"Ibis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... humane naturalist, Mr. Waterton, says that "if this useful bird caught his food by day instead of hunting it by night, mankind would have ocular demonstration of its utility in thinning the country of mice, and it would be protected and encouraged everywhere. It would be with us what the ibis was with the Egyptians." The ibis is a bird that was found so useful in destroying locusts and serpents in Egypt, that in olden times it was made a capital crime for any one to destroy it. Nay, the idolatrous Egyptians went further, and not only paid divine honours ...
— Mamma's Stories about Birds • Anonymous (AKA the author of "Chickseed without Chickweed")
... ab eo petito gratiam istam. ducite, ubi ponderosas crassas capiat compedes. inde ibis porro in latomias lapidarias. ibi quom alii octonos lapides effodiunt, nisi cotidiano sesquiopus ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... with a long curved bill came and settled down on the bank; the boy remarked the beautiful bronze-colored plumage of the wader. I informed him it was an ibis. ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... At an interval of twelve hours, and in its own bark, the pale disk of the moon—Yauhu Auhu—followed the disk of the sun along the ramparts of the world. The moon, also, appeared in many various forms—here, as a man born of Nuit;[*] there, as a cynocephalus or an ibis;[**] elsewhere, it was the left eye of Horus,[***] guarded by the ibis or cynocephalus. Like Ra, it had its enemies incessantly upon the watch for it: the crocodile, the hippopotamus, and the sow. But it was when at the full, about the 15th of each month, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... words! But doubtless they will. Many during the war of the Boxers were "gathered" unto Him, emulating the zeal and courage and faith of the martyrs of the early days of the Church. As the hen is sacred in the eyes of the Chinaman, sacred as the peacock to Juno or the ibis to the Egyptians, they swear by her head, and an oath thus taken may ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... accession. In B.C. 703 he descended on the lower country and engaged the troops of Merodach-Baladan, which consisted in part of native Babylonians, in part of Susianians, sent to his assistance by the king of Elam. Over this army Sennacherib gained a complete victory near the city of Ibis, after which he took Babylon, and overran the whole of Chaldaea, plundering (according to his own account) seventy-six large towns and 420 villages. Merodach-Baladan once more made his escape, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Diodorus Siculus, their 'lives and safeties' were tendered more dearly than those of any other animal, whether biped or quadruped. 'He who has voluntarily killed a consecrated animal,' says this writer, 'is punished with death; but if any one has even involuntarily killed a cat or an ibis, it is impossible for him to escape death: the mob drags him to it, treating him with every cruelty, and sometimes without waiting for judgment to be passed. This treatment inspires such terror, that, if any person happen ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 419, New Series, January 10, 1852 • Various
... bitterest personal strife. There are references to the quarrel in the writings of both. Callimachus attacks Apollonius in the passage at the end of the "Hymn to Apollo", already mentioned, also probably in some epigrams, but most of all in his "Ibis", of which we have an imitation, or perhaps nearly a translation, in Ovid's poem of the same name. On the part of Apollonius there is a passage in the third book of the "Argonautica" (11. 927-947) which is of a polemical ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... his metallic plumage, crossed my path; and upon the bayou, whose bank I for some time followed, I had ample opportunity of discharging my piece at the blue heron or the egret, the summer duck or the snake-bird, the slender ibis or the stately crane. Even the king of winged creatures, the white-headed eagle, was more than once within range of my gun, screaming his maniac note among the tops ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... Maddison is erecting an ibis house in connection with the aviary. Ri has gone to Kamchatka, but hopes to be back by ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... their pouched throats and scythe-like bills, stood in melancholy attitudes, and beside them were the white and scarlet ibis, and the purple gallinule. Roseate spoonbills waded through the shallows, striking their odd-shaped beaks at the crabs and cray-fish; and upon projecting limbs of trees perched the black darter, his long snake-like neck stretched eagerly over the water. In the air a flock of buzzard vultures ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... sure, but I think they belong to the ibis family. Look at that 'coon scurrying up that log, running from the water. He's been trying to scoop out a dinner of fish, too. Nearly everything feeds on fish down here, even many of the wild ducks. Got him ...
— The Outdoor Chums on the Gulf • Captain Quincy Allen
... as a just appreciation of the national character and sentiment is concerned. (With many extracts.) I rejoice at your cheerful spirit. But now be satisfied, and make more use of the Romance languages. Tutius ibis. You have already sufficient materials. We can and will benefit this hospitable land, even without their desiring it; but cautiously! You will laugh at this, and forgive me; but I know what I am about. Next Saturday Volume ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... poured over the plain, the bank and the river, gilding every ripple; and, as the light grew, hundreds of delicate shapes—the forms of the ibis and flamingo and crane, and other river-fowl—became visible, crowding down the dark banks, with flapping of white and crimson wings, and stretching of legs, and opening of beaks, rustling down, shaking their feathers, to bathe and ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... considerations, but from an instinct of reverence. It is possible, indeed, that such a reverential instinct may have been awakened towards certain animals, by seeing their vast importance arising from their special instincts and faculties. The cow and the ox, the dog, the ibis, and the cat, may thus have appeared to the Egyptians, from their indispensable utility, to be endowed with supernatural gifts. But this feeling itself must have had its root in a yet deeper tendency of the Egyptian mind. They reverenced the ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... Perhaps it was the king of beasts, perhaps the kingfisher, a bright specimen of which was frequently seen to dart out from the banks, but we profess ignorance on this point. There were fish-hawks also, magnificent fellows, which sat in regal dignity on the tops of the mangrove trees, and the glossy ibis, with others of the feathered ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... as the effluvium from the mud was sufficiently offensive even when walking round the margin, and I already felt some warning symptoms of the heavy atmosphere of Famagousta, which might, if neglected, have terminated in ague. I shot a fine specimen of the glossy ibis, and I otherwise contented myself with watching the variety of ducks, coots, teal, and other water-fowl through my glass, as they enjoyed themselves in flocks upon the surface of the lake at ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... received more consideration from the Mesopotamian sculptors than from those of Egypt. Except in the sphinxes and in two or three less important types the Egyptians, as our readers will remember, crowned a human body with the head of a snake, a lion, or a crocodile, an ibis or a hawk, and sometimes of a clumsy beast like the hippopotamus,[108] and their figures are dominated and characterized by the heads thus given to them. At Babylon and Nineveh the case is reversed. Animals' heads ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... furtive eagle saw; Mnemosyne as shepherd; Danae gold; Alcmene as a fish; Antiope a goat; Cadmus and his sister a white bull; Leda as swan, and Dolida as dragon; And through the lofty object I become, From subject viler still, a god. A horse was Saturn; And in a calf and dolphin Neptune dwelt; Ibis and shepherd Mercury became; Bacchus a grape; Apollo was a crow; And I by help of love, From an inferior thing, do change me ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... with the European, because of the rareness with them of flint, that gave the first occasion. So as it should seem, that hitherto men are rather beholden to a wild goat for surgery, or to a nightingale for music, or to the ibis for some part of physic, or to the pot-lid that flew open for artillery, or generally to chance or anything else than to logic for the invention of arts and sciences. Neither is the form of invention ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... lovers swift or slow, Who fain would have a mutual flame confess'd, And see a sentimental passion glow, Even were St. Francis' paramour their guest, In his monastic concubine of snow;— In short, the maxim for the amorous tribe is Horatian, 'Medio tu tutissimus ibis.' ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... very rare and are admitted to the list of North American species because of the fact that during the years a few stragglers from other parts of the world have been found on our continent. Thus the Scarlet Ibis from South America, and the Kestrel and Rook from western Europe, are known to come to our shores only as rare wanderers who had lost their way, or were blown hither by storms. Eighty-five species of the birds now listed for North America are of this extra-limital class. Among ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... their devout attitude toward some animals. Superstition is the spring of their actions. In Dahomey any person who kills a sacred (non-poisonous) snake is condemned to be buried alive. In Egypt it was a capital offence to kill an ibis, even accidentally. What we call lynching seems to have arisen in connection with ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amid ibis broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your county in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve, that you have met the common fate of men. You ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the distance of the cut is seen the principal aviary, where are some of the finest birds in the garden, as varieties of Cranes, Storks, Herons, Spoonbills, Curassows, and the revered bird of the ancients—the splendid scarlet Ibis. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 573, October 27, 1832 • Various
... resembles a toucan. Its long legs and proportionally long toes, coupled with the rather long neck and bill, indicate with certainty a wading bird of some kind, and in default of anything that comes nearer, an ibis may be suggested; though if intended by the sculptor as an ibis, candor compels the statement that the ibis family has no reason ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... 184. White ibis. GUARA ALBA. Rare migrant; one taken on plains; habitat, tropical and subtropical America, coming north as far as Great ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... agreeable motion than the best made springs, and, for a well fed, lazy Princess nothing could have been more charming than to be borne thus beneath the waving palm-trees, and by the banks of the streams where the lotus blossomed at the water's edge, and the Ibis ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... on salmon flies and a very large percentage of all fancy flies. The golden pheasant from China, the bustard from Africa, the Mandarin wood duck from China, the capercailzie from Ireland, the game cocks from Spain and the Orient, the teal, mallard, grouse, ibis, swan, turkey, and hundreds of others. The polar bear, Impala, North and South American deer, seal, black bear, skunk, rabbit, squirrel, are a few of the hairs that are used. The beginner need not ...
— How to Tie Flies • E. C. Gregg
... He is always, to me, quite unhuman. Even when he is most interested, and even enthusiastic, he is a mere personification of knowledge. Nature ought to have furnished him with an ibis' head like Tahuti; then he would have looked ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... matter in question should be given up to the victor. Nor was it confined to men of obscure rank, but comprehended persons of distinction and celebrity; such were Corbis and Orsua, cousins-german, who, having a dispute about the sovereignty of a city called Ibis, declared that they would contest it with the sword. Corbis was the elder of the two. The father of Orsua was the last sovereign, having succeeded to that dignity on the death of his elder brother. When Scipio ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... amounts to nothing much. If you would see the Gods in their glory, fit denizens of Heaven, you must go to Egypt. There you will find that Zeus has sprouted ram's horns, our old friend Hermes has the muzzle of a dog, and Pan is perfect goat; ibis, crocodile, ape,—each is ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... cross when unaccompanied by any other symbol signified simply creative energy both female and male, but whenever a distinctively female emblem was present it denoted the male power alone. The Ibis, which is represented with human hands and feet, bears the staff of Isis in one hand and the cross in the other. There is scarcely an obelisk or monument in Egypt upon which this figure does not appear. The symbol or monogram of Venus was a circle and a cross, ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... So we did. Oswald, Alice, Noel, and Denny voted for the river of the ibis and the crocodile. Dicky, H. O., and the other girls for the region of ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... That's delight, when it may lead To mighty ends. Ah, Florimonde! thou art too pure; Unsoiled in the rough and miry paths Of ibis same trampling world; unskilled in heats Of fierce and emulous spirits. There's a rapture In the strife of factions, that a woman's soul Can never reach. Men smiled on me to-day Would gladly dig my grave; and yet I smiled, ...
— Count Alarcos - A Tragedy • Benjamin Disraeli
... ancient palm; gray squirrels chatter from pine to bitter-nut; the iridescent little ground-doves, mated for life, run fearlessly under foot or leap up into snapping flight with a flash of saffron-tinted wings. Under the mangroves the pink ajajas preen and wade; and the white ibis walks the woods like a little absent-minded ghost buried in ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... Rangoon I entered a Chinese temple, the altar-piece, if I may use the term, was the Ganesa of the Hindoos, but not seated on the lotus leaf, but on the Chinese rat. On each side of this were two little candelabras, formed of the Egyptian ibis, holding the oil cups in its beak. I also found the Hounyman, or monkey god of the Hindoos, and Budhist figures. I once observed some sepoys playing and laughing at a bronze image they had picked up at the pagoda of Syriam, and on examining it, I was ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... Through the village palms and trees I came on a lakelet with short grass and tall white briar rose bushes round its edge. It was almost covered with a water plant with leaves like a strawberry, which made a dull rose tracery across the reflected blue sky. There were three white ibis, distant dark blue hills and trees, and jungle grass and their reflections; a cormorant and sea swallow were fishing, and a little pagoda, with gleaming golden Hti hung its reflection in the mirror. It was so still ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... at the image of a white ibis, fixed on a column— while fathoming the deep, torch-lit perspective of an avenue, at the close of which was couched a sphinx—I lost sight of the party which, from the middle of the great square, I had followed—or, rather, they vanished like a group of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... the landing platform below Sylvia's house the fellow did not get out, but gave the call of an ibis—a weird, beautifully mystic call that is rarely heard and almost impossible to imitate. Smilax appreciated this, for he ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... sloth and idleness, and luxury, and languor, and indolence: we have enervated them by opinions, and bad customs. Who is there who is unacquainted with the customs of the Egyptians? Their minds being tainted by pernicious opinions, they are ready to bear any torture, rather than hurt an ibis, a snake, a cat, a dog, or a crocodile: and should any one inadvertently have hurt any of these animals, he will submit to any punishment. I am speaking of men only. As to the beasts, do they not bear cold and hunger, running about in woods, and on mountains ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... centuries at the summit, or in secret rooms; I was the idol; I was the priest; I was worshiped; I was sacrificed. I fled from the wrath of Brahma, through all the forests of Asia; Vishnu hated me; Seeva laid wait for me. I came suddenly upon Isis and Osiris; I had done a deed, they said, which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. I was buried for a thousand years, in stone coffins, with mummies and sphinxes, in narrow chambers, at the heart of eternal pyramids. I was kissed, with cancerous kisses, by crocodiles, and was laid, confounded ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... War, which we might almost more fitly call a religious one. But in those days few men, unfortunately, had the cool wisdom to remain as neutral between Arminian and Calvinist, Papist and Protestant, as between the rival Egyptian sects which, in Juvenal's time, fought for the worship of the ibis or the crocodile. Our comparatively greater safety in these days is due to the large increase of that neutral party, which was so sadly insignificant in the time of Charles. May that party therefore never become less, ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... music. Half-way down the steps stood another flamen, holding in one hand the votive wreath, in the other a white wand; while, adding to the picturesque scene of that eastern ceremony, the stately ibis (bird sacred to the Egyptian worship) looked mutely down from the wall upon the rite, or stalked beside the altar at ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... forms of life, function and shape—all following Desire and Need, as in the case of the long neck of the giraffe which enables him to reach for the high branches of the trees in his native land; and in the long neck and high legs of the fisher birds, the crane, stork, ibis, etc. ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... principal birds in the order in which he takes them after the birds of prey. These, then, are the ostrich, bustard, game birds, pigeons, crows, singing birds, humming birds, parrots, cuckoos, swallows, woodpeckers, toucans, kingfishers, storks, cranes, secretary bird, herons, ibis, curlews, plovers, rails, diving birds, pelicans, cormorants, geese, gulls, and penguins. With the volume dealing with the picarian birds (woodpeckers) Buffon announces the withdrawal of Gueneau de Montbeliard, and his ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... heart of his weariness, a fear of symbols and portents, of the hawk-like man whose name he bore soaring out of his captivity on osier-woven wings, of Thoth, the god of writers, writing with a reed upon a tablet and bearing on his narrow ibis head ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... the odours which greeted me in that moist green place—odours earthy, herby, fishy, flowery, and even birdy, particularly that peculiar musky odour given out on hot days by large flocks of the glossy ibis. ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... giving forth a sound like the creaking of a rusty hinge; there were hawks and buzzards of many different kinds, and red-breasted orioles in the bushes, and black vultures flying overhead, and Muscovy ducks sweeping past with whizzing wings, and flocks of the great wood-ibis sailing in the air on noiseless pinions, and hundreds of other birds that it would require an ornithologist to name; and myriads of insects,—especially ants and spiders, great and small,—that no entomologist could chronicle in a life-time: all these were heard ...
— Martin Rattler • R.M. Ballantyne
... popular imagination still continued to run riot over his supposed enormities. The midnight hallucinations of De Quincey seemed to be repeating themselves in a whole nation. He had committed crimes worthy of the Borgias. He had done a deed which the ibis and the crocodile trembled at. Miss Arundell boldly defended him against her mother, though she admitted afterwards that, circumstances considered, Mrs. Arundell's ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... waters of Lake Menzala, fringed with tall reeds and eucalyptus trees, stretches to the far horizon, where quaintly shaped fishing-boats disappear with their cargoes towards distant Damietta. Thousands of wild birds, duck of all kinds, ibis and pelican, fish in the shallows, or with the sea-gulls wheel in dense masses in the air, for this is a reservation as a breeding-green for wild-fowl, where they are seldom, ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... the god of the learned and of physicians. The Ibis was sacred to him, and he was usually represented as Ibis-headed. Ra created him "a beautiful light to show the name of his evil enemy." Originally the Dfoon-god, he became the lord of time and measure. He is the weigher, the philosopher among the gods, the lord of writing, of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... comprehensive work. The osprey, notwithstanding the abundance of his scaly prey, is not common: probably the field is too limited for him. Ducks are the attraction of the other large species. In summer, ducks are rather secondary among the water-birds, the ibis, water-turkey, and flamingo imparting a tropical character to the scene that somewhat obscures the more familiar forms. There is even a survival here of birds that have nearly disappeared from the American fauna,—the paroquet, once so common in the Mississippi Valley ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... how moved by whim Trumpeting Jumbo, great and grim, Adjusts his trunk, like a cravat, To noose that individual's hat. The sacred Ibis in the distance Joys ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... cruel Psamtek, see. Such a wicked boy was he! Chased the ibis round about, Plucked its longest feathers out, Stamped upon the sacred scarab Like an unbelieving Arab, Put the dog and cat to pain, Making them to howl again. Only think what he would do— Tease the awful Apis too! Basking by the sacred Nile Lay the trusting ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... the peppery gentleman from Mississippi. He must speak "the language of just indignation." He gladly testified to the consideration with which Douglas was wont to treat the South, but he warned the young Senator from Illinois that the old adage—"in medio tutissimus ibis"—might lead him astray. He might think to reach the goal of his ambitions by keeping clear of the two leading factions and by identifying himself with the masses, but he was ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... settler would have few trees to fell and abundant grass for his cattle. As for the game, it came in tracts and districts. Sometimes they thought themselves fortunate could they secure a few pigeons, at others, they revelled in pinguid plenty,—kangaroos roasted whole, fat ibis, flying foxes in scores, and ducks by the dozen. The atmosphere of these latitudes must be particularly favourable to the appetite, judging from the following passage.—"Charley Brown and John, who had been left at the lagoon to shoot waterfowl, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... air, all that was within them has disappeared. My spirit also, mindful of the beginning of things, seeks to call upon the savior who was here where I am, during the centuries of the gods, upon Thot-Ibis, that great wise one, upon Imhotpu, son of Phtah of Memphis. Where is the place in which the Nile is born? Who is the god or goddess concealed there? What ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... adores the crocodile; another dreads the ibis, feeder on serpents; here shines the golden image of the sacred ape; here men venerate the fish of the river; there whole towns worship a ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... railing; and after nightfall the moon, nearly full and hanging high in the heavens, turned the water to shimmering radiance. On the mud-flats and sandbars, and among the green rushes of the bays and inlets, were stately water-fowl; crimson flamingoes and rosy spoonbills, dark- colored ibis and white storks with black wings. Darters, with snakelike necks and pointed bills, perched in the trees on the brink of the river. Snowy egrets flapped across the marshes. Caymans were common, and differed from the crocodiles we had seen in Africa in two points: they were ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... Egyptian carrier-pigeons. The various wild animals, and many of the plants, are represented on these monuments in great variety. Among these I have noted the lotus, the papyrus, the leek, the palm, wheat, barley, and millet; the crocodile, the frog, the crane, the flamingo, the ibis, the goose, the owl, the ostrich, the peacock; and of beasts the now famous ancestral ape, Ptolemy's tame lion, the leopard, the gazelle, the hippopotamus, the giraffe, and the wild boar, and many others. But there is not the least perceptible change in the corresponding species now ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... a river of silence and mystery. The ibis is always to be seen, standing alone, seemingly absorbed in meditation. The camels turn their beautiful soft eyes upon you as if you were intruding upon their silence and reserve. Never were the eyes in a human head ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... them and said solemnly: "Abundance of happiness; brimming over, brimming over! Bursting storehouses! Zefa-oo Metramao. Return, return, to the right levels, the right heights, the right depth, the right measure! Your Elle Mei-Measurer, Leveller, require them, Techuti, require them, double Ibis!" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... head no golden gloriole Ever shall be proudly set For my knowledge of the oriole, Eagle, ibis, or egrette. I know less about the tanager And its hopes and fears and aims Than a busy Broadway ...
— Tobogganing On Parnassus • Franklin P. Adams
... then lumbered away through the forest; once, too, the yellow, sinuous form of a great puma whisked amid the brushwood, and its green, baleful eyes glared hatred at us over its tawny shoulder. Bird life was abundant, especially the wading birds, stork, heron, and ibis gathering in little groups, blue, scarlet, and white, upon every log which jutted from the bank, while beneath us the crystal water was alive with fish of every ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this particular work we may derive a most instructive lesson, that in certain points, as of religion in relation to law, the 'medio tutis—simus ibis', is inapplicable. There is no 'medium' possible; and all the attempts as those of Baxter, though no more were required than 'I believe in God through Christ,' prove only the mildness of the proposer's ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... profession of the scribe was considered to be most honourable, and its rewards were great, for no rank and no dignity were too high for the educated scribe. Thoth appears in the papyri and on the monuments as an ibis-headed man, and his companion is usually a dog-headed ape called "Asten." In the Hall of the Great Judgment he is seen holding in one hand a reed with which he is writing on a palette the result of the weighing ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... found that four large creeks joined it from the northward. Another creek also joined it from the southward; as subsequently observed by Mr. Roper. Beyond these creeks, several lagoons or swamps were seen covered with ducks, and several other aquatic birds, and, amongst them, the straw-coloured Ibis. ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... as its flora. [9] On the arid plains a few black beetles (Heteromera) might be seen slowly crawling about, and occasionally a lizard darted from side to side. Of birds we have three carrion hawks and in the valleys a few finches and insect-feeders. An ibis (Theristicus melanops — a species said to be found in central Africa) is not uncommon on the most desert parts: in their stomachs I found grasshoppers, cicadae, small lizards, and even scorpions. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... desert, An Arab at his prayers Beside the Nile's dark water, Where the lone camel fares. An ibis on the sunset, A slow shadouf at rest, And in the caravansary ...
— Many Gods • Cale Young Rice
... if the two points will stand still. We may make an arrangement between two litigants who cannot both get what they want; but not if they will not even tell us what they want. The keeper of a restaurant would much prefer that each customer should give his order smartly, though it were for stewed ibis or boiled elephant, rather than that each customer should sit holding his head in his hands, plunged in arithmetical calculations about how much food there can be on the premises. Most of us have suffered from ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... bird-madness is so clear, that many actually bear the names of birds. There is a halting victualler, who styles himself the partridge; Menippus calls himself the swallow; Opuntius the one-eyed crow; Philocles the lark; Theogenes the fox-goose; Lycurgus the ibis; Chaerephon the bat; Syracosius the magpie; Midias the quail;(1) indeed he looks like a quail that has been hit hard over the head. Out of love for the birds they repeat all the songs which concern the swallow, the teal, ...
— The Birds • Aristophanes
... means of these hieroglyphics, far more incomprehensible than the sacred Ibis of the Egyptians, you can discover the velocity at which the ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... and parasites innumerable; while a short way off I could distinguish a meadow of tall grass or reeds a dozen feet in height at least. All nature seemed alive. Numberless birds, many of large size, flew through the air or waded on the banks. Among them were the black and white wood-ibis, which appeared in large flocks from among the branches of the trees; there were blue herons, snow-herons, pelicans, and cranes. Ever and anon an osprey could be seen darting into the water, to rise ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the trout-fishing in the district. I went out frequently, and had generally very fair sport indeed. Mr Danford, in his paper in 'The Ibis,'[13] in speaking of fishing, says: "Perhaps the best stream in the country is the Sebes, which joins the Strell near Hatszeg. The trout are not bad, one to two lbs. in weight; and the grayling-fishing is really good—almost any ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... these Are the Egyptian deities, Ammonn, and Emeth, and the grand Osiris, holding in his hand The lotus; Isis, crowned and veiled; The sacred Ibis, and the Sphinx; Bracelets with blue enamelled links; The Scarabee in emerald mailed, Or spreading wide his funeral wings; Lamps that perchance their night-watch kept O'er Cleopatra while she slept,— All plundered ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Ibis, n. There are twenty-four species of this bird distributed over all the warmer parts of the globe. Those ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... to that of a balloon; if the latter, he had the full benefit of all the brakes and briars in his way, his contact with which seldom failed to terminate in his discomfiture. Experienced travellers, therefore, always kept in mind the advice of Apollo to Phaeton (In medio tutissimus ibis) and selected the middle course, which ensured them a pleasant voyage at a moderate elevation, equally removed from the ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... every naturalist has asked; but the toucan still wags his head, as much as to say, "you can not tell." There must be some other reason than adaptation. Birds of the same habits are found beside it—the ibis, pigeon, spoonbill, and toucan are seen feeding together. "How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of Nature! (wrote the funny Sidney Smith). To what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of Cayenne with a bill a yard long, making a noise ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... himself, some of his near relatives were, both by the ties of kindred and of ancient friendship. For these, and other reasons it may be conceived what joy and thankfulness to Providence he felt for the result of ibis affair, which at once relieved him from a distressing dilemma, and promised to put a speedy period to his labours in Scotland." - Mackay's "Life of General Mackay."] - and he was at once committed a prisoner to ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... hags and giants of mountain and desert, of river and ocean. Demons might possess the pig, the goat, the horse, the lion, or the ibis, the raven, or the hawk. The seven spirits of tempest, fire, and destruction rose from the depths of ocean, and there were hosts of demons which could not be overcome or baffled by man without the assistance of the gods to whom they were hostile. Many ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... in the sky looked doubly beautiful reflected in the water. Here and there out of the water arose giant skeleton trees, with huge silver trunks and contorted dead branches. On these twisted limbs were numbers of birds: Shag, blue and white Cranes, and black and white Ibis with their bent bills. Slowly paddling on the creek, with graceful movements, were twenty or thirty black Swans, and in and out of their ranks, as they passed in stately procession, shot wild Ducks and Moor Hens, like a flotilla of ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... the body is dazzlingly white, the wings green, shading into brilliant violet, and the feet and beak of a bright red. The Licli (Charadrius resplendens, Tsch.) is a plover, whose plumage in color is like that of the huachua, but with a sort of metallic brightness. There are two species of ibis which belong to the Puna, though they are occasionally seen in some of the lower valleys. One is the Bandurria (Theristocus melanopis, Wagl.), and the other is the Yanahuico (Ibis Ordi, Bonap.). On the lagunas swim large flocks of Quiullas (Larus serranus, Tsch.), white ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... Egypt, the hippopotamus, the crocodile, the ibis, the papyrus, we need not speak. There were few beasts of chase, and the Egyptian conquerors did not begin like those of central Asia by being mighty hunters. It was a land of corn, and of the vine, of fruit trees, and all ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... of the British Museum is a statue of the deity IBIS, between two mummies. This attracted the attention of Sibthorp, as he lounged through the room the other day with a companion. "Why," said his friend, "is that statue placed between the other two?" "To preserve it to be sure," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... formed the topic of our after-supper conversation, and then it generalised to the different species of wading birds of America, and at length that singular creature, the "ibis," became the theme. This came round by Besancon remarking that a species of ibis was brought by the Indians to the markets of New Orleans, and sold there under the name of "Spanish Curlew." This was the white ibis (Tantalus albas), which the zoologist stated was found in plenty along ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... goddesses never enjoyed themselves so much as in Ancient Egypt; and though it does seem a drawback from our artistic point of view for Hathor to have the head or ears of a cow, for wise Thoth to have the long beak of an ibis, and so on, it was for them only an amusing kind of masquerade or 'tete' party, on the walls of the temples and tombs. At home, they could be what they liked. Think how interesting for the Egyptians to have all these queer gods, and what variety it gave ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... desolate; but then err not on the other side, going into folly and licentiousness,—a course which naturally tends to cut off life itself. It is the narrow way of philosophy: as said the old Latins, "Medio tutissimus ibis," "midway is safety"; but Solomon is here again, as we have seen before, on a far higher moral elevation than any of the heathen philosophers, for he has one sheet-anchor for his soul from the evils of either extreme, ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... open water they saw a wild goose of a very beautiful species. It is called the "Huachua" goose. Its plumage is of a snowy whiteness, all except the wings, which are bright green and violet, while the beak, legs, and feet, are scarlet. They also saw two species of ibis wading about in the marsh, and a gigantic water-hen almost as big as a turkey. This last is of a dark grey colour, with a red beak, at the base of which is a large yellow knob of the shape of a bean. On this account it is called by ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... in for mere scholastic recitations which nobody understands, and the boys hate. Others burst out in full-blown theatricals. King's College acts on the motto, Medio tutissimus ibis. It keeps the old scholastic recitations, but gilds the pill by adding the accessory of costume. I can quote Latin as well as Dr. Pangloss, and certain lines were running in my mind all the time I was in King's College ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies |
