"Quail" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the size of a quail the Indian could hit with regularity up to twenty yards. And I have seen him kill ground squirrels at forty yards; yet at the same distances he might miss a four-foot target. He explained this by saying that the target ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... the hounds were upon her. She was waist-deep in them. They leapt almost to her shoulders in their madness, smothering her with mud and slobber. For a second or two the red eyes and gaping jaws made even Avery's brave heart quail. But she stood her ground, ordering them back with breathless insistence. They must have thought her a maniac, she reflected afterwards. At the time she fully expected to be torn in pieces, and was actually surprised when ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... reiterated proudly Naught had power to make him quail; Yet when thunder roared too loudly He would ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... tigress had been eluded, and Athaliah had a rude awakening. But she had her mother's courage, and as soon as she heard in the palace the shouts, she dashed to the Temple, alone as she was, and fronted the crowd. The sight might have made the boldest quail. Who was that child standing in the royal place? Where had he come from? How had he been hidden all these years? What was all this frenzy of rejoicing, this blare of trumpets, these ranks of grim men with weapons in ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Krikara is a kind of partridge. It is spelt also as Krikala or Krikana. A Vartaka is a sort of quail. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... ponderously and began to rave. To see his vengeance slip from his grasp enraged him. He cursed shockingly, clinching his great fists above his head, and grinding forth imprecations which caused Fraser to quail ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... world that suits us, save only one thing—prescribe a line for us that will make them separate." How could she so much as imagine herself even faintly murmuring that without putting into his mouth the very words that would have made her quail? "Separate, my dear? Do you want them to separate? Then you want US to—you and me? For how can the one separation take place without the other?" That was the question that, in spirit, she had heard him ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... slice of bacon over the breast of each quail, roast them at a clear fire for fifteen minutes, basting frequently. Lay them on crisp buttered toast, sprinkle with minced parsley, salt and paprika, and serve with a rich wine jelly on ...
— Twenty-four Little French Dinners and How to Cook and Serve Them • Cora Moore
... room, I swung myself up, clambered along the top, sprang up and down over chairs and tables, raced around the room with huge strides and jumps, and finally wound up my performances by rushing at the astonished Coriander, and, beating my breast, gave a terrific howl, that fairly made the old man quail as he writhed in his chair. I had not been practicing for nothing, evidently. ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... and Olivier wise, Both of marvellous high emprise; On their chargers mounted, and girt in mail, To the death in battle they will not quail. Brave are the counts, and their words are high, And the Pagans are fiercely riding nigh. "See, Roland, see them, how close they are, The Saracen foemen, and Karl how far! Thou didst disdain on thy horn to blow. Were the king but here ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... was frequently pestered." {209b} Antonio had proved himself a unique body-servant and companion, and if with a previous employer he had valued his personal comfort so highly as to give notice because his mistress's pet quail disturbed his slumbers, he was nevertheless utterly indifferent to the hardships and discomforts that he endured when with Borrow, and always ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... not. I long for work. I pant for a life full of striving. I am no coward, to shrink before the rugged rush of the storm, nor even quail before the awful shadow of the Veil. But hearken, O Death! Is not this my life hard enough,—is not that dull land that stretches its sneering web about me cold enough,—is not all the world beyond these four little walls pitiless enough, ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... It made them laugh; it was a tribute to their stout-heartedness. Nor was there anything necessarily braggart in this attitude of theirs. As they realized that work would not be readily offered to a man who might quail before its unpleasantness, so it was a matter of bread-and-cheese to them to cultivate "roughness." I need not, indeed, be writing in the past tense here. It is still bad policy for a workman to be nice in his feelings, and several times I have ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... and discolored, the game has been hung a long time. The wings of good ducks, geese, pheasants, and woodcock are tender to the touch; the tips of the long wing feathers of partridges are pointed in young birds, and round in old ones. Quail, snipe, and small birds should have full, ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... desert did not appear to be deserted. From the farther clumps came the calling of the male quail, and around sounded the different murmurs of clucking, of twittering, of the ruffling of feathers: in a word, the divers voices of the small inhabitants of the plains. Sometimes there flew up a whole covey of quail; the gaudy-topped pheasants scattered on their approach; the black squirrels ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... a most exquisite and beautiful piece of workmanship—inlaid with costly woods and carven very curiously. It would not only play a great variety of tunes, but would whistle like a quail, bark like a dog, crow every morning at daylight whether it was wound up or not, and break the Ten Commandments. It was this last mentioned accomplishment that won my father's heart and caused ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... the yellow of his face, being one shade lighter, sun-bleached from going hatless. His clothes were as yellow as the yellow of his face, and shaded off into the dust that strewed the street. He was like a quail in a stubble-field—you might have stepped over him and never seen him at all. He listened. Almost every evening some one played the piano in the big house. He had discovered the fact a week before, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... was to burst three years later, was not a strong man. He entered on his duties doubtfully and before long sent requests for his recall on account of his family concerns. He might well quail at the magnitude of his task. His instructions bade him by all available means discourage the claims of the Catholics, and rally the discouraged Protestants. Thereafter he might conciliate the Catholics by promising relief for their parochial clergy, the foundation ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... plain, and there were some young noblemen casting their falcon at a quail. The falcon pursued but always fell short of the quail, and the quail always eluded the falcon. The son then changed himself into a falcon and immediately struck down its prey. The young noblemen saw it and were astonished. "Is that thy falcon?"