"Bird of prey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I've ever been compared to that particular bird of prey," he said. "No, that has not been my occupation—in fact I am only very rarely conscious that one effect of my occupation has been that. Of course, it must have been if one comes to think of it. It is not very important. Quite true my body has become young. ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... a marvellous ring!" he said, And pointed to the sexton's gnarled old hand Spread on the black oak-table like the claw Of some great bird of prey. "A ruby worth The ransom of a queen!" The fire leapt up! The sexton stared at him; Then stretched his hand out, with its blue-black nails, Full in the light, a grim earth-coloured hand, But ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... it be for? The leader gives notice, by a peculiar cry, of the route it is about to take. This cry is repeated by the flock, as if to say that they will follow, and keep the direction indicated. When they meet with a bird of prey whose attacks they may have to repulse, the ranks fall in so as to present a solid phalanx to ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... that he had, which prompted him, in order to satisfy his conscience, to render them every practicable injury within the compass of his ingenuity. Shebeen-house keepers and excisemen have been, time out of mind, destructive of each other; the exciseman pouncing like a beast or bird of prey upon the shebeen man and his illicit spirits; the shebeen man staving in the exciseman, like a barrel of doublings, by a knock from behind a hedge, which sometimes sent him to that world which is emphatically the world ...
— Phil Purcel, The Pig-Driver; The Geography Of An Irish Oath; The Lianhan Shee • William Carleton
... of living have extinguished these excellences in those who yesterday were children, and that these virtues exist in no aged person. And I would that Jahveh had created me an eagle or a vulture or some other hateful bird of prey that furthers a less grievous slaying and a more intelligible wasting ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... his companion closely now, and he came to the conclusion, that there were qualities in that tall, thin, somewhat effeminate personality which he had not detected during their brief meeting of the morning. Von Kerber was good-looking, with something of the dignity and a good deal of the aspect of a bird of prey. His slender frame was well-knit. His sinuous hands hinted at unexpected strength. Were Royson told that his possible employer was a master of the rapier he would have credited it. And the Baron, for his part, was rapidly changing the first-formed ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... of the bed, Dangerfield, with his flashing spectacles and snowy aspect, and a sort of pant, rose up straight, and looked into her eyes, like a white bird of prey disturbed over its carrion. ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... hook, and served to ascend into the upper room where Julie had awaked from her swoon, with her hand on my forehead. I entered as one enters a sanctuary or a sepulchre, and looked around; the wooden beds, the presses, the stools were all gone. The sound of my footsteps frightened a nocturnal bird of prey, that heavily flapped its wings, and after beating against the walls, flew out with a shrill cry through the open window into the orchard. I could scarcely distinguish the place where I had knelt during that terrible and yet ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the impression I receive; much less do images which compare man to a puny creature helpless in the claws of a bird of prey. The reader should examine himself ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... the listener's heart. The door was slightly ajar and Archie took the liberty of looking into the room. Roseleaf lay stretched out in a great chair, and Gouger leaned over him, appearing for all the world like some sinister bird of prey. Mr. Weil felt for the first time in his life that there was something uncanny in the aspect of the book reviewer. He did not think he could ever be close friends with him again. And what did Shirley mean by saying that Lawrence had "agreed" with him when he ...
— A Black Adonis • Linn Boyd Porter
... and broken constitution. So a person may have faults and failings, but a want of principle is more serious. It is a radical defect which should prevent friendship. A small thing often shows us whether a person wants principle. The single claw of a bird of prey tells us its nature. According to the familiar saying, "We don't need to eat a leg of mutton to know whether it is tainted; a mouthful is sufficient." So a single expression may tell us whether there is a want of moral principle. A word showing ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... booming of the main motor stopped. Only a quiet purring from the wings took its place. The helicopter-plane hovered almost motionless, quiet and deadly like a sinister bird of prey. It began to drop straight down through the dark. Chris Travers ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... of shade too perfect for truth of nature. Hence his countenance, swarthy and strongly marked with the Italian origin indicated by his name, had an expression of singular rigidity, to which his features, now become angular, his piercing glance, and his nose like the beak of a bird of prey, did not afford ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... to a disease without hope, which growing more envenomed from year to year, took him, while yet young, from those who loved him, and laid him in his still grave. As in the fair form of some beautiful victim, the marks of the grasping claws of the fierce bird of prey which has destroyed it, may be found; so, in the productions of which we have just spoken, the traces of the bitter sufferings which devoured his heart, are ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... her sunburnt, tanned face suggesting more than ever the beak of a bird of prey. But her eyes remained very keen, sharpened as it were by ferocity. She no doubt failed to get rich fast enough, for she continued wailing, complaining of her calling, of the increasing avarice of parents, of the demands of the authorities, of the warfare which was being declared ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... infinity of the horizon, his eyes sought nothing but that, and his ears admitted no other sound than the hum of the invisible car. His were the mighty and brutal sensations of the hunter chasing his game. He was the bird of prey whom the distraught quarry has no chance ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... pathless heights: His long-pent soul drinks in the deep delights That Nature hath in store. The sun-kissed bay Gleams thro' the grand old gnarled gum-tree boughs Like burnished brass; the strong-winged bird of prey Sweeps by, upon his lonely vengeful way — While over all, like breath of holy vows, The sweet airs blow, and the high-vaulted sky Looks down in pity this fair Summer day On all poor earth-born creatures ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... its branches, heavy with the luscious fruit, drooped upon the low roof. A grapevine grew in front, and its graceful tendrils twined in and out through the sashless windows and the broken door. A bird of prey was perched upon the house, and, as we approached, with a fearful scream it took ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... William; the dying twilight, the fading red rays on the horizon enable us to get a glimpse of a desolate country; acres of peat-bog, eminences rising from the valley between two ranges of huge mountains. A bird of prey screams amid the stillness. Here and there we see some wretched hovels; I am told that those on the heights are dens without windows, and from which the smoke escapes through a hole in the roof. Many of the old men are blind. What ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... snares to trap flies, and fall unawares upon them before they can disentangle themselves. Let us also admire the hern, who, they say, puts his head under his wing, in order to hide his bill under his feathers, thereby to stick the breast of the bird of prey that stoops at him. Let us allow the truth of all these wonderful instances of rationality; for all nature is full of such prodigies. But what must we infer from them? In good earnest, if we carefully examine the matter, we shall find that they prove ...
— The Existence of God • Francois de Salignac de La Mothe- Fenelon
... queer-looking guy; his skin was copper-colored and he had piercing black eyes and long, fuzzy black hair which fell down to his shoulders. His nose was hooked and something about his face always reminded me of a bird of prey. He was only a half-breed, but when I told him what had occurred he was all Indian and he drew a long knife and started for the Cockney, who gave only one look at the expression on Broncho's face and then started for Harlem, touching only the high spots until ...
— Side Show Studies • Francis Metcalfe
... they noticed a beautiful plover, having plumage marked very much like that of the "huachua" goose, with green wings shining in the sun like polished metal. Another curious bird also sat upon the plain, or flew around their heads. This was a bird of prey of the species of jerfalcons (Polyborus). The vaquero called it the "Huarahua." He told Leon it preyed only on carrion, and never killed its own food; that it was very harmless and tame—which was evidently true, as, shortly after, one ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... class,—the folded, torn yellow paper, ready to fall to pieces as you open it,—in short, the respectable beggar's certificate of character. With another bow (which gave his nose the aspect of the beak of a bird of prey making a pick at me) he handed the document. I found that it was dated in Milwaukee, and signed by the mayor of that city, two physicians, three clergymen, and an editor, who bore united testimony to the fact that Jacob Menzel—I think that was his name—the bearer, any way,—was a deaf mute, and, ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... a majority of all the adults of the Kingdom; and the Ministry would not dare to refuse our rights."[306] Butler then declared that Belfast was in a state of veiled rebellion; Gerrald, the ablest and best educated of the delegates, also scoffed at the old party system, and said, "party is ever a bird of prey, and the people their banquet." On 19th November a delegate from Sheffield, M. C. Brown, moved that the next British Convention should meet near the borders of England and Scotland. Thereupon Gerrald proposed that York should be chosen, despite its ecclesiastical surroundings; for (said ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... is so seductive, her face, when she raises her veil, so benign, that all follow her to the edge of a wood, where men carry them off, gagged, in sacks. And the frightened people call this purveyor of flesh, this ogress, 'La Mefrraye,' from the name of a bird of prey. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... Moloch of the air! The eagle swooping from his lair On bird-world's lesser creatures, Is spoiler less intent to slay Than this unsparing Bird of Prey, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, May 14, 1892 • Various
... doors were opened, and a man between thirty and forty came in. He was about the medium height; a dark olive skin, black curly hair, picturesque and disreputable, like a bird of prey in his blue Melton jacket and ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... birds, the majority of which may be classed as water-fowl, I will notice only a few of the most characteristic. Next to the condor, the most remarkable bird of prey is the Huarahuau, or the Aloi (Polylorus megalopterus, Cob.),[68] one of the gyr-falcon species. This bird, which is a constant inhabitant of the level heights, preys on the carcases of dead horses, mules, &c., but never ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... may be the certain safety of a wise rabbit, but soon or late is a sure death-trap to a fool. A young rabbit always thinks of it first, an old rabbit never tries it till all others fail. It means escape from a man or dog, a fox or a bird of prey, but it means sudden death if the foe is a ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... fortune, by empty greatness, and honour. Whilst they were sitting, they observed three birds, who came from a distance, and seemed to pursue one another. They soon perceived a black bird, which flew anxiously, and seemed followed by a bird of prey. He would soon have reached his prey, had he not been pursued by a larger bird; and to avoid this, he was often compelled to go from side to side: at last they came to close conflict. The pursued black bird flew into Haschem's lap; the bird ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... principle in the two crimes is the same? Is it because the millionaire swindler has, in fact, been given rights under the law that is denied to the smaller fry? Or is it because the larger bird of prey makes enough to go all around? Certain it is, however, that Labor in its contests with Capital never got a decision in its favor yet - in time to ...
— Confiscation, An Outline • William Greenwood
... left arm, and received the blow, and with his right plunged the bayonet deep into the wrinkled throat of the old woman. She grappled with him, and the struggle was dreadful; she caught his throat in one of her bony hands, and the nails pierced into it like the talons of a bird of prey— the fingers of the other she inserted into the jagged and gaping wound on his head, and forced the flesh still more asunder, exerting all her strength to force him on his back; but the bayonet was still in ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... or four soldiers, or half-a-dozen servants (whichever could best be spared), to gather up from the hill-sides the fallen game, which he had covered with branches of trees, to keep off hawk and vulture. It was triumph to point out to his aides spot after spot where the bird of prey hovered, seeking in vain for a space on which to pounce. Amidst these triumphs, Juste was almost satisfied not to be at ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... the guests happened to speak of the photograph of Hawthorne which hung in a corner of the room, Lowell said, after a glance at it, "Yes, it's good; but it hasn't his fine 'accipitral' [pertaining to the look of a bird of prey; hawklike. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Marguerite shudder: her thoughts flew back to the episodes of this night and to Chauvelin, the dark bird of prey with his mysterious death-dealing plans, his subtle intrigues which all tended towards the destruction of one man: his enemy, ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... pigeons to their fate. The snare had been so long in use, With beak and wings he struggled loose: Some feathers perish'd while it stuck; But, what was worst in point of luck, A hawk, the cruellest of foes, Perceived him clearly as he rose, Off dragging, like a runaway, A piece of string. The bird of prey Had bound him, in a moment more, Much faster than he was before, But from the clouds an eagle came, And made the hawk himself his game. By war of robbers profiting, The dove for safety plied the wing, ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... will not be believed by men of ambition, pushing resolutely for power and wealth. So Frederick Norman knew precisely what he was facing when Galloway's tall gaunt figure and face of the bird of prey appeared before him. Galloway had triumphed and was triumphing not through obedience to the Sunday sermons and the silly novels, poems, plays, and the nonsense chattered by the obscure multitudes whom the mighty few exploit, but through obedience to the conditions imposed by our social ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... teeth to the throat was a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone. The unnatural prominence of nose, the absence of chin, the fierce eyes, gave this man the appearance of a great bird of prey crimsoned in throat and breast by the blood of its quarry. The man rose to his knees, the child to his feet. The man shook his fist at the child; the child, terrified at last, ran to a tree near ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... vulgar exploiter of strangers. He wore a red felt fez from which hung a long blue silk tassel; under the narrow edge of an inner linen cap showed his temples, evidently recently shaved. His olive complexion, his black eyebrows, his hooked nose, his eyes like those of a bird of prey, his big moustaches, his chin almost divided into two parts by a mark which looked very much like a sabre-cut, would have made his face that of a brigand, had not the harshness of his features been tempered by the assumed amenity ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... panting of the horses throbbed through the still, cold air. The pale-blue shadows on the western side of the road grew longer. The sun, declining through its shallow arch, dropped behind the tree-tops. Darkness followed swiftly, as if it had been a bird of prey waiting for this sign to swoop down upon ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... fluctuations of mood and motive had somehow turned his own brain. He did not come back till the train stopped at Columbus for dinner. The old Squire showed the same appetite as at breakfast: he had the effect of falling upon his food like a bird of prey; and as soon as the meal was despatched he went back to his seat in the car, where he lapsed into his former silence and immobility, his lank jaws working with fresh activity upon the wooden toothpick he had brought away from the table. While ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... war-whoops of the Indians behind me; at others the sounds which I conjured up appeared to be uttered by Bartle or Gideon. I would stop to listen, but only the roar of some distant waterfall or the murmur of a nearer rapid struck my ear. Or now and again I heard the cry of some bird of prey, as it swooped down from its lofty eyrie towards the carcass which it had espied far ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... in purple and green tints, dotted with white towns and villages. Suddenly three light, white-sailed ships appeared in the offing, and the captain's practiced eye detected that the wings that bore them were those of a bird of prey. He knew them for African brigantines, and though he made all sail, it was impossible to run into a French port, as on, on they came, not entirely depending on the wind, but, like steamers, impelled by unseen powers within them. Alas! that ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the world to taste a blessing which we mysterious writers can seldom reach till we have got into our graves, whether it is that fame being a fruit grafted on the body, can hardly grow and much less ripen till the stock is in the earth, or whether she be a bird of prey, and is lured among the rest to pursue after the scent of a carcass, or whether she conceives her trumpet sounds best and farthest when she stands on a tomb, by the advantage of a rising ground and the echo of a ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... of breaking limbs and a shower of leaves and smaller twigs, the mighty bird of prey, extricating himself from every obstacle, tore his way into the leafy recess where his little victim waited, trembling. Every branch seemed agitated by his ruthless, irresistible advance, and the hanging ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... infested the Frankfort forests and the foresters did their best to entrap him and make him their prisoner, but for a long time he eluded them. At length his time came, and he who had lived the wild, free life of a bird of prey was in a narrow cell at the top of Eschenheimer tower, judged guilty of so many crimes that he ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang
... with a long black veil, surrounded her thin, wan face with its narrow, hooded border. A great number of deep, transverse wrinkles ploughed her brow, which resembled yellowish ivory in color and substance. Her keen and prominent nose was curved like the hooked beak of a bird of prey; her black eye was piercing and sagacious; her face was at once ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... and one lean hand, with talons more suggestive of a bird of prey than of a human hand, pointed downward. "Gevarro," he said. The word was repeated many times in the course ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... hour Of guilty pride and power Full on the circumcised Thy vengeance fell. Then the fields were heaped with dead, Then the streams with gore were red, And every bird of prey, and every beast, From wood and cavern thronged to ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... into the wrinkled throat of the old woman. She grappled with him, and the struggle was dreadful; she caught his throat in one of her bony hands, and the nails pierced into it like the talons of a bird of prey—the fingers of the other she inserted into the jagged and gaping wound on his head, and forced the flesh still more asunder, exerting all her strength to force him on his back; but the bayonet was still in her throat, and with the point descending towards the body, and Smallbones forced and ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... self-control, as he half-unconsciously put his glass to his lips with increasing frequency, his companions grew cooler and more wary. Their eyes no longer beamed good-naturedly upon their victim, but began to emit the eager, cruel gleams of some bird of prey. ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... typical match-maker who does work for fashionable novels and social satires, and who is a truly awful personage. To her alone of mortals is it given to inspire, like the Harpies, at once contempt and fear. Keen-eyed and hook-nosed, like a bird of prey, she glowers from the corner of crowded ball-rooms upon the unconscious heir, hunts him untiringly from house to house, marries him remorselessly to her eldest daughter, and then never loses sight of him till ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... continued her cries and screaming as before. On looking up in the direction in which she seemed to gaze I discovered a black spot just under the clouds, but was unable at first to determine what it was; however, it soon appeared to be a bird of prey, though at first at too great a distance to be distinguished. I have seen one of those animals continue in this agitated state, and her whole brood pinned down, as it were, to the ground for four hours together, whilst their formidable foe has ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... water. On one side an Alpine needle, as it were, of black basalt, girdled with snow. On the other a threaded waterfall. The red morning-tint that shone in the drops had a strange look,—one would say the cliff was bleeding;—perhaps she did not mean it. Below, a stretch of sand, and a solitary bird of prey, with his wings spread over some unseen object.—And on the very next page a procession wound along, after the fashion of that on the title-page of Fuller's "Holy War," in which I recognized without difficulty every boarder ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... discernible. The cock turkey struts and gobbles to his mistress in a most uncouth manner; he hath also a pert and petulant note when he attacks his adversary. When a hen turkey leads forth her young brood she keeps a watchful eye: and if a bird of prey appear, though ever so high in the air, the careful mother announces the enemy with a little inward moan, and watches him with a steady and attentive look; but if he approach, her note becomes earnest and alarming, and her ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... When he came in at night she could hear him throw down his glazed hat, which fell with a dull thud, like a shovelful of clay, on the table. The black cloak hung against the wall rustled like the wings of some huge bird of prey. She could hear his every movement, and she spent most of her time listening to him with morbid horror, while he—all unconscious—hummed his vulgar songs and tipsily staggered to his bed, under which the poor woman's sick fancy pictured ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... predicted, five hours, thirty minutes and twenty-five seconds, a.m., on the 31st of March, the comet became visible in daylight about two and a half degrees south-westward of the Morning Star. Twenty-four hours later the two wings came into view, and the next evening the Invader looked like some gigantic bird of prey swooping down from its eyrie somewhere in the heights of Space upon the trembling and terrified world. The professional prophets said, with an excellent assumption of absolute conviction, that it was nothing less awful than the Destroying ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... right hand, woman; set not a foot upon the desert sand, lest perchance a bird of prey swoop down ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... African face better express the grand vengefulness, the ready suspicion, the promptitude in the execution of a thought, the strength of the Moor, and his childish lack of reflection. His black eyes had the fixity of the eyes of a bird of prey, and they were framed, like a vulture's, by a bluish membrane devoid of lashes. His forehead, low and narrow, had something menacing. Evidently, this man was under the yoke of some single and unique thought. His sinewy arm did not ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... talking, Tuft stared out of the window. A tall man in light clothes was coming to the house—a tall man, with a clear-cut, sunburnt face, and a lean, curved nose that gave him the air of a bird of prey. By his side was a lady with sweet, delicate features, dressed in a tartan travelling costume. There was a knock at the door. Josephine went down very ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... friend the benefit of the gentle indulgence for which we all admire you." The ladies smiled, the gentlemen turned away to hide their laughter, and Betty sat there with ruffled feathers, like some small bird of prey whom a larger has robbed of ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... eye the fine small head and large eyes so far above me, as we sit beside each other at the deal table. He looked down on me like a bird of prey. His hair—gray, Martha told me, before he was thirty—was tufted out a little, like ruffled feathers, on each side. But the eyes were not those of an eagle; they were a ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... deformed cranium, powerful jaws, and enormous zygomatic arches, are covered with scars on the head and trunk, and are often tatooed. Habitual homicides have a glassy, cold, immobile, sometimes sanguinary and dejected look; often an aquiline nose, or, in other words, a hooked one like a bird of prey, always large; the jaws are large, ears long, hair woolly, abundant and rich (dark); beard rare, canine teeth, very large; the lips are thin. A large number of swindlers and forgers have an artlessness, and something clerical ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... look round, she saw the Swan sitting upon her tree. She was frightened at this, thinking that perhaps it was some bird of prey, come to devour her chicks. So she left her fishing, and at once flew up to the top of the cocoa-nut tree. The Swan looked harmless enough when she came closer, so plucking up courage, the ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... have reasserted themselves, and the harmony of lineament which was his when he was an infant, as his mother never tires of regretfully recalling, will be restored. Until that time Philip must be content to carry the suggestion of an attractive and eager young bird of prey. ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... bird of prey, All tense the muscles of her seemly flanks; She, the coy creature that the idle day Sees idly ...
— Silverpoints • John Gray
... had seen, spread on the neighboring heath, the human remains which had stained with clouted blood the scattered stones among the flowering broom. He learned also that a bark had been seen far out at sea, and that, like a bird of prey, a royal vessel had pursued, overtaken, and devoured the poor little bird that was flying with such palpitating wings. But there D'Artagnan's certainties ended. The field of supposition was thrown open. Now, what could he conjecture? The vessel had not returned. It is true that a brisk wind had ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... I remember well enough that my roundheaded father-in-law, Fairfax, had the island from the Long Parliament; and was ass enough to quit hold of it at the Restoration, when, if he had closed his clutches, and held fast, like a true bird of prey, as he should have done, he might have kept it for him and his. It had been a rare thing to have had a little kingdom—made laws of my own—had my Chamberlain with his white staff—I would have taught Jerningham, in half a day, to look as wise, ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... beneath the squall, their woolen caps pulled down over their ears; two big Normandy fishermen, bearded, their skin tanned through exposure, with the piercing black eyes of the sailor who looks over the horizon like a bird of prey. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... lay all over the Western world, the shadow of a fierce bird of prey hovering over its victim. Ever since Ferdinand expelled the Moors out of Granada, Spain had been nursing insensate dreams of universal empire. She was endeavouring to destroy the infant system of European civilisation by every means of brutality and intrigue which the activity of her arrogance ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... kingdom through a man. Hereditary princes marry the street-walkers, the kept mistresses of yesterday... Jennechka, there is the scope for your unbridled vengeance; while I will admire you from a distance... For you—you are made of this stuff—you are a bird of prey, a spoliator... Perhaps not with such a broad sweep—but you will cast them ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... saw no moving thing in the whole apartment which I could attack, but unfortunately my eyes fell upon some shining brass nails which served as ornaments round the edge of a table. To my heated imagination each nail seemed glaring directly at me, menacing me like the evil eye of a bird of prey. I rushed madly toward the table, and climbing up one of its legs, I seized a nail in my beak. To my great delight I found I could easily pull it out, which I immediately did, and threw it spitefully away. With yells of triumph I crept all around ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... eyes again and appeared to doze in a happy dream. The North swooped above them like some greedy bird of prey. ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... but that my practiced eye saw it take leave of Brother Dick's manly shoulder. Her fun-loving spirit could not resist the ludicrous appearance of Cousin Jehoiakim, perched upon the top of our pung like some immense bird of prey. Brother Dick joined in her pealing, merry laughter, and the old woods rang again. The stump of a tree grew at the road-side, near an immense snow-bank. Edgar, as though he had been on the look-out for ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... after him admiringly. "Lucky the man who has such a friend," he said aloud—"Sans peur et sans reproche! He could not betray a "—the waving of wings above him caught his eye—"he could not betray an aasvogel." His look followed the bird of prey, the servitor of carrion death, as it flew ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... vertebrae and muscles of the neck, enabling her by a mere movement to denote each varying emotion; in moments of tenderness, or pensive feeling, its curves were swan-like in grace, but when she was scornful or indignant it contracted, and made swift turns like that of a bird of prey. Finally, in the animation, yet abandon of Margaret's attitude and look, were rarely blended the fiery force of northern, and the soft ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... tumbling up from below, rather astonished at being so soon called. The other officers were also soon on deck Mr Randolph agreed that the stranger, which hung on our quarter like some ill-omened bird of prey, had an exceedingly suspicious appearance, and that we were only acting with ordinary prudence in ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... words, Catherine fixed upon her son the magnetic glance of a bird of prey upon its victim. The daughter of the Medici became magnificent; her real self shone upon her face, which, like that of a gambler over the green table, glittered with vast cupidities. Charles IX. saw no longer the mother of one man, but ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... Scout knows, every object afloat looks mountainous. A common rowboat looms up like a three master, and Zaidos, looking in the direction of the Red Cross ship, saw a couple of battleships approaching, while a huge Zeppelin like a great bird of prey floated overhead. How many submarines were playing around beneath him, he could not guess. One thing was clear. They were in a position stranger than any story, madder than any dream. Floating there, almost exhausted ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... obstructions had been effective in throwing him from the track, and that we should see him no more; but at each long reach backward the smoke was again seen, and the shrill whistle was like the scream of a bird of prey. The time could not have been so very long, for the terrible speed was rapidly devouring the distance; but with our nerves strained to the highest tension each minute seemed an hour. On several occasions the escape of the enemy from wreck was little less than miraculous. ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... running down her face. Something startled him, and he was looking up at her with his hateful, hard, bright eyes, hard and unchanging as a bird of prey. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... semi-solid mass in the rarefied air. The creature moved swiftly along, keeping pace easily with the monoplane, and for twenty miles or more it formed my horrible escort, hovering over me like a bird of prey which is waiting to pounce. Its method of progression—done so swiftly that it was not easy to follow—was to throw out a long, glutinous streamer in front of it, which in turn seemed to draw forward the rest of the writhing body. So elastic and gelatinous was ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... velvet, with his malign, Italianate face and his delicate Italianate grace; rotund Guy Tabarie, bluff, red and bald; Casin Cholet, tall and bird-like, with the figure of a stork and the features of a bird of prey; Jehan le Loup, who looked as vulpine as his nickname; these Robin Turgis eyed and catalogued with a kind of pride. It was a fearsome privilege for the Fircone to boast such patronage. On the settle, with his face to the fire, Colin de Cayeulx sprawled in a drunken sleep, forgetting and forgotten, ...
— If I Were King • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... vain for the smoke of one hut, for one human form wrapped in plaid, and listens in vain for the bark of a shepherd's dog or the bleat of a lamb. Mile after mile the only sound that indicates life is the faint cry of a bird of prey from some stormbeaten pinnacle of rock. The progress of civilisation, which has turned so many wastes into fields yellow with harvests or gay with apple blossoms, has only made Glencoe more desolate. All the science ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... observed, that the Pike is a fish that breeds but once a year, and that other fish (as namely Loaches) do breed oftner; as we are certaine Pigeons do almost every month, and yet the Hawk, a bird of prey (as the Pike is of fish) breeds but once in twelve months: and you are to note, that his time of breeding or Spawning is usually about the end of February; or somewhat later, in March, as the weather proves colder or warmer: ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... OF STAFF, silent, motionless and watchful, stands beside him with his hands resting on the table-top. He is thin, old and emaciated, clean-shaven, firm-lipped, and looks startlingly like a bird of prey. Right, stands a group of generals and ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... Indian (of Peru) was not considered honorable unless he was descended from a fountain, river or lake, or even from the sea, or from a wild animal, as a bear, lion, tiger, eagle, or the bird they call cuntur (condor), or some other bird of prey." (2) According to Lewis Morgan, the North American Indians of various tribes had for totems the wolf, bear, beaver, turtle, deer, snipe, heron, hawk, crane, loon, turkey, muskrat; pike, catfish, carp; buffalo, elk, reindeer, eagle, hare, rabbit, ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... prevailed. The letter itself was formed of some fabulous long-necked and long-tailed animal or bird, mostly a dragon as conceived by the medival artist. The head framed more or less on that of the mastiff or lion, or both; the legs of a bird of prey; the body and tail of a serpent; wings of heraldic construction to suit the form of the letter. While the body of this unspeakable beast formed the body of the letter, the tail was indefinitely extended to sweep down the margin of the text and round the base of it, so as to form a border, ...
— Illuminated Manuscripts • John W. Bradley
... the pages arranging his golden mantle around him in shining, picturesque folds,—while Theos, withdrawing slightly into the background, stood leaning against a piece of tapestry on which the dead figure of a man was depicted lying prone on the sward with a great wound in his heart, and a bird of prey hovering above him expectant of its grim repast. Kneeling on one knee close to Sah-luma, the harp- bearer put the harp in tune, and swept his fingers lightly over the strings,—then came a pause. A clear, small bell chimed sweetly on the stillness, and the King, raising ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... downwards to his shoulders. With his long beak-like nose and his single gleaming eye, which shone brightly from under a thick tuft of grizzled brow, he seemed to Alleyne to have something of the look of some fierce old bird of prey. For a moment he smiled, as his eye lit upon the banner of the five roses waving from the hamlet; but his course lay for Pampeluna, and he ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Cadzand, while he was perfecting his arrangements and building boats on the Rhine; he had propounded riddles which Maurice had spent three of the best campaigning months in idle efforts to guess, and when he at last moved, he had swept to his mark with the swiftness and precision of a bird of prey. Yet the greatest of all qualities in a military commander, that of deriving substantial fruits from victory instead of barren trophies, he had not manifested. If it had been a great stroke of art to seize reach Deventer, it was an enormous ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... But thae mass had a head—a head full of dark and wrathful thoughts, a heart full of bloodthirsty and cruel lusts. The colossal body was indeed, by its physical weight, fastened to the chair. Yet his mind never rested, but he hovered, with the talons and flashing eye of the bird of prey, over his people, ever ready to pounce upon some innocent dove, to drink her blood, and tear out her heart, that he might lay it, all palpitating, as an offering on the ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... old lady, with an eye like a hawk's, and a certain suspicious turn of the head to this side and that which reminded one of the same bird of prey, was discussing a ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... frightened bunny, now slowing up on quivering pinions, then making numerous pretended lunges in order to frighten the quarry still more, and finally ending the pursuit by a well-directed swoop that gave the bird of prey its fine dinner. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Flying Squadron • Robert Shaler
... and understood at once that this was a man of worth, and no La Jonquiere. The mouth was benevolent and the eyes large, bold, and firm, like those of a king or a bird of prey; deep thought was written on his brow, prudence and some degree of firmness in the lower part of the face; all this, however, in the half-darkness, and in ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... than antiaircraft guns began to open a bombardment from many directions. Searchlights mounted at advantageous points threw their narrow pencils of light into the skies. The people in different sections of the city caught a fleeting glance of a huge airship that floated sullenly along, like some bird of prey from out of the past—a new pterodactyl that instead of seizing its ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... rigging, and the ease and perfect seamanship with which her crew trimmed her sails to the wind. Everything about her gave the impression of the security of power in this delicately curved inanimate creature, swift and intelligent as a greyhound or some bird of prey. The privateer crew stood silent, ready in case of resistance to shatter the wretched merchantman, which, luckily for her, remained motionless, like a schoolboy caught in flagrant delict by ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... To rouse the Tartar, Russ, and Hun! Bid terror to the battle ride! Indignant honour, burning shame, Revenge, and hate, and patriotic pride! But not the quick unerring aim Of volley'd thunder winged with flame, Nor famine keener than the bird of prey, Nor death—avail the hard of heart to tame! Blow wind, and pierce the dire array, Flung, drifted by thy breath, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... hair hung loose, her shoulders were bare, her clothing was disordered, her eyes were bathed in tears, her face was flushed and drawn with the horror of despair; yet as her exceeding beauty met Raphael's intoxicated eyes, his delirium grew. He sprang towards her like a bird of prey, tore away the shawl, and tried to ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... discoveries of Audubon in Florida, we perceive a noble bird partaking of the appearance both of the Falcon and Vulture tribes, which would seem to be a connecting link between the two. His habits too, it is said, partake of his appearance, he being alternately a bird of prey, and feeding on the same food with the Vultures. This bird remains yet to be described, and will add not only a new species, but a new genus to the birds of the United States. We perceive also in Mr. Audubon's collection, a new species of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 546, May 12, 1832 • Various
... flat, cruel mouth compressed as with a keen scrutiny he marked all the characteristics of the strangers,—first of one, then deliberately of the other. A war captain (his flighty name was Watatuga, the Dragon-fly, although he looked with his high nose and eagle glance more like a bird of prey), assuming precedence of the others, pressed up beside the prophet, and the challenge of his eyes and the contempt that dilated his nostrils might have seemed more formidable of intent than the lacerating gaze of the cheera-taghe, except that to an Irishman ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... that, what with his tall, lean person, his long neck, his stooping shoulders, and his yellow face stained upon one side an indigo blue by some premature explosion of gunpowder—what with all this and a prodigious hooked beak of a nose, he exactly resembled some hungry predatory bird of prey meditating a pounce upon an unsuspecting victim. At last, finding his voice, and rapping the ferrule of his ivory-headed cane upon the floor to emphasize his declamation, he cried out: "What! What! What! Is this the way to offer a welcome to a ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... species hangs on a very slender thread. This is due to its alarmingly small range, the insignificant number of individuals now living, the openness of the species to attack, and the danger of its extinction by poison. Originally this remarkable bird,—the largest North American bird of prey,—ranged as far northward as the Columbia River, and southward for an unknown distance. Now its range is reduced to seven counties in southern California, although it is said to extend from Monterey Bay to Lower California, and ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... speaking straight ahead of her, into the air, as if, absorbed in her own bitter thoughts, she had for the moment forgotten her companion. At the girl's question she turned with a quick movement suggestive of the swoop of a bird of prey. ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... small, pale eyes twinkled with a tiger's bloodthirsty greed. Her broad, flat nose, with nostrils expanded into oval cavities, breathed the fires of hell, and resembled the beak of some evil bird of prey. The spirit of intrigue lurked behind her low, cruel brow. Long hairs had grown from her wrinkled chin, betraying the masculine character of her schemes. Any one seeing that woman's face would have said that artists had failed in ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... steeds munched the surrounding herbage in quiet felicity, and the travellers lay stretched upon a soft pile of brushwood, loading their pipes and enjoying supper by anticipation. The howling of a wolf, and the croaking of some bird of prey, formed an appropriate duet, to which the trickling of a clear rill of ice-cold water, near by, constituted a sweet accompaniment, while through the stems of the trees they could scan—as an eagle does from his eyrie high ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... great wars, they rode like heroes forth, And, worthy, won broad lands and towers and towns, So firmly won that thirty years of strife Made of their followers dukes, their leaders kings! While you! like jackal and the bird of prey, Who lurk in copses or 'mid muddy beds— Crouching and hushed, with dagger ready drawn, Hide in the noisome marsh that skirts the way, Trembling lest passing hounds snuff out your lair! Listen at eventide on ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... And lodge them under covert from the wind; For winds, when homeward they return, will drive The loaded carriers from their evening hive; Far from the cows' and goats' insulting crew, That trample down the flowers and brush the dew, The painted lizard and the bird of prey, Foes to the frugal kind, be far away— The titmouse and the pecker's hungry brood, And Procne with her bosom stained with blood: These rob the trading citizens, and bear The trembling captives through the liquid air, And for their callow young a cruel ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... Faith is the gathering up of the whole powers of my nature to fling myself into the asylum, to cast myself into God's arms, to take shelter beneath the shadow of His wings. And unless a man does that, and swiftly, he is exposed to every bird of prey in the sky, and to every beast of prey ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... stream only the man who possesseth the proper fare, whose integrity is well attested (?). Observe! Thou art like the overseer of a granary who doth not at once permit to pass him that cometh empty. Observe! Thou art among men like a bird of prey that liveth upon weak little birds. Observe! Thou art like the cook whose sole joy is to kill, whom no creature escapeth. Observe! Thou art like a shepherd who is careless about the loss of his ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... take the chair Upon any subject, any where, Just look around, and—Puck is there! When slaughter's at hand, your bird of prey Is never known to be out of the way: And wherever mischief's to be got, There's Puck instanter, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... consumed by scarcely any beast or bird of prey except the stork, and they have few dangerous enemies but man, though in the tropics other animals prey upon them. [Footnote: It is very questionable whether there is any foundation for the popular belief in the hostility of swine and of deer to the rattlesnake, ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... devotion to a dream or to a duty; self-sacrifice is the surest means of securing repose. One of the early Buddhas who preceded Sakya-Mouni obtained the nirvana in a singular way. He saw one day a falcon chasing a little bird. "I beseech thee," he said to the bird of prey, "leave this little creature in peace; I will give thee its weight from my own flesh." A small pair of scales descended from the heavens, and the transaction was carried out. The little bird settled itself ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... crowned the high banks of the lake on every side. The eye found no break anywhere. Only the pink or delicate red of a wild flower just bursting into bloom varied the solid expanse of emerald walls; and save for the canoe and a bird of prey, darting in a streak of silver for a fish, the surface of the water was ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... eyes: the pilot sinking down in his cock-pit, the arms of the observer beating the air, the burning airplane sinking. Such were to be his future landscape sketches, done in the sky. The wings of the bird of prey ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... neither be expelled nor subdued by the owner?—what mystery, that broke out now in fire and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice, now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey? ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... upward to the darkness. Like some black bird of prey the airship was already lost to sight, though it would have seemed as if her white planes might render her visible. But she had moved so swiftly that, during the short search, ...
— Tom Swift and his Photo Telephone • Victor Appleton
... vermiculated stone which we see in the buildings of that period; his hair, like the whitish lichen of old oaks, gray before its time, surrounded without grace a cruel brow, where religious intolerance showed its passionate brutality. The shape of the aquiline nose, which resembled the beak of a bird of prey, the black and crinkled lids of the yellow eyes, the prominent bones of a hollow face, the rigidity of the wrinkles, the disdain expressed in the lower lip, were all expressive of ambition, despotism, and power, the more to be feared because the narrowness of the skull betrayed ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac
... standing under the garden tree, looking over the hedge; hunched like a bird of prey, with his large pipe hanging down his long blue chin. The very hardness of his expression pleased her, after the nonsense of the new engagement and the shilly-shallying of her ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... a lengthy olive-hued countenance, black frizzled hair, and deep-set eyes; the wide, dark rings beneath them were completed by the wrinkled purple eyelids above. With a nose like the beak of some bird of prey, a pinched mouth, and cheeks worn lean with study and hollowed by ambition, he was the very type of a second-rate personage on the lookout for something to turn up, and ready to do anything if so he might get on in the world, while keeping within ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... selfishness, and summons his flock only to see him devour the morsel. Even in old age, however, the males of the varieties which are nearest the parent stock maintain their helpful motives and will struggle with infirmity to beat off a bird of prey. ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... her descent, slowing her suspensory screws and moderating her speed so as not to leave the train behind. She flew about it like an enormous beetle or a gigantic bird of prey. She headed off, to the right and left, and swept on in front, and hung behind, and proudly displayed her flag with the golden sun, to which the conductor of the train replied by ...
— Rubur the Conqueror • Jules Verne
... companions, both in shape and color—fitting close to the breast, leaving the arms bare to the elbow, and of a uniform ghastly white, as are the cerements of the grave. His visage was even darker than those of the Syrians or Arabs behind him, and his features were those of a bird of prey: the beak of the eagle, but the eye of the vulture. His cheeks were hollow; the arms, crossed on his breast, were long and fleshless. Yet in that skeleton form there was a something which conveyed the ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... dislike of all things but herself. The face set on the long, ravaged throat, once so subtly alluring, had turned hawklike and cruel. It seemed shrivelled, too, and, between the narrow linen bandages she still wore, it had the cunning malice of some bird of prey peering from ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... the poisonous talons of a bird of prey, while it buries its nails in the flesh of its victim, carries also the narcotic ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... in my dear Schwarzwald I now rest, And near me rush the healing waters out, On high a bird of prey soars o'er his nest, And in the brook are sporting tiny trout. From charcoal kilns the smoke clouds are ascending, With iris-coloured hues the sun embrace, And stately giant pines in rows unending, ...
— The Trumpeter of Saekkingen - A Song from the Upper Rhine. • Joseph Victor von Scheffel
... of middle age, very tall and well made, broad-shouldered, with lofty bearing, a forehead stern and haughty, a nose like the beak of a bird of prey, a head carried high and slightly backwards, large, wide open gray eyes which shot glances at once piercing and restless, an expressive face regularly cut, in which Gilbert found little to criticise except that the eyebrows were a little ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... whole skull, was so small as to be disagreeably suggestive of something animal. The nose, on the other hand, was abnormally large; so extravagant were its dimensions, and so peculiar its shape, it resembled the beak of some bird of prey. A characteristic of the face—and an uncomfortable one!—was that, practically, it stopped short at the mouth. The mouth, with its blubber lips, came immediately underneath the nose, and chin, to all intents and purposes, there was none. This deformity—for the absence of chin amounted ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... cormorant never does anything of the kind; it is not a bird of prey: it is web-footed, a rapid swimmer and diver, and lives upon fish, which it usually swallows as it catches them. Virgil is nearer to fact ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... rigidity. Turning to him, searching him, they saw, as it seemed to them, a new being divested of vagueness—dominant, commanding, remorseless. Sitting rigid, his thin, hairy neck stretched outward, he suggested some sinister bird of prey. Thus poised for an instant he regarded the two men whom ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... even seen the grasshopper, full of audacity, launch itself in pursuit of the Cigale, who fled in terror. So the sparrow-hawk pursues the skylark in the open sky. But the bird of prey is less ferocious than the insect; it pursues a creature smaller than itself. The locust, on the contrary, assails a colossus, far larger and far more vigorous than its enemy; yet the result is a foregone conclusion, in spite of this disproportion. With its powerful mandibles, like ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... the silent smoke of the censer, which rose like light mist in the air. How petty he appeared at that juncture, crushed, as it were, by some giant hand—not a demi-god in any sense, or a Titan, but rather an insect, pushing into some narrow cranny to hide from a bird of prey. Kranitski had seen Darvid then, for, on hearing of the misfortune, no power on earth or in hell could have stopped him from running, from flying to the house where ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... sitting down, when a sound of voices struck their ears and, through the opening in the fly of the tent, they caught sight of a person in a general's uniform, very tall, very thin, looking like a bird of prey, but presenting a fine appearance in a long black tunic. With his hand on the hilt of his sword, he was striding along the road in the ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... songster,—almost a third larger, in proportion to the size of its body, than that of Shakspeare even! Does it mean nothing? You may observe that a warbler has a much larger brain and a much finer cerebral organization throughout than a bird of prey, or any of the Picus family even. Does it signify nothing? I gaze into the eyes of the Gazelle,—eyes that will admit of no epithet or comparison,—and the old question of preexistence and transmigration ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... the toasts grew wild and were pledged less for the sake of the toasted than for that of the wine itself, wits grew more barbed and less restrained by caution; recklessness hung a moment, like a bird of prey, above us, then swooped abruptly down in the words ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... has been weeping and wailing amongst the sea gulls and wild ducks on the island. Every morning at daybreak a strange bird of prey comes and carries off ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... he entered it he heard a sound of screaming as if a little child were there. He followed the sound, and at last came to a high tree, and at the top of this a little child was sitting, for the mother had fallen asleep under the tree with the child, and a bird of prey had seen it in her arms, had flown down, snatched it away, and set it on the ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... opinion, and Professor Bianconi of Bologna, who has written much on the subject, concludes that it was most probably a bird of the vulture family. This would go far, he urges, to justify Polo's account of the Ruc as a bird of prey, though the story of it's lifting any large animal could have had no foundation, as the feet of the vulture kind are unfit for such efforts. Humboldt describes the habit of the condor of the Andes as that ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... in again. During this time he was not disturbed in any way; everybody tried to avoid him. A few days later he again appeared on the exchange, jested, laughed, made contracts to furnish corn as sharp-sighted as a bird of prey, a rare expert at anything ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky
... her cousin had the eyes of a bird of prey. So black and fierce they were, in the greyish white face under the shaggy hair. But she was not afraid. Rather she felt her own ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ugly with his purple skin and bristles for whiskers; he looks like a wild boar with the eyes of a bird of prey. But he'll make the finest chief-justice of a provincial court. Now don't be uneasy! in ten minutes he shall be singing to you Isabelle's air in the fourth act of Robert le Diable: 'At thy feet I kneel'—you promise, don't you? to ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... of Anahuac. Here he hung in the dim and desolate forest, dead by the death of a thief, while the vulture shrieked upon his head. I sat bewildered and horror-stricken, and as I sat I remembered the proud sign of Aztec royalty, a bird of prey clasping an adder in its claw. There before me was the last of the stock, and behold! a bird of prey gripped his hair in its talons, a fitting emblem indeed of the fall of Anahuac and the kings ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... is at war you have only to look at the map of Central Europe. You can hardly fail to be struck by the curious resemblance which the outline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire bears to a monstrous bird of prey hovering threateningly over Italy. The body of the bird is formed by Hungary; Bohemia is the right wing, Bosnia and Dalmatia constitute the left; the Tyrol represents the head, while the savage beak, with its open jaws, is formed by that portion of the Tyrol commonly known ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... at work within. It may be remarked in passing that he considered a moustache incompatible with effective speaking—"Why should a man hide one of the most expressive features of his face?" With regard to the still more expressive eyes, Lecky ruefully remarked that Gladstone's glance was that of a bird of prey swooping on its victim. ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... who have a love for flinging stones at the little innocents, and pretend that it is their duty, and that every wren or sparrow is likely to destroy a whole field of wheat, or to turn out a monstrous bird of prey. Leave we these vain sports and savage pastimes of youth, and turn we to the benevolent philosophy ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... all Troy should hear with sorrow; yet, on the other hand, it might imply that, as they discovered the bird by the noise of its wings, so the noise they should make would betray them to the Trojans. Pallas does not send the bird sacred to herself, but the heron, because that is a bird of prey, and denoted that they ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... the sculptured slabs. The first shows a bird of prey; this is apparently a tiger. Both of them hold in their grasp ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... white. These verses refer to four mountains surrounding Qadjinà ï, which are designated by colors only to indicate their topographical positions. 3, 7, 11, 15. 'Çaltsoï aça litsòï, "yellow wing," a large bird of prey; kini, hen hawk; bitselitsòï, "yellow tail," a bird of undetermined species; a'a'i, magpie; tse, a tail; bitse, its tail. 4, 8, 12, 16. Cija, my treasure; cigèl, my desideratum, my ultimatum, the only thing I will accept. When supposed to be said by a god, as in this song, it means ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... take care these people should be well recompensed, and Courson well blamed; that he merited worse, and, but for his father, would have received it. As we were about to rise, I said it would be as well to draw up the decree at once, and M. le Duc d'Orleans approved. Noailles pounced, like a bird of prey, upon paper and ink, and commenced writing. I bent down and read as he wrote. He stopped and boggled at the annulling of the ordonnance, and the prohibition against issuing one again without authorisation by edict or decree ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... village elders. He expressed a hope that I had much enjoyed myself, but with a hint of grievance which I noticed as a thing expected. Looking round upon those eager, friendly faces, I compared them with the cold face of the missionary, who suddenly appeared to me as a great bird of prey. I hated him instinctively, for he was like a schoolmaster; and yet his words had weight, for I was young to judge, and schoolmasters, though hateful, have a knack of being in ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall |
