"Prey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... regard for the property of the State was unfortunately not extended to the property of its clients. Even before the provinces had yielded a prey rendered easy by distance and irresponsibility, Italian cities had been forced to complain of the violence and rapacity of Roman commanders quartered in their neighbourhood,[118] and the passive silence with which the Praenestines bore the immoderate requisitions of a consul, was ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... words, and the blood chilled within him. He had never experienced a greater relief than in hearing the sweet voice of the young lady as she begged her to be calm, and not allow herself to become the prey of ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... though difficult in political practice. The obstacles to self-government which exist in Africa do not exist in the same measure in Asia. What stands in the way of freedom of Asiatic populations is not their lack of intelligence, but only their lack of military prowess, which makes them an easy prey to our lust for dominion. This lust would probably be in temporary abeyance on the morrow of a Socialist revolution, and at such a moment a new departure in Asiatic policy might be taken with permanently beneficial results. I ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... the side of the Paris road, under a tree at the northern entrance into Moulins, the forlorn Maria, with her lute and her dog Sylvie, used to sit. Thwarted in love by the intrigues of the parish curate, she became the prey to a deep-seated melancholy. (See Sterne's Sentimental ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... set, we came into the plain, which was not above two furlongs over, and then we perceived five great wolves cross the road, without taking notice of us, and so swift as though they were pursuing after their prey. Hereupon our guide, believing there were more coming, desired us to be on our guard. Accordingly our eyes were very circumspect, till about half a league farther, we perceived a dead horse, and near a dozen of wolves devouring its carcase. My man Friday fain would have fired ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... a multitude of intriguing little cries and noises that came from the hedges and coverts at night. One night he rescued a young leveret from a stoat, who seemed more than half inclined to give him battle for its prey until he cowed and defeated it with the ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Bears' alternate wail— In hope or fear alike for ever pale. And thus from year to year, through hope and fear, With many a curse and many a secret tear, Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear, At last He woke to find his foolish dreaming past, Beheld his best-of-life the easy prey Of quacks and scamps, and all the vile array That line the way, From thieving statesman down to petty knave; Yea, saw himself, for all his bragging brave, A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave. Then, worn and gray, and sick ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... the harbor in two canoes. Stealing upon their intended prey so silently as to escape observation, they boarded her on both sides at once, and, after a sharp conflict, succeeded in her capture. Lolonois then informed the prisoners that he knew their orders, and it was his ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 2, August, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... expansions of great size, as seen in the ears of the Long-eared Bat; and the eyes, though generally of small size except in the Fruit Bats, are bright and efficient, serving the creatures in good stead in the rapid pursuit of their insect-prey, which must be directed principally by sight. The common expression "as blind as a Bat," must be taken to apply to Bats accidentally driven from their retreats in the day-time, when it must be confessed that they fly about in a dazed manner; but at night ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... ambiguity or obscurity, the relative should, in general, be placed as near as possible to the antecedent. The following sentence is therefore faulty: "He is like a beast of prey, that is void of compassion." Better thus: "He that is void of compassion, is like a beast ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of burglars visiting any particular house in the town was infinitely slight—his common sense told him that. But supposing—just supposing that they actually had chosen his aunt's abode for their prey!... Conceivably they had learnt that Mrs. Maldon was to have a large sum of money under her roof. Conceivably a complex plan had been carefully laid. Conceivably one of the great burglaries of criminal history might be in progress. It was not impossible. No wonder that, with bank-notes loose ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... internal secretions. Wrapt in the speculations of this wretched game, you destroy your constitution. What can be expected from such a course of living but a body replete with stagnant humors, ready to fall a prey to all kinds of dangerous maladies, if I, the Gout, did not occasionally bring you relief by agitating those humors, and so purifying or dissipating them? If it was in some nook or alley in Paris, deprived of walks, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... and this is his first drinking-cup; then he has dug even into the bowels of the earth, to seek there the instruments of his future strength; from a rib, a sinew, and a reed, he has made arms; and the eagle, who, seeing him at first in his weakness and nakedness, prepares to seize him as his prey, struck in mid-air, falls dead at his feet, only to furnish a feather to adorn his head. Among animals, is there one, who under such conditions could have preserved life? Let us for a moment separate the workman from his work, God from nature. Nature ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... myself in this posture when one of the eagles, having taken me up with the piece of meat to which I was fastened, carried me to his nest on the top of the mountain. The merchants immediately began their shouting to frighten the eagles; and when they had obliged them to quit their prey, one of them came to the nest where I was. He was much alarmed when he saw me; but recovering himself, instead of inquiring how I came thither, began to quarrel with me, and asked ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... his brow, and could only escape destruction by exhibiting an outward appearance of misery!—I left his cottage with as much indignation as concern, deploring the fate of those beautiful countries, where nature has been prodigal of her gifts, only that they may become the prey of ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... Prayer bitten into them with muriatic acid. Here lay the same yellow harbor with many more fussy little tugs in it, its water low yet still mast-deep, its yard-long catfish and fathom-long gars leaping and wallowing after their prey, its white gulls flashing about the steamers' pantry windows. Here was the same black forest of ships in the up-stream and down-stream distance and here, finally, the same public hope and pride grown wider and loftier in their last affluence before entering that purgatory of ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... state of great trepidation as I entered my Residense, because how was I to capture my prey unless armed to the teeth? Little did Carter Brooks think that he carried in his pocket, not a Revolver or at least not merely, ...
— Bab: A Sub-Deb • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... plunged down the black wall of the cataract; but he and the struggling eagle were floating outward and downward through the cloud of mist. The cataract roared terribly, like a wild beast robbed of its prey. The spray beat and blinded, the air rushed upward as they fell. But the eagle struggled on with his burden. He fought his way out of the mist and the flying spray. His great wings threshed the air with a whistling sound. Down, down they ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... his lunch up to just sixteen shillings—as much as a North Sea amateur could earn in a week of luck—and then he prepares to face the terrors of the Deep. Does he tremble? Do the thoughts of the Past arise in his soul? Nay, the Seadog of Cowes is no man to be the prey of womanish tremors; he goes gaily like a true Mariner to confront the elements. The boat is ready, and four gallant salts are resting on their oars; the Seadog steps recklessly on board and looks at the weather. Ha! there is a sea of at least two inches high running, and that frail ...
— A Dream of the North Sea • James Runciman
... spots along the sides. The belly is whitish, spotted with black. The anaconda combines an arboreal with an aquatic life, and feeds chiefly upon birds and mammals, mostly during the night. It lies submerged in the water, with only a small part of its head above the surface, waiting for any suitable prey, or it establishes itself upon the branches of a tree which overhangs the water or the track of game. Being eminently aquatic this snake is viviparous. It is the only large boa ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... it is in the faunal realm. It must be true that the lives of most birds and animals end in tragedy, so numerous, alert, and persistent are their foes. As soon as a bird begins to grow old and infirm, losing its keenness of vision and its swiftness of movement, it cannot help falling a prey to its rapacious enemies. For this reason you seldom find a feeble animal or bird in the open, or one that has lain down and died ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... agitation. The authority of the Government was relaxed just when its power was about to be assailed; and the people, emancipated from every control and their passions inflamed by the fierce struggle for the Presidency, were the easy prey of revolutionary audacity. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... of French and English breeds which were brought to the island by their scarcely less savage owners. Many of the dogs which the Spaniards carried to South America roamed at large and degenerated into beasts of prey. Soldiers at one time were detailed to hunt them, and were then nicknamed Mataperros, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... initiative it is hard to overestimate." Without this "passionately persistent repetition," and without also the constant varying of apparently useless activities, the organism, says Professor Royce, "would remain the prey of the environment." ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... they saw that it was illuminated from the roof to the ground, and music sounded softly from the courtyard. "The Beast must be very hungry," said Beauty, trying to laugh, "if he makes all this rejoicing over the arrival of his prey." ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... the beginning of morality that a man feels his dependence upon his fellows and their dependence on him. Slaves of their own time and circumstance, men live out their lives in superficiality and isolation. They are a prey to their own selfishness. They never come into those relations with their fellows in which the moral ideal can be realised. Man in his isolation from his fellows is nothing and accomplishes nothing. The interests of the whole humanity are his private interests. ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... to Eurystheus; but the latter would not give him credit for the task because Hercules had demanded a reward for his labor. He sent the hero forth upon a sixth adventure, commanding him to drive away the Stymphalides. These were monster birds of prey, as large as cranes, with iron feathers, beaks and claws. They lived on the banks of Lake Stymphalus in Arcadia, and had the power of using their feathers as arrows and piercing with their beaks even bronze coats of ...
— Myths and Legends of All Nations • Various
... at netting another victim and strolled away to seek further prey. De Launay calmly turned around, opened the outer door and ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... not see a jack-rabbit or a slinking coyote or a bird; not even a buzzard, that all but ubiquitous, heat-defying bundle of dry feathers and bones, hung in the sky. Why should a rabbit come hither where there was no herbage? Why a coyote when his prey shunned these wastes? Why even the winged scavenger when all animal life fled the Bad Lands? The man's spirit was oppressed and drooped under the weariness of ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... procession commenced to trudge back, the littlest boy and girl bearing themselves bravely, with lips tight pressed. Could the Indians hold off and see the water enter the fort—see their prey enter, unharmed? It ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... of contrasts—of gray women of the night hugging gratings for warmth and accosting passers-by with loathsome gestures, of smug civilians hiding sensuous mouths under great mustaches, of dapper soldiers to whom the young girl unattended was potential prey, into this night city of terror, this day city of frightful contrasts, ermine rubbing elbows with frost-nipped flesh, destitution sauntering along the fashionable Prater for lack of shelter, gilt wheels of royalty and yellow ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... advantage and every right present themselves every instant to the gaze of misery, weakness, and servitude. The inhabitants of fiefs could not find consolation in the bosom of tranquillity; incessantly mixed up in the quarrels of their lord, a prey to his neighbors' devastations, they led a life still more precarious and still more restless than that of the lords themselves, and they had to put up at one and the same time with the presence of war, privilege, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... were opposed As the two poles, still, somehow, all the same, By nightfall we should probably have chanced On much the same main points of interest— Both of us measured girth of mossy trunk, Stript ivy from its strangled prey, clapped hands At squirrel, sent a fir-cone after crow, And so forth,—never mind what time betwixt. So in our lives; allow I entered mine Another way than you: 't is possible I ended just by knocking head ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... by Antiquity that minors cannot make a binding contract, for they are naturally the prey of every sharper. You allege that your patronus [Albinus] is under age, that he is heaping up expenses instead of property, and that his raw boyhood does not know what is really for his benefit. If this be correct, and be legally proved, he is entitled to a restitutio in integrum' [a ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... allied fleets had succeeded in keeping the Germans bottled up in the strong fortress of Helgoland. True, the enemy several times had sallied forth in few numbers, apparently seeking to run the blockade in an effort to prey upon allied merchant ships. But every time they had offered battle they had received the worst of it. They had been staggered with a terrible defeat at Jutland almost a year before this story opens, and since that time had not ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... bare, brown mesa he plunged; and before he had taken a dozen steps the first rifle had located its prey and was sniping at him. He had perhaps a hundred yards to cover ere the mesa fell away into a hollow, where he might find temporary protection in the scrub pines. And now a second marksman joined himself to the first. But he was going fast, already had covered half the distance, and it is no ...
— Wyoming, a Story of the Outdoor West • William MacLeod Raine
... day are devoted by many infatuated persons in some countries to this unhappy practice. In the middle of the day, while the wife directs with prudence and economy the administration of her husband's house, he abandons himself to become the prey of rapacious midnight and mid-day robbers. The result is, that he contracts debts, is stripped of his property, and his wife and children are sent to the alms-house, whilst he, perhaps, perishes in ...
— The Young Man's Guide • William A. Alcott
... can you expect your child to learn those petty arts of deception without which she must fall an easy prey to any one who wishes to deceive her? How can she detect lying in other people unless she has had some experience of it in her own practice? How, again, can she learn when it will be well for her to lie, and when to refrain ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... present resignation comes from lassitude, after so many centuries of effort and expansive power. Once it monopolised the glory of the world, and here it is now—for some two thousand years—fallen into a kind of tired sleep, which has left it an easy prey alike to the conquerors of yesterday and to ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... out his best and truest good. He felt that his days would be few upon the earth, and that his Mary would soon follow him; but their darling Jennie would be sheltered and taught, and that by a true disciple of their Lord and Master. No more anguish lest his precious child should become a prey to the wary and dissolute; no more grief at her withered, cheerless youth; no more sorrowings for the wants that he could not appease. "Oh! too much! too much mercy and goodness hast thou shown toward Thine unworthy servants, ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... a power in the Northland, respected by the officers of the Hudson Bay Company, a friend of the Indians, and a terror to those who looked upon the red man as their natural prey. ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... myself away from so beautiful a prospect. A few birds of prey, with wings hollowed into a graceful curve sharp-pointed at each end, the fan-shaped tail spread out, were silently sweeping round the rock-hewn tower; herons flew unscathed above them, owing their safety ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... Gatling guns boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The midnight sun is darkened. The ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... If they have got turned in the struggle you can turn them at any angle you like; the twisted wire is stiff enough to hold them in place. Every angler knows the bold, determined manner in which the mascalonge strikes his prey. He will take in bait and hooks at the first dash, and if the rod be held stiffly usually hooks himself. Barring large trout, he is the king of game fish. The big-mouthed bass is less savage in his attacks, ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... cut short her speculations—a fiendish yelling as of a pack of wolves leaping upon their prey. Dot sat up swiftly. Adela cowered in ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... on success in the world as a man's chief, nay, perhaps his only aim; but for him it was necessary that success should be polished. Sir Lionel wanted money that he might swallow it and consume it, as a shark does its prey; but, like sharks in general, he had always been hungry,—had never had his bellyful of money. Harcourt's desire for money was of a different class. It would not suit him to be in debt to any one. A good balance at his banker's was a thing dear to his soul. He aimed ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... and intelligence, so to say, beams from his every limb. All day long he must be up and doing. For want of better business he will pursue a shrimp for hours at a time with the zest of a true sportsman. Now he darts after his intended prey like a fox-hound. Again he resorts to finesse, and sidles off, with eyes fixed in another direction, like a master of stratagem. To be sure, he never catches the shrimp—but what of that? The true sportsman is far removed from the necessity for mere material profit. I half suspect that ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... ever and anon like distant thunder. The house is silent as the tomb—so horribly silent that the cold drops start out on the face of the tortured man. Who knows? Death has been on the threshold of that upper chamber all night, waiting for his prey. This awful hush may be the paean that proclaims ...
— The Baronet's Bride • May Agnes Fleming
... she had suffered herself, nay, offered herself, to fall thrall to the dashing personality and the varied accomplishments of this Fringe person. It was this entanglement which for two weeks past had made Jeff, her official 'tween-times fiance, a prey to carking cares and ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... fervor of Whittier's or Lowell's utterances on the same subject. It is interesting to compare his journals with Hawthorne's American Note Books and to observe in what very different ways the two writers made prey of their daily experiences for literary material. A favorite haunt of Longfellow's was the bridge between Boston and Cambridgeport, the same which he put into verse in his poem, the Bridge. "I always stop on the bridge," he writes ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... conduct which her enemies now asserted were wickedness. Beadon Clarke's counsel had suggested that Mrs. Clarke was an abominable woman, brilliantly clever, exquisitely subtle, who had chosen as an armor against suspicion a bold pretense of simplicity and harmless unconventionality, but who was the prey of a hidden and ungovernable vice. He, Sir John, ventured to put forward for the jury's careful examination a very different picture. He made no secret of the fact that, from the point of view of the ordinary unconventional man or woman, Mrs. Clarke had often acted unwisely, and, with not ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... a bad spirit in the form of a monstrous black spider. He inhabits fens and marshes and lies in wait for his prey. At night he often lights a torch (evidently the ignis fatuus or Jack-o' lantern) and swings it on the marshes to decoy ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... varieties of life; of this be assured, that, although retired from the fascinating scene, where gay Delight her portal open throws to Folly's throng, he is no surly misanthrope, or gloomy seceder, whose jaundiced mind, or clouded imagination, is a prey to disappointment, envy, or to care. In retracing the brighter moments of life, the festive scenes of past times, the never to be forgotten pleasures of his halcyon days, when youth, and health, and fortune, blest his lot, he has no tongue for scandal—no pen for ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... do the spirits of evil snatch their prey, Almost out of the very hand of God; And day by day their power is more and more, And men and women leave old paths, for pride Comes knocking with thin knuckles on ...
— The Land Of Heart's Desire • William Butler Yeats
... years dressed in the costume of a judge, with his left hand clenching the hilt of his sword, and his clawed right hand grasping a double hooked lance. His cruel eye is sternly on the watch, and his attitude is one of alert readiness to spring in all his giant force upon his prey. He sits enthroned on a rock, overtowering the tall waving trees, and below him his underlings are stripping and murdering a wayfarer. "Avarice" is a horned hag with ears like trumpets. A snake issuing ...
— The Florentine Painters of the Renaissance - With An Index To Their Works • Bernhard Berenson
... Blackfeet have been several times a prey to bad agents,—men careless of their welfare, who thought only about drawing their own pay, or, worse, who used their positions simply for their own enrichment, and stole from the government and Indians alike everything upon which they could lay hands. It was with great satisfaction that ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... dusty road and examined the telegraph poles, for the woodpecker of these latter days has departed from the ways of his fathers, deserted the cool and fragrant woods, and taken up his abode in degenerate places, a fitting change of residence to follow his change of habit from digging his prey out of the tree-trunks to catching it on ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... story, requiring the occupants, in going to and from their meals, and attending to much of their work, to pass over two, and sometimes three, flights of stairs. All understanding minds know that this must prey most sadly on female health, and that apartments for this class should be as near the ground ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... Before we could decide what next to do, on a sudden a party of four gigantic blacks burst out upon us, brandishing their weapons at our heads and calling on us, by all manner of filthy names, to surrender. I believe they expected us to prove an easy prey, but I was now grown desperate, and rushed so fiercely on him that came first and carried a lantern, that I fairly bore him to earth at the first shock. And when I looked round for another I found all three in full flight, one of them leaving his right hand behind, which Rupert had managed to slice ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... that its not having fallen was the strongest proof of its vital power, and the absolute necessity for the existence of the system. That the system, notwithstanding its occasional disorders, went on. Popes and cardinals might prey upon its bowels, and sell its interests, but the system survived. The cutting off of this or that member was not able to cause Rome any vital loss; for, as soon as she lost a member, the loss was supplied by her own inherent vitality; though her popes had ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... democrats; the attitude of democratic champion is scarcely compatible with tyrannous feminine sway. But often, on the other hand, the General shook out his mane, dropped politics with a leonine growling and lashing of the flanks, and sprang upon his prey; he was no longer capable of carrying a heart and brain at such variance for very far; he came back, terrible with love, to his mistress. And she, if she felt the prick of fancy stimulated to a dangerous point, knew that it was time to leave her boudoir; she came ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... and fortified the villages, and laid up victuals for the provision of war. And Joacim and all the priests ministered unto the Lord in the Temple, and offered sacrifices and prayed that he would not give the children of Israel for a prey, their wives for a spoil, the cities of their inheritance to destruction, and ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... not so. In Naples there exists seventy thousand souls, and out of these scarcely ten or fifteen thousand do any work, and they are always lean from overwork and are getting weaker every day. The rest become a prey to idleness, avarice, ill-health, lasciviousness, usury and other vices, and contaminate and corrupt very many families by holding them in servitude for their own use, by keeping them in poverty and ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... wave a sense of intolerable injustice. It is not easy to describe his emotions, but they resembled most nearly those of an inventor whose patent has been infringed, or an author whose idea has been stolen. For weeks—and weeks that had seemed like years—he had marked down Officer Keating for his prey. For weeks he had tortured a mind all unused to thinking into providing him with schemes for accomplishing his end. He had outraged his nature by being civil to a policeman. He had risked his life by ...
— Death At The Excelsior • P. G. Wodehouse
... always scoffed at, of course; they who operate ceaselessly behind the screen of appearances, and who fashion and mould the moods of the mind. And an extremist like you—for extremes are always dangerously weak—is their legitimate prey." ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... this belief rests. Many of our domesticated animals could not subsist in a wild state; thus, the more highly improved breeds of the pigeon will not "field" or search for their own food. Sheep have never become feral, and would be destroyed by almost every beast of prey. In several cases we do not know the aboriginal parent-species, and cannot possibly tell whether or not there has been any close degree of reversion. It is not known in any instance what variety was first turned out; several varieties have probably ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... answered our guide. "You will remember that the Kachyen stated to me that the Nat is accustomed to obtain its victim now from the abode of the Maw-Sayah; those marks, then, have been made by it when it dragged its human prey out of the hut." We gazed curiously at the marks for a few minutes, then Denviers broke the silence by asking the Arab why it was that the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... on her fingers, and rose to greet her brother, whom Og was still menacing, as he advanced towards her with staccato steps. Barbara, however, got between Og and his prey, and threw ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... my poor dog would be in the creature's jaws, when Jumbo suddenly turned and made way up the stream. It took the alligator a considerable time to come about, and before it was able to dart forward towards its expected prey Jumbo had safely reached ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... show a cat milk, if you wish her to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you wish him to bring it down ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... is known as the South American tiger, and is by far the most powerful and dangerous of tropic beasts of prey. It is swift enough to capture horses on the open pampas and strong enough to drag them away after the kill. In some of the countries south of the Isthmus the jaguar is a menace to the inhabitants, and settlements have been deserted because of them. It is rarely that one is found ...
— Boy Scouts in the Canal Zone - The Plot Against Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... good of their souls. The talk generally ends with a charitable gift. Such was the view (as the vagabond afterwards told us) which she took of our party. I also infer that she thought we must be very verdant and an easy prey. Almost without preliminary greeting she told us that she was in great straits,—suffering terribly,—and appealed to the man for confirmation, adding that if we would kindly lend her a sovereign it should be faithfully repaid ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... had made famous. It was characteristic of the man that he preferred to strike at an enemy ship in a wild, breath-taking swoop, even as the fierce hawk plummets from high heaven to sink its talons deep into the flesh of its more sluggish prey. Nerves were uncomfortable things to have on such occasions, and Harkness had them, and accordingly he felt his heart hammer and something tight seemed to bind his throat. He tried to assume the unshakable calmness ...
— Hawk Carse • Anthony Gilmore
... mineral resources of China are the prey of the Japanese, and they have secured 80 per cent of them by bribery of the Peking government. Talk to a Chinese and he will tell you that China cannot develop because she has no transportation facilities. Talk to him about building railroads and he ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... 15th of March the wind blew strong from the southward, accompanied with such a heavy sea and tremendous surf that to move was impossible. Our position was very trying; inactivity, under the circumstances in which we were situated, was most difficult to support; for the mind, ever prone to prey upon itself, does so far more when you are compelled to sit down and patiently submit to misfortunes against which there are no means of resistance. Such was the state to which we were now reduced, on a barren and unknown coast which ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... the bright sun of my senses," he said, embracing her. "I feel my heart and brain wither in your smile, and I fling them to you for your prey with exultation. How happy I am to have a wife who does not despise me for doing so—who ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... now constituted will be the prey of greed and intrigue; and the law of unanimity in the Council, which may offer a restraint, will be broken or render the organization powerless. It is called upon to stamp as just ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... were swimming over to the iceberg, against the side of which, and about half-a-mile from us, the carcass of a whale was beating. As we had nothing to do, seven of us immediately started in chase we had intended to have gone after the foxes, which had gathered there also in hundreds, to prey upon the dead whale. It was then quite calm: we soon came up with the bear, who at first was for making off; but as the cub could not get on over the rough ice as well as the old one, she at last turned round to bay. We shot the cub ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... case of my death. But well-being is not to be secured by ample, independent possession of property; on the contrary, occasions might arise in which such possession might expose her to the more danger. She is ready prey to any man who knows how to play adroitly either on her affectionate ardor or her Quixotic enthusiasm; and a man stands by with that very intention in his mind—a man with no other principle than transient caprice, and who has a personal animosity towards me—I ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... fissure. The egg is white and spherical; one which I measured was seven inches and three-eighths in circumference, and therefore larger than a hen's egg. The young tortoises, as soon as they are hatched, fall a prey in great numbers to the carrion- feeding buzzard. The old ones seem generally to die from accidents, as from falling down precipices: at least, several of the inhabitants told me, that they never found one dead without ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... a question whether in very deed she must tell her all that had passed that afternoon. There was no smallest hope of any recognition of the act, surely more hard than incumbent, but severity and unreason; must she let the thing out of her hands, and yield herself a helpless prey— and that for good to none? Concerning Mrs. Wardour, she reasoned justly: she who is even once unjust can not complain if the like ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... sins, so malice covereth a multitude of virtues, and makes us deal by one another as the heathen persecutors dealt with Christians, viz., put them in bears' skins, that they might the more readily become a prey to those dogs that were designed ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the partition between his building and the courthouse next door, and tore a huge chunk of skin from the knuckles. He paid little attention to the injury, however, for the agitating of the board disclosed the glittering recreant, and he pounced upon it with the precision of a hawk upon its prey, snarling triumphantly. ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... shores throughout the winter months. But the smaller the stream the closer the beaver sticks to his pond. This I believe is a matter of safety for beavers are slow travelers, and if they venture far from their pool they fall easy prey to such enemies as bobcats, coyotes, ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... history of the world we discover that certain tribes of sentient beings prey upon certain other tribes; and this seems, on a cursory view, to be very shocking to the finer sensibilities of our nature; yet it is an arrangement which results in a larger amount of sentient enjoyment than could otherwise obtain among these lower denizens of our inexplicable ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... will make that plain enough. It was after a quarrel with Johannes over some little grossness of no consequence that she walked forth from the house and down towards the spruit. It was between afternoon and evening, and she sought a quiet place to sit and prey on her heart. There was a pool that summer, deep and very black, lying between steep banks on which grew bushes and tall grass, and to this she came and sat by the edge of the water, and dabbled her long thin fingers in its coolness and let ...
— Vrouw Grobelaar and Her Leading Cases - Seventeen Short Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... animal immediately left its prey and rushed at Mrs. Pentry with open mouth, seizing her left arm in its jaws, crunched it, and then, rising on its hind legs, gave her a terrible hug. The rest of the party dared not fire, for fear of hitting the woman. Twice she drove her hunting knife into the beast's vitals and ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... softly below, and a step came creeping towards the back-stairs. Sure now of my prey, I was just about to scream 'Jack!' when something went splash into the tub at the foot of ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... twenty miles above Schenectady, in waiting for the travellers to descend the valley of the Mohawk, Robert Willoughby and his guide were actually crossing the Hudson, in momentary security at least. After remaining at his post until satisfied his intended prey had escaped him, Joel, with his friend, returned to the settlement. Still, the opportunity had been improved, to make himself better acquainted with the real state of the country; to open communications with certain patriots of ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... Gaillon's words: "Back now, with might and main," to hasten them on their return journey. They pulled for dear life; and through the overhanging mist they seemed to see the shapes of the demons dancing weirdly down to seize their prey. Once back in the vessel the anchor was hurriedly raised, and all hands eagerly assisted in the work of ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... how carefully the secret of his mission had been kept at the Landing. He had not even said goodby to his best friends. And because Black Roger had won through all the preceding years, Carrigan was stalking his prey out of uniform. There had been nothing to betray him. Besides, Black Roger Audemard must be at least a thousand miles north, unless something had tempted him to come up the rivers with the spring brigades. If he used logic at all, there ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... vacant; that is to say, Pere Tellier wished to dispose of them himself, instead of leaving them to M. le Duc d'Orleans. Let me state at once, that the feebler the King grew the more Pere Tellier worried him; so as not to lose such a rich prey, or miss the opportunity of securing fresh creatures for his service. But he could not succeed. The King declared to him that he had enough to render account of to God, without charging himself with this nomination, and forbade him to speak again upon ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... savages of the north and of the pirates of North Germany and Scandinavia, he would have seen that the extinction of the martial qualities of the British would lead to their ruin; but that Rome would decay and fall to pieces and become the prey of barbarians, was a contingency beyond human ken, and he and those who worked with him thought that the greatest blessing they could bestow upon their country was to render it a contented and prosperous ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... I say, which nobody understands, but which everybody uses, and most people will also fight for, live for, or even die for, fancying they mean this or that or other of the things dear to them. There were never creatures of prey so mischievous, never diplomatists so cunning, never poisoners so deadly, as these masked words; they are the unjust stewards of all men's ideas; whatever fancy or favourite instinct a man most ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... in his study, a prey to the gloomiest emotions. The gold had died out of him by now, and he was reproaching himself bitterly for having ruined for ever his chance of winning the only girl he had ever loved. How could ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... Soft peace spreads her wings and flies weeping away. And flies weeping away. The red cloud of war o'er our forest is scowling, Soft peace spreads her wings and flies weeping away. Come blow the shrill bugle, the war dogs are howling, Already they eagerly snuff out their prey— The red cloud of ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... meteors of expanding flame, Those spheres instinct with it become the same, Touch, mingle, are transfigured; ever still Burning, yet ever inconsumable; In one another's substance finding food, Light flames too pure and light and unimbued To nourish their bright lives with baser prey, Which point to heaven and cannot pass away: One hope within two wills, one will beneath Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death, One heaven, one hell, one ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... horizon, beating the sea into foam with their flappers, and waving their great necks like masts as they swam. Our navy was spread out in a long line of ships, and in olden days each of the beasts would have selected a separate prey, and proceeded for it; but, like man, these beasts have learned the necessities of warfare, and they hunt in pack now and do not ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... forest was very still and warm. After a time the sun fell upon him, and he began to feel its heat uncomfortably. The affair was inexplicable. He began to wonder whether Saleratus Bill intended leaving him there a prey to what fortune chance might bring. Although the odds were a hundred to one against his being heard, he shouted several times. About as he had begun once more to struggle against his bonds, his captor returned, leading Bob's horse, and cursing audibly over the difficulty ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... especially to a power so insignificant as the Barbary States. Yet such was the fact. Lying along the north coast of Africa were the half-civilized states of Morocco, Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, and most of their income was from piracy. All merchantmen were their prey; they divided the loot and sold the crews into slavery. Many nations, to secure immunity from these outrages, paid a stated sum yearly to these powers, and the United States ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... the cottage or the kraal, will seldom or never attack mankind, (children excepted,) unless previously assailed or exasperated. When hunted, as he usually is with dogs, he instinctively betakes himself to a tree, when he falls an easy prey to the shot of the huntsman. The leopard, however, though far inferior in strength and intrepidity to the lion, is yet an exceedingly active and furious animal; and when driven to extremity, proves himself occasionally ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 267, August 4, 1827 • Various
... warriors were a moment too late. The cat had her already by the head. Advancing at the double the rats ran to the succour of their good little friend; but the cat swore, and stalked away in front of the enemy, having no intention of surrendering her prey. ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... since her interview with the major, had been a prey to a feverish agitation and impatience which caused her to wander restlessly through the various rooms of her mansion. At length, toward evening, the major returned, and the news he had brought must ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... foot and over head, a continual succession of crowded imagery, one picture passing into another, as in a dream; forms beautiful and terrible mixed together; dragons and serpents, and ravening beasts of prey, and graceful birds that in the midst of them drink from running fountains and feed from vases of crystal; the passions and the pleasures of human life symbolized together, and the mystery of its redemption; for the mazes of interwoven lines and changeful pictures lead always ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... he must not let inaction, thought and fear prey on them, so he commanded immediate burial of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... these, the savage that hunts his prey upon the mountains, and the sage that speculates in his closet, must necessarily live in equal ignorance: yet by the observation of those trifles it is, that the ranks of mankind are kept in order, that the address of one to another ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... a winter's day, Thou standest by the margin of the pool, And, taught by God, dost thy whole being school To Patience, which all evil can allay. God has appointed thee the fish thy prey; And giv'n thyself a lesson to the fool Unthrifty, to submit to moral rule, And his unthinking course by thee to weigh. There need not schools, nor the professor's chair, Though these be good, true wisdom to impart: He, who has ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... of three thousand four hundred pounds. The Duke now encloses a cheque for that amount, and requests that the document which Lord Percival holds from Lord Silverbridge as security for the amount, may be returned to Lord Gerald." Let the noble gambler have his prey. He was little solicitous about that. If he could only so operate on the mind of this son,—so operate on the minds of both his sons, as to make them see the foolishness of folly, the ugliness of what is mean, the squalor and dirt of ignoble pursuits, then he could easily pardon past faults. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... against the fads of the day. The young girls under her care were taught to love just as they were taught to do other things—with reason. Also, she guarded against the weaknesses of nature and the flesh. "Than Mme. de Maintenon, no one ever better knew the evils of the world without having fallen prey to them," says Sainte-Beuve; "and no one ever satisfied and disgusted the world more, while charming it at the ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... Her son, the corn god, became, as the Egyptians put it, "Husband of his Mother". Each year he was born anew and rapidly attained to manhood; then he was slain by a fierce rival who symbolized the season of pestilence-bringing and parching sun heat, or the rainy season, or wild beasts of prey. Or it might be that he was slain by his son, as Cronos was by Zeus and Dyaus by Indra. The new year slew ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... by the Vatican, with Descartes having to defend his orthodoxy, it seemed to the English and French philosophers of the eighteenth century that the only way man could save his spiritual nature from falling a prey to animalism or materialism was by consigning to destruction the special forms in which religion existed in the established faiths. The dreamers and the visionaries of that day, who were moved by a sincere desire ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... himself that they do really cover the field which he takes them to cover. People with a faith and people living in frenzy are equally under this law; but they take the completeness and coherency of their doctrine for granted. Byron was not the prey of habitual frenzy, and he was without a faith. That is to say, he had no firm basis for his conceptions, and he was aware that he had none. The same unrest which drove men of that epoch to Nature, haunted them to the end, because ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... whose letters were among the most vivid of the war, has described these lairs, littered with straw and the debris of food, isolated from each other, and each containing its grim and formidable occupant. 'The eyries of birds of prey' is the phrase with which he brings them home to us. In these, with nothing visible but their peering eyes and the barrels of their rifles, the Boer marksmen crouched, and munched their biltong and their mealies as the day broke upon the morning of ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... great blue heron and American bittern are not common, but less rare than they are supposed to be. Except for the willow and rock ptarmigans the land game-birds are not many in kind or numbers. There are a fair number of ruffed grouse in the south, and more spruce grouse in the north. The birds of prey are well represented by a few golden and more bald-headed eagles, the American rough-legged and other hawks, the black and the white gyrfalcons, the osprey, and eight owls, including the great horned owl, the boldest bird of all. The raven is widely distributed all the year round. Several woodpeckers, ...
— Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... chair, a prey to gloomy and indescribably bitter reflections, as he accustomed himself to the contemplation of the fact that the beautiful woman in whom his own fickle wayward heart had become earnestly interested, would sell herself to the grey-bearded man beside ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... jealousy of a savage; that his hands and feet were severed from his body; that his bleeding trunk was cast among the carcasses of dogs and horses; and that he breathed three days, before he was devoured by the birds of prey. [29] About twenty years afterwards, in a wood of the Netherlands, a hermit announced himself as the true Baldwin, the emperor of Constantinople, and lawful sovereign of Flanders. He related the wonders of his escape, his adventures, and his penance, among a people prone ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... in a swamp to the east of the Connecticut on the Mystic River; but instead of landing at the Pequot River, as he had been ordered, Mason completely deceived the Indian spies by sailing past it away from the intended prey. Near Point Judith, however, in the Narragansett country, Mason disembarked his men; and, accompanied by eighty Mohegans and two hundred Narragansetts, turned on his path and marched by land westward towards the Pequot ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... inclined to become the prey of governmental spoliation. They are those where men, not considering their own dignity and energy, would believe themselves lost, if they were not governed and administered upon in all things. Without having ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... Barnabas sat there staring into the fire and lost in thought, he became, all at once, a prey to Doubt and Fear once again, doubt of himself, and fear of the future; for, bethinking him of his father's last words, it seemed to him that he had indeed chosen the harder course, since his days, henceforth, must needs ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... I declare to you upon my solemn oath, and by all that I hold most sacred, that they shall meet with no opposition from me. Consider, therefore, whether you have the power to defend yourself and secure your prey, when I and my companions have withdrawn ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... by its immense fleets, that the title of a rich banker should be preferred to a military decoration; but a continental nation imbued with the sentiments and habits of the tradesmen of London or the bankers of Paris would sooner or later fall a prey to its neighbors. It was to the union of the civic virtues and military spirit fostered by their institutions that the Romans were indebted for their grandeur; and when they lost these virtues, and ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... introducing into society. The young man was well pleased to be overlooked. He glided into the mass of black coats which was forced farther and farther back by every new arrival, and was swallowed up in it, a prey to the foolish terror that every young provincial feels on his first appearance in a Parisian salon, especially when he is shrewd and intelligent and does not wear the imperturbable self-assurance of the bumpkin like a coat of ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... Bosco-Trecase, a village above Torre Annunziata, that was devastated by the sinuous masses of incandescent matter, high as a house and broad as a river. Torre Annunziata itself, as also ruined Pompeii were threatened, but the red-hot streams of destruction mercifully stopped short of their expected prey. The story of horrors and panic in the overthrow of Bosco-Trecase is happily relieved by many a recorded incident of valour and unselfishness. The royal Carabinieri, that splendid body of mounted police, who in their cocked hats and voluminous cloaks appear as ornamental ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Madame d'Espard a prey to a double surprise. The Marquise knew no one in the world who was capable of playing the part assumed by this mask; she suspected a snare, and went to sit down out of sight. The Comte Sixte du Chatelet—whom ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... very popular with boys if they could be sure of finding such good friends as Glen had met. The reverse is more commonly true. Glen knew well enough that the boy on the road, trusting to chance for friends, is much more apt to fall a prey to people of the J. Jervice variety. He remembered the pitiful plight of a boy who had been returned to the school after falling into the hands of tramps, and he thanked an unknown Providence that he had tumbled into the kind ...
— The Boy Scout Treasure Hunters - The Lost Treasure of Buffalo Hollow • Charles Henry Lerrigo
... the fern roots. They were delicate spring woods, streaked with the white dashes of the dogwood, and hung with the tassels of the maple. The foliage was still unfolding, patterned with fresh creases, the prey of a continuous, frail unrest. Little streams chuckled through the underbrush, and from the fusion of woodland whisperings bird notes detached themselves, soft flutings and liquid runs, that gave another expression to the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... where a danger still greater than any that I had yet met with awaited me. The porter having twice refused me entrance, I continued standing in the midst of the street, at the mercy of the savage murderers, whose number increased every moment, and who were evidently seeking for their prey, when it came into my head to ask for La Faye, the principal of the college, a good man, by whom I was tenderly beloved. The porter, prevailed upon by some small pieces of money which I put in his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... toils they had sustained during a thirteen years' siege; "I will give,"(21) saith the Lord God, "the land of Egypt unto Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon; and he shall take her multitude, and take her spoil, and take her prey, and it shall be the ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... were at the mercy of the lions, which grew correspondingly bold. Indeed, their only resource was to kraal their animals within stone walls at night and take refuge in their huts, which they seldom left between sunset and dawn, except to replenish the fires that they lit to scare any beast of prey which might be ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... who lie, or walk below, And should by right be Singers too. What Princes Quire of Musick can excel That which within this Shade does dwell? To which we nothing pay or give, They like all other Poets live, Without Reward, or Thanks for their obliging Pains; 'Tis well if they become not Prey: The Whistling Winds add their less artful Strains, And a grave Base the murmuring Fountains play; Nature does all this Harmony bestow, But to our Plants, Arts, Musick too, The Pipe, Theorbo, and Guitar we owe; The Lute it self, which once ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... down the batch, owls were shrieking in the woods, and the sky was pied with grey and crimson, like bloodstained marble. The cries of the owls were hard as marble also, and of a polished ferocity. They would have their prey. ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... I halted, a prey to many swift emotions, but chief of these joy and a thrilling, hopeful expectancy, for amid the deep gloom before me I espied a faint beam of light, and I was praying within myself as, my gaze upon this blessed light, I descended into the deeper shadows. Of necessity I went ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... darted out at me{181} from a fence corner, in which he had secreted himself, for the purpose of securing me. He was amply provided with a cowskin and a rope; and he evidently intended to tie me up, and to wreak his vengeance on me to the fullest extent. I should have been an easy prey, had he succeeded in getting his hands upon me, for I had taken no refreshment since noon on Friday; and this, together with the pelting, excitement, and the loss of blood, had reduced my strength. I, however, darted back into the woods, before the ferocious ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... away with a thought of pity, consigning the body to that strange burial which the Magians deem most fitting—the funeral of the desert, from which the kites and vultures rise on dark wings, and the beasts of prey slink furtively away, leaving only a heap of ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... the position of the President and the wide-spread hostility to the corporations, or on those laxities in political and commercial morality in the past which have put it in the power alternately of the politician to plunder the railways and the railways to prey upon the people. In the ill-regulated conditions of the days of ferment there grew up abuses, both in politics and in commerce, which can only be rooted out with much wrenching of old ties and tearing of the roots of things; but it is worth an Englishman's understanding that the ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... animal, and presently other lights gathered around and at the back, giving off no radiance, not bright enough to throw up into relief the objects that produced them, but watchful, like the eyes of a pack of wild-dogs regarding their prey. The Hunter tried an experiment. Feeling for his great knife, he struck a stone, and watched to see if there was any movement of surprise which would indicate that there were living creatures aware of his presence. There was no such movement. Like bits of dull green glass with a light ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... edge of the clearing we met Mr. B——-, who was on a visit to his friend and relative Mr. Stewart, driving before him Mr. Reid's sow, which he had just rescued from the grip of an immense bear, that, alarmed by his shouts, dropped his prey and made off in the direction of a small cedar-swamp. We immediately proposed surrounding the place, as there were three of us provided with double-barrelled guns. Mr. B—- — took up his station behind a large tree, close to where a small ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... on him. This was the first actual buffet of the beast's paw. He led the way to his son's room and watched Barrant go through his intimate belongings with the feeling that intelligence was a flimsy shield against the brutal force of authority. The law in search of prey cared nothing for such civilized refinements as intellect or self-respect. As well try to stop a tiger ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... her kittens out into the sunshine, and while they were frisking around her they were espied by a hawk soaring overhead. Down pounced the bird of prey and seized one in his talons. Encumbered by the weight of the fat little creature, he was unable to rise again before the mother cat had discovered what had occurred. With a bound she fiercely attacked the marauder, and compelled him to drop her kitten in order to defend himself. A ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston
... resemble a sphere Less heat on the surface is lost, And the needful supply, it is clear, Is maintained at less lavish a cost; 'Tis economy, then, to be plump As partridges, puffins or pigs, Who are never a prey to the hump, So at least I interpret ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... with hollowed palms to make a deep sound. The owner gives this when the dove has reached the farthest point to which she thinks it best for her to go, the judgment for this being determined sometimes by the gaining of the hawk on his prey. The dove may not turn to come home until ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... devoured the child Elo and seven young boys; he has mangled the maiden Orberosia, the fairest of the Penguins with his teeth. There is not a village in which he does not emit his poisoned breath and which he has not filled with desolation. A prey to this terrible scourge, we come, O Mael, to pray thee, as the wisest, to advise us concerning the safety of the inhabitants of this island lest the ancient race of Penguins ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... their way: they even devour their own offspring, and manifest a particular predilection for all living creatures. Those, to which Nature has meted out mouths of the greatest capacity, would seem to pursue everything with life, and frequently engage in fierce conflicts with their prey. The animal with the largest mouth is usually the victor; and he has no sooner conquered his foe than he devours him. Innumerable shoals of one species pursue those of another, with a ferocity which draws them from the pole to the equator, through all the varying temperatures ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... from Clontarf, the subjection to which Mahon and Brian had forcibly reduced that borderland. The Eugenians of Desmond withdrew in disgust from the banner of Donogh O'Brien, because he had openly proclaimed his hostility to the alternate succession, and left his surviving clansmen an easy prey to the enraged Ossorians. Leinster soon afterwards passed from the house of O'Byrne to that of McMurrogh. The O'Briens maintained their dominant interest in the south; as, after many local struggles, the O'Conors ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Men have been looking up the records of these cannibals—or Birds of Prey, as they are usually called—and find that very few of them—only two or three kinds, perhaps—should be condemned to death. The others belong to the secret guild of the Wise Watchers who, sitting silently in the shadows of the woods, or perching in the trees around the edges of fields, wait ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... incapable of resistance. Then, as night fell, Henry would light his bull's-eye, and cautiously visit the various snares. It was a sight worth seeing to come upon those little night-clubs of drunken and bewildered moths, hanging on to the sweetness with tragic gluttony,—an easy prey for Henry's eager fingers, which, as greedy of them as they of the honey, would seize and thrust them into the lethal chamber, in the form of a cigar-box loosely filled with bruised laurel leaves, which hung by ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne |
