"Bird's nest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... such a look of hate and fear in Herr Carovius's face that Dorothea was almost frightened. His hair was as towsled as the twigs of an abandoned bird's nest; water was dripping from the corners of his mouth; his eyes were inflamed; his glasses were on the tip of ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... a schoolboy; who, being overjoy'd with finding a bird's nest shows it his companion, ...
— Much Ado About Nothing • William Shakespeare [Knight edition]
... known occasionally to lay their eggs in other birds' nests. Now let us suppose that the ancient progenitor of our European cuckoo had the habits of the American cuckoo, and that she occasionally laid an egg in another bird's nest. If the old bird profited by this occasional habit through being enabled to emigrate earlier or through any other cause; or if the young were made more vigorous by advantage being taken of the ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... round us. Still and black The great woods climbed the mountain at our back; And on their skirts, where yet the lingering day On the shorn greenness of the clearing lay, The brown old farm-house like a bird's nest hung. With home-life sounds the desert air was stirred: The bleat of sheep along the hill we heard, The bucket plashing in the cool, sweet well, The pasture-bars that clattered as they fell; Dogs barked, fowls fluttered, cattle lowed; the gate Of the barn-yard creaked beneath the merry ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 54, April, 1862 • Various
... roads, whistling as he went, and occasionally tossing his battered cap in the air. He often lingered on his way, now to cut down a particularly tempting switch from the hedge, now to hunt for a possible bird's nest. It was very nearly six o'clock when he reached the back avenue, swung himself over the gate, which was locked, and ran softly on the dewy grass in the direction of the laurel bush. Old Betty had given him most careful instructions, ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... did. This makes it evident that I have laboured under a mistaken idea! Had I not made this discovery the other day, I wouldn't be speaking like this to your very face to-day. You told me a few minutes back to take bird's nest congee; but birds' nests are, I admit, easily procured; yet all on account of my sickly constitution and of the relapses I have every year of this complaint of mine, which amounts to nothing, doctors have had to be sent for, medicines, with ginseng and cinnamon, have had to be concocted, and ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... when detected, he is tempted to lie, to conceal his fault and avoid punishment; and here again we see how one sin leads to another. The temptations to cruelty are many. Sometimes they appear in the form of a bird's nest, placed by a fond and loving mother on the high bough of a tree, to secure her ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... of the little bamboo-house, the nigger Domingo, the dog Fidele, but above all the sweet friendship of some dear little brother, who seeks red fruit for you on trees taller than steeples, or who runs barefoot over the sand, bringing you a bird's nest." ...
— The Public vs. M. Gustave Flaubert • Various
... "The bird's nest can go to Jericho, or Calcutta, or into the fire. We are ordered to leave Seat-Sandal ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... notes? Well I guess so! He'd show them what sort of a proposition they had tackled. Sneaking, underhanded scoundrels! taking advantage of a mere boy. Meet those notes? You bet he would; and then he'd go down there and boost those stocks until M. & D. looked like a last year's bird's nest. He thrust the letter in his pocket and walked buoyantly to ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... who were to examine the boys were perched up in a high pulpit so profusely trimmed with evergreen that it looked like a bird's nest; they were remarkably pleasant-looking men, and their eyes twinkled merrily under their Christmas wreaths. Father Anselmus was a little the taller of the two, and Father Ambrose was a little the broader; and that was about all the ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... face was dreadfully sad, others it was so determined a little child could see the force in it, and once he was radiant. That day the Swamp Angel was with him. I can't tell you what she was like. I never saw any one who resembled her. He stopped close here to show her a bird's nest. Then they went on to a sort of flower-room he had made, and he sang for her. By the time he left, I had gotten bold enough to come out on the trail, and I met the big Scotchman Freckles lived with. He saw me catching moths and butterflies, so he took me to the flower-room and gave me ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... Wo," "Sun Loy," and "Kum Lum," come "Witkowski," "Bukofski," "Rowminski,"—who keep Russian caviar, etc. Some day, when we feel a little tired of our ordinary food, we think of trying the caviar, or perhaps a gelatinous bird's nest, for variety. ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... Ointment, Preserves, Candied, Preserves, Jellies, &c., Pudding of Corn Meal. Pudding of whole Rice, Pudding, Apple, Pudding, Arrow Root, Pudding, Baked Beef, Pudding, Baked, Pudding, Balloon, Pudding, Beef Steak, Pudding, Bird's Nest, Pudding, Boiled Indian, Pudding, Boiling, Pudding, Bread, Pudding, Butter, Pudding, Chicken, Pudding, Coaco nut, Pudding, Custard Bread, Pudding, Custard Hasty, Pudding, Elkridge, Huckleberry, Pudding, Huckleberry, Pudding, Lemon, Pudding, New England Hasty, ...
— Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers • Elizabeth E. Lea
... elderberry tree they found the grey cat-bird's nest. He was a funny bird, always crying like a lost pussy. And his eggs ...
— Seven O'Clock Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson
... it, she will be very eager to go too, she adopts a system of manoeuvres to conceal her design. She brings down her bonnet and shawl by stealth, and before the chaise comes to the door she sends Mary out into the garden with her sister, under pretense of showing her a bird's nest which is not there, trusting to her sister's skill in diverting the child's mind, and amusing her with something else in the garden, until the chaise has gone. And if, either from hearing the sound of the wheels, or from any other cause, Mary's suspicions are awakened—and children ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... were in search of, so we directed our course to some trees which appeared in the south, in order to get a bed and a view of the adjacent locality. Having shot a leche, and made a glorious fire, we got a good cup of tea and had a comfortable night. While collecting wood that evening, I found a bird's nest consisting of live leaves sewn together with threads of the spider's web. Nothing could exceed the airiness of this pretty contrivance; the threads had been pushed through small punctures and thickened to resemble a knot. I unfortunately lost it. This was the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... Julia pointed out the bird's nest under the roof, and to a faded garland of flowers, hung upon the rough bark of the old hemlock, against which Barton had reclined, and another upon the rock just over where she had rested. In some way these ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... character as a "churchwarden gothic" building does to Canterbury Cathedral; the colours were varied. The initial was pale gold, the h pink, the o black, the u blue, and the first letter was somehow connected with a bird's nest containing the young of the pigeon, who were waited on by the ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... said she; "I have such a prize;" and she held in her hand a bird's nest, with its three little white eggs ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... this way: if Tom was going to win a scout award by finding a certain bird's nest in a certain tree, when he got to the place he would find that the tree had been chopped down. Once he was going to win the pathfinder's badge by trailing a burglar, and he trailed him seven miles through the woods and found that the burglar was his own good-for-nothing father. ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... orange-tree,—till my hands were full. It is too bad I have forgotten how many pecan-trees he had planted, and how many sheep he kept. A well-regulated memory would have held fast to such figures: mine is certain only that there were four eggs in the mocking-bird's nest. Mr. G. was a man of enterprise, at any rate; a match for any Yankee, although he had come to Florida not from Yankeeland, but from northern Georgia. I hope all his crops are still thriving, especially his white roses ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... until it touched her hair. For her hair was unbound and loose; it was dark, and finer than the finest spun silk, and fell all over her shoulders and down her back to the stone she sat on. He let his fingers stray in and out among it; and it felt like the soft, warm down that lines a little bird's nest to his skin. Finally, he touched her neck and allowed his hand to rest there, it was such a soft, warm neck. At length, but reluctantly, for his little rebellious heart was not yet wholly subdued, he raised his eyes to her face. Oh, how beautiful ...
— A Little Boy Lost • Hudson, W. H.
... father, "might as well climb back and finish your dinner. You can't find a bird's nest after dark—and you can see that it's almost dark now. You wait till morning and I'll show you ...
— Mary Jane: Her Book • Clara Ingram Judson
... reader who cares for a clue to the farther significances of the title, may find one to lead him safely through richer labyrinths of thought than mine: and ladder enough also,—if there be either any heavenly, or pure earthly, Love, in his own breast,—to guide him to a pretty bird's nest; both in the Romances of the Rose and of Juliet, and in the Sermons of St. ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... Now and again he would come across a bird's nest in the woods; once he talked about a mouse-hole he had found, and made a lot of that; another time it was a great fish as big as a man, he had seen in the river. But it was all evidently his own invention; he was somewhat inclined to make black into white, was Sivert, but a good sort ...
— Growth of the Soil • Knut Hamsun
... half so long as I." And then, O then, I know what soft blue clouds, What wavering rings, fragrant ascending wreaths Melted his prison walls to a summer haze, Through which I think he saw the little port Of Budleigh Salterton, like a sea-bird's nest Among the Devon cliffs—the tarry quay Whence in his boyhood he had flung a line For bass or whiting-pollock. I remembered (Had he not told me, on some summer night, His arm about my neck, kissing my hair) He used to sit there, gazing out to sea; Fish, and for what? Not all for ...
— Collected Poems - Volume Two (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... snow averaged five and one sixth inches deep. He analyzes a pensile nest which he found in the woods—doubtless one of the vireo's—and fills ten pages with a minute description of the different materials which it contained. Then he analyzes a yellow-bird's nest, filling two pages. That Journal shall not go hungry, even if there is nothing to give it but the dry material of a ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... find that an engine made after any old and well-known pattern is now made with much more consciousness of design than we can suppose a bird's nest to be built with. The greater number of the parts of any such engine, are made by the gross as it were like screw and nuts, which are turned out by machinery and in respect of which the labour of design is now no more felt than is the design of him who first invented ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... dreaming of many things; but mostly of the keeper's daughter, asleep in the churchyard of Feldkirche. Suddenly, on turning the corner of an ancient, gloomy church, his attention was arrested by a little chapel in an angle of the wall. It was only a small thatched roof, like a bird's nest; under which stood a rude wooden image of the Saviour on the Cross. A real crown of thorns was upon his head, which was bowed downward, as if in the death agony; and drops of blood were falling down his cheeks, and from his hands and feet and side. The face was haggard and ghastly beyond ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... admiration To view the structure of this little work— A bird's nest. Mark it well, within, without; No tool had he that wrought; no knife to cut, No nail to fix, no bodkin to insert, No glue to join; his little beak was all; And yet how neatly finished!—What nice hand, And every implement and means of art, ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... continually; and his altered demeanour attracted the attention and excited the curiosity of the whole court, and even of the queen, who could only learn from the palmer's attendant that his melancholy seemed to originate in the discovery of something in a bird's nest. With this strange report she was compelled to be satisfied, till Sir Isumbras, with the hope of dissipating his grief, began to resume his usual exercises in the field, but no sooner had he quitted his chamber than the "squires" by her command broke open the door, discovered the treasure, and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... than a tinder-box and a piece of rag, immediately make a fire. They sought beneath the tufts of grass and bushes for a few dry twigs, and these they rubbed into fibres; then surrounding them with coarser twigs, something like a bird's nest, they put the rag with its spark of fire in the middle and covered it up. The nest being then held up to the wind, by degrees it smoked more and more, and at last burst out in flames. I do not think any other method ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... found some fledged bird's nest may know At first sight if the bird be flown; But what fair dell or grove he sings in now, That ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... a great, masterful man like this take charge of one, and Ma sighed gratefully as she lay back. "It does kinda feel like a bird's nest," she declared. "And you kinda look like a robin, too; you're allus ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... mare roaming in a meadow with a foal at its side, a bird's nest full of young ones, squeaking, with their open mouths and enormous heads, made her quiver with ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... untied her black alpaca apron, pinned a hat as nondescript as a bird's nest at an unrakish angle, and slid into a ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst
... with a distinct sinkage, well laid over with office imperturbability, that she showed Mrs. Blair the note, saw her stab into her greenish-black bird's nest of a hat and depart alone. Then the office boy; the publicity man, whistling; a clerk or two, and finally a sixteen-year-old girl who ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... too, are the birds and animals and insects, and the more you know of them the more you begin to like them and to take an interest in them; and once you take an interest in them you do not want to hurt them in any way. You would not rob a bird's nest; you would not bully an animal; you would not kill an insect—once you have realized what its life and habits are. In this way, therefore, you fulfill the Guide Law of ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... desertion of Herod and Pinarius; Antony's generous, trusting heart torn by base treachery, his soul darkened; the reconstruction of the canal, the last hope—Gorgias brought the news—the same as destroyed. Just then little Alexander came to show me his bird's nest. Everything else in the garden seemed to him worthless by comparison. This awakened new thoughts, and now here is the little house which the children have built with their own hands. All these things forced me by some mysterious power to look back along the course of my ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... exception of the staircase, and his lodger's private apartment, Poll Sweedlepipe's house was one great bird's nest. Gamecocks resided in the kitchen; pheasants wasted the brightness of their golden plumage on the garret; bantams roosted in the cellar; owls had possession of the bedroom; and specimens of all the smaller fry of birds chirrupped ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... II may be used. The poems by Stevenson are ideal for these grades, and those by Field, Sherman, and Christina Rossetti are good. In addition the teacher might select such poems as "The Brown Thrush," and "Who Stole the Bird's Nest." ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... years by a semi-barbarian despot, now breathed again, and hailed Sargon as its deliverer, while he on his part was actively engaged in organising his conquest. The voluntary submission of Upiri, King of Dilmun, who lived isolated in the open sea, "as though in a bird's nest," secured to Sargon possession of the watercourses which flowed beyond the Chaldaean lake into the Persian Gulf: no sooner had he obtained it than he quitted the neighbourhood of Dur-Yakin, crossed the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... dress and a recommendation in its own way. Tolstyakov, a friend of mine, is always obliged to take off his pudding basin when he goes into any public place where other people wear their hats or caps. People think he does it from slavish politeness, but it's simply because he is ashamed of his bird's nest; he is such a boastful fellow! Look, Nastasya, here are two specimens of headgear: this Palmerston"—he took from the corner Raskolnikov's old, battered hat, which for some unknown reason, he called a Palmerston—"or this ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... yer mount, er yer won't hev no confidence in him, an' will lose. I want ter say ter yer right now that this hoss what looks like ther last rose o' summer, ther last run o' shad, an' ther breakin' up o' a hard winter in a last year's bird's nest, is all right, an' he can't lose this race. Ride him true, an' don't give him ther gad none. All yer got ter do is ter encourage him by a word now an' then, an' pilot him ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... little village of Newbury, in New England? I dare say you never did; for it was just one of those out of the way places where nobody ever came unless they came on purpose: a green little hollow, wedged like a bird's nest between half a dozen high hills, that kept off the wind and kept out foreigners; so that the little place was as straitly sui generis as if there were not another in the world. The inhabitants were all of that respectable ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... traveled he hunted as he had hunted with his ape people in the past, as Kala had taught him to hunt, turning over rotted logs to find some toothsome vermin, running high into the trees to rob a bird's nest, or pouncing upon a tiny rodent with the quickness of a cat. There were other things that he ate, too, but the less detailed the account of an ape's diet, the better—and Tarzan was again an ape, the same fierce, brutal anthropoid that Kala had taught him to ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and softest manner. Even in the same region there is great diversity in the style, neatness, and finish of the nests, as well as in the materials used. Skeins of silk and hanks of thread have frequently been found in the Baltimore Bird's nest, so woven up and entangled that they could not be withdrawn. As such materials could not be obtained before the introduction of Europeans, it is evident that this bird, with the sagacity of a good architect, knows how to select the strongest and best materials for his work. Many other ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... makes its home in barns and houses. Its back and sides are of a slate color, but the under part of its body, and its legs and feet, are white. It is sometimes called the white-footed mouse, or wood-mouse. It builds a round nest in trees, that looks like a bird's nest, and it lives upon grain, ...
— Friends in Feathers and Fur, and Other Neighbors - For Young Folks • James Johonnot
... empty now!" he said. "Not for nothing did I spend part of the night in the Dicky-bird's nest! By the way, did you ever hear that touching story about little Sally walking up and laying an egg?—I see you have. What do you think ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... cried the little boy, who was trying in vain to scramble up one of the posts of the piazza, in order to reach a humming-bird's nest, which hung in the tendrils of a creeper overhead, and which a light puff of wind now set swinging, so as to attract the child's eye. What child ever saw a humming-bird thus rocking—its bill sticking out like a long needle on one side, and its tail at the other, ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... here also," Mr. Temple continued, "the testimony of Tom Slade himself that Hervey Willetts climbed a tree and in a daring manner saved a bird and its nest from the ruthless assault of an eagle. That bird's nest, with its little occupant, hangs now in the elm tree at the corner of ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... detected a boy (apparently about twelve years of age) climbing one of the willow trees in our old Schmittheimer place. I crept up on him unawares and speedily became satisfied that he was after the eggs in a bird's nest that nestled cozily in a crotch of the limbs. I shouted lustily at the young scapegrace, and his confusion convinced me that my suspicions were correct. I kept him in his uncomfortable position in the tree until I had lectured him severely for the cruelty he contemplated ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... officers, had for a long period saved the government the burden of caring for an additional income of 100,000 pounds a year. And the same little word, if published in its connection, would render Bessemer's perforation device of far less value than a last year's bird's nest. He felt proud of the young woman's ingenuity, and promptly suggested the improvement at the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... the fall of the bird's nest which she had noticed on her trip to get Arethusa, and Miss Letitia agreed with her sister that it was a blessing that the wind had blown it down before it rained, else the gutter would surely have flooded again. They discussed ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... not get a bird's nest, for it is cru-el," said Sam. "Come with me and try to earn the prize, come, ...
— Little Stories for Little Children • Anonymous
... was already back at the glass, working with feverish haste, made no reply. The bell rang again, and a third time, Rosa finally answering it in a coiffure that looked like a hastily constructed bird's nest. ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... July 1792, I was attending some labourers on my farm, when one of them said to me, "There is a bird's nest upon one of the Coal-slack Hills; the bird is now sitting, and is exactly like a cuckoo. They say that cuckoo's never hatch their own eggs, otherwise I should have sworn it was one." He took me to the spot, it was in an open fallow ground; the bird was upon the nest, I stood and observed her some ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... A bird's nest in the middle of a meadow is as isolated as if on an island; for the most eager bird student, though he may look and long afar off, will hesitate before he harrows the soul of the owner of the fair waving sea of grass by trampling it ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... an inexperienced young rook goes without saying. An older bird would not have given a second glance to the thing. Indeed, one would have thought his own instinct might have told him that broken glass would be a mistake in a bird's nest. But its glitter drew him too strongly for resistance. I am inclined to suspect that at some time, during the growth of his family tree, there must have occurred a mesalliance, perhaps worse. Possibly a strain of magpie blood?—one knows the character of magpies, or rather their lack ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... look where he pointed, but see nothing, until at last they discovered something gray, like a mass of stones fallen from the summit. It was a little village, a hamlet of granite hanging there, fastened on like a veritable bird's nest and almost ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... him. "Stop and take me with you, and take me into your service, and you won't regret it!" "Who are you," said the prince, "and what can you do?" "My name is Long, and I can extend myself. Do you see a bird's nest in that pine yonder? I will bring you the nest down without ...
— Folk Tales Every Child Should Know • Various
... them and carried them into streaks of lesser, more fluid light. Even so, if there could have been country silence for five minutes at a time, the running river, the hills so disturbed with light beyond, might have worn some aspect of peace. But even in the high bird's nest of the apartment there was no real silence, only a pretending at silence, like the forced quiet of a child told to keep still in a corner—the two people dining together could talk in whispers, if they wanted, and still be heard, but ...
— Young People's Pride • Stephen Vincent Benet
... I love the best, A little brown house like a ground-bird's nest, Hid among grasses, and vines, and trees, Summer retreat of the ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... passed by a spot for the hundredth time, he found a bird's nest. It must have been there for long, and yet he had not seen it; and so he learned how blind he was, and he exclaimed: "Oh, if only I could see, then I might understand these things! If only I knew! If I could see but for once, how many there are, and how near! ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... bird's nest stood a small house with windows that blinked out over the Channel. It rose to a tower room in the midst, and before the front there stretched a plateau whereon stood a flagstaff and spar, from the point of which fluttered a red ensign. Behind the house opened a narrow coomb and descended ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... many details would spoil the intending-reader's pleasure. So, as Hamlet observes, "Breke, Breke my heart, for I must hold my tongue!" The Earth Girl first sees the light, such as it is, in a cavern, and is brought up on raw eggs fresh from the sea-bird's nest, uncooked herbs, and raw fish. No tea, coffee, milk, or liquors of any description, were within reach of this unhappy family of three, consisting of Pa, Ma, and the Infant Phenomenon. How they slaked ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 22, 1893 • Various
... the light, left the room that she might be perfectly quiet. And when she returned to the drawing-room, she inquired of the other children what they had been doing, and received a full account of the feast, and the bird's nest, and all ...
— Fanny, the Flower-Girl • Selina Bunbury
... down there. Her object had been to visit her brother, who had recently died. To do this she perfumed herself with water in which a dead rat had been steeped, so as to give herself a death-like smell. She then pulled up a bird's nest and descended through the hole thus made. Her brother, whom of course she found, cautioned her to eat nothing, and by taking his advice she was able to return. A similar tale is told of a New Zealand woman of rank, who was lucky enough to come back from the abode ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... was a boy he would cry at a beautiful view in Nature, at a tale of heroism, or at any sentimental ditty sung excruciatingly in the streets. Seeing a bird's nest that had been robbed of its eggs he burst into tears; but when he came upon the bleeding, broken shells in the path, the tears turned to fierce wrath and mad rage, and he snatched up a gun out of his father's room and went out to take ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... of the Ring looked like a black crack in a greenish-gray desert of rock and moss, the landing stage like a tiny bird's nest. The floor of the car moved slightly from side to side. Burke's face had gone gray, and he crouched unsteadily, one hand gripping a steel bracket on ...
— The Man Who Rocked the Earth • Arthur Train
... way. The one that spoke first is a redhead. The one who seems to be the leader is a big blonde in a real short skirt and hair piled up high in a bird's nest. Maybe that's what started Nick bird-watching. The third girl is sort of quiet-looking, with ...
— It's like this, cat • Emily Neville
... king of the fishes. Once more the young man, like the Finnish Ilmarinen in Pohjola, subdued the mighty fish, and went back triumphant. The third adventure, as in 'Nicht Nought Nothing,' was to climb a tree of extraordinary height in search of a bird's nest. Here, again, the youth succeeded, and finally conspired with the daughters to slay the old magician. Lastly the boy turned the magician into a sycamore tree, and won his daughter. The other daughter was given to the brother who had no share ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang
... sudden emotion, that gave a moment's happiness. The delight caused by the discovery of a fine argol may be compared to that of a sportsman finding the trace of his game—of a child contemplating the long sought for bird's nest—of an angler, who sees a fish quivering at the end of his line; or, if we may be allowed to liken great things to small, we would compare it to the enthusiasm of a Leverrier finding a planet at the tip of ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... the second day, some rashes recently torn up, were seen near the vessels. A plank, evidently hewn by an ax, a stick skillfully carved by some cutting instrument, a bough of hawthorn in blossom,—and lastly, a bird's nest built on a branch which the wind had broken, and full of eggs, on which the parent bird was sitting amid the gently-rolling waves,—were seen floating past on the waters. The sailors brought on board these living and inanimate witnesses of their ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... art for instance, especially as manifested in our architecture. A purely native town in Italy, Arabia, or Africa, or Mexico, has its own atmosphere; no one could mistake one for the other any more than he could mistake a beaver dam for an ant hill or a bird's nest for ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... Apple and Lady Finger Pudding Apple Slump Apple Snow Apple Tapioca Pudding Auflauf Bird's Nest Pudding Black Bread Pudding Blanc Mange Bohemian Cream Boiled Custard Bread Pudding Brown Betty Caramel Custard Cherry Pudding Chestnut Pudding Chocolate Cornstarch Pudding Chocolate Custard Corn Pudding Cornmeal Pudding Cup Custard for Six Dessert with Whipped ...
— The International Jewish Cook Book • Florence Kreisler Greenbaum
... oriole is a "hard customer," as he will generally dip his bill into every berry; often ruining a fine bunch, or a number of them, in a short time. I have therefore been compelled to wage a war upon some of the feathered tribe, although they are my especial favorites, and I cannot see a bird's nest robbed. However, there are some who do not visit the vineyard, except for the purpose of destroying our grapes, and these can not complain if we "won't stand it any longer," but take the gun, and ...
— The Cultivation of The Native Grape, and Manufacture of American Wines • George Husmann
... mind—as would that we could go back in body—to the year 1268. It is a year which makes no great stir in the history books, but it will serve us well. In those days, as in our own, Venice lay upon her lagoons, a city (as Cassiodurus long ago saw her[B]) like a sea-bird's nest afloat on the shallow waves, a city like a ship, moored to the land but only at home upon the seas, the proudest city in all the Western world. For only consider her position. Lying at the head of the Adriatic, half-way between ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power
... childhood, which represented a peasant girl clambering on to a ledge half-way up a cliff and holding back a thorny branch to look down on a baby that, clad in a little shirt, lay crowing and kicking in a huge bird's nest. She wondered what manner of woman it was that had so recklessly gone forth and found this world's wonder. "What is your mother like? Tell me, what ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... degrees of this power, is a matter of common observation. I hesitate, therefore, to say that Mr. Kearton's plover showed anything more than very keen instincts. Among our own birds there is only one, so far as I know that detects the egg of the cowbird when it is laid in the bird's nest, and that is the yellow warbler. All the other birds accept it as their own, but this warbler detects the imposition, and proceeds to get rid of the strange egg by burying it ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... of the childish world's unripe fancy. There is no evidence for any thing of that coarse, crude sort. The fictitious theological Heaven is a deposit of imagination on the azure ground of infinity, like a bird's nest on Himalaya. What, then, shall we say? Why, in the first place, that, while there are reasons enough and room enough for an undisheartened faith in the grand fact of human immortality, it is beyond our present ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... adventures by the way, except that when they reached the great pine-tree, Phonny proposed to climb up, for the purpose of examining a small bunch which he saw upon one of the branches, which he thought was a bird's nest. It was the same pine-tree that marked the place at which a road branched off into the woods, where Mary Bell had lost her way, several years before. Malleville was very unwilling to have Phonny climb up upon such a high tree, but ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... With a pleasant memory drawing him on, he climbed the tree once more. The round moon was getting low now, and the shadows she cast out across the corn were long and weird. But the downpour of her light was still mysterious in its clarity, and in its sheen the porcupine, rolled up like a bird's nest, ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... varieties, each sufficiently individualized in size and other peculiarities to be easily identified by ornithologists. Some of these birds are actually no larger in body than butterflies, and with not so large a spread of wing. A humming-bird's nest, composed of cotton interlaced with horse-hair, was shown the author at Buena Esperanza, a plantation near Guines. It was about twice the size of a lady's thimble, and contained two eggs, no larger than common peas. The nest ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... miles of Caltura, on the western coast, are inland caves, to which the Esculent Swift[1] resorts, and there builds the "edible bird's nest," so highly prized in China. Near the spot a few Chinese immigrants have established themselves, who rent the nests as a royalty from the government, and make an annual export of the produce. But the Swifts are not confined to ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... still, that will urge me to stop— (What heart can such fancies withstand?) Where Susan once saw a bird's nest on the top, And I reached her the eggs with my hand: And so long since the day I remember so well, It has stretched to a sizable tree, And the birds yearly come in its branches to dwell, As far from a giant ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... Voyages, and within was like a hay-stack scooped out. It was circular, with a dome-like roof, a seat all round fixed to the wall, and a table in the middle,—seat, wall, roof and table all covered with moss in the neatest manner possible. It was as snug as a bird's nest; I wish we had such a one at the top of our orchard, only a great deal smaller. We afterwards found that huts of the same kind were common in the pleasure-grounds of Scotland; but we never saw any that were so beautifully wrought as this. It had, however, little else to recommend it, the situation ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... asleep, and in the morning at sunrise when he awakes, an eagle pounces down and carries off his scarlet mantle, in which he had tied up his scanty store of provisions together with the gold he had received from the soudan; and how many years after he found it in a bird's nest (Supp. Nights, vol. ii. p. 260 and p. 263).—And, not to multiply examples, a similar incident occurs in the "Katha Sarit Sagara," Book ix. ch. 54, where a merchant named Samudrasura is shipwrecked and contrives to reach the land, where he perceives the corpse of a man, round the loins ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... dearly like to say that the Awakening of Appleboro began in that workroom; and in a way it did. But it really had its inception in a bird's nest John Flint had discovered and watched with great interest and pleasure. The tiny mother had learned to accept his approach, without fear; he said she knew him personally. She allowed him to approach close enough to touch her; she even took food out of his fingers. He had worked ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... days of their mother before them, when she came here to lay her eggs, like a cuckoo in another bird's nest—I wish they had been addled, I do indeed—we may expect to have the whole place turned topsy-turvy, I suppose. It is a pretty assortment, faith (as Tanty says herself); an old papist, and two young ones, fresh from a convent school—and ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... fenced in space in which the Roumanians are wont to unload their hay, with a long pole sticking up in the midst of the hay ricks to prevent the wind from carrying it away, or else the hay was piled up on the branch of a living tree like a bird's nest. ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... does my lady's garden grow? Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Hush-a-bye, baby, on the tree-top Some little mice sat in a barn to spin If all the world were apple-pie If wishes were horses I have a little sister Mother Goose WHO STOLE THE BIRD'S NEST? Lydia Maria Child RHYMES. I saw a ship a-sailing Jack and Jill went up the hill Little Bo-peep Little boy blue Little girl, little girl Little Jack Horner sat in the corner Little Johnny Pringle had a little pig Little Miss Muffet There was a little man Little Tommy Tacker ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor
... Death, the jewel of the just. Shining nowhere but in the dark, What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust, Could men outlook that mark! He that hath found some fledged bird's nest, may know, At first sight, if the bird be flown; But what fair field, or grove, he sings in now, That is to ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... dwelling indeed; but this had a pleasant parlor and drawing-room, and chambers with lattice-windows, opening close beneath the thatched roof; and the thatch itself gives an air to the place as if it were a bird's nest, or some such simple and natural habitation. The occupants are an elderly clergyman, retired from professional duty, and his sister; and having nothing else to do, and sufficient means, they employ themselves in beautifying this sweet ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... perfection. There are four vases of roses, a bowl full of chrysanthemums, and red leaves round all my pictures. The leaves are Virginia creeper. It doesn't last long, but is lovely while it lasts. Helen also brought a bird's nest which the gardener found in a hawthorn-tree on the lawn. It hangs on a branch, and she has tied it to one side of my bookshelves. On the opposite side is another nest quite different,—a great, gray hornets' nest, as big as a band-box, which came from the mountains a ...
— What Katy Did At School • Susan Coolidge
... Then came a curious little glass jar, filled with large flies. As Davy took this out of his pocket, the cork came out with a loud "pop!" and the flies flew away in all directions. Then came, one after another, a tart filled with gravel, two chicken-bones, a bird's nest with some pieces of brown soap in it, some mustard in a pill-box, and a cake of beeswax stuck full of caraway seeds. Davy remembered afterward that, as he threw these things away, they arranged themselves in a long row on the curb-stone ...
— Davy and The Goblin - What Followed Reading 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' • Charles E. Carryl
... light upon exactly the place that appealed to him. It would not have suited everybody. It was a long low house, made of three fishermen's cottages thrown into one, built so close to the edge of the cliff that it seemed like a sea-bird's nest, with windows overlooking the channel and the harbour, and a strip of stony garden behind. Inside, the accommodation was somewhat cramped, but the rooms, if small, were quaint, with an old-fashioned ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... Green, starting forward, and bending down he flung the wretched boy over on to his back so as to extricate the bird's nest. ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... which no washing will remove. But, on more than one occasion, the skull has been taken away without any ill-effects, and, one year, was placed by a profane hand in a branch of a neighbouring tree, where it remained a whole summer, during which time a bird's nest was constructed within it, and a young brood successfully reared. And yet the old superstition still survives, and the prejudice against tampering with this peculiar skull has ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... noted all she said exactly and went. And sure enough he saw the bird's nest—it was as large as a round pavilion. Then he tied his curved sword to the poles, chopped at the tree with all his strength, laid down his poles on the ground and never looked around but ran for dear life. Suddenly he heard the roaring of a thunder-storm rising ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... BIRD'S NEST. A round top at a mast-head for a look-out station. A smaller crow's nest. Chiefly used in whalers, where a constant look-out is kept for whales. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... field and his mother did light work in the house, such as assisting in spinning. Mothers of three or more children were not compelled to work, as the master felt that their children needed care. From early childhood boys and girls were given excellent training. A boy who robbed a bird's nest or a girl who frolicked in a boisterous manner was severely reprimanded. Separate bedrooms for the two sexes were maintained until they married. The girls passed thru two stages—childhood, and at sixteen they became "gals". Three years later ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration
... the bird, but we will try to find something instead," said Kallolo, giving me his blowpipe and bow to hold. He then climbed up the tree till he reached the bird's nest, from which he extracted two eggs, and brought them down safety. They were considerably larger than a duck's egg, white and granulated all over, though the bird itself did not appear to be above the size of an ordinary duck. It was, I ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... architects, but builders, they can indeed raise a large building, with copied ornaments, which, being huge and white, they hope the public may pronounce "handsome." But they cannot design a cluster of oak-leaves—no, nor a single human figure—no, nor so much as a beast, or a bird, or a bird's nest! Let them first learn to invent as much as will fill a quatre-foil, or point a pinnacle, and then it will be time enough to reason with them on the principles ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... had anything nice to send you this ever so long, but here's a little bird's nest of native silver which you could almost live in as comfortably as a tit. It will stand nicely on your table without upsetting, and is so comfortable to hold, and altogether I'm pleased to have ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin
... a numerous audience can find room within it. The "fauteuils d'orchestre," or orchestra-chairs, are the front row of benches, nearest the stage. The "parterre" is the back rows. There is a little bird's nest of a gallery at the rear of the room, where the spectators cannot stand up without striking the ceiling with their heads. At the sides of the space set apart for the musicians are two queer little private boxes, perched up against the wall like old-fashioned pulpits, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... pulling up on the brow of a slope at the bottom of which lay Lawford brook, and pointing to the top of the opposite slope; "the nest is in one of those high fir-trees at this end. And down by the brook there I know of a sedge-bird's nest. We'll go and ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... his Ku, being double in the former and single in the latter. I am as yet unable to trace these two symbols to their origin; we might suppose, from Landa's figure of the latter, that it was intended to represent a bird's nest containing eggs, but an examination of the symbol as found in the manuscript renders ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... knows every bird's nest In the fields for miles around, Where the squirrels play in the sunshine, Where the prettiest flowers are found; When he knows a pair of robins That will fly to his hands for crumbs, He hates to be penned in a school-room, And he's glad ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... nothing will happen to him, for I love him," said the child gravely. "He showed me a humming-bird's nest, the first ever I ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... favour that I was as a boy humane, but I owed this entirely to the instruction and example of my sisters. I doubt indeed whether humanity is a natural or innate quality. I was very fond of collecting eggs, but I never took more than a single egg out of a bird's nest, except on one single occasion, when I took all, not for their value, but from a sort ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... and I am convinced that every spring a large number of those which have survived the Southern campaign return to their old haunts to breed. A Connecticut farmer took me out under his porch, one April day, and showed me a phoebe bird's nest six stories high. The same bird had no doubt returned year after year; and as there was room for only one nest upon her favorite shelf, she had each season reared a new superstructure upon the old as a foundation. I have heard of a white robin—an albino—that nested several ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... gamboled in the meadow, plucking the sweet wild grasses—and often and often they clambered up the mountain side, knee deep in the heather, searching for frechans and wild honey, and sometimes they found a bird's nest—but they only peeped into it, they never touched the eggs or allowed their breath to fall upon them, for next to their little mother they loved the mountain, and next to the mountain they loved the wild ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... the train reached the lovely little village of Lee, nestling like a bird's nest amid the ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey |
