"Starling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sick of life. He walked away from his unhappy home, and, sick not only of his own existence but of everybody else's, turned aside down Gaswork Lane to avoid the town, and, crossing the wooden bridge that goes over the canal to Starling's Cottages, was presently alone in the damp pine woods and out of sight and sound of human habitation. He would stand it no longer. He repeated aloud with blasphemies unusual to him that he ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... parti-coloured robes face you, suspended in the air with wings vibrating so swiftly as to be unseen; then suddenly jerk themselves a few yards to recommence hovering. A greenfinch rises with a yellow gleam and a sweet note from the grass, and is off with something for his brood, or a starling, solitary now, for his mate is in the nest, startled from his questing, ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... three last letters, which as usual are rich in facts. Your letters make almost a little volume on my table. I daresay you hardly knew yourself how much curious information was lying in your mind till I began the severe pumping process. The case of the starling married thrice in one day is capital, and beats the case of the magpies of which one was shot seven times consecutively. A gamekeeper here tells me that he has repeatedly shot one of a pair of jays, ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... stilt-like legs and shrieking and beating of wings. Most wonderful of all it was to stand and watch and be left behind when the birds of passage flew northward in their thousands in the spring. My love to Norway, he would say, as they passed. And in the autumn to see them return, grey goose, starling, wagtail, and all the rest. "How goes it now at home?" he would think—and "Next time I'll go with you," he would promise ...
— The Great Hunger • Johan Bojer
... spirit was combined an active and subduing sweetness which could often conquer, as by a sudden spell, those whom the boy loved. Towards those, however, whom he did not love he could be vindictive. His relative, the laird of Raeburn, on one occasion wrung the neck of a pet starling, which the child had partly tamed. "I flew at his throat like a wild-cat," he said, in recalling the circumstance, fifty years later, in his journal on occasion of the old laird's death; "and was torn from ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... Noticing Sagarika, the queen thinks, "What carelessness! an object I have hitherto so cautiously concealed, thus heedlessly exposed! I must remove her hence before the arrival of the king." She says, "How now, Sagarika, what makes you here? where is my favourite starling, that I left to your charge, and whom it seems you have quitted for this ceremony? Return to your place." Sagarika withdraws to a short distance and thinks, "the bird is safe with my friend Susangata. I should like to witness the ceremony. I wonder if Annaga ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... the War Office, where mobilisation-while-you-wait may be studied at first hand, we don't think. Indeed, London offers such opportunities that we shall be surprised if the Selborne Society ever looks at a mole or a starling again. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 29, 1919 • Various
... small rain upon the tender herb," but with an orchestra of his own. Years of observation have shown that the weather does control the habits of some birds—birds of distinct and regular methods of life. Two such are common—the nutmeg pigeon and the metallic starling. Both species leave this part of the North during the third week of March, flying in flocks to regions nearer the equator. For several weeks the starlings train themselves for the long Northern flight and its perils, dashing with impetuous speed through ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... ice breaks up on the river and the first sea-gulls come prospecting northward. Whatever the date—the first or the middle or the last of March—when these signs appear, then I know spring is at hand. Her first birds—the bluebird, the song sparrow, the robin, the red-shouldered starling—are here or soon will be. The crows have a more confident caw, the sap begins to start in the sugar maple, the tiny boom of the first bee is heard, the downy woodpecker begins his resonant tat, tat, tat, on the dry limbs, and the cattle in the barnyard low long and loud with wistful ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... merino sheep brought from Spain, via Saxony and Australia, is the basis of the flocks. The black swan and magpie represent the birds of New Holland. The Indian minah, after becoming common, is said to be retreating before the English starling. The first red deer came from Germany. And side by side with these strangers and with the trees and plants which colonists call specifically "English"—for the word "British" is almost unknown in the Colony—the native flora is beginning to be cultivated in gardens and grounds. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... a young man of great perceptions," she replied. "I am going to like you, I am sure. Come, there is Mr. Starling standing by the door. What do you ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... knowing what even a false alarm may do at such a time; but I suppose he knew his own business best, and I must say that if she had been MY wife, I never could have left her endearing and bright face behind. They drew the Clock Room. Alfred Starling, an uncommonly agreeable young fellow of eight-and- twenty for whom I have the greatest liking, was in the Double Room; mine, usually, and designated by that name from having a dressing- room within it, with two large and cumbersome windows, which no wedges I was ever able to make, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... which we inhabited for a fortnight or more, and where we spent Xmas Day, was a good cut above Dranoutre. Except for the first three days, when we lived with a doctor,—and his stove smoked frightfully till we discovered a dead starling in the pipe,—we dwelt in exceeding comfort, comparatively speaking. It was a brewer's house, about the biggest in the village—which was three times the size of Dranoutre,—with real furniture in it, a real dining-room (horribly cold, as the ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... the titilation of his own emotions, and he had practiced so long at detecting the latent pathos that lies in the expression of dumb things and of poor, patient animals, that he could summon the tear of sensibility at the thought of a discarded postchaise, a dead donkey, a starling in a cage, or of Uncle Toby putting a house fly out of the window, and saying, "There is room enough in the world for thee and me." It is a high proof of his cleverness that he generally succeeds in raising the desired feeling in his readers even from such trivial occasions. He was a minute ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... that's flat. He said, he would not ransom Mortimer; Forbad my tongue to speak of Mortimer; But I will find him when he lies asleep, And in his ear I'll holla—'Mortimer!' Nay, I'll have a starling shall be taught to speak Nothing but 'Mortimer,' and give it him, To keep ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... avoided that part of Heaven wherein were his grandmother's illusions: and this was counted for righteousness in Jurgen. That part of Heaven smelt of mignonette, and a starling was ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... office, starling the great cat to that extent that he sprang from his red cushion on the window-ledge, and slunk, flattening his long body against the floor, under the table, came the boy Eddy Carroll. The boy stood staring at him rather shamefacedly, though every muscle in his small ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the woman. "He says you are teaching him to speak just as if he were a starling, and we are very much ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... depot. The majestic yellow vehicle with its cushioned, lavishly decorated interior, its thronelike seat above the world, was an exciting affair, even when it rested in the stable yard. When the horses were hitched to it, and Starling Tucker from the high seat with whip and reins directed its swift progress, with rattles and rumbles like a real circus wagon, it was thrilling indeed. This summer marked the first admission of Wilbur to an intimacy with the privileged driver ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... And two days later, 17th March, "Over fifty of the birds cooped on 15th died, though fed. Sparrows, finches, water-wagtails, two small birds, name unknown, one kind like a linnet, and a large bird like a starling. In all there have been on board over seventy birds, besides some that hovered about us for some time and then fell into the sea exhausted." Easterly winds and severe weather were experienced at the time.[171] The spot where this remarkable ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... poverty, how remote from squalid penury, the whitewashed walls, the homely furniture within. Creepers lately trained around the doorway; Christmas holly, with berries red against the window-panes; the bee-hive yonder; a starling, too, outside the threshold, in its wicker cage; in the background (all the rest of the neighbouring hamlet out of sight), the church spire tapering away into the clear blue wintry sky. All has an air of repose, of safety. Close beside you is the Presence of HOME; that ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... say," the mother returned. "But we simply name them according to their characteristics. This one," nodding to the girl who had just gone back to her seat, "we call Starling, because she talks so much, and her sister there is Dove, because she is so gentle. Squirrel is the nimblest of them all and he is never still a minute. See him wiggling round now! This little one," reaching out a hand to the smallest of the four, "is Lark. because he sings so sweetly.—Can't ...
— Polly and the Princess • Emma C. Dowd
... wings and tail of the rosy starling are glossy black, and the remainder of the plumage is pale salmon in the hen and the young cock, and faint rose-colour in ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... him with his theft," said the sage old starling; "and it's neither bread nor cheese he'll get here. He's a thief; a ...
— Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn • George Manville Fenn
... Ile teach you; thinke your self a Baby, [Sidenote: I will] That you haue tane his tenders for true pay, [Sidenote: tane these] Which are not starling. Tender your selfe more dearly; [Sidenote: sterling] Or not to crack the winde of the poore Phrase, [Sidenote: (not ... &c.] Roaming it[3] thus, you'l tender me a foole.[4] [Sidenote: Wrong ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... An animal for its work gets nothing more than its food and drink, while a person gets money as a reward. Yes, I can be a maid now, and with my wages I can apprentice Damie—he wants to be a mason. But when we are at uncle's, Damie won't be as much mine as he is now. Hark! the starling is flying home to the house which father made for him—he's singing merrily again. Father made the house for him out of old planks. I remember his saying that a starling won't go into a house if it's made of new wood, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... blue falcon flew up in the air and gave a bird-call. Birds gathered and she swooped amongst them pulling feathers off their backs and out of their wings. Soon there was a heap of feathers on the ground—pigeons' feathers and pie's feathers, crane's and crow's, blackbird's and starling's. The King of Ireland's Son quickly gathered them into his bag. The falcon flew to another place and gave her bird-call again. The birds gathered, and she went amongst them, plucking their feathers. The King's Son gathered them ...
— The King of Ireland's Son • Padraic Colum
... had never noticed the painter's name. When the public are so eager to be amused, and care so little who it is that amuses them, it is not amiss to remind them of it now and then; or even to have a starling taught to repeat the name, to which they owe such misprised obligations, in their drowsy ears. On any other principle I cannot conceive how painters (not without genius or industry) can fling themselves at the head of the public in the manner they do, having lives written ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... Thrush, * blackbird, * lark, * yellowhammer, * robin, *wren, * golden-crested wren, * goldfinch, * chaffinch, * *greenfinch, pied wagtail, sparrow, * dunnock (hedge, accentor), missel thrush, starling, rook, jackdaw, *blackcap, * garden warbler, * willow warbler, * chiffchaff, * wood warbler, tree-creeper, * reed bunting, * sedge warbler, coot, water hen, little grebe (dabchick), tufted duck, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Year Katherine Tynan The Waking Year Emily Dickinson Song, "The year's at the spring" Robert Browning Early Spring Alfred Tennyson Lines Written in Early Spring William Wordsworth In Early Spring Alice Meynell Spring Thomas Nashe A Starling's Spring Rondel James Cousins "When Daffodils begin to Peer" William Shakespeare Spring, from "In Memoriam" Alfred Tennyson The Spring Returns Charles Leonard Moore "When the Hounds of Spring" Algernon Charles Swinburne Song, "Again rejoicing Nature sees" Robert Burns To Spring William Blake ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... light, she was pale. Her oval face was like ivory, and her lips, instead of being scarlet, had the tender red of apple-blossom, after the unfolding of the bright bud. Her hair was black and smooth and heavy, and lay on either side of her face like a starling's wings. Her eyes too were as black as midnight, and sometimes like midnight they were deep and sightless. But when she was neither working nor spinning she would steal away to the millstones, and stand there watching and listening. And then ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... half an hour, Starling," said Chiltern, and led Honora up the stairs into the east wing, where he flung open one of the high mahogany doors on the south side. "These are your rooms, Honora. I have had Keller do them all over for you, and I hope you'll like them. If you don't, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... them equally between them. They bought allso a parcell of goats, which they distributed at home as they saw neede & occasion, and tooke corne for them of y^e people, which gave them good content. Their moyety of y^e goods came to above 400^li. starling. Ther was allso that spring a French ship cast away at Sacadahock, in w^ch were many Biscaie ruggs & other co[m]odities, which were falen into these mens hands, & some other fisher men at Damerins-cove, ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... simply. "I should like to see it—just to see it, as one looks through a grating into the king's grapehouses here. But I should not like to live in it. I love my hut, and the starling, and the chickens—and what would the garden do without me?—and the children, and the old Annemie? I could not anyhow, anywhere be any happier than I am. There is only one thing ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... all ornithologists agreed that the curious starling-like bird known as the spotted-wing (Psaroglossa spiloptera) was a kind of aberrant starling, but systematists have lately relegated it to the Crateropodidae. At Mussoorie the natives call it the ...
— Birds of the Indian Hills • Douglas Dewar
... starling; that's twenty dollars your currency, if I reckon right," said Jack, giving his hat a twirl ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... STARLING (Sturnus vulgaris).—Green bedropped with gold when seen closely, but at a distance looking more like a rusty blackbird, though its gait on the lawn always distinguishes it, being a walk instead of a hop. Though not tuneful, no bird has such a variety of ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge
... and vowed to be revenged on his sable adversary. He talked of his grievance to old Mr. Parrot, till that worthy felt as indignant as his friend; but, as he could suggest no method of vengeance, Mr. Trunk called to his counsel, the celebrated City conveyancer, Mr. Starling. ...
— Comical People • Unknown
... Larks quiver up by us, "higher, ever higher," hastening up to get a first glimpse of the coming monarch, careless of food, flooding the fresh air with song. Steadily plodding rooks labour along below us, and lively starlings rush by on the look-out for the early worm; lark and swallow, rook and starling, each on his appointed round. The sun arises, and they get them to it; he is up now, and these breezy uplands over which we hang are swimming in the light of horizontal rays, though the shadows and mists still lie on the wooded ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... me brightly and busily as a starling. "You danced fine, sir," he said. "Oh! it is a pleasure to me. Ay, and now I come to consider it, methought I did hear hoofs behind me that might yet be echo. No, but I did not think: 'twas but my ear cried to his dreaming master. Ever dreaming; God help at last the awakening! ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... starling in the cover of the kneading-trough, and she taught it to speak, and she taught the bird what manner of man her brother was. And she wrote a letter of her woes, and the despite with which she was treated, and she bound the ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... The starling rolls his "r's" with unctuous joy And, preening, wonders whom he may annoy, Then imitates a hen, a water-fowl And next the "Be quick" of a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... stood in the way; and at times, Urian, who was hasty and thoughtless, poor fellow, told Clement that he was afraid. 'Fear!' said the French boy, drawing himself up; 'you do not know what you say. If you will be here at six to-morrow morning, when it is only just light, I will take that starling's nest on the top of yonder chimney.' 'But why not now, Clement?' said Urian, putting his arm round Clement's neck. 'Why then, and not now, just when we are in the humour for it?' 'Because we De Crequys ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Nuthatches. Oriole, Baltimore (Icterus galbula). Oriole, orchard. See Starling, orchard. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... standing upon a chair, her face on a level with a cage, covered with a large piece of black silk, persistently repeating three or four German words to a starling, who as persistently retorted: "Camille! ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... own sweet jewel, What I have for my darling: A robin-redbreast and a starling. These I give both in hope to move thee; Yet thou say'st I do not ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various
... and now this still heavier disappointment was mine. I could not find the wryneck. Those quiet grassy orchards, shut in by straggling hedges, should have had him as a favoured summer guest. Creeper and nuthatch, and starling and gem-like blue tit, found holes enough in the old trunks to breed in. And yet I knew that, albeit not common, he was there; I could not exactly say where, but somewhere on the other side of the next hedge or field or orchard; for I heard his unmistakable cry, now on this hand, ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... apartments in the palace there hung two cages, in one of which was a parrot and in the other a starling, and these two birds could talk as well as human beings. They were both pets of the princess who always fed them herself, and the next day, as she was walking grandly about with her treasure tied round her ankle, she heard the starling say to ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... deuce is that?" exclaimed he, starling up from his kneeling posture, and turning anxiously in the direction whence the disturbance had proceeded, at the same time thoughtlessly relinquishing his grasp of the lid, which fell with a heavy crash upon the arm ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... poor fellow, 'I can't get out; I can't get out,' said the starling. Ah! I am as bad as that dog Sterne, who preferred whining over a dead ass to relieving a living mother. Villain! hypocrite! slave! sycophant! But I am no better. Here I can not stimulate myself to a speech for the sake of these unfortunates, and three words ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... back through the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and looking up I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage; "I can't get out, I can't get out," said the starling. I stood looking at the bird; and to every person who came through the passage, it ran fluttering to the side toward which they approached it, with the same lamentation of its captivity: "I can't get out," said the starling. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... Said the Starling, "conjectur'd 'twas so; It must of necessity follow: For more moss, straw, and feathers, I know, It requires, to be ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... His life from God. And why is it of consequence that we should look to that? Because Christ Jesus had in that the starling-point of His whole life. He said: "The Father sent me;" "The Father hath given the Son all things;" "The Father hath given the Son to have life in Himself." Christ received it as His own life, just as God has His life in Himself. And yet, all the time ...
— The Master's Indwelling • Andrew Murray
... glad to know what would be the best food for a starling in the winter?—[A sort of stock food is made of the fine-ground oats called "fig-dust," made into a stiff dough with milk and water, adding every day a pinch of soaked currants or a little fine-shredded raw beef. Give a little fruit now and ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... we will boil him, for it does not become thee to dirty thy hands."—"Very well," said the serpent; "he shall make the boiling water ready!" So they ordered the little Tsar to go and chop wood and get the hot water ready. Then he went and chopped wood, but as he was doing so, a starling flew out and said to him, "Not so fast, not so fast, little Tsar Novishny. Be as slow as thou canst, for thy dogs have gnawed their way ...
— Cossack Fairy Tales and Folk Tales • Anonymous
... Wouldbegoods it is not proper to tell of times when only some of us were naughty, so I will pass lightly over the time when Noel got up the kitchen chimney and brought three bricks and an old starling's nest and about a ton of soot down with him when he fell. They never use the big chimney in the summer, but cook in the wash-house. Nor do I wish to dwell on what H. O. did when he went into the dairy. I do not know what his motive was. But Mrs Pettigrew ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... South America. Green Parrot (now protected) India. "Dominos" (Sooty Tern) Tropical Coasts and Islands. Garnet Tanager South America. Grebe All unprotected regions. Green Merle Locality uncertain. "Horphang" Locality uncertain. Rhea South America. "Sixplet" Locality uncertain. Starling Europe. Tetras Locality not determined. Emerald-Breasted Hummingbird West Indies, Cent, and S. America. Blue-Throated Hummingbird West Indies, Cent, and S. America. Amethyst Hummingbird West Indies, Cent, and S. America. Resplendent Trogon, ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... me your spaniel, your starling, take me and treat me as these, I would be anything, darling! aye, whatsoever you please. Brian and Basil are "punting", leave them their dice and their wine, Bertha is butterfly hunting, surely one hour shall be mine. See, I have done with all duty; see, I can dare all disgrace, Only ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... torpid stair Will grumble at our feet, the table cry: 'Fetch my belongings for me; I am bare.' A clatter! Something in the attic falls. A ghost has lifted up his robes and fled. The loitering shadows move along the walls; Then silence very slowly lifts his head. The starling with impatient screech has flown The chimney, and is watching from the tree. They thought us gone for ever: mouse alone Stops in the middle of the floor to see. Now all you idle things, resume your toil. Hearth, put your flames on. Sulky ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various
... Leaver are pronounced by Mrs. Starling, a widow lady who lost her husband when she was young, and lost herself about the same-time—for by her own count she has never since grown five years older—to be a perfect model of wedded felicity. 'You would suppose,' says the romantic lady, 'that they were lovers only just now engaged. ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... how impossible it was to draw a bird in flight by the starling's wings. His wings beat up and down so swiftly that the eye had not time to follow them completely; they formed a burr—an indistinct flutter; you are supposed to see the starling flying from you. The lifted tips were depressed so quickly that the impression of them ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... the world it seemed, and he brought many curious things to the window to show us. One of these was a starling whose wicker cage he placed on the sill where the ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... pure pale blue from a greenish one, the colour of a starling's egg, to a grey ultramarine colour, hard to use because so full of colour, but incomparable when right. In these you must carefully avoid the point at which the green overcomes the blue and turns it rank, or that at which the red overcomes the blue and produces those woeful hues of ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... Hoffmann spent two years. This was a quiet, stagnant place, where, according to his own account, he "was buried alive," and "walked in a morass covered with low thorny shrubs which lacerated his feet;" he "thought of Yorick and the imprisoned starling;" and he should have given way to despair had not the bitter experiences which he was made to drain to the lees been sweetened by the affection of his dear good wife, who gave him strength for the present and encouraged him to hope for the future. Owing to the external circumstances ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... and the zebra become docile as the spaniel and the horse; The kite feedeth with the starling under the law of kindness; That law shall tame the fiercest, bring down the battlements of pride, Cherish the weak, control the strong, and win the fearful spirit. Let thy carriage be the gentleness of love, not the stern ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... The starling undertook to be the messenger, and as soon as the meeting was over he flew away upon ...
— Twinkle and Chubbins - Their Astonishing Adventures in Nature-Fairyland • L. Frank (Lyman Frank) Baum
... barked, and whined with delight at having her out of doors again. There was a seat in the wall, and her ladies spread cushions and cloaks for her to sit on it, warmed as it was by the sun; and there she rested, watching a starling running about on the turf, his gold-bespangled green plumage glistening. She hardly spoke; she seemed to be making the most of the repose of the fair calm day. Humfrey would not intrude by making her sensible ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... by grown-up birds to helpless orphans in need of their aid. A redbreast was mentioned lately in Science Gossip as doing a deed of kindness towards a young starling one bitterly cold morning. The starling had left the nest, and was sitting frightened and shivering in a cellar, whither it had crept, too weak and hungry to fly. In vain kindly human hands offered it bread; it refused all food, till a little hungry robin came ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... characteristics of one. At Homburg or Aix-les-Bains you walk up a street, turn a corner and find yourself among pine-trees, or in a smiling valley with a blue lake blinking at the sun. Here the baths are in the centre of the town, and, like a certain starling, you feel ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 17, 1891 • Various
... remarked. At that moment the sun came out. We were keeping to the side of the road where it is soft going. Suddenly Swallow leaped like a stag into the middle of the road all over the pave. Panic terror. He had seen the shadow of a starling flit ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... asked Christopher. "Is the grass hers, and the trees hers, and the hedges hers, and the rooks hers, and the starling hers, and will the nightingale be hers when he comes home, and if she could dig through to the other side of the world, would there be a field the same size in Australia that would be hers, and ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... a starling, and has a small tuft of white cravat-like feathers growing from his throat. True to his starling nature, he has ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... in Demerara is not actuated by selfish motives: this is the cassique. In size he is larger than the starling: he courts the society of man, but disdains to live by his labours. When Nature calls for support he repairs to the neighbouring forest, and there partakes of the store of fruits and seeds which she has produced in abundance for her aerial tribes. When his repast is over he ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... phases—but the faculty of accurately imitating another? Monkeys for the most part imitate action only, because they haven't very varied or flexible voices. Parrots and many other birds, on the contrary—like the starling and still more markedly the American mocking-bird—being endowed with considerable flexibility of voice, imitate either songs or spoken words with great distinctness. In the parrot the power of attention is also very considerable, for the bird will often try over ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... North blows, and starling flocks By chattering on and on Keep their spirits up in the mist, And Spring's here, ...
— Last Poems • Edward Thomas
... a slave on the Starling Freeman place near Troy, S.C. said, "Our houses wus made outer logs. We didn't have nothin' much nohow, but my mammy she had plenty o' room fer her chillun. We didn't sleep on de flo', we had bed. De people in de ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... specially procured a starling, as I consider this bird the very best for the amateur's purpose, not only on account of the toughness of the skin, but also because, being a medium-sized bird, it presents no difficult points in skinning, and with this bird before me I shall minutely instruct my pupil, ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... mouth of the briery aperture in the strong and root-bound soil. Or we followed him, so far as he thought it safe for us to do so, up the foundations of the castle, and in fear and wonder that no repetition of the adventurous feat ever diminished, saw him take the young starling from the crevice beneath the tuft of wall-flowers. What was there of the bold and daring that Lawrie Logan was not, in our belief, able to perform? We were all several years younger—boys from nine to ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... leaves are much relished by cattle and goats. Gradually the village boys and young men went off to their ploughing, or grass cutting for the cows' evening meal. A woman came down occasionally to fill her waterpot in evident fear and trembling. A swarm of minas (the Indian starling) hopped and twittered round my feet. The cooing of a pair of amatory pigeons overhead nearly lulled me to slumber. A flock of green parrots came swiftly circling overhead, making for the fig-tree at the south end of the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... enraged dame kills it on the spot; but the parrot, by pursuing a middle course, saves his life and his master's honour. In the Panjabi legend Raja Rasalu, who was very frequently from home on hunting excursions, left behind him a parrot and a maina (hill starling), to act as spies upon his young wife, the Rani Kokla. One day while Rasalu was from home she was visited by the handsome Raja Hodi, who climbed to her balcony by a rope (this incident is the subject of many ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Baltimore Oriole Orchard Oriole Whip-poor-will Night Hawk Pigeon Hawk Sparrow Hawk Mourning Dove Rose-breasted Grosbeak Evening Grosbeak Purple Finch Red-winged Blackbird Rusty Blackbird Bobolink Mocking Bird Starling Purple Grackle Humming Bird Yellow-breasted Chat Blue-gray Gnatcatcher Tufted Titmouse Brown Creeper House Wren Marsh Wren Brown Thrasher Wood Thrush Hermit Thrush Wilson Thrush Water Thrush Chimney Swift Bank Swallow Rough-winged Swallow Cliff Swallow Barn Swallow Song ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... Woolley, P. G.: Factors Governing Vascular Dilatation and Slowing of the Blood Stream in Inflammation, THE JOURNAL A. M. A., Dec. 26, 1914, p. 2279.] quotes Starling as finding that the blood vessels dilate from physical and chemical changes in the musculature, and that this dilatation is caused by deficient oxidation and accumulation of the products of metabolism, including carbon dioxid. This ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... this question; so we got the Bible Dictionary and read there that a great many of our smaller birds, such as the starling, linnet, goldfinch, blackbird, lark, wagtail, and thrush, are found in Palestine, and that the Tree-sparrow has been seen in great numbers on Mount Olivet; while another kind, the Rock-sparrow, is often found perched upon a large stone, all alone, like the solitary bird mentioned ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... the passage, I heard the same words repeated twice over; and, looking up, I saw it was a starling hung in a little cage.—"I can't get out,—I can't get ...
— A Sentimental Journey • Laurence Sterne
... but his thoughts were always wandering. Learning did not interest him. He had other things to think about: would the last leaves in the garden have fallen when he got home from school at noon? And would the starling, for whom he had nailed the little box high up in the pine-tree, come again next spring? It had picked off all the black berries from the elderberry, and had then gone away screaming; if it did not find ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... as much for another of the much-quoted pieces from the Sentimental Journey—the description of the caged starling. The passage is ingeniously worked into its context; and if we were to consider it as only intended to serve the purpose of a sudden and dramatic discomfiture of the Traveller's somewhat inconsiderate moralizings on captivity, it would be well enough. ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... THE starling is a trim little bird, measuring from seven to eight inches in length. He goes dressed in black, and his coat glistens like satin in the sunlight. In autumn, however, after moulting, he looks as if bedecked with ...
— The Nursery, December 1873, Vol. XIV. No. 6 • Various
... hawthorn buds prophesy on the hedge; the reed pushes up in the moist earth like a spear thrust through a shield; the eggs of the starling are laid in the knot-hole of the pollard elm—common eggs, but within each a speck that is not to be found in the cut diamond of two hundred carats—the dot of protoplasm, the atom of life. There was one row of pollards where they ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... please observe that some of the scientific people call it a blackbird—some a thrush—some a starling—and the rest a Cincle, whatever that may be. It remains for them now only to show how the Cincle has been developed out of the Winkle, and the Winkle out of the Quangle-Wangle. You will note also that the Yorkshire and Durham mind is balanced between the two views ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... a complete creature, as much believed in as a bird; and the way in which it would or might cast itself into the air, and lean hither and thither upon its plumes, was as naturally apprehended as the manner of flight of a chough or a starling. Hence Dante's simple and most exquisite synonym for angel, "Bird of God;" and hence also a variety and picturesqueness in the expression of the movements of the heavenly hierarchies by the earlier painters, ill replaced by the powers of foreshortening, and throwing naked ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... whistle 'Pretty Pope of Rome,' with any starling in your Knight's ward," answered the constable, with a facetious air, checked, however, by the due respect to the supreme presence ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... London, giving his testimony, affirmed that "no student in England has EVER SEEN PAIN in an animal experiment"—a statement which in one sense everyone can accept, for who can say that he ever SAW a pain anywhere? Professor Starling, of the University College in London, declared that during his seventeen years of experimentation "on no occasion HAVE I EVER SEEN PAIN inflicted in any experiment on dog, cat, or rabbit in a physiological laboratory in this country." ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... guardians jailers, and his comrades spies. Each trite convention courtly fears inspire To stint experience and to dwarf desire; Narrows the action to a puppet stage, And trains the eaglet to the starling's cage. On the dejected brow and smileless cheek, What weary thought the languid lines bespeak; Till drop by drop, from jaded day to day, The sickly life-streams ooze themselves away. Yet oft in HOPE a boundless realm was thine, That vaguest Infinite,—the ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... parrot," replied the woman, who had not yet descended from her perch; "but a starling, and I am trying to teach it to say 'Have you breakfasted?' ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... and a great many birds of smaller size, with feathers of all shades of blue, red, and green, and metallic hues of brilliant lustre, besides parrots, macaws, cockatoos innumerable, and torchas on stands. The torcha is a bright-coloured black and yellow bird, about as big as a starling, which puts its little head on one side and takes flies from one's fingers in the prettiest ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... Before starling for work this morning, it was agreed that Jose should act as cook for the day; it being stipulated that he was to have the afternoon to himself for digging. Horry was left in charge of the horses. I worked hard, keeping near Bradley, and conversing with him ...
— California • J. Tyrwhitt Brooks
... known as "the old starling," to whom Mrs. Clinton had come to pay an immediate visit upon entering the house, as in duty bound, was putting things away. She was accustomed to say that she spent her life in putting things away after the twins had done with them, and that they were more trouble to her than all the rest ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... they were never really raised out of idolatry. On getting nearer we saw that the king was standing in front of the temple, with a drawn scimitar of enormous size in his hand. We were hurrying forward, when the starling cry arose. "The queen is dead, ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... altercation. It's not for me, of course, to judge How much a Deaf Lady ought to begrudge; But half-a-guinea seems no great matter— Letting alone more rational patter— Only to hear a parrot chatter: Not to mention that feather'd wit, The Starling, who speaks when his tongue is slit; The Pies and Jays that utter words, And other Dicky Gossips of birds, That talk with as much good sense and decorum, As many Beaks ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... instance, a price was set on the head of the martin; it disappeared, and the grasshopper took possession of the island, devouring, withering, scorching with a biting drought all that they did not consume. In North America it has been the same with the starling, the protector of Indian corn. [Footnote: I hope Michelet has good authority for this statement, but I am unable to confirm it.] Even the sparrow, which really does attack grain, but which protects it still more, the pilferer, the outlaw, loaded with abuse and smitten with ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... witnesses, made arrests in every quarter, and created a consternation in the camps of the saints greater than any they had ever witnessed before, since Mormondom was born. At last accounts terrified elders and bishops were decamping to save their necks; and developments of the most starling character were being made, implicating the highest Church dignitaries in the many murders and robberies committed upon the Gentiles during the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... which there are several—like the blue jay of the northern part of the continent, is celebrated for its imitative powers. It is one of the handsomest in form of the feathered tribe, in size somewhat larger than a starling. On each wing it has a yellow spot; and its rump, belly, and half the tail are of the same colour. All the rest of the body is black; while the beak is of ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... most fixed the attention of Leon was a little bird about the size of a starling. Its plumage was rather pretty. It was brown, with black stripes on the back, and white-breasted. But it was not the plumage of the bird that interested Leon. It was what his companion told him of a singular habit which it had—that of repeating, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... her baskets were full, her fowls fed, her goat foddered, her starling's cage cleaned, her hut door locked, and her wooden shoes clattering on the sunny road into the city, Bebee was almost content again, though ever and again, as she trod the familiar ways, the tears dimmed her eyes ...
— Bebee • Ouida |
