"Tailless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... who wear artificial appendages about the waists, such as palm-leaves and hair. A certain Wesleyan missionary, George Brown, in 1876 spoke of a formal breeding of a tailed race in Kali, off the coast of New Britain. Tailless children were slain at once, as they would be exposed to public ridicule. The tailed men of Borneo are people afflicted with hereditary malformation analogous to sexdigitism. A tailed race of princes have ruled Rajoopootana, and are ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... was conducting his ass to the market, the tail of the animal becoming draggled with mud, the Cogia cut it off and put it into a sack. Arriving at the market, he put up the ass to auction; and on a person crying out, 'What is the use of this tailless creature?' he said, 'Don't you leave your tail in the desert when ...
— The Turkish Jester - or, The Pleasantries of Cogia Nasr Eddin Effendi • Nasreddin Hoca
... developed from a lower order of creatures, or from any member of the animal kingdom, religion must have been a late development. That this "tailless, catarrhine, anthropoid ape" should have had anything resembling a religion, is, of course, not to be thought of. To imagine that he had a knowledge of the one, true God, his nature and his attributes, would be preposterous. How then explain the origin and ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... racehorses like those of England, nor drayhorses so heavy in build and so unlike the racehorse; for there are no such breeds in a wild state. For the same reason, we should have no turnspit dogs with crooked legs, no greyhounds nor water-spaniels; we should have no tailless breed of fowls nor fantail pigeons, &c. Nor should we be able to cultivate wild plants in our gardens, for any length of time we please, without ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... 1909 detached experimental machines in various countries attained a certain success. The late Capt. Ferber made a primitive tractor biplane 1908. The Odier-Vendome biplane was a curious bat-winged pusher biplane built 1909. The tailless Etrich monoplane, built in Austria, 1908, was an adaptation of the Zanonia leaf. M. Santos-Dumont made primitive parasol type monoplanes known as "Demoiselles," in which bamboo was largely used. 1909 type is seen above. A curious steel monoplane was built by the late John Moisant, ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... them actually sprang to seize him; but it was too late, nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse's tail, which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her reach. However, the unsightly tailless condition of the vigorous steed was, to the last hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick farmer not to stay too late in ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... Southern Chinese were originally adopted as a means of concealing the hateful Manchu badge. Nowadays every Chinaman looks upon his queue as an integral and honourable part of himself. If he cannot grow one, he must have recourse to art, for he could not appear tailless, either in this ...
— China and the Chinese • Herbert Allen Giles
... arms, its hands, and its feet are longer, while the thumbs, on the contrary, are much shorter, and the great toes much smaller in proportion." [9] And again, "The true Orang, that is to say, that of Asia, that of Borneo, is consequently not the Pithecus, or tailless Ape, which the Greeks, and especially Galen, have described. It is neither the Pongo nor the Jocko, nor the Orang of Tulpius, nor the Pigmy of Tyson,—'it is an animal of a peculiar species', as I shall prove in the clearest manner by the organs of voice and the skeleton in the ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... down near Marian, when she touched me, whispering, "Look, look, Guy, at those curious creatures!" I turned my eyes in the direction she pointed, and saw, peering at us from among the boughs of a neighbouring tree, a whole tribe of almost tailless monkeys. They were curious-looking creatures, with faces of a vivid scarlet hue; their bodies, about eighteen inches long, were clothed with long, straight, shining, whitish hair; their heads were nearly bald, and sprinkled over with a short crop of thin grey ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... it crosses with it. The common law of inheritance may be expected to keep both the original and the variety mainly true as long as they last, and none the less so because they have given rise to occasional varieties. The tailless Manx cats, like the fox in the fable, have not induced the normal breeds to dispense with their tails, nor have the Dorkings (apparently known to Pliny) affected the permanence of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... slow lemurs of South India, small tailless nocturnal animals, somewhat resembling sloths in appearance, and almost as deliberate in their movements, except when in the act of seizing their insect prey; the Tarsier, or specter lemur, of the Malay islands, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... and dry bread: the milk was set on the table in the pan in which it had been boiled, and a soup-ladle and a French wash-hand basin took the place of cup and spoon. A cat kept the door against sundry large and tailless dogs, whose appetites had not gone with their tails; and an old woman kindly delivered a lecture on the most approved method of making a ptisan from the flowers of the lime-tree, and on the many medicinal properties ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... stage between the ancient cave bison and the European aurochs can be traced." The Norway elk, now nearly extinct, is identical with the American moose. The Cervus Americanus found in Kentucky was as large as the Irish elk, which it greatly resembled. The lagomys, or tailless hare, of the European eaves, is now found in the colder regions of North America. The reindeer, which once occupied Europe as far down as France, was the same as the reindeer of America. Remains of the cave lion of Europe (Felix speloae), a larger beast than the largest of the existing ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... A headless and tailless hobby-horse of Rob's, on which they had ridden many imaginary miles, stood in one corner, and he crossed over to examine ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... at once 'I know you are so and so's brother, you are so like him'. Take an instance: In these Norse Tales, No. xxiii, we are told how it was the bear came to have a stumpy tail, and in an African tale, [9] we find how it was the hyaena became tailless and earless. Now, the tailless condition both of the bear and the hyaena could scarcely fail to attract attention in a race of hunters, and we might expect that popular tradition would attempt to account for both, but how are we to explain the fact, that both Norseman ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... tiny china specimen that was too small to be dressed. There were Noah's arks that held animals that would have astonished old Noah himself, and rocking-horses in various stages of dilapidation, from the bright new one with only a scratch on his leg, to the headless and tailless steed that rocked in a melancholy way in the corner. Then there was a swing that hung from the ceiling, and a springy teeter-board that could bounce the little ones quite into the air. These and other treasures were duly inspected ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... answered he; 'but I think I know where you can find him. There is a melon garden about two miles from here, and as jackals are very fond of melons they are nearly sure to have gone there to feed. If you see a tailless jackal you will know that he is the one you want.' So the panther thanked ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... butler wears white linen in the morning, with black or dark gray trousers, a black waistcoast that buttons high, and a swallow-tail coat. It is also permissible for him to wear a short roundtail coat in the morning hours; it is similar to the gentleman's tailless evening coat, but it is not faced with silk. A black or dark tie and black shoes complete the outfit, which is worn until after the midday meal. If guests are to be entertained at luncheon, the butler wears his afternoon and evening livery. Otherwise he dons it only after luncheon ...
— Book of Etiquette • Lillian Eichler
... exactly the way in which the Crown Prince had always wished to dress. He was suddenly conscious of the long trousers on his own small legs, of the ignominy of his tailless Eton jacket and stiff, rolling collar, of the crowning disgrace of his derby hat. But the lonely feeling had ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... with modification, the origin of rudimentary organs is comparatively simple; and we can understand to a large extent the laws governing their imperfect development. We have plenty of cases of rudimentary organs in our domestic productions, as the stump of a tail in tailless breeds, the vestige of an ear in earless breeds of sheep—the reappearance of minute dangling horns in hornless breeds of cattle, more especially, according to Youatt, in young animals—and the state of the whole flower in the cauliflower. We often ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... Pinocchio noticed that all the streets were filled with hairless dogs, yawning from hunger; with sheared sheep, trembling with cold; with combless chickens, begging for a grain of wheat; with large butterflies, unable to use their wings because they had sold all their lovely colors; with tailless peacocks, ashamed to show themselves; and with bedraggled pheasants, scuttling away hurriedly, grieving for their bright feathers of gold and silver, lost ...
— The Adventures of Pinocchio • C. Collodi—Pseudonym of Carlo Lorenzini
... the simple reply, guarded as it was—capitulation, unknown to herself. Never did a fragile tailless sentence convey a more perfect meaning. The careless sergeant smiled within himself, and probably too the devil smiled from a loop-hole in Tophet, for the moment was the turning-point of a career. Her tone and mien signified beyond mistake that the seed which was to lift the foundation had taken ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... cats, and bizarre colors of Persian cats are mostly in vogue, but the tailless Manx cat, and even freaks like the six-toed cat and Iynx cats always find ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... living leg," "his good leg," and so forth. For another thing, he did not smile at them; and for a third, he did not ask foolish questions in an up-and-down voice (assumed for the moment), as though they were invalids, idiots, or tailless puppies who could not answer. He frowned at them. He said furiously, "How are you, creatures?" And— he gave usually at least a shilling ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... want to see the tailless monkeys," added Dwight, as he joined them. "We'll have a procession to brag of, for nearly everybody's going ashore. Mr. Malcolm's to lead the van with the children, he says, and Mrs. Campbell is to close up the rear of his section, while mother follows with ours. They've been laughing about ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... a large spatulate tail to the hinder wings and a distinct style of colouring, which causes them closely to resemble P. Coon, a species having the two sexes alike and inhabiting the same countries, but with which they have no direct affinity. The tailless females exhibit simple variability, scarcely two being found exactly alike even in the same locality. The males of the island of Borneo exhibit constant differences of the under surface, and may therefore be distinguished ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... in islands and in countries completely separated from each other, we meet with breeds more or less distinct; and these cases are worth giving, showing that the scarcity of distinct races in the same country is not caused by a deficiency of variability in the animal. The tailless cats of the Isle of Man are said to differ from common cats not only in the want of a tail, but in the greater length of their hind legs, in the size of their heads, and in habits. The Creole cat of Antigua, as I am informed by Mr. Nicholson, is smaller, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... operation of matter; the faculties generally to be manifestations of movements in the central nervous system; and every idea, even of the Deity, to be a certain little pulsation of a certain little mass of animal pap,the brain. Thus he would not object to relationship with a tailless catarrhine anthropoid ape, descended from a monad or ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton
... Being a tailless old fox, I look with ever-increasing suspicion on the too-luxuriant caudal appendages of my neighbors, and think with amusement of the multitudes who during the last ten years have sacrificed themselves upon the altar of grand opera—simple, kindly souls, with little or no taste for classical ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... examine all entries, and see if the stars entered actually existed, or were any of them missing. If a wrong entry were discovered, it might of course have been due to some clerical error, though that is hardly probable considering the care taken over these things, or it might have been some tailless comet or other, or it might have ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... Yardley, and smoked ceilings, there was a scrap heap piled up and scattered over the yard which in itself was a veritable treasure-house. Here were rusty chains and wooden figure-heads of broken-nosed, blind maidens and tailless dolphins. Here were twisted iron rods, fish-baskets, broken lobster-pots, rotting seines and tangled, useless nets—some used as coverings for coops of restless chickens—old worn-out rope, tangled rigging—everything that a fisherman who had spent ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... into the young cavalry captain's room in spite of the resistance of the valet. In the room there was hanging over the sofa a portrait in oils of the master, in the Uhlan uniform. 'Ah, here you are, you tailless ape!' thundered Tchertop-hanov; he jumped on to the sofa, and with a blow of his fist burst a big hole in ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... caught in a trap escaped, but in so doing lost his tail. Thereafter, feeling his life a burden from the shame and ridicule to which he was exposed, he schemed to convince all the other Foxes that being tailless was much more attractive, thus making up for his own deprivation. He assembled a good many Foxes and publicly advised them to cut off their tails, saying that they would not only look much better without ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... anything else, I order her forthwith to capture one for me, and the Persian gentleman orders another. The woman sets three youngsters and a yellow, tailless dog to run down the chickens, and in a few minutes presents herself before us, holding in each hand the plucked and scrawny carcass of a fowl that has had to scratch hard and persistently for its life for heaven knows how many years. One of the chickens is considerably larger than ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... to store electricity, we will cease being apes ourselves; until then we are tailless orangutans. You see, we should utilize natural forces and thus get all of our power. Sunshine is a form of energy, and the winds and the tides ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... her surprise they obeyed silently, but as they sauntered away to their quarters she was saddened at seeing them carrying the bodies of most of the turkeys and fowls and even the corpse of the poor tailless peacock. They had waited for sundown to rob ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... other as the trail is wide or narrow, is superseding the tandem rig, and one sees more bushy tails amongst the dogs. The thick, long-haired tail of the dog in this country is indeed his blanket, and in cold weather the tailless dog is at a ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... That's natural; every race thinks it is better than another, and every man thinks he is superior to others; and so does every woman. They think their children the best and handsomest. A bear thinks her nasty, dirty, shapeless, tailless cubs the most beautiful things in ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... whether the stars entered there actually existed, or whether any were missing. If a wrong entry were discovered, it might of course have been due to some clerical error, though that is hardly probable considering the care spent in making these records, or it might have been a tailless comet, or possibly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... his particular place, he lays hands on a folded piece of gingham, and gripping the corners of the folds in his hands, begins to straighten them punctiliously. Near him is an apprentice, apprenticed to the same high calling of draper's assistant, a ruddy, red-haired lad in a very short tailless black coat and a very high collar, who is deliberately unfolding and refolding some patterns of cretonne. By twenty-one he too may hope to be a full-blown assistant, even as Mr. Hoopdriver. Prints depend ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... Chloris was as usual waiting for her just outside the rocking-horse factory at the corner. Jay, as she passed that factory every day, watched with interest the progress of the grey ghost rocking-horses, eyeless, maneless, and tailless, as they ripened hourly into a form more like that ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... sub-order, it contains some very curious forms. The typical lemurs (which inhabit Madagascar) have long fox-like snouts and long tails. Certain African forms (the genus Galago) are very active in their movements, and great leapers. A tailless group (the slender loris) is interesting, as presenting a diminutive quasi-human form, reflected, as it were, through a Lemurine prism, just as the rat-mole shows us a mole-form reflected through ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... rosy cloud all about her, and laughed at the recollection. "Never again will they throw a stone at his bunnyship. We laid our hands together so, and swore by the paw of the cinnamon bear and the ear of the tailless cat, to take the part of our brother beasts and birds. It was all on the spur of the moment, or I might have done ...
— The Little Red Chimney - Being the Love Story of a Candy Man • Mary Finley Leonard
... wears a pigtail. A Chinaman without a pigtail would be as great a rarity as a Manx cat, or rather, I ought to say, he would be like the tailless fox in the fable; only you would never catch a Chinaman trying to persuade his friends that it was creditable to have no tail! For I must tell you that pigtails are sometimes cut off—as a degradation—when a man has committed some crime. But as soon as he can, he gets the ...
— Miscellanea • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... young man with small eyes and a scrubby moustache, wearing a tailless evening-coat and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, November 12, 1892 • Various
... good as they might be. Once landed, the visitor usually first proceeds to solve the great zoological problem the island has long presented to the outer world, and finds that the Isle of Man does really possess a breed of tailless cats, whose caudal extremity is either altogether wanting or at most is reduced to a merely ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... as is usually done, to fasten one kite behind the other on the same string, but to hitch each kite by means of a separate string to the main cord. The tail kite will do for tandem, but as the tails are apt to get snarled, it is not so desirable as the tailless kind. ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort |
