"Porpoise" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... down the swelling river, To the ocean flowing ever, With its teeming life of porpoise, fish, and seal, There hardy, brave, and daring, Dwells the habitant; nor caring Save to make his frugal living by his skill. Nor heeds he of the weather, For scale, and fur, and feather, Lay their ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... Theatrical Committee are looking up amateurs for a farce. Readings from Dickens are also spoken of. An occasional whale is seen blowing in the distance, and many grampuses come rolling about the ship,—most inelegant brutes, some three or four times the size of a porpoise. Each in turn comes up, throws himself round on the top of the sea, exposing nearly half his body, and then rolls ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... still a long time and was beginning to think that his trip had been in vain, when he heard a soft crackling of the twigs above him, a heavy tread crashing through the bushes, a puffing snorting breath from the porpoise-like Pat, and he held his own breath and lay very still. Suppose Pat should take a new trail and discover his hiding place? His heart pounded with great dull thuds. But Pat slid heavily down to the little clearing below ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... of a group of frolicking children. It is the instinctive perception that it is a pure enjoyment to the fish, the healthy glow and laugh of submarine existence. But for that sense of sympathetic nature the flying-fish, reeling porpoise and dolphin would be no more to him than the skipping shuttle in a weaver's loom, the dull impetus of senseless machinery. Self-generated motion is the outward and visible sign of vitality—its wanton exercise the symbol and expression of enjoyment. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born; And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcry wild As welcomed ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... but one of them was tender and timid. Trepidation and the coldness of the water made him turn back to regain the hole he crept out of. In coming near the staging where the sentinel was posted, he heard the poor fellow breathe, and at length got sight of him;—"Ah," says Paddy, "here is a porpoise, and I'll stick him with my bayonet." On which the terrified young man exclaimed—"don't kill me, I am a prisoner." The sentinel held out his hand, and helped him on to the staging, and then fired his gun to give the alarm. The guard turned out, and the officers ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... the sake of argument, that a savage has more brains than seems proportioned to his wants, all that can be said is that the objection to natural selection, if it be one, applies quite as strongly to the lower animals. The brain of a porpoise is quite wonderful for its mass, and for the development of the cerebral convolutions. And yet since we have ceased to credit the story of Arion, it is hard to believe that porpoises are much troubled with intellect: and still more difficult ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... half way to the zenith, burned bright in a cloudless sky, whilst in the east and west distant banks of purple mist coloured the liquid plain with a cool green-blue, a celadon tint that reposed the eye and the brain. The porpoise raised in sport his dark, glistening back to the light of day, and plunged into the cool depths as if playing off the "amate sponde" of the Mediterranean; and sandpipers and curlews, the latter ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... a periscope suddenly appeared, then the submarine dived, rose once more, showing the rounded conning tower, dived, rose again, like a porpoise at play. ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... that the port-hole might most of the time have been wholly ornamental for all the good it did them, for it was generally splashed with grey October sea, but, at least, as Nancy lucently explained, you could see things—once there had actually been a porpoise—and that neither of them, in their present condition, would have worried very much about it if their cabin had been an aquarium was a ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... places in a biscuit. As for the pork, we were cheated out of it more than half the time, and when it was obtained one would have judged from its motley hues, exhibiting the consistence and appearance of variegated soap, that it was the flesh of the porpoise or sea hog, and had been an inhabitant of the ocean, rather than a sty. * * * The flavor was so unsavory that it would have been rejected as unfit for the stuffing of even Bologna sausages. The provisions were ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... "is not running away;" so over we all went, except two. I was down like a porpoise never rising till my head touched the ship's copper. I swam round the stern, and was taken in on the side opposite the enemy. My captain, I daresay, would have disdained such a compromise; but though ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... hurrying stragglers, thrusting off the stranded, leading his phalanxes wisely round curves and angles, lest they be jammed and fill the river with a solid mass. As the great sticks come dashing along, turning porpoise-like somersets or leaping up twice their length in the air, he must be everywhere, livelier than a monkey in a mimosa, a wonder of acrobatic agility in biggest boots. He made the proverb, "As easy as falling ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... overboard twice as much sea as dat!" he added, when I told him how thankful I was to him. "Me fight shark with one big knife, and cut him under the t'roat and kill him. Potto Jumbo one 'phibious animal, so doctor once say to me. I swim in de water like porpoise, and climb tree like monkey. Ah! you see de monkeys when we get out dere," and Potto Jumbo pointed eastward. "Ah! dat one fine country, only little too hot sometimes for lily-white skins;" and Potto Jumbo grinned from ear to ear, as if congratulating himself that his own dark covering was ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... morning George called at the store of Laneville & Co. No one was in save a small lad, who, to his inquiry, replied that all were sick. The youth was a short, porpoise-shaped lad, who appeared quite independent for his age and station, and told George that he had better call the next day, as the folks would n't be down. In an instant George suspected the cause of their absence. Though he knew James ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... herrin', maybe, laddie. See how they come up and turn over, and dive doon again. Canny kind o' fesh a porpoise, but they're much finer than these in the Clyde. I'm thenking, though, that we'll ha'e to shorten sail a wee. It ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... well. My ancestors adored Goddesses. I discover ze voice of a Goddess: I adore it. So you call me mad; it is to me what you call me—juste ze same. I am possessed wiz passion for her voice. So it will be till I go to ashes. It is to me ze one zsing divine in a pig, a porpoise world. It is to me—I talk! ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... around quiet, bobbin' up in unexpected places, like a porpoise, and askin' questions once in a while. He asked about most everybody, but about Willie, especial. I judged Peter T. had dropped a hint to him and to Gabe. Anyhow, the old critter give out that he wouldn't trust a poet with the silver handles on his grandmarm's coffin. As for Grace, she acted dreadful ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... courses down your spine, what electric thrills start from a dozen ganglia and flush your whole nervous system with new life! Finally, there is the plunge and the wallow and the splash, with a feeling of kinship to the porpoise in its joy, under the influence of which the most silent man becomes vocal and makes the walls of the narrow ghoosulkhana resound with amorous, or patriotic, song. A flavour of sadness mingles here, for you must ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA
... connection with my birthday which is to-morrow, the third day of the fifth moon. Ch'eng Jih-hsing, who is in that curio shop of ours, unexpectedly brought along, goodness knows where he fished them from, fresh lotus so thick and so long, so mealy and so crisp; melons of this size; and a Siamese porpoise, that long and that big, smoked with cedar, such as is sent as tribute from the kingdom of Siam. Are not these four presents, pray, rare delicacies? The porpoise is not only expensive, but difficult to get, and that kind of lotus and melon must have cost him no end of trouble ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... relief of some propitious omen. The few which are supported by scientific causes give support to the many that have their origin only in his own excited and doubting temperament. The gambols of the dolphin, the earnest and busy passage of the porpoise, the ponderous sporting of the unwieldy whale, and the screams of the marine birds, have all, like the signs of the ancient soothsayers, their attendant consequences of good or evil. The confusion between ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... directly on our course, and I was looking at her from the windlass, trying to form some opinion as to the expediency of our luffing-to, in order to hold our own. Of a sudden, this brig gave a plunge, and she went down like a porpoise diving. What caused this disaster I never knew; but, in five minutes we passed as near as possible over the spot, and not a trace of her was to be seen. I could not discover so much as a handspike floating, though I looked with intense ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... over me in the most inquisitive manner, until his long nose nearly went into my eye, and humming a bow-wow tune in my ear to ascertain if I were really napping, he turned from me with a dissatisfied grunt, flung himself into a settee, and not long after was puffing and blowing like a porpoise. I was glad of this opportunity to go on deck again, and "I left him alone in his glory." But, while I was congratulating myself on my good fortune, I found him once more ...
— Life in the Clearings versus the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... lion felt something alight on his back, he dove to the bottom of the pool in a flash, taking the guard with him. But no human being could stick on the back of a slippery sea lion, and the guard soon came up to the surface of the water blowing and spouting like a porpoise. ...
— Billy Whiskers' Adventures • Frances Trego Montgomery
... fingers and forearm of the galeopithecus might be greatly lengthened by natural selection, and this, as far as the organs of flight are concerned, would convert it into a bat." "The framework of bones being the same in the hand of a man, wing of a bat, fin of a porpoise, and leg of a horse, the same number of vertebrae forming the neck of the giraffe and of the elephant, and innumerable other such facts, at once explain themselves on the theory of descent with ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler
... through the stiff sea like a playful porpoise, dipping and plunging. A half-score of adventuresome gulls were still following in the foam-churned wake. In the face of all the pitching about, Mrs. Richards had quite a battle to direct her shuttle to any efficient purpose, and Claire was almost amused ...
— The Blood Red Dawn • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... pork, we were cheated out of more than half of it, and when it was obtained one would have judged from its motley hues, exhibiting the consistency and appearance of variegated fancy soap, that it was the flesh of the porpoise or sea-hog, and had been an inhabitant of the ocean rather than the sty. The peas were about as digestible as grape-shot; and the butter—had it not been for its adhesive properties to retain together ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... a derelict porpoise was cast on the shore Our village policeman was much to the fore; He measured the beast from its tip to its tail, And blandly pronounced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 12, 1917 • Various
... after the Germans sought retaliation by attacking a British squadron, but the effort miscarried. The British cruiser Birmingham caught a glimpse of her wake and with a well-aimed shot destroyed her periscope. The submarine dived, but shortly afterwards came up again making what was called a porpoise dive—that is to say, she came up just long enough for the officer in the conning tower to locate the enemy, then submerged again. Brief, however, as had been the appearance of the conning tower, the British put a shell into it and in a few minutes the submarine and most of her crew were at the ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... to laugh at, you porpoise?" spluttered mulberry-coat. "A fine tale this'll make at home! Admiral van der Kuylen first loses his fleet in the night, then has his flagship fired under him by a French squadron, and ends all by being captured by a pirate. I'm glad you find it matter for laughter. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... but no sooner had we passed Finisterre than a gale struck us, and for many woeful days the Asia behaved like a drunken porpoise. I do not think a single passenger escaped sea-sickness. The gale continued until the night before we reached Madeira. I shall never forget the enchanting prospect which Funchal afforded as we glided to our anchorage in the ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... fireplace with a very important air. A fat little servant disappeared frequently through the dining-room door, where she seemed to be laying the cover for a feast. With that particular dexterity of country girls, she made three trips to carry two plates, and puffed like a porpoise at her work, while the look of frightened amazement showed upon her face that every fibre of her intelligence was under unaccustomed tension. Before the fire, and upon the range, three or four stew-pans were bubbling. A plump ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... superior servant replied, "Well, ma'am, to be sure, it always was so in them famullies where I have lived; the governess never didn't eat at the table." The fact is natural, and the reason obvious, but oh! my dear, the manner of the fat, pampered porpoise of a man-menial was too horrid. Then, on going for a candle into Miss Hall's room one evening, I found she had been provided with tallow ones, and, upon remonstrating about it with the chambermaid, she replied (with a courtesy at every other ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... Therefore the Mavericks lay down in open order on the brow of a hill to watch the play till their call should come. Father Dennis, whose duty was in the rear, to smooth the trouble of the wounded, had naturally managed to make his way to the foremost of his boys and lay like a black porpoise, at length on the grass. To him ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... moorings, and after boxing it about, dashed it against the windlass, where it stranded. The water then poured along the deck like a flood rolling over and over, pots, pans, and kettles, and even old Baltimore himself, who went breaching along like a porpoise. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail, "There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle—will you come and join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. With a Proem by Austin Dobson • Lewis Carroll
... front. Yet here must the heavy boats beach themselves, and wallow and yaw in the shingly roar, while their cargo and crew get out of them, their gunwales swinging from side to side, in the manner of a porpoise rolling, and their stem and stern going up and down like a pair of ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... gentleman, meanwhile, was absorbed in his newspaper, and he marked his enjoyment of it by inhaling his breath and exhaling it again in that particular way which is called "blowing like a porpoise." ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand
... such a descent over the rocks, I could not at the time comprehend, as the chances were in favor of a broken back, or neck, or some other consummation equally out of the range of gratitude, in an ordinary way. He came up out of the water blowing and snorting like a porpoise with a cold in his head, and waded to the shore. 'Come down,' he shouted, which I did, not quite so far or fast as he did, but fast enough to make an involuntary plunge, head foremost, into the pool at the bottom. The occasion of his catastrophe was this: he had ascended so ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... He was very much alone. I saw him. Five other pairs of eager eyes scanned the sea all day, but never saw another. So sparse were the flying fish that nearly a week more elapsed before the last one on board saw his first flying fish. As for the dolphin, bonita, porpoise, and all the other ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... day they sighted a school of skimming flying fish; that night several flew on board and were delivered into Charley Bo Yip's ready hands, and Martin feasted for the first time upon that dainty morsel. Bonito and porpoise played about ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... attributes of fire, lightning and combinations of forces not found in any one creature, are common to the popular fancy. In Japan, the kappa, half monkey half tortoise, which seizes children bathing in the rivers, as real to millions of the native common folk as is the shark or porpoise; the flying-weasel, that moves in the whirlwind with sickle-like blades on his claws, which cut the face of the unfortunate; the wind-god or imp that lets loose the gale or storm; the thunder-imp or ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... vant to go on, you must sit still; if you keep moving, you'll stay where you are—that's all! There, by Gosh! we're in for it." At this point of the interesting dialogue, the young 'ooman gave a sudden lurch to larboard, and turned the boat completely over. The boatman, blowing like a porpoise, soon strode across the upturned bark, and turning round, beheld the drenched "fare" clinging ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... (—"court") jugxejo. policy : politiko. polish : poluri. politics : politiko. pompous : pompa. poodle : pudelo. poor : malricxa, kompatinda. pope : papo. poplar : poplo. poppy : papavo. -"coloured", punca popular : populara. porcelain : porcelano. porcupine : histriko. porous : pora, truajxa. porpoise : fokeno. porridge : kacxo. port : haveno. porter : portisto, pordisto. portion : parto, (ration) porcio, portmanteau : valizo. position : pozicio, situacio. positive : pozitiva, definitiva. possess : posedi, havi possible : ebla. post : stango, fosto; ofico. "letter"—, posxto. postage : postelspezo, ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... would send her toward the surface by means of the deflecting rudder. Then she would dive to the bottom again. Once, as a test, she was sent obliquely to the surface, her tower just emerging, and then she darted downward again, like a porpoise that had come up to roll over, and suddenly concluded to seek the depths. In fact, had any one seen the maneuver they would have imagined the craft was a big fish ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... hath made more bad faces with his oppression than ever Michael Angelo made good ones. He lifts up 's nose, like a foul porpoise before ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... established at Barita. At this time the squadron consisted of the frigates "Cumberland" (flagship), "Potomac," and "Raritan"; the steam frigate "Mississippi"; the sloops-of-war "Falmouth," "John Adams," and "St. Mary's"; the steam-sloop "Princeton"; and the brigs "Lawrence," "Porpoise," and "Somers." Before the close of the war some of these ships were recalled, at least one was wrecked, and the squadron was from time to time ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... Blackbeard reached for a silver bowl of Brazil nuts, cracked one of them with the pistol-butt and roared for the black cabin boy who came running with a flask of Canary wine and a goblet. Jack Cockrell's sigh of relief sounded like a porpoise coming up for air. He was not to be shot at once. Suddenly Blackbeard exclaimed, in that ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... we encountered Killers and Thrashers, by far the most spirited and "spunky" of the finny tribes. Though little larger than a porpoise, a band of them think nothing of assailing leviathan himself. They bait the monster, as dogs a bull. The Killers seizing the Right whale by his immense, sulky lower lip, and the Thrashers fastening on to his back, and beating ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... Broadstairs: "In a bay window sits, from nine o'clock to one, a gentleman with rather long hair and no neckcloth, who writes and grins as if he thought he were very funny, indeed. At one o'clock he disappears, presently emerges from a bathing machine, and may be seen a kind of salmon-colored porpoise, splashing about in the ocean. After that, he may be viewed in another bay window on the ground floor, eating a good lunch; and after that, walking a dozen miles or so, or lying on his back on the sand reading. Nobody bothers him, unless they know he is disposed to be ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... is so. The first of these hideous monsters has the snout of a porpoise, the head of a lizard, the teeth of a crocodile; and it is this that has deceived us. It is the most fearful of all antediluvian reptiles, the world—renowned ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... O Emir, not so fast, I pray you! Better a double mouthful of stale porpoise fat, with a fin bone in it, than so ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... mistake which would draw attention to the spot. If he should try to swim under the surface, he might be forced to come up too soon, or might strike some obstruction in the stream that would fling him over as though he was a porpoise. It was the fear of a catastrophe of this nature which held him where he was, while he peered through the shrubbery like some wild animal glaring out from his ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... story. "It's true I was dead and dacently buried, but here I am for my sins turned into a sale as other sinners are and will be, and if you put an end to me and skin me maybe it's worser I'll be, and go into a shark or a porpoise. Lave your ould forefather where he is, to live out his time as a sale. Maybe for your own sakes you will ever hereafter leave off following and parsecuting and murthering sales who may be nearer to yourselves nor you think." ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... words, and they "disturbed" him, to put it mildly. Evidently he had forgotten the peril to which all persons are exposed in tropical waters, and, as the truth was impressed upon him with such suddenness, he uttered a "whiff" like a porpoise and began swimming with fierce energy toward the shore. In fact, he never put forth so much effort in all his life. The expectation of feeling a huge man-eating monster gliding beneath you when in the water is enough to shake the nerves of the strongest swimmer. He kept diving and swimming ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... in her early forties, rose to the bait like a porpoise being hand-fed at a Florida zoo. "Dear Swami Chandra! How perfectly wonderful to see you again! You're looking very ...
— Psichopath • Gordon Randall Garrett
... may say little. There is nothing about which so much is imagined, rumored and reported, and so little known for certain. Five times, when coming through the danger zone, we manned all guns, thinking we saw something. Once in my watch I put the helm hard over to dodge a torpedo—which proved to be a porpoise! And I'll do the same thing again, too. We are in this war up to the neck, there is no doubt about ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... our camp early, followed by his squaws bearing gifts of salmon, porpoise meat, clams and crabs; and at his command two of the girls of his family picked me a basketful of delicious wild strawberries. He sat motionless by my fire all the forenoon, smoking my leaf tobacco and pondering deeply. After ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young
... plunging arms are fleet, And with all his might he flings his feet, But the water-sprites are round him still, To cross his path and work him ill. They bade the wave before him rise; They flung the sea-fire in his eyes, And they stunned his ears with the scallop stroke, With the porpoise heave and the drum-fish croak. Oh! but a weary wight was he When he reached the foot of the dog-wood tree; —Gashed and wounded, and stiff and sore, He laid him down on the sandy shore; He blessed the force of the charmed line, And he banned the water-goblin's spite, ...
— The Culprit Fay - and Other Poems • Joseph Rodman Drake
... the Admiral, or Delight, continued in sounding of trumpets, with drums and fifes; also winding the cornets and hautboys, and in the end of their jollity, left with the battle and ringing of doleful knells. Towards the evening also we caught in the Golden Hind a very mighty porpoise with harping iron, having first stricken divers of them, and brought away part of their flesh sticking upon the iron, but could recover only that one. These also, passing through the ocean in herds, did portend storm. I omit to recite frivolous report by them ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... remarked Ebony, going to a pool a little further from the fountain-head, where the water had cooled somewhat. There the negro dropped his simple garments, and was soon rolling like a black porpoise in his warm bath. It was only large enough for one, but close to it was another small pool big enough for several men. There Mark and Hockins were soon disporting joyously, while the Secretary looked on and laughed. Evidently he did not in the ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... for food, but which have since been abandoned. Our ancestors were, not difficult to please: they had good teeth, and their palates, having become accustomed to the flesh of the cormorant, heron, and crane, without difficulty appreciated the delicacy of the nauseous sea-dog, the porpoise, and even the whale, which, when salted, furnished to a great extent ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... service that the stoker had done him; so the Vizier and all the amirs made much of him. The stoker had waxed fat and burly with rest and good living, so that his neck was like an elephant's neck and his face like a porpoise's belly. Moreover, he was grown dull of wit, for that he had never stirred from his place; so at the first he knew not the King by his aspect. But Zoulmekan came up to him smilingly and saluted him after the friendliest fashion, saying, "How hast thou made ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous
... be if they could not be so classed. Again, how astonishing on the creative, how natural on the evolutionary hypothesis, that the arrangement of bones in the hand of a man, the wing of a bat, the fin of a porpoise, the leg of a horse, should be precisely the same; the number of vertebrae in the neck of a giraffe, and in that of an elephant the same; the primitive germs from which a man, a dog, a frog, and a lobster are gradually evolved, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... man, who we afterward learned was known as "The Porpoise" because of his wonderful ...
— Tales of the Fish Patrol • Jack London
... syndicate—he had a bag full of photographs of an actress all eyes and teeth and hair,—and another chap had a scheme all worked out for getting a concession from Spain for one of the Caroline Islands, and putting up a factory there for making porpoise-hide leather. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... staring between curiosity and fear. La Salle knew those with whom he was dealing, and, without ceremony, entered the chief's lodge with his followers. The crowd closed around them, naked men and half-naked women, described by Joutel as of a singular ugliness. They gave buffalo- meat and dried porpoise to the unexpected guests; but La Salle, racked with anxiety, hastened to close the interview; and, having without difficulty recovered the kidnapped men, he returned to the beach, leaving with the Indians, as usual, an impression of ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... first thing I knew there was the fore-royal gone. I ran forward, bawling blue hell; and just as I came by the foremast something struck me right through the fore-arm and stuck there. I put my other hand up, and, by George, it was the grain; the beasts had speared me like a porpoise. 'Cap'n!' I cried. 'What's wrong?' says he. 'They've grained me,' says I. 'Grained you?' says he. 'Well, I've been looking for that.' 'And by God,' I cried, 'I want to have some of these beasts murdered for it!' 'Now, Mr. Nares,' ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to tell. Before then it had only blown in fitful gusts. Then again it blew steadily. I had caught some whispers from it years before. On the deck of the great, populous, electric-lighted ocean-hotel that was hurrying me across the Atlantic, racing the porpoise-schools to get to New York City; and later at Washington, when the red sunset-fires burned low behind the Capitol, it spoke to me in the wonderful, beloved voice I shall never hear on earth any more. Yet once more the wind came ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... broke on our ears save the soft puff now and then of a porpoise, the slow creak of the masts as we swayed gently on the swell, the patter of the reef-points, and the occasional flap of the hanging sails. An awning covered the fore and after parts of the schooner, under which the ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... porpoise, and I believe it all owing to you that my husband neglects his wife and family. What's vampyres to him, I should like to know, that he should go troubling about them? I never heard of ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... the ground, walled in to three feet height on three sides, with a ladder of two stout poles. On the bwea sit or stand two or three men, on either side having a bag; visitors run up the ladder, put their money or porpoise teeth into the bags if small, give it to the men if large; and, if their present is worth it, make a speech a little way down the ladder. A party from a village generally send up a spokesman, and when he has done go up in a body and give their money. Taki was orator ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... more and more, And backward flew to her billowy breast, Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest; And a mother she was and is to me; For I was born on the open sea! The waves were white, and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born; And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcry wild As welcomed to life the ocean-child! I've lived since then, in calm and strife, Full fifty summers a sailor's life, With wealth ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... about by both hands, now right, now left, but rarely going out of a walk. Above a high shirt-collar his full-blown cheeks might be seen, as he sucked in the hot air and rejected it again like a blowing porpoise: cravat he had none, because he had no neck to tie it about; but in lieu of this article he carried, knotted over his broad shoulders, a little red handkerchief. Daily did I ask myself for a whole week "Will it walk again?" and, so surely as ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... alive with an abundance of life. The black back of a porpoise showed above the surface; far away the sun glinted on the silver scales of a leaping tarpon. The red sides of a mangrove snapper were seen as it tried in vain to escape the jaws of a steel-gray barracuda, and a moment later half of the slim barracuda flew into the air as the jaws ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... exactly to pass, for the master and his boat's crew were lost before the Investigator was joined by the Lady Nelson, from Port-Jackson; and when the former ship was condemned, the people embarked with their commander on board the Porpoise, which was wrecked on a coral reef, and nine ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... up the horse, and walked down to the pool. They were accompanied by four or five girls and a dozen children. Soon they were all splashing about, shouting and laughing, while Walker, in a lava-lava, swam to and fro like an unwieldy porpoise. He made lewd jokes with the girls, and they amused themselves by diving under him and wriggling away when he tried to catch them. When he was tired he lay down on a rock, while the girls and children surrounded him; ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... a young whale, and it was fitted for living in the water, though breathing the atmosphere. It had the vertebral column and general bodily form of a fish, but to that were added the head and breast-bone of a lizard, and the paddles of the whale tribes. The beak, moreover, was that of a porpoise, and the teeth were those of a crocodile. It must have been a most destructive creature to the fish of those ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... that a seagull can generally be observed opposite the Aquarium; when there is no seagull elsewhere along the whole Brighton front there is often one there. Young gulls occasionally alight on the roof, or are blown there. Once now and then a porpoise may be seen sunning himself off a groyne; barely dipping himself, and rolling about at the surface, the water shines like oil as it ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies
... seen from the deck,—Dunolly, Duart, and Dunstaffnage; and enough left us as we entered the Sound, to show, and barely show, the Lady Rock, famous in tradition, and made classic by the pen of Campbell, raising its black back amid the tides, like a belated porpoise. And then twilight deepened into night, and we went snorting through the Strait with a stream of green light curling off from either bow in the calm, towards the high dim land, that seemed standing ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... "playing porpoise" are both entered into with fine spirit, for the boys all wish ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... next day at noon were in the latitude of 28 deg. 25', longitude 170 deg. 26' E. In the evening, Mr Cooper haying struck a porpoise with a harpoon, it was necessary to bring-to, and have two boats out, before we could kill it, and get it on board. It was six feet long; a female of that kind, which naturalists call dolphin of ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... the usual solemnities; they thought it was possible to obtain the soul of the departed in some tangible transmigrated form. On the beach, near where a person had been drowned, and whose body was supposed to have become a porpoise, or on the battlefield, where another fell, might have been seen, sitting in silence, a group of five or six, and one a few yards before them with a sheet of native cloth spread out on the ground in front of him. Addressing some god ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... playing about in the water all the while, rolling over and diving, and chasing each other just as if they knew they had a "gallery." We did not reward them very well either, for the Prophet shot one, and we ate bits of him for lunch—the porpoise, I mean, not the Prophet. I thought he would make a good companion-piece for the polar bear, and he was quite edible. He only needed a rasher of bacon to make you believe he ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... about six years, taking the combined catch of about five or six fishermen. At this same period the smack Hulda B. Hall, 50 tons, of New London, Conn., Captain Chapell, was carrying lobsters from Cape Porpoise, Gloucester, Ipswich Bay, and occasionally Provincetown, to Boston, making 15 trips in the season of four months, and taking about 3,500 lobsters each trip. Captain Chapell was supplied with lobsters by four men at Cape Porpoise, ...
— The Lobster Fishery of Maine - Bulletin of the United States Fish Commission, Vol. 19, Pages 241-265, 1899 • John N. Cobb
... us up and threw us at the sea-wall, the seventeen foot high sea-wall. Just before we struck, I saw the Captain move and look up. The schooner was thrown out of the water, as a porpoise jumps, vaulted the sea-wall and came to solid ground with a crash that broke every timber. We landed stern first, and the wave that followed us tore off our bow and foredeck and threw them clear over the vessel. The foredeck ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... sometimes live to the age of 100; stags are very long-lived; sheep seldom exceed the age of 10; cows live about 15 years. Cuvier considers it probable that whales sometimes live 1000 years. The dolphin and porpoise attain the age of 30; an eagle died at Vienna at the age of 104; ravens have frequently reached the age of 100; swans have been known to live to the age of 300. Mr. Malerton has the skeleton of a swan that attained the age of 200 years. Pelicans are long-lived. A tortoise has been known ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... seen; and as he thought it a very wonderful thing, he always carried it about with him. The next fall, while going along the coast, he saw a pack of white foxes approaching, and having with him neither a trap nor a gun, he thought of his spoon-hook. Tearing a rag off his shirt, he rubbed on it some porpoise oil which he was carrying in a bladder, fastened the rag about the hook, laid it on a log directly in the path of the approaching foxes, and, going to the end of the line, lay down out of sight to watch what would happen. When the foxes drew near, one of them seized the bait, and the Eskimo, ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... It's a porpoise!" cried Jack. "No danger of one of those hog-fish going near a man. They're as timid as mice. Just see him go! There ought to be a lot of others, for they generally go in schools. Maybe this one was kept in because he couldn't spell 'book,' and ...
— The Motor Girls Through New England - or, Held by the Gypsies • Margaret Penrose
... say, from In Allgemeine Fishcherei-Zeitwung, or Economic Circular No. 10, "Mussels in the Tributaries of the Missouri," or the last biennial report of the Superintendent of Fisheries of Wisconsin, or a scientific paper on "The Porpoise in Captivity" reprinted by permission of Zoologica, of the New York Zoological Society. To find each week for reprint a poem appropriate in sentiment to the feeling of the paper. One of the "Salt Water Ballads" would do, or John Masefield ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... Marathon legs into play then, and soon captured the obese footman, who puffed like a porpoise in the firm and muscular grasp of the detective, who nabbed him just at the head of ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... perfect thicket of sponges, and see the fishes playing "tag" all around and about them. There! that sly little fish, like a salt water pickerel, nipped the tail of that great clumsy porpoise—porpus—so hard, I heard the big fish grunt. The teeth of a pickerel are fearfully long ...
— Lord Dolphin • Harriet A. Cheever
... yet for such a triumph of that particular sense. To be still frank, he was little less than a monster—for mere unresisting or unresilient mass of personal presence I mean; so that I fairly think of him as a form of bland porpoise, violently blowing in an age not his own, as by having had to exchange deep water for thin air. Thus he impressed me as with an absolute ancientry of type, of tone, of responsible taste, above all; this last I mean in literature, since it was literature we sociably ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... in composite, cream mottled, carp, turbot, tench, perch, fresh sturgeon with whelks, porpoise roasted, memis fried, crayfish, prawns, eels roasted with lamprey, a leche called the white leche flourished with hawthorn leaves and red haws, and a march pane, garnished with figures of angels, having among them an image of St. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... Whether sleeping, quarrelling, or playing, whether curious, frightened, or angry, its interest is continuously humorous, but the Adelie penguin in the water is another thing; as it darts to and fro a fathom or two below the surface, as it leaps porpoise-like into the air or swims skimmingly over the rippling surface of a pool, it excites nothing but admiration. Its speed probably appears greater than it is, but the ability to twist and turn and the general control of movement is both beautiful ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... protestations of his aged decrepitude, swore peace again and everlasting. Then was discussed the matter of starting a German plantation twenty miles down the coast. The land, of course, was to be bought from Koho, and the price was arranged in terms of tobacco, knives, beads, pipes, hatchets, porpoise teeth and shell-money—in terms of everything except rum. While the talk went on, Koho, glancing through the window, could see Worth mixing medicines and placing bottles back in the medicine cupboard. Also, he saw the ...
— A Son Of The Sun • Jack London
... of Sierra Leone abounds in fish, and the spermaceti whale has been occasionally found, the shark, the porpoise, eels, mackarel, mullet, snappers, yellow tails, cavillos, tenpounders, &c. with the mannittee, a singular mass of shapeless flesh, having much the taste of beef, which the natives greatly esteem, and consider the highest offering they ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... Jane. Coming up, she splashed about in the pond trying to get her bearings. Then, seeing Harriet's struggle with Margery, Jane headed for them in a series of porpoise-like lunges. The last reach brought a hand in contact with one of Margery's feet. Jane gave it a mighty tug. "Put her under, put her under! ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls in the Hills - The Missing Pilot of the White Mountains • Janet Aldridge
... commands as if he were hypnotized, puffing and blowing like a porpoise as he struggled to slip the linen covers over the chairs. Gladwin worked at top speed, too; and just as he was covering the great chest he gave a start and held ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... consulting my watch, I found I had been almost four hours climbing out. At that moment, Frank poked a red face over the rim. He was in shirt sleeves, sweating freely, and wore a frown I had never seen before. He puffed like a porpoise, and at ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... Porkley? Show me to him instantly! Don't dare say he's out, for I know that he's at home! It's a matter of life and death! Woman dying—children starving—and the devil to pay generally. Wake Snakes, you fat porpoise, and conduct me to ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... said Galleygo, following on the heels of the two admirals, as the latter entered the dressing-room of the officer addressed; "it has turned out just as I thought; and the County of Fairvillain has come out of his hole, like a porpoise coming up to breathe, the moment our backs is turned! As soon as we gives the order to square-away for England, and I see the old Planter's cabin windows turned upon Franco, I foreseed them consequences. Well, gentlemen, here's been a heap of prize-money made in this house without ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... added he, bursting into a hearty roar as he caught Mrs. Bates' eye fastened upon his rotund proportions, as if to ascertain where the bones were. "Oh! well, my good woman," continued he, "even a porpoise couldn't stand the bumping and thumping that we poor mortals are subject to when we trust ourselves on shipboard. Why, I solemnly protest that I've been pitched from my berth, many a time, quite across the ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... a first-rate swimmer, I went about it in right earnest. Once and sometimes twice each day during the warm weather—that is, after school was out—I betook myself to the water, where I might be seen splashing and spluttering about like a young porpoise. Some bigger boys, who had already learnt to swim, gave me a lesson or two; and I soon experienced the delightful sensation of being able to float upon my back without assistance from any one. I well remember how proud I felt on the occasion ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... swims under water like a fish. There isn't another girl here to beat her. You are nothing but a porpoise beside her, Cis, and you swim fairly well. Hope, I do wish you'd take lessons. I'm tired of seeing you chug up and down ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... neck, threw back his leg, and, with all the precision he could summon, caught the grip of his muley in both hands. He made his fall heavily to the ground, landing on his shoulder. But as he keeled from the saddle the last thing that rolled over the saddle, like the flash of a porpoise fin, was the barrel of the rifle, secure in his hands. Karg, on horseback, was already bending over him, revolver in hand, but the shot was never fired. A thirty-thirty bullet from the ground knocked the gun into the air and tore every knuckle from Karg's hand. ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... beautiful smooth bit of ice, hain't you, larfin', and hoopin', and hallooin' like one possessed, when presently sowse he goes in over head and ears? How he outs, fins, and flops about, and blows like a porpoise properly frightened, don't he? and when he gets out there he stands; all shiverin' and shakin', and the water a squish-squashin' in his shoes, and his trousers all stickin' slimsey-like to his legs. Well, he sneaks off home, lookin' like a fool, and thinkin' ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Fortune favour'd, he was nice; He never once would cog the dice; But, if she turn'd against his play, He knew to stop a quatre trois. Now sound in mind, and sound in corpus, (Says he) though swell'd like any porpoise, He hies from hence at forty-four (But by his leave he sinks a score) To the East Indies, there to cheat, Till he can purchase an estate; Where, after he has fill'd his chest, He'll mount his tub, and preach his best, And plainly prove, by dint of text, This world ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... at Fend l'Air's shoulder. Very little of him was above water, but that little was as brown as an Egyptian. He was puffing and blowing like unto a porpoise. In one hand he held a huge pitchfork—the ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... shipmates of an evening on the forecastle head. He was intelligent, very strong, and of proved courage. Incidentally we are told, so exact is our narrator, that Tom had the finest pigtail for thickness and length of any man in the Navy. This appendage, much cared for and sheathed tightly in a porpoise skin, hung half way down his broad back to the great admiration of all beholders and to the great ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... it rises horizontally, showing first its back fin, then draws an inspiration, and dives gently down, head foremost. This mode of proceeding distinguishes the Tucuxi at once from the other species, which is called Bouto or porpoise by the natives (Inia Geoffroyi of Desmarest). When this rises the top of the head is the part first seen; it then blows, and immediately afterwards dips head downwards, its back curving over, exposing successively the whole dorsal ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... imitated a porpoise without knowing it. "Educated out of books! All any of that rabble rout of his knows is what they read secondhand. They don't know people. Don't know capitalists. Don't even know these wage slaves ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... imagined that it was not such a very difficult matter after all, and so asked to be allowed to try for themselves. The Indians at first hesitated, as they well knew how really difficult it was, and thought that the boys had better keep at the safer sport of trying to shoot those that sprang, porpoise-like, out of the water. This itself afforded great amusement, and, while exciting, was not very successful, as it is extremely difficult to strike a sturgeon in this way, so rapid are ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... when returning from a cruise off the Straits, we heard that Charley's old uncle had slipt his cable, and left him cash enough to buy out and build a ship of his own? That was a gala, messmate! There was Charley, a little fat porpoise, as round as a nine-pounder, mounted on an eighteen gallon cask of the real Jamaica, lashed to a couple of oars, and riding astride, on his messmates' shoulders, up to the Point. Then such a jolly boat's crew attended him, ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... hauled off to the northward and passed the ensuing night under easy sail, during which our soundings were between forty and forty-six fathoms. A very large natives' fire was burning about two or three miles inland, but the Indians did not show themselves. Last night our people caught a porpoise, which helped to diminish the bad effect ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... time a shoal of jolly porpoises came rolling and tumbling by, turning up their sleek sides to the sun, and spouting up the briny element in sparkling showers. No sooner did the sage Oloffe mark this than he was greatly rejoiced. "This," exclaimed he, "if I mistake not, augurs well—the porpoise is a fat, well-conditioned fish—a burgomaster among fishes—his looks betoken ease, plenty, and prosperity. I greatly admire this round fat fish, and doubt not but this is a happy omen of the success of our undertaking." So saying, he directed his ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... week before? Hadn't he fitted your dwawing-woom with yellow satin at the beginning of the season? Hadn't he bought you the pair of ponies you wanted, and gone without a hack himself, and he gettin' as fat as a porpoise for want of exercise, the poor old boy? And for that necklace, do you know how it was that you didn't have it, and that you were very nearly having it, you ungwateful little devil you? It was I prevented you! He did win six hundwed at the Derby; ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... become 'surgeon'; 'hemorrhoid', 'emerod'; 'squinancy' will become first 'squinzey' (Jeremy Taylor) and then 'quinsey'; 'porkpisce' (Spenser), that is sea-hog, or more accurately hogfish{58} will be 'porpesse', and then 'porpoise', as it is now. In other words the attempt will be made, but it will be now too late to be attended with success. 'Physiognomy' will not give place to 'visnomy', however Spenser and Shakespeare employ this briefer form; nor ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... Straits, making but slow progress towards this emporium of the East. The number of native as well as foreign vessels which we passed, proved that we were approaching some great mart, and at 5:00 p.m. we dropped our anchor in Singapore Roads. Here we found the Porpoise, Oregon, and Flying-Fish, all well: the two former had arrived on January 22nd, nearly a month before, and the latter three days previously. Before concluding this chapter, I shall revert to their proceedings since our separation off the ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... blood they think I am? Me that's just come back from a journey of a hundred miles, and sent off again like this with but a taste of sleep and little food, and Corporal Byng sittin' there at Fort Desire with a pipe in his mouth and the fat on his back like a porpoise. It's famished I am with hunger, and thirty miles yet to do; and she, standin' there with a six months' welcome in her eye. . . . It's in the interest of Justice if I halt at Galbraith's Place for half-an-hour, bedad! The blackguard hid away there at ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... better than too much. I never use any but watch oil. You may think that the other oils are good because you have tried them; but I venture to say that all the good they effected was temporary and after a short time the clock was more gummed up than it was before. Watch oil is made from the porpoise' jaw, and I have not seen anything to equal it. You may say why not oil the back pivots? They do not need it as often as the front ones, because they are not so much exposed, and hence, they do not catch the dust which passes through the sash and through the key holes that causes ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... is gone, but the otter remains, and comes so near the mighty City as just the other side of the well-known Lock, the portal through which a thousand boats at holiday time convey men and women to breathe pure air. The porpoise, and even the seal, it is said, ventures to Westminster sometimes; the otter to Kingston. Thus, the sea sends its denizens past the vast multitude that surges over the City bridges, and the last link with the olden time, the otter, still ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... of the Saguenay, and often in water but little over their own depth. On the western coast they also enter the great rivers, and have been captured up the Yukon seven hundred miles from its mouth. In their columnar movements they somewhat resemble the porpoise,—long processions being frequently seen, composed of three in a row, perhaps led by ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... happened to occur in the region inhabited by those who speak a particular language; and even things recognised and named may have been very superficially examined, and therefore wrongly classed, as when a whale or porpoise is called a fish, or a slowworm is confounded with snakes. A scientific classification, on the other hand, aims at the utmost comprehensiveness, ransacking the whole world from the depths of the earth to the remotest star for new objects, ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... inspired—being sixty—and though she could not, like Mademoiselle Ninon de l'Enclos, then at Paris, boast of charms which defied the progress of time,—for Mrs. Silverkoop was as red as a boiled lobster, and as unwieldy as a porpoise; and although her mental attractions did by no means make up for her personal deficiencies,—for she was jealous, violent, vulgar, drunken, and stingy to a miracle: yet her charms had an immediate effect on Monsieur de Galgenstein; and hence, perhaps, the reader ...
— Catherine: A Story • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The old porpoise, as I opened the drawing-room door, was sitting with his feet upon the mantelpiece, making strenuous ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... much less walk. My clammy, muddy garments clung to me like sheets of ice. I thought I should never get them off. So numb and lifeless were my fingers, and so weak was I that it seemed to take an hour to get off my shoes. I had not the strength to break the porpoise-hide laces, and the knots defied me. I repeatedly beat my hands upon the rocks to get some sort of life into them. Sometimes I felt sure I was going ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... 1. (HUZZA PORPOISE).—This is the common porpoise found almost all over the globe. The name is of my own bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something must be done to distinguish them. I call him ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... faster?" Said a whiting to a snail, "There's a porpoise close behind us, And he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters And the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle— Will you come and ...
— Story Hour Readers Book Three • Ida Coe and Alice J. Christie
... not arranged in radii and arcs, but spun like weaver's woofs. Paintings, remarkable only for their hideous proportions and want of perspective, are daubed in vermilion, ochre, and indigo. The elephant, camel, and porpoise of the Ganges, dog, shepherd, peacock, and horse, are especially frequent, and so is a running pattern of a hand spread open, with a blood-red spot on the palm. A still less elegant but frequent object is the fuel, which is composed of the manure collected ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail. "There's a porpoise close behind us, and ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll
... study, as Mrs T called it, although Mr Turnbull insisted upon calling it his cabin, a name certainly more appropriate, as it contained but two small shelves of books, the remainder of the space being filled up with favourite harpoons, porpoise skulls, sharks' jaws, corals, several bears' skins, brown and white, and one or two models of the vessels which had belonged to his brother and himself, and which had been employed in the Greenland fishery. It was, in fact, a sort of museum of all he had collected during his voyages. Esquimaux ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat |
