"Waterfowl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... And in time the chick bred out, and those who had found it chained it by the leg to a log, lest it should stray and be lost. And by and by they gathered round it, and speculated as to what the bird might be. One said, "It is surely a waterfowl, a duck, or it may be a goose; if we took it to the water it would swim and gabble." But another said, "It has no webs to its feet; it is a barn-door fowl; should you let it loose it will scratch and cackle with the ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... March the first thaws began, rendering walking difficult in the bush. In traversing the open lakes and plains they were frequently exposed to the violent gales of the equinoctial season. By the middle of April the signs of spring were apparent. Flocks of waterfowl were seen overhead, flying to the north. Their course was shaped directly to the east, so that the party were presently traversing the same route as on their outward journey and making towards Wholdaia Lake. ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... Bobby interminable. He was very cold; his fingers ached; the anticipations of the day had all been used. The sudden rise of waterfowl near at hand aroused in him no excitement; their presence was just now ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... of Kamtschatka are not enlivened by singing-birds; indeed land-birds are all scarce; but there are infinite numbers of waterfowl of many species. Immense flocks of them are to be seen upon the lakes, rivers, morasses, and even the sea itself, in the vicinity of the shore. Fish is abundant, especially in the months of June and July. A single draught of the net provided ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... seven lie, Float in calm heavenly, Life passing evenly, Waterfowl, waterfowl! often I dream For a rest Like ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... miles N.W. from Tring) is near the Aylesbury Canal. The Tring reservoirs, famous for the rare waterfowl shot on those waters on many occasions, are a little ...
— Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... large and small waterfowl flew past beneath the silvery cloudlets flecking the lofty azure vault of heaven; here and there a pelican or a pair of wild ducks plunged, with short calls which ceased abruptly, into the lush green thicket, but their cackling and quacking ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... ancient satyr. The road traversed a low swampy country, from which the rank moisture arose in a hot palpable mist, and crossed several shallow lagoons, from two to six feet deep of tepid, muddy, brackish water, some of them half a mile broad, and swarming with wild waterfowl. On these occasions, our friend the Satyr was signalled to make sail ahead on his donkey to pilot us; and as the water deepened, he would betake himself to swimming in its wake, holding on by the tail, and shouting, "Cuidado Burrico, Cuidado ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... connecting the Athabasca River with the lake, and soon found ourselves skirting the most extensive marshes and feeding-grounds for game in all Canada; a delta renowned throughout the North for its abundance of waterfowl, far surpassing the St. Clair flats, or any other ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... there would be nothing but prairie, stretching far and wide, over which we must steer as though we were at sea, or else be guided by the mysterious instinct of some trapper. We met many Redskins in the woods, all busy hunting. Game was very abundant—waterfowl on the streams, flights of prairie hens (a sort of grouse), and herds of buck, which constantly crossed our line of march Here and there was a clearing or first attempt at cultivation, round a squatter's ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... Deronda's hearing, he did not present himself to join in it. Grandcourt was gone with Sir Hugo to King's Topping, to see the old manor-house; others of the gentlemen were shooting; she was condemned to go and see the decoy and the waterfowl, and everything else that she least wanted to see, with the ladies, with old Lord Pentreath and his anecdotes, with Mr. Vandernoodt and his admiring manners. The irritation became too strong for ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... A waterfowl cut the air in his sharp, whistling flight. The last white shimmer of daylight faded from the surface of the lake. The lovers floated on, gently, joyously, into their ocean of ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... soon on the prairie, stumbling over hummocks and floundering into ponds, yet going as quietly as I could, turning now and again to look back at the distant glow or to listen to the rifles popping around the fort. The night was cloudy and pitchy dark. Twice the whirring of startled waterfowl frightened me out of my senses, but ambition pricked me on in spite of fear. I may have gone a mile thus, perchance two or three, straining every sense, when a sound brought me to a stand. At first I could not distinguish ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... chiefly of the eucalyptus, acacias of various kinds, and the dark-leaved casuarinas. The next day, an excursion was made up the river Nepean, a tributary of the Hawkesbury, on which trip many valuable facts of natural history were obtained, Bougainville enriching his collection with canaries, waterfowl, and a very pretty species of kingfisher and cockatoos. In the neighbouring woods was heard the unpleasant cry of the lyre-pheasant and of two other birds, which feebly imitate the tinkling of a hand-bell and ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... books have improved upon it much. It contained poems from Wordsworth, passages from Shakespeare's plays, among them the pathetic dialogue between Hubert and little Prince Arthur, whose appeal to have his eyes spared, brought many a tear to my own. Bryant's "Waterfowl" and "Thanatopsis" were there ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... very-high-frequency W WADB West African Development Bank WAEMU West African Economic and Monetary Union WCL World Confederation of Labor WCO World Customs Organization; see Customs Cooperation Council Wetlands Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially As Waterfowl Habitat WEU Western European Union WFC World Food Council WFP World Food Program WFTU World Federation of Trade Unions Whaling International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling WHO World Health Organization WIPO World Intellectual Property Organization ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of a romantic little lake that lay hidden away among the wooded hills that bounded the horizon, an irregular sheet of water a league in circumference, dotted with islands and abounding with fish and waterfowl that haunted its quiet pools. That primitive bit of nature had never been disturbed by axe or fire, and was a favorite spot for recreation to the inmates of the Manor House, to whom it was accessible either by boat up the little ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... vines, with gorgeous crimson, purple, and yellow blooms; and long streamers that dipped to trail in the waters. Below them were broad pads of lotus and water lilies; with alligators like barnacled logs, and cormorants swimming about, and bright-eyed waterfowl. The shadows in the forest were light clear green, and the shadows under the hanging jungle near the water were dull green; and the very upper air itself, in that hot steaming glade, seemed delicately green, ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... spot it is scarcely possible to imagine any place more completely wretched. It was a swamp, containing a small space of firm ground at one end, and almost wholly unadorned with trees of any sort or description. The interior was the resort of waterfowl; and the pools and creeks with which it was intercepted abounded ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... Noosing waterfowl is another general and very successful mode of taking them. It is performed by a native, with a tat-tat-ko, or long rod, tapering like a fishing rod, but longer, and having a piece of string at the end, with a slip noose working over the pliant twig which forms the ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... written, or with which they concerned themselves. "Thanatopsis," for example, was followed by "The Yellow Violet," which was followed by the "Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood," and the song beginning "Soon as the glazed and gleaming snow." The exquisite lines "To a Waterfowl" were written at Bridgewater, in his twentieth year, where he was still pursuing the study of law, which appears to have been distasteful to him. The concluding stanza sank deeply into a heart that ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... land. It was indeed a beautiful region. The sun shines upon none more so. The scenery, which, however, probably had but few attractions for David Crockett's uncultivated eye, was charming. The soil was fertile. The streams abounded with fish and waterfowl; and prairie and forest were stocked with game. No family need suffer from hunger here, if the husband had a rifle and knew how to use it. A few hours' labor would rear a cabin which would shut out wind and rain as effectually ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... Ruddy Red-Breasted Merganser Common Merganser Hooded Merganser Whistling Ducks White-Winged Scoter Surf Scoter Black Scoter Common Eider Oldsquaw Harlequin Swans Canada Geese Brant Snow White-Fronted Geese At a Glance Guide Comparative Sizes Of Waterfowl Wetlands Attract Wildlife ...
— Ducks at a Distance - A Waterfowl Identification Guide • Robert W. Hines
... more impetuous sweep; and this forced him to prolong his stay on the island. Part of the day he wandered about with an old cross-bow, which he found in a corner of the cottage, and had repaired in order to shoot the waterfowl that flew over; and all that he was lucky enough to hit he brought home for a good roast in the kitchen. When he came in with his booty, Undine seldom failed to greet him with a scolding, because he had cruelly deprived ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... conjoined influences of spring tides and a strong easterly wind. Towards evening, finding among the contents of our game-bags several ducks, of two species—Anas superciliosa, the black duck of the colonists, the richest and best flavoured of all the Australian waterfowl, and A. punctata, or teal, we had them cooked bush fashion, for supper. The night being fine, we enjoyed our bivouac upon the top of a sandhill, near the sea, by the side of a dead Pandanus, which served as firewood—although it was judged expedient to keep watch by turns, and go the rounds ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... check was put upon it, though even now wires are frequently found which poachers have been obliged to abandon. They are loth to give up a place that has a kind of poaching reputation. As if in revenge for the interference, they have so ransacked the marsh every spring for the eggs of the waterfowl that the wild duck will not lay there, but seek spots safer from such enemies. The marsh is left to the coots and moorhens that from thence stock ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... would have astonished Quintilian, but the experiment at least had a certain influence in improving the young man's Latinity. Another favourite dissipation was that of translating English masterpieces into the ancient tongue; there still survives among Page's early papers a copy of Bryant's "Waterfowl" done into Latin iambics. As to Page's personal appearance, a designation coined by a fellow student who afterward became a famous editor gives the suggestion of a portrait. He called him one of the "seven slabs" of the college. And, as always, the adjectives ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... borders of the small lake Kallolo had discovered a large quantity of wild rice, on which numberless waterfowl fed. We collected an ample supply of the seed, and found it very useful in lieu of other farinaceous food. After it had been well stewed, it assisted to fricassee macaws, parrots, and monkeys, which formed our staple ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... of Huleh is full of life. Flocks of waterfowl and solemn companies of storks circle over the swamps. The wet meadows are covered with herds of black buffaloes, wallowing in the ditches, or staring at us sullenly under their drooping horns. Little bunches of ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... tell him everything That happens in the trees, Cricket in the gander-grass Sings of all he sees; Rimes from bats and butterflies, Crabs and waterfowl; But the best of all he gets ...
— The Peter Patter Book of Nursery Rhymes • Leroy F. Jackson
... teach him all the arts of war and combat practised throughout the islands, until he had attained great proficiency in them. He also taught him the arts of running and jumping, so that he could jump either up or down a high pali, or run, like a waterfowl on the surface of the water. After this, one day Kalelealuaka went over to Wailua, where he witnessed the games of the chiefs. The youth spoke contemptuously of their performances as mere child's play; and when his remark was reported to the King he challenged the young man to meet him in a ...
— Hawaiian Folk Tales - A Collection of Native Legends • Various
... laughed very gently. Then the two stood silent, looking out over the dim valley, hand in hand. The scent of the gardens was about them. Moving lights showed through the many windows of the great house. The waterfowl called sleepily. The churring of the night-hawks was continuous, soothing as the hum of a spinning-wheel. Somewhere, away in the Warren, a fox barked. In the eastern sky, the young moon began to climb above the ragged edge of the firs. When ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... hollows of this tree contained the sleek and sleepy opossum, waiting to be dragged forth to the light of day and despatched by a blow on the head. It was to the honey-laden blossoms of this tree that the noisy cockatoos and parrots used to flock. Let the kangaroo be wary and waterfowl shy, but whilst he had his beloved gum-tree, little cared the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... Obsidian Cliff is Beaver Lake, the home of numerous beavers and a great resort for waterfowl during a part of the year. After passing Obsidian Cliff, hot springs become more numerous until we reach Norris Geyser Basin. In this locality the odor of sulphur is strong and unpleasant. A little farther on a loud roar startles us, and a few moments later we see the ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... the anchor rope a moment and give it an easy pull. The tugging strain was suddenly gone and the Venture veered away like a frightened waterfowl. ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... abundantly with waterfowl and other game of all kinds. Every vetturino who is returning to Rome, on passing by, buys a quantity, for a mere trifle, from the peasantry, who employ themselves much a la chasse, and he is certain to sell ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... dark outlines of the Green Mountains, that rose high in the western heavens, casting, by their huge shadows, an impenetrable pall of darkness over the intervening space beneath, from which not a sound rose to the ear, save an occasional short croak of some waterfowl, or the low, sullen dash of ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... almost ringing in your ear? Ah! this is the glory of true poetry, that it clothes the commonest things with a new interest, and forever after they become objects of love, at least of meditation. Who that has read the same author's 'Lines to a Waterfowl,' does not gaze with other than a sportsman's pleasure upon even a wild duck, if it flies past him after sunset. But there goes a flock of pigeons, and here over our heads; one! two! three! more ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... laurel, the Osage orange, and the wild China-tree, laced together by a trellis of grape vines. A lake in the centre of this luxurious vegetation, placid as sleep itself, only stirred by the webbed feet of waterfowl, or the wings of dipping swallows, with above and below a brawling rivulet, here and there showing cascades like the tails of white horses, or the skirts of ballroom belles floating through ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... and Nelly wandered on; all fear of pursuit soon left them. Ducks, geese, and other waterfowl, came in myriads with the spring. Roy had brought with him his gun (the one he was wont to use in hunting), and bow and quiver. They fed on the fat of the land. Summer advanced, and game became less plentiful; still, there was more than sufficient to supply them with abundance of ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... doubt appear very enticing to the lovers of such things, to hear of the gorgeous colors and prodigious size of butterflies, moths and beetles; the varieties of reptiles, the flying foxes, the gigantic crocodiles; the countless species of waterfowl, et hoc genus omne; but one very serious fact is apt to escape the observation of the general reader, that wherever insect and reptile life is most abundant, so sure is that locality ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... were neither mallards, nor porchards, nor any known form of British duck; their colouring, too, seemed strangely brilliant. Then they remembered the neighbouring Zoo, with its ornamental ponds covered with rare imported and exotic waterfowl, and they realised what they had done. It is quite possible that they had killed some unique specimens, imported at fabulous cost from Central Africa, or from the heart of the Australian continent, some priceless ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... Jonathan, with a look of surprize. I do not at this moment recollect, Sir. Why Updike's Newtown is half way betwixt Pautuxet and Connanicut. The British admiral did not choose to risk his reputation with this fearless waterfowl, by asking him ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... finished jerking their buffalo meat and venison, Dick took the fine double-barreled shotgun which they had used but little hitherto, and went down to the lake in search of succulent waterfowl. The far shore of the lake was generally very high, but on the side of the cabin there were low places, little shallow bays, the bottoms covered with grass, which were much frequented by wild geese and wild ducks, many of which, ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... long in the open and observed the ways of animals and birds doubts that each tribe has a language of its own,—the vocabulary of cadence and inflection. A man may watch a marsh teeming with waterfowl, their contented chuckles filling his ears; then every wing will lift at once, every bird roused to sudden flight by the change of a single note so faint that it makes no impression on the ear of the watching man, yet sufficient to warn the birds as surely ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... mirror before Owen, about a mile wide; he could not determine its length, for the lake disappeared into a distant horizon, into a semblance of low shores, still as stagnant water, reflecting the golden purple of the sunset, and covered with millions of waterfowl. The multitude swimming together formed an indecisive pattern, like a vague, weedy scum collected on the surface of a marsh. Ducks, teal, widgeon, coots, and divers were recognisable, despite the distance, by their prow-like heads, their ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... waterfowl had chosen this secluded spot for their favourite dwelling-place. The osprey could be seen wheeling about in the air, now shooting down like a star upon the unfortunate fish that had approached too near the surface, and anon yielding up his prey to the tyrant Haliaetus. Such were the varied ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid
... less artistic skill in this respect than the people of the lowlands. The ornaments include feathers of parrots, cockatoos, hornbills, cassowaries, birds of paradise, bower birds and some others. One never or rarely sees feathers of sea-birds, or waterfowl, or Goura pigeons (which, I was told, are not found among the mountains), as the Mafulu people in their trading with the people of the plains take in exchange things which they cannot themselves procure, rather than feathers, which ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... destined to outdo and to outlive. Not one of the great histories, which have done honor to our literature, had appeared. Our school-books depended, so far as American authors were concerned, on extracts from the orations and speeches of Webster and Everett; on Bryant's Thanatopsis, his lines To a Waterfowl, and the Death of the Flowers, Halleck's Marco Bozzaris, Red Jacket, and Burns; on Drake's American Flag, and Percival's Coral Grove, and his Genius Sleeping and Genius Waking,—and not getting very wide awake, either. These could be depended upon. A few other ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... a boy kicks the cover off on circus morning, this Northland flings aside her winter wraps and stands forth in her glorious garb of summer. The brooklets murmur, the rivers sing, and by their banks and along the lakes waterfowl frolic, and overhead glad birds, that seem to have dropped from the sky, sing joyfully the almost endless song of summer. At the end of the long day, when the sun, as if to make up for its absence, lingers, ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... nothing but a few long-haired, grazing cattle on my voyage, that eyed me but cursorily. I passed unmolested among the waterfowl, between the never-silent rushes, beneath a sky refreshed and sweetened with storm. The boat was enormously heavy and made slow progress. When too the tide began to flow I must needs push close in to the bank and await the ebb. ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... lent an unwonted alacrity to his movements, waddling grotesquely like a hastening waterfowl. Between him and the secretary they dressed my Lord the Seneschal, and decked him out till he was fit to compare with a bird of paradise for gorgeousness of colouring if not for harmony of hues and ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... set brain and blood on fire. Now it would be well to ponder by this old canal! It looks as if it had fallen into disuse, and that is charming; an abandoned canal is a perfect symbol of—well, I do not know of what. A river flows or rushes, even an artificial lake harbours waterfowl, children sail their boats upon it; but a canal ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore |
