcock and snipe on its marshes; mallard, teal, and widgeon upon its pools. In its chases ranged herds of deer, protected by the terrible forest-laws, then in full force: and the hardier huntsman might follow the wolf to his lair in the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... at rest or in action are the most capable of artistic treatment, such as "The Eagle's Throne" (after Wolf); laemmergeyer carrying off lamb; hawks fighting over a small bird, allowing the latter to escape; peregrine falcon striking a bittern; eagle and wild cat; sea-eagle and gulls; osprey and fish. In connection with the last, one of the very best things I ever saw done with these specimens was in the Fisheries Exhibition, 1883, a piece of work—a study it might be called—executed ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... its circle about the city walls, had fallen under a spell. It met me here a featureless, brimming ditch, and wound away in torpid coils to the monotonous horizon. And now this shrunken city, its edges dead and fallen to decay, these naked levels, where not even a bittern's voice had courage to startle the stillness, filled me, in spite of myself, with a vague apprehensiveness. Just as one who is groping in profound darkness feels his eyes dilate in the effort to catch the least glimmer of light, I found my senses ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... than the antelope's, were no more. She, whose feet were fleeter than the deer's, now walked feebly, and rested oft; she, whose tongue outchirped the merriest birds of the grove, and warbled sweeter music than the song-sparrow, now spoke in strains as gloomy and sad as the bittern that cries in the swamps when night is coming on, or the solitary bird of wisdom perched among the leaves of the oak. The father sat down by her, and asked ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... within the last three or four years. They seem now, however, to be confined to occasional autumnal and winter visitants. Mr. Couch says ('Zoologist' for 1871):—"On the 30th December, 1874, after a heavy fall of snow, I had a female Bittern brought to me to be stuffed, shot in the morning in the Marais; and on the 2nd of January following another was shot on the beach near the Vale Church. I had also part of some of the quill-feathers of a Bittern ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... Treffen, Wer heute sich drfe der Harnische rhmen Oder der Brnnen beider walten!" Da sprengten zuerst mit den Speeren sie an In scharfen Schauern; dem wehrten die Schilde. 65 Dann schritten zusammen sie (zum bittern Schwertkampf),[11] Hieben harmlich die hellen Schilde, Bis leicht ihnen wurde das Lindenholz, Zermalmt ...
— An anthology of German literature • Calvin Thomas
... on the loneliest part of the mountains, and, from the flowering vines which clamber about it, and the wild flowers which abound in its neighborhood, is known by the name of the Garden Rock. Near the foot of it is a small lake, the haunt of the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the sun on the leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface. This place was held in great awe by the Indians, insomuch that the boldest hunter would not pursue his game within its precincts. Once upon a time, ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... birds, too. One, whom you may see in the Zoological Gardens, like a plover with a straight beak and bittern's plumage, from 'The Main,' whose business is to walk about the table at meals uttering sad metallic noises and catching flies. His name is Sun-bird, {93a} 'Sun-fowlo' of the Surinam Negroes, according to dear old Stedman, 'because, when it extends its wings, which it often does, there appears ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... all, sir; but you see the truth is, that, this being the very hour for duck and wild-fowl shootin', it's hard to say where or when a fellow might start up, and mistake me for a wild duck, and your honor for a curlew or a bittern." ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... physical exertion of pushing their way through the reeds was too great for them. If they paused to rest, they were almost suffocated in the hot and pestilent air; the only sound they could hear was the distant booming of the bittern, and a feeling of the most lonely wretchedness pervaded the scene. At length they were glad to leave this dismal region and strike to the west through a flat and monotonous district where the shells and claws of crayfish told of frequent inundations. Through this ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... the plunge of the boat through the reed-beds of the Anapo, as we slid into the silent pool of blue water in the heart of the marsh, where the sand danced at the bottom, and the springs bubbled up, while a great bittern flew booming away from a reedy pool hard by. Such things are worth paying a heavy price for, because they bring a sort of aerial distance into the mind, they touch the spirit with a hope that the desire for beauty ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... lonely marsh, Where all is shade and gloom, The Bittern stalks, and you may hear His voice ...
— Chatterbox Stories of Natural History • Anonymous
... By God was ordained The hour when the ocean's grey steeds were up-reined, And green marshes rose, and the bittern's abode Became the Lone Land where the wild hunter strode, And soils with grass harvests grew rich, and the clime For us was prepared ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... I heard our Archdeacon afar off. Our Archdeacon booms—not like trade, but like the bittern. I heard him booming outside, "My dear lady, I cannot miss the chance of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various |