—"'Tis mine."—"Sell it ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... voice by speaking on a high shrill key. "Boatmen of Capri, that have been to Napoli with wine, and have been kept out later than we intended by the spectacle at the yard-arm of the Minerva. Cospetto! them signori make no more of a prince than we do of a quail in the season, on our little island. Pardon me, dearest Ghita; but we must throw ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... rifle, shooting with the former at parrots at ten yards distance, and with the latter at bottles at a hundred. There was not much attraction for the sportsman throughout the whole line of march, and I only bagged a few couple of snipe, partridges, wild-duck, and quail. ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... off a wheelbarrow and a fearful cry at the same time; not in unison with his merchandise, for he has birds—quail, woodcock, and snipe—for sale, besides a string of dead nightingales, which he says he will 'sell cheap for a nice stew.' Think of stewed nightingales! One would as soon think of eating ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... a good while thinking and thinking to himself, and then he got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full of quail shot—filled him pretty near up to his chin—and set him on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this feller, ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... into this toil; and concluded, from finding one of them destroyed by fire, that they force it to the grated end, where it is soon killed by their spears. In one I saw a common rat, and in another the feathers of a quail. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... plentiful. Moreover, game should have its proper place as food, and as a means of recreation. We raise chickens and kill them. Under wise laws, well enforced, nature would fill the woods, fields, and mountains with partridges, quail, rabbits, and other wholesome food. Remember what an old and thickly settled land England is, yet the country is alive with game. There it is protected on great estates, but here the people must agree to protect ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... little Marie is the prettiest girl in the countryside. She has not much color, but her little face is fresh as a wild rose. What a charming mouth she has, and how pretty her little nose is! She is not large for her age, but she is formed like a little quail and is as light as a bird. I cannot understand why they made so much fuss at home over a big, fat woman with a bright red face. My wife was rather slender and pale, and she pleased me more than any one else. This girl is very frail, but she is healthy, and ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... one part of the world or another might afford valuable additions to our resources, those of ornament or of economy, and yet within three centuries only one of these, the turkey, has been brought to the domesticated state. The greater part of our game birds, such as the quail, pheasants, and partridges, though they appear on slight experiments to be untamable, could probably by continuous effort be reduced to perfect domestication. For ages they have been harried by man in a manner ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... at Pierre, but the latter was too puzzled to quail, and too stirred by the pale, gloomy face of Cochrane to ...
— Riders of the Silences • Max Brand
... the prince, "I know what no one here knows. I can tell where each bird, from the Eagle to the Quail, can most readily find water, on what each of them lives, and how many eggs it lays; and I can count up the wants of every bird, without missing one. Here is the certificate my tutor gave me. It was not for nothing that the birds ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... with joyful bark. So they three went off through the summer's day as happy as though all life were one great summer's holiday, and there were no storms below the horizon to rise and overwhelm them; through the grassy flat, where the quail whirred before them, and dropped again as if shot; across the low rolling forest land, where a million parrots fled whistling to and fro, like jewels, in the sun; past the old stockyard, past the sheep-wash hut, and then through forest which ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... to be recklessly brought on. But shall the assailing traveler quail before a gesture? My store of Spanish passwords is exhausted, but there is one solvent yet remaining,—the universal countersign. With undiminished cheerfulness, I select from my pocket a stamped silver disk of well-known design, hold it significantly a moment in full view, and then ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... grey-and-black whiskers Sneered languidly over his quail. Then my heart flew up and laboured, And I burst from my own holding And hurled myself forward. With straight blows I beat upon him, Furiously, with red-hot anger, I thrust against him. But my weapon ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... She had spoken that last word with almost a break in her voice; she gave her attention now diligently to picking the quail bones. But when her supper was done, and the tray delivered over to Miss Collins, Basil did not, as sometimes he did, go away and leave her, but sat down again and trimmed the fire. Diana lay back in ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... October's brush; the little valley lying warm in the sunlight, was a welcome change to the dead monotony of the prairie, where the sky shut down close to the dull brown earth, with no support of leafy pillars. And the mother quail, with her full-grown family scurrying to cover in the corner of the fence; the squirrel scolding to his mate in the tree-tops, or leaping over the rustling leaves, and all the rest of the forest life, was full of interest when compared to the life of busy men or chattering ...
— That Printer of Udell's • Harold Bell Wright
... and den de quail, Nex' come de mule and den de quail, Nex' come de mule and den de quail, De monkey-wrench and ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... is complete Without the Minotaur of Crete. Yet should I draw him you would quail, So in his place I draw a veil. O stars, that from Creation's birth Have winked at everything on earth, Who shine where poets fear to tread, Relate the story ...
— The Mythological Zoo • Oliver Herford
... beach where plover feed when a great wave has chased them away. On the twentieth a change came. Outside the snow fell heavily, two days and a night; inside, books were packed away, professors said Merry Christmas, and students were scattering, like a bevy of flushed quail, to all points of the compass for the holidays. The afternoon of the twenty-first found me again in my room under the eaves ...
— Secret of the Woods • William J. Long
... communis, Bonnaterre. French, "Caille."—I have never seen the Quail in the Islands myself, and it cannot be considered more than an occasional straggler; there can be no doubt, however, that it sometimes remains to breed, as there are some eggs in the Museum which I have reason to believe are Guernsey taken, and Mr. MacCulloch writes me word that ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... Mercifully they were to some extent mitigated by sleep, for even in such a position as ours wearied nature will sometimes assert itself. But I, at any rate, found it impossible to sleep much. Putting aside the terrifying thought of our impending doom—for the bravest man on earth might well quail from such a fate as awaited us, and I never made any pretensions to be brave—the silence itself was too great to allow of it. Reader, you may have lain awake at night and thought the quiet oppressive, but I say with confidence that you can have no idea what a vivid, tangible ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... an imbalsamatore and, as an example of his skill, gave me a stuffed bird which I was to take to London. He said it was a kind of quail, a bird that reposes near Messina when migrating. His niece, the studentessa, gave me as a ricordo a pin-cushion; on one side it has an advertisement of a shop in Messina and on the other a picture of a lady trying on a new garter, which has been bought at the shop and which fits perfectly ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... Eugene Manlove Rhodes Bigfoot Wallace's Humor Charles M. Russell as Artist of the West (or any other western artist) Learning to See Life Around Me Features of My Own Cultural Inheritance I Heard It Back Home Family Traditions My Family's Interesting Character Doodlebugs in the Sand Bobwhites Blue Quail Coachwhips and Other Good Snakes Mockingbird Habits Jack Rabbit ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... on the deck of the Scud; and, to their great delight, just as the cutter came abreast of the principal cove, on the spot where most of the enemy lay, the howitzer which composed her sole armament was unmasked, and a shower of case-shot was sent hissing into the bushes. A bevy of quail would not have risen quicker than this unexpected discharge of iron hail put up the Iroquois; when a second savage fell by a messenger sent from Killdeer, and another went limping away by a visit from the rifle of ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... bounteous Mother—threw themselves face downward on her brown bosom with uncouth caresses, filling the air with their laughter; and how Miss Mary herself— felinely fastidious and intrenched as she was in the purity of spotless skirts, collar, and cuffs—forgot all, and ran like a crested quail at the head of her brood, until, romping, laughing, and panting, with a loosened braid of brown hair, a hat hanging by a knotted ribbon from her throat, she came suddenly and violently, in the heart of the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... verdant branches o'er his grave. And since the polished white man came, He's loved and honored me the same; Though all the neighboring trees around Were slain, as cumberers of the ground, Yet here I tower in grandeur still,— The pride and glory of the hill. My dauntless spirits never quail At earthquakes, hurricanes, or hail; The rolling thunder's fiery car Has never dared my form to mar; I've heard its rumbling undismayed, While forked lightnings round me played; But O, thou little murm'ring brook, How mean and meager is thy look;— Babbling, babbling, ...
— The Snow-Drop • Sarah S. Mower
... tempest rose the warder's threatening hail; Louder rose the ringing answer from a lip that scorned to quail: "Grey of Grey!" the warrior thundered, "he who fears nor bolt nor dart— He who is your master, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... palm tree's feathery plumes, and the stars looked down, and the nightingale sang. And wherever he wooed her, I think the grazing herds left sloping hill and peaceful vale, to listen to the wooing, and thence themselves, departed in pairs. The covies heard it and mated in the fields; the quail wooed his love in the wheat; the robin whistled to ...
— Gov. Bob. Taylor's Tales • Robert L. Taylor
... here abounded with bears, wolves, foxes and catamounts, deer and moose, wild turkeys, pigeons, quail and partridges, and the waters with wild geese, ducks, herons and cranes. The river itself was alive with fish and every spring great quantities of shad and lamprey eels ascended it. Strawberries, blackberries and huckleberries were extremely abundant ...
— The Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Settlement of the Town of New Milford, Conn. June 17th, 1907 • Daniel Davenport
... muskets, but ten to one no powder,—the long line of flames, leaping thirty feet into the air with dense masses of black smoke—and pieces of charred grass falling down in showers. Would not the stoutest English villager, armed only with the bow and arrow against the enemy's musket, quail at the idea of breaking through that wall of fire? When at a distance, we once saw a scene like this, and had the charred grass, literally as thick as flakes of black snow, falling around us, there was no difficulty in understanding ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... the porch and told an edited story of his adventures to them. Before he had finished a young fellow rode up and dismounted. He had a bag of quail with him which he handed over to the Mexican cook. After he had unsaddled and turned his pony into a corral he joined the card players ...
— Crooked Trails and Straight • William MacLeod Raine
... here, and I can compare the state of mind in each man of us only to that of soldiers in the heat of battle; all the usual securities of life seem to be gone. Apprehension and anxiety make the stoutest hearts quail. Any one feels, when he lays himself down at night, that he will in all probability be attacked before daybreak; for the disease is a pestilence that walketh in darkness, and seizes the greatest number of its victims ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... an outbreak, of course; we've been expecting it; but certainly MEN should not fear the canaille of the slums. It gives me a sickening impression, Mr. Merwyn, to see you rush in, almost force your way in, and disguised too, as if you sought safety by identifying yourself with those who would quail before a brave, armed man. Pardon me if I'm severe, but I feel that my father is in danger, and if I don't hear from him soon I shall take Mammy Borden as escort and go to his office. Whoever is abroad, they won't molest women, and I'M ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... and quick bird-notes, and rustling of dead leaves and rapid patterings. Venters crossed well-worn trails marked with fresh tracks; and when he had stolen on a little farther he saw many birds and running quail, and more rabbits than he could count. He had not penetrated the forest of oaks for a hundred yards, had not approached anywhere near the line of willows and cottonwoods which he knew grew along a stream. But he had seen ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... the enemy. Four Royalist battalions converged upon them, and they were crushed. They fell back, flying in disorder, and the Spaniards were on the point of securing the pass, when a shout arose before them that made the stoutest quail. With one ever-memorable cheer, a long hurrah, which spoke of well-known unconquerable determination, the British legion, less than eight hundred strong, with their Colonel, John Ferrier, at their head, appeared at the mouth of the ravine. Forming instantaneously ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... mercy of the towering mountain-surges, and of the gale which howled deafeningly past them. The sight which on that morning presented itself from the poop of the crippled ship was one to make the stoutest heart quail, to impress the onlooker with an overpowering sense of his own insignificance compared with Him who holds the ocean in the hollow of His hand, and of the blasphemous arrogance of those who would presume to take upon themselves one of the functions of the Almighty, and, in the blindness of ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... considering how much it behoved her to go through the same, as well in regard of the hope that thereby was given to the distressed people of these parts, as also in consideration of that worthy personage whom she hath here placed, whose estate and credit may not be suffered to quail, but must be upholden as becometh the lieutenant of such ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... assail; Hurroo! my boys, hurroo! The bloody Saxons quail To hear the wild Shaloo: Strike, and prevail, proud ...
— Ballads • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he came, a horror indeed, but I did not flinch. Endurance must conquer, where force could not reach. He came nearer and nearer, till the ghastly face was close to mine. A shudder as of death ran through me; but I think I did not move, for he seemed to quail, and retreated. As soon as he gave back, I struck one more sturdy blow on the stem of his tree, that the forest rang; and then looked at him again. He writhed and grinned with rage and apparent pain, and again approached me, but retreated sooner ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... felt the gravity of the occasion; but his stout heart did not quail, for he knew well that the brave men under him would stand firm. Riding down the line, he exclaimed to them, "Remember, there is no retreat from here, men; you ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston
... throbbed in his voice that deep note of savagery, such savagery as made her quail. But it was no moment for shrinking. She knew instinctively that at the first sign of weakness he would take ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... brothers apologized for being unable to show us the grand saloon, as the weavers (whom we could hear, while he spoke, singing in a loud, uproarious, insurgent kind of way, that might well have drawn three souls out of one of their own craft, and evidently made the souls of their two landlords quail) did not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... life. We thought the one in Colorado was a grand one, and so it was, but the grass there was never so abundant or so nutritious as at our new ranch. It grows much taller, keeps fresh and green longer, and the soil itself is several degrees richer than the Colorado ranch. You never so many quail in your life as you can see there every day in the week all the year round. There are prairie chickens, and there are ten jack-rabbits there to one ...
— Fred Fearnot's New Ranch - and How He and Terry Managed It • Hal Standish
... saw a covey of the blue desert quail with their white crests erect, darting among the rocks and cactus on the hillside. It was still the close season, but he never thought of that. In an instant he was all hunter, like a good dog in sight of game. He slipped from his horse, letting the reins fall to the ground, and went running ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... will be none the worse off. On the other hand, to champion a myth is to make one's self ridiculous, and of being ridiculous the agnostic has a consuming fear. From the superhuman disinterestedness of the theory of the Religion of Humanity, before which angels might quail, he flinches not, but when it comes to the risk of being laughed at by certain sagacious persons he confesses that bravery has its limits. He dares do all that may become an agnostic,—who dares ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... give him wine!" cried Ferdinand impetuously, pushing a brimming goblet towards him. "Drink, man, and speak, in Heaven's name. What frightful object hast thou seen, to bid thee quail, who never quailed before? Where is ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... reached the land which had so long been seen in brilliant, though distant, perspective before them. But here again they were doomed to be disappointed by the warlike spirit of the people, who, conscious of their own strength, showed no disposition to quail before the invaders. On the contrary, several of their canoes shot out, loaded with warriors, who, displaying a gold mask as their ensign, hovered round the vessels with looks of defiance, and, when pursued, easily took shelter under the lee of ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... cared for the boy. That way, at least, lay safety for her. The boy had fidelity and devotion written large over him. But this new complication—her romantic interest in Wilson, the surgeon's reciprocal interest in her, with what he knew of the man—made him quail. ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... voice, that over the now silent prairie could have been heard for miles. It was the signal for action, for escape, and, terror-mad, they broke into motion. But a flock of great Canada geese cannot, like quail, spring directly a-wing. They must first gather momentum. This they attempted to gain—in its accomplishment all but one succeeded. That one, the leader, the sentinel, was too near. Almost before that first note ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... too, crouch and quail, Ashamed, afraid of strife, And lest our lives untimely fail Embrace the Death in Life? Nay, cry aloud, and have no fear, We few against the world; Awake, arise! the hope we bear Against the ...
— Chants for Socialists • William Morris
... assumes this role. He defends them on their remarkable powers of imagination. One has only to study Sexton Blake to discover the intricate psychology of that wondrous personality who can solve the foulest murder or unravel stories that the divorce courts would quail before. ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... With startling suddenness a quail, close by the open door, ripped out his evening call, and she sprang back as though the thing upon the floor had moved. Yet she continued to stare down at it, her cold hands pressed against her burning cheeks—fascinated, horrified. A few little minutes ago he had ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... industry, but would have been immensely interested could they have examined at close hand the Crossbill's beak and its singular adaption to just this task. And of course they remarked the stately deliberate-looking prints of the grouse; and the herded tramping of the quail. The winter was populous enough, in spite of its rigour. Some of its many creatures the boys knew; many more they did not; but you may be sure they saw all that did not exercise the ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... beyond short yellow grass here and there burnt in patches, and now and then a solitary cabbage tree (a kind of palm) dotted the wide expanse. Beyond a few paradise ducks feeding on the burnt patches, or an occasional family of wild pigs, we met with no animal life. Quail used to be abundant, but the run fires were fast destroying them. We had before us the nearing view of the Malvern Hills, the sloping pine forests and scrub, with the long, undulating spurs running back to the foot of ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... other Particulars that lasted all the first Course. A Dish of Wild-fowl that came afterwards furnished Conversation for the rest of the Dinner, which concluded with a late Invention of Will's for improving the Quail-Pipe. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Clarence had all the pertinacity that was not in his mother, to reinforce his own. Mr. Copperhead stared at his son with that look of authority, half-imperious, half-brutal, with which he was in the habit of crushing all who resisted him; but Clarence did not quail. He stood dull and immovable, his eyes contracted, his face stolid, and void of all expression but that of resistance. He was not much more than a fool, but just by so much as his father was more reasonable, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... through the meadows will bring you the cheery song of the meadow-lark: "Spring-o-the-year!" Stalk him carefully and you will find a large brown bird with yellow breast and a black crescent on his throat. The meadow-lark is about the size of a quail. He stands erect when he sings, and he has a rather long beak. The nest can be found, if you look for it, but is generally out of sight under a loosened clod of earth or tuft ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... the attempt to make Kansas, a slave State. He was not a fighting man, in the worldly sense of that word; but in its broader and higher significance, he was an aggressive, fearless, tireless fighter. He would not kill, but he did not hesitate to brave death. He would not shoot, but he did not quail or cower before ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... these things the lady ate but a small portion of each. And it was not until a fat quail arrived later, while he himself was trying to get through two mutton chops a l'anglaise, that she again tasted her claret. Yes, it was claret, he felt sure, and probably wonderful claret at that. Confound her! ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... Bisnaga eat all sorts of things, but not the flesh of oxen or cows, which they never kill in all the country of the heathen because they worship them. They eat mutton, pork, venison, partridges, hares, doves, quail, and all kinds of birds; even sparrows, and rats, and cats, and lizards, all of which are sold in the market of ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... her father, whom, since his illnesses, she tended with much benevolence and care. But she did battle with Lady Kew repeatedly, coming to her Aunt Julia's rescue, on whom her mother as usual exercised her powers of torturing. She made Barnes quail before her by the shafts of contempt which she flashed at him; and she did not spare Lord Kew, whose good-nature was no shield against her scorn. The old queen-mother was fairly afraid of her; she even left ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the charred grass crumbled to powder; three wild doves flickered up into flight, making a soft clatter and displaying the four white feathers. A quail called ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... Bracing his powerful legs against the quivering jar of the aileron, he brushed the horizon into his eager vision. The glasses steadied. There, of a truth, black midges had appeared, coming up over the world's rim like a startled covey of quail. ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... certainly is a quaint little thing," he replied, quite soberly; "she's like a quail—so bright-eyed, and so still. I think her devotion to her old husband very beautiful. She's more like a daughter than a ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... care how good old methods are, new ones are better, even if they're only just as good. That's not so Irish as it sounds. Doing the same thing in the same way year after year is like eating a quail a day for thirty days. Along toward the middle of the month a fellow begins to long for a broiled crow or a ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... leaden shot can cleave your delicate gold. The quail is such a canny bird, that he lies low lest he make his last appearance on toast. And so, in lack ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand
... people are afraid of father," Agony chatted on. "He's Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia, you know. He is always gentle with us, but he can be very stern with people when he wants to. They say that prisoners always quail before him in the court room and that witnesses dread to be cross-examined by him. He has a way of piercing people through with his eyes that makes them lose their nerve and they always confess. He's been merciless in his prosecution of ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... turned on him savagely. His brooding eyes widened and their look, a threatening glare, made the boy's heart quail. ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... it?" cried the girl, gathering courage as she saw him quail before her blazing eyes. "What do ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... questions. After all, the sun was shining and about him the world seemed to be swinging on with disarming normality. Upon the trimmed lawns peacocks strutted and shrieked and from remoter distances the soft call of the quail echoed caressingly. It was good to be alive, with one's feet firmly planted on the earth. ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... have quoted bears either directly or indirectly upon the judgment to come. It remains a thing of choice with every intelligent human being, whether he will be prepared to face the shining judgment throne with joy, or quail before it in terror. The Lord says to all: "Seek ye my face." What a blessed response it would be for each one to answer as did the young Prophet Samuel: "Thy face, ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... this; That in good fury he may feel The body where he sets his heel Quail from your downward ...
— The War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon • Siegfried Sassoon
... Romance herself has made her dwelling among men? So we come back to the old myth, and hear the goat-footed piper making the music which is itself the charm and terror of things; and when a glen invites our visiting footsteps, fancy that Pan leads us thither with a gracious tremolo; or when our hearts quail at the thunder of the cataract, tell ourselves that he has stamped his hoof in the ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... in her grasp, her heart is lighter, her spirit does not quail. She is tasting perhaps a shred of the martyrs' joy, when they suffered in the cause of right, she is battling down that weaker nature and gaining ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... wander down the valleys where the griefs of life assail, We will find a few obstructions that are heaping in the road; But with feet that never weary and with hearts that never quail, We shall mount the ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... scorn, Except they tasted of the corn: A haunch of ven'son made her sweat, Unless it had the right fumette. Don Carlos earnestly would beg, "Dear Madam, try this pigeon's leg;" Was happy, when he could prevail To make her only touch a quail. Through candle-light she view'd the wine, To see that ev'ry glass was fine. At last, grown prouder than the devil With feeding high, and treatment civil, Don Carlos now began to find His malice work as he design'd. ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... thing. Absolutely the one essential for dealing with the Filipinos was to convince them at the very outset that what you began you stood to; that you did not begin without consideration of right and duty, or quail then before opposition; that your purpose was inexorable and your power irresistible, while submission to it would always insure justice. On the contrary, once let them suspect that protests would dissuade and turbulence deter you, and all the Oriental instinct ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... Cross waged Holy War, With courage high, and hearts that did not quail Before the foe, in olden times they saw The blessed vision of the Holy Grail. Tho' Christ was gone, His pledge was with them yet, For, borne on wings of angels, from the skies, They saw the chalice that once ...
— The Comrade In White • W. H. Leathem
... connected by another spit of sand with a like area called North Beach, which forms, with Point Loma, the entrance to the harbor. The North Beach, covered partly with chaparral and broad fields of barley, is alive with quail, and is a favorite coursing-ground for rabbits. The soil, which appears uninviting, is with water uncommonly fertile, being a mixture of loam, disintegrated granite, and decomposed shells, and especially adapted to flowers, rare tropical ...
— Our Italy • Charles Dudley Warner
... Island, they would have the finest fresh-water fishing in the world. They would have thirty miles lake-shore for deer-shooting; and dense woods, forty miles back to Lake Michigan, where bears, and catamounts, and other wild animals are plentiful. Abundance of wild fowl, quail, and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 454 - Volume 18, New Series, September 11, 1852 • Various
... as an author, as the chief factor in the domestic drama,—yet most of all it pleases me to remember him as he appeared when under the spell of the prairies he loved so well. Tramping the fields in search of prairie-chicken or quail, a patient watcher in the rushes of a duck-pond, or merely lying flat on his back in the sunshine,—he was a being transformed. For he had in him much of the primitive man and his whole nature responded to the "call of the wild." But you who know his prairie-tales must have ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... Men said, afterwards, that they saw written there, in terrible distinctness, the characters of death; and there certainly seemed something awful and preternatural in the bloodless and haggard calmness of his proud features. Yet his eye did not quail, nor the muscles of his lip quiver; and with even more than his wonted loftiness, he met the regard of the prisoner. But, as alone conspicuous throughout the motionless and breathless crowd the judge and criminal gazed upon ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... found himself on the edge of a deep road and in the road he saw a tall girl, a servant who was returning to the village with two pails of milk. He watched, stooping down and with his eyes as bright as those of a dog who scents a quail, but she saw him, raised her head and said: "Was that you singing like that?" He did not reply, however, but jumped down into the road, although it was at least six feet down, and when she saw him ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... fairly Are singing ever early; The lark, the thrush, the nightingale, The make-sport cuckoo and the quail. These sing of Love! then why sleep ye? To love your sleep it may ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... open plains the Indian raids were terrible enough, but the horrors of uncertainty and ignorance which enveloped the settlers in the forests might well cause the stoutest heart to quail when once it became known that the Indians had become their enemies, and that there was another enemy stirring up the strife, and bribing the fierce and greedy savages to carry desolation and death into the settlements of ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... beyond the European average; a very few had style; the mothers were mostly fat, and not stylish; it was well not to regard the fathers too closely; several old gentlemen were clearing their throats behind their newspapers, with noises that made her quail. There was no one so effective as the Austrian officers, who put themselves a good deal on show, bowing from their hips to favored groups; with the sun glinting from their eyeglasses, and their hands pressing their sword-hilts, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... she softly. "You have never done anything to equal that. It is more than a portrait. It is an interpretation, or will be, when it is complete. Her hopeless little 'Button Quail' of a mother won't understand it in the least, but Colonel Mayhew will. I wonder if you know yourself how much you have put ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... woo her still! For mutability Is woman's soul. Fond vows may yet prevail, Fierce love bears well a woman's cruelty, Nor at the lash will quail. ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... 43 "Quail"; to overpower. Well might the abettors of Antichrist wonder at the Christian's support under the most cruel tortures. While "looking unto Jesus" and the bright visions of eternal glory, like Stephen, he can pray of his enemies, and tranquilly fall asleep while undergoing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murder, he was thrust from the full tide of this world's interest, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death—and he did not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... a la royale. The disappearance of the first course did not herald a catalogue of discordant dainties. You were not recommended to neglect the croquettes because the boudins might claim attention; and while you were crowning your important labours with a quail you were not reminded that the pate de Troyes, unlike the less reasonable human race, would feel offended if it were not cut. Then the wines were few. Some sherry, with a pedigree like an Arabian, heightened the flavour of the dish, not interfered with it; as ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... never heard such a flutterin' in my life. Mother come runnin' to see what was the matter and when she seen it, she said, Son, that's a pheasant. Some day you'll be a good hunter. An' guess I was for I killed lots o' pheasants, quail, squir'ls and rabbits. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... egg collector of California or the Western States will exchange eggs with me, I will be much pleased. I will send one dozen different kinds for as many of his. They are as follows: Chaffinch, quail, kingbird, crested jay, brown thrush, mocking-bird, sparrow, cat-bird, bluebird, peewee, swamp blackbird, wren. I will be obliged if any boy will send me his address, and a list of the varieties he is willing to exchange ...
— Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... alone; with one glad voice Let all thy sister States rejoice; Let Freedom, in whatever clime She waits with sleepless eye her time, Shouting from cave and mountain wood Make glad her desert solitude, While they who hunt her quail with fear; The New World's ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a trying moment for Pontiac. He stood there discovered, defeated. But he did not quail before the steady gaze of the English. His brow was only more ...
— Four American Indians - King Philip, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Osceola • Edson L. Whitney
... of Solo, a bold sportsman may find game to his liking, and willing natives to guide him in his search after tigers, wild hogs, the huge boa, deer, snipe, and quail. In pursuit of the last, too many a fever is caught, through the imprudence of young men in staying out too late in the day, and in keeping on their wet and soiled clothes and shoes during their ride or drive home. A little attention to such apparent trifles would save ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... which I displayed, trusting in the protection of the Almighty, may have been the cause. When threatened by danger the best policy is to fix your eye steadily upon it, and it will in general vanish like the morning mist before the sun; whereas if you quail before it, it becomes more imminent. I have fervent hope that the words which I uttered sunk deep into the hearts of some of my hearers, as I observed many of them depart musing and pensive. I occasionally ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... take that foe by the throat, and ready to offer his own in return. At moments such as that there was none of the fear which stands aghast at the wrath of the injured one, and makes the man who is a coward quail before the eyes of him who ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... get to the Tanks, where I'll have water and a chance to rest for a day or two until I'm able to travel; then I'll head for the Rio Colorado and wait for you in Ehrenburg. I'll keep one canteen and you can take the other; I have matches and my six-shooter, and I can live on quail and chuckwallas until I get to the river. You have your knife. Track that man, if you have to follow him into hell, and when you find him—no, don't kill him; he isn't worth it, and besides, that's my work. It's your job to run him ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... spirits whistling and whizzing all round them, spears were pointed at them. Their skins were scratched with stone knives and mussel shells. Hideously painted, fiendish-looking creatures suddenly rushed upon them. Should they show fear and quail at the Little Boorah they would be returned to their mothers as cowards unfit for initiation, and sooner or later sympathetic magic would do its work, a poison-stick or bone would end them. Or ...
— The Euahlayi Tribe - A Study of Aboriginal Life in Australia • K. Langloh Parker
... in this connection, for we are in the borderland or twilightland where it is much safer to ask questions than to attempt to answer them. How do you explain the "instinctive" fear of man on the part of wild and fierce animals? They certainly do not quail before his brute strength, for a blow at such a time breaks the charm and insures an attack. They quail before his eye and look. Is not this the answering of a personality in the animal to the personality in man; a recognition of something deeper than bone and muscle? ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... Delegates has issued an appeal to the proletariat, which contains the following striking passage: We shall defend our liberty to the utmost against all attacks within and without. The Russian revolution will not quail before the bayca fwyaa, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... days we have got to like red hair, and Lady Laura's was not supposed to stand in the way of her being considered a beauty. Her face was very fair, though it lacked that softness which we all love in women. Her eyes, which were large and bright, and very clear, never seemed to quail, never rose and sunk or showed themselves to be afraid of their own power. Indeed, Lady Laura Standish had nothing of fear about her. Her nose was perfectly cut, but was rather large, having the slightest possible tendency to be aquiline. Her mouth also was large, but was full of expression, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... "At home in the mountains of Colorado, from 10,000 feet above sea-level to the summits of the highest peaks." There is only one other bird in Colorado that has so high a summer range, and that is the white-tailed ptarmigan, usually called, in hunter's parlance, the "mountain quail." ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... around her was now consecrated to romance and adventure. Consequently, he visited a few traps on his way back which he had set for "jackass-rabbits" and wildcats,—the latter a vindictive reprisal for aggression upon an orphan brood of mountain quail which he had taken under his protection. For, while he nourished a keen love of sport, it was controlled by a boy's larger understanding of nature: a pantheistic sympathy with man and beast and plant, which ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte
... blow, ye tempests, blow, And my spirit shall not quail: I have fought with many a foe, I have weathered many a gale; And in this hour of death, Ere I yield my fleeting breath— Ere the fire now burning slow Shall come rushing from below, And this worn and wasted ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... ready, sufficient to give us seeds for another year. The richest crop was the maize, which suited the soil. But there were a quantity of gatherers more eager to taste these new productions than we were; these were birds of every kind, from the bustard to the quail, and from the various establishments they had formed round, it might be presumed they would not ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... this she still looked into his face fearlessly—we may almost say boldly; so much so that Sir Henry's eyes almost quailed before hers. On this she had at any rate resolved, that she would never quail before him. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... gold-eyes, suckers, and cat-fish. Unattractive as are the names of the two last, the fish themselves are excellent. Among the birds, Professor Hind mentions prairie-hens, plovers, various ducks, loons, and other aquatic birds, besides the partridge, quail, whip-poor-will, hairy woodpecker, Canadian jay, blue jay, Indian hen, and woodcock. In the mountain region are bighorns and mountain goats; the grizzly bear often descends from his rugged heights into the plains, and affords sport to the daring ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... umbellus). Partridge, European. Pheasant. Pigeon, passenger (Ectopistes migratorius). Pipit, American, or titlark (Anthus pensilvanicus). Plover, English. Prairie lien (Tympanuchus americanus). Quail, European. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... laughed at them and tried to get them to take an occasional half day off in which to explore with him. But they curtly refused to do this, so he fell back on his own resources. And he discovered that the days were all too short. Curly had a gun. There was plenty of ammunition. Quail and cottontails were to be found on the plateau where the stock was grazing. Sometimes on Pablo, sometimes afoot, Enoch with the gun, and sometimes with the black diary rolled in his coat, ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Ichabod Crane's courtship of Katrina Van Tassel, in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, has continued to amuse its readers. The Indian summer haze is still resting on Sleepy Hollow, our American Utopia, where we can hear the quail whistling, see the brook bubbling along among alders and dwarf willows, over which amber clouds float forever in the sky; where the fragrant buckwheat fields breathe the odor of the beehive; where the slapjacks are "well buttered and garnished with honey or treacle, ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... try to kill a quail with a stone. The quail is too quick a bird for that, and Ned did not hurt it; but I know that a good child would not try ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Primer, Revised Edition • William Holmes McGuffey
... is a severe one and may well make a strong spirit quail, especially when, as so often happens, several members of one family will die in rapid succession, quite evidently to us by reason of the agency of natural laws which govern physical life, but to the Chinaman, a clear manifestation of the power enjoyed by demons whose pleasure ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... only in the trenches but in the streets of the villages behind the lines. If by night or day the whitish vapor was seen ascending from the trenches opposite, then such a hullabaloo of noises would pass along the trenches and through the streets of the towns as to make the spirits of the bravest quail, and woe betide even the little child who at that signal did not instantly cover his face with the hideous gas-mask. These noises were made chiefly with klaxon horns, though an empty shell-case struck by iron was found to give out ...
— "Over There" with the Australians • R. Hugh Knyvett |
