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Four-footed   /fɔr-fˈʊtɪd/   Listen
Four-footed

adjective
1.
Having four feet.  Synonyms: quadruped, quadrupedal.



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"Four-footed" Quotes from Famous Books



... impious vow, that when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march they did not see one man, not one woman, not one child, not one four-footed beast of any description whatever. One dead uniform silence reigned over the whole region. With the inconsiderable exceptions of the narrow vicinage of some few forts, I wish to be understood as speaking literally;—I mean to produce to you more than three witnesses, above ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... Although everything is in a more or less dilapidated condition, huts or cells still rise above each other in tiers, and the people clamber about from tier to tier, as if in emulation of their venturesome four-footed associates, who are here, we may well imagine, in as perfect a paradise as vagrom goatish nature would care for or expect. At a low estimate, I should place the present population of the old fortress at a thousand people, and about the same number of goats. In the days when ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... and increase this sort of custom. Of vast stature and extraordinary physical power, combined with a degree of animal spirits not often found in combination with such large proportions, he was at once a fit ruler over his four-footed subjects in the yard, a miscellaneous and most disorderly collection of cows, horses, pigs, and oxen, to say nothing of his own five boys, (for Jem was a widower,) each of whom, in striving to remedy, was apt to enhance the confusion, ...
— Miss Philly Firkin, The China-Woman • Mary Russell Mitford

... fragment of rock had fallen and the echoes of its journey were lost almost at once; it was the beginning of the sound that he was thinking of—the noise had not started right. He thought of the four-footed prowlers of the night and as a cause eliminated them one after another. He thought of his horse below—it was not where such a sound could start. But always slow to imagine a mystery when a reason could be assigned, Laramie, lying prone, was brought ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... the teacher came, and hearing the sound of weeping he asked the cause. As Odysseus-Fritz was unable to speak for sobbing, the enemy had the welcome chance to give an account of the tilt between the "three-leaved clover" and the four-footed Hector, and as the wit of the school was spokesman, the story lost ...
— Pixy's Holiday Journey • George Lang

... would help to hide our approach. He went down on his hands and knees, and thus crept towards the knoll, skirting it partly, because a little way round it was steeper. I followed his example, and found I was his match at crawling in four-footed fashion. When we reached the steep side, we lay ...
— Ranald Bannerman's Boyhood • George MacDonald

... that she knew nothing about him, but that she ruled over all the four-footed beasts, and some of them might know him. So she gathered them all together by blowing a whistle which she had, and questioned them, but there was not one of them which ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... his cordial greeting, and as I stroked his noble head, I wondered where the animal had come from; for though—we had visited Signor Cellini's studio every day, there had been no sign or mention of this stately, brown-eyed, four-footed companion. I seated myself, and the dog immediately lay down at my feet, every now and then looking up at me with an affectionate glance and a renewed wagging of his tail. Glancing round the well-known room, I noticed that the picture I admired so much was veiled by ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli

... Dinnie, both warmly bundled up, were after flying Satan. They never caught him until they reached the hill on the outskirts of town, where was the kennel of the kind-hearted people who were giving painless death to Satan's four-footed kind, and where they saw him stop and turn from the road. There was divine providence in Satan's flight for one little dog that Christmas morning; for Uncle Carey saw the old drunkard staggering down the road without his little companion, and a moment later, both he and Dinnie saw ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.

... crowning the tree tops in wreathed glory, was gradually paling behind the heavy belt of forest that enclosed the Sioux camp; the animals, both plumed and four-footed, that filled the woods, were seeking their accustomed rest; the squaws were busily engaged in preparing for their expected husbands their evening meal, just as a long line of grim and painted warriors issued from the shelter of the trees. A loud cry from the urchins that squatted ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various

... first psalm's end, They heard a new, strange rustling round their house; Then came the porter: "Here comes many a friend, Pushing aside your budding orchard boughs; Come, brothers, justify your holy vows. Here be God's patient, poor, four-footed things Seek healing at God's ...
— The Rainbow and the Rose • E. Nesbit

... able to settle the point easily, for whenever we happened to look round the encampment during the afternoon, from the raised door-way of a kraal where we happened to be couched, we noticed the eyes of one or other of the four-footed guardians fixed intently on us. There were about twenty vans and tents in all; and each paid one shilling a week to the ground landlord. That money, with whatever else was required for food, was obtained by hawking at this season of the year, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... them into a large saloon of wonderful structure. It was a dome of the most agreeable form, supported by a hundred pillars of marble, white as alabaster. The bases and chapiters of the pillars were adorned with four-footed beasts, and birds of various sorts, gilded. The carpet of this noble saloon consisted of one piece of cloth of gold, embroidered with bunches of roses in red and white silk; and the dome painted ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.

... making camp. They were so far up in the mountains that the night was cool, even though the season was midsummer. Unused to sleeping outdoors as yet, Roy lay awake far into the night. His nerves were jumpy. The noises of the grazing horses and of the four-footed inhabitants of the night startled him more than once from a cat-nap. His thoughts were full of Beulah Rutherford. Was she alive or dead to-night, in peril ...
— The Sheriff's Son • William MacLeod Raine

... went, scrambling over rock-skirting precipices and crumbling ledges. A dense fog settled around us, making each step hazardous, but with an instinct as true and apparently identical with that of our four-footed brothers, my guide kept the same rapid pace for hours, and then, all of a sudden, ...
— The Black Wolf Pack • Dan Beard

... notwithstanding the fact that he is the "lord of creation," is decidedly in the minority. Millions of four-footed animals roam the plains, but he may be counted by hundreds. Let us turn to him, however, in his isolated home, for the Gaucho has been described as one of the most interesting races on the face of the earth. A descendant of the old conquerors, who, leaving ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... Our Four-Footed Friends and Favourites. Stories Illustrative of Animal Sagacity. With Seven Illustrations. Post 8vo, ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston

... inscriptions; and this inscribed serpent, later, is twined round or heaped at the foot of the peculiar Scandinavian-shaped cross, the type of conversion. The serpent was sometimes altered into the partial semblance of a four-footed animal, the body and tail being lengthened and twined, and sometimes split, to give a new turn to the pattern. (Fig. 3.) All these zoomorphic patterns, as well as the human figures seen in the Book of Kells, the missal at Lambeth, ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... his very narrow field of vision, passing between him and a thing he knew was a tree trunk. A four-footed creature with a red tongue hanging from its jaws. It came toward him stiff-legged, growling low in its throat, and sniffed at his body before barking in short ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton

... posts are painted a bright red; often a little row of family tombs is there too. The watermill is a common object of the country. But birds are few and animals one sees never. Indeed in all my three weeks I saw no four-footed animals, except a dead rat, two pigs and one cat. I am excluding of course beasts of draught—horses and bullocks—which are everywhere. Not a cow, not a sheep, not a dog! but that there are cattle is proved by the proverbial excellence of Kobe steaks, ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... under the brutal burdens, the scarifying lashes, the hunger, the thirst, the blows, the curses, and the exhaustion which are the only wages with which the Flemings repay the most patient and laborious of all their four-footed victims. One day, after two years of this long and deadly agony, Patrasche was going on as usual along one of the straight, dusty, unlovely roads that lead to the city of Rubens. It was full midsummer, and ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... was their four-footed friend. He came running up to the boys, wagging his tail happily at being with them once again, but with reproach in his eyes at having been ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes

... may feel inclined to cavil with this association on Elsie's part of "immortal beings," as they would style her parents, and the recollection she cherishes of a "dead brute," because, forsooth, they hold that her four-footed favourite had no soul; but were these gentry to broach the subject before her, being a somewhat outspoken young lady from her foreign bringing up, which puts her beyond the pale of boarding-school punctiliousness, she would probably urge that she estimated poor Ivan's sagacious ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson

... Magaillans: "Game is so abundant, especially at the capital, that every year during the three winter months you see at different places, intended for despatch thither, besides great piles of every sort of wildfowl, rows of four-footed game of a gunshot or two in length: the animals being all frozen and standing on their feet. Among other species you see three sundry kinds of bears ... and great abundance of other animals, as stags and deer ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... leaves and flowers belong. The peculiar charm of a tropical forest is increased by the mystery of its impenetrable thicket. Within that dense, matted shrubbery, and behind that phalanx of trees, the imagination of the traveler sees all manner of four-footed beasts and creeping things. Tropical vegetation is of fresher verdure, more luxuriant and succulent, and adorned with larger and more shining leaves than the vegetation of the north. The leaves are not shed periodically—a character common, not only to the equator, but also to the whole southern ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... advance of the beaters was at length audible. You hear repeated thuds with their axes on the trees, and you know that they are beating up your way. All at once I heard the unmistakable tread of some heavy four-footed beast. I held my breath, fearing to betray my presence. Nearer and nearer came the heavy tread, the branches cracking as the animal broke its way through the thicket. It must be a bear of the largest size, thought I, with a glow of delight warming up my whole frame ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse

... the tired little girl and her great four-footed companion advanced toward the dimly lighted gate. They were so drowsy that they had ceased to talk. But ...
— The Royal Book of Oz • L. Frank Baum

... of inner vision of myself as a four-footed beast with a protuberance on every part of my body where I had suffering, with my own face, begging me to acknowledge it as myself. I resolutely fixed my attention on being well, and refused to even look at my old self ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... the distance accurately enough, and beneath the shock the officer was hurled to the ground. He attempted to fight off his four-footed assailant, but he was no match ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes

... instrumental in forwarding the King's views. Robin said a true word in jest the other day, that men as well as puppies were born blind, only it takes a much longer period to open our eyes, than those of our four-footed friends." ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... large room, where great leather-bound volumes filled the oak shelves to the ceiling. The care-taker turned, and, with echoing footsteps, slowly departed, followed by his faithful four-footed retainer. It is true the latter paused, swung half-around and regarded the land-owner with the look of a sulky and rebellious tenant, but, summoned by a stern "Oloffe!" from his master, the dog reluctantly pattered across the ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham

... concerning the genealogy of a famous race-horse, and, disconcerted more than he would have been at being convicted of any degree of moral turpitude, vexed and ashamed, he talked no more of Newmarket or of Doncaster, left the race-ground to those who prided themselves on the excellences of their four-footed betters, and lounged ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth

... eating, it appears, must go on all through creation. We eat ducks, turkeys, and chickens, though we don't swallow them whole, feathers and all. Our four-footed friends, less civilized, take things with more directness and simplicity, and chew each other up without ceremony, or swallow each other alive. Of these unceremonious habits ...
— Queer Little Folks • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... railing at Grumbo—any colored individual, that is, in bad odor with his dogship—and cursing him for a misbegotten wolf, Big Black Burl would be all afire in the flash of a gun-flint, and ready to pulverize the false muzzle that dared dab the fair name of his four-footed chum with a slur so foul. Sometimes, though, the white hunters, also, would curse Grumbo—denouncing him as a dog too wanting in the milk of human kindness to be allowed a place in human society, ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady

... your ears," "Look before you leap;" only Mrs. Cricky told Chirp and Chee and Chirk never to go near one of old Stingy's spider-webs, and when they saw a giant coming with a fish pole in his hand, to hop away as fast as they could. Then, too, she said there was a four-footed animal, called a cat, that caught little crickets to eat them up. After this they all chirruped together as she waved a blade of grass to keep time, then she rang a blue-bell and school was over. She put three little ...
— The Cheerful Cricket and Others • Jeannette Marks

... Klapp's "four-footed" Exercises.—Rudolf Klapp has devised a series of exercises designed to strengthen the muscles and ligaments of the spine, and to increase the mobility of the column. To take the weight of the body off the spine, and to render both ends of the column mobile, these exercises ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... away, but in him there was no more the thrill of the victor. He had killed, but in killing he had found no joy. Upon him—the four-footed beast—had fallen at last the oppression of the thing that drives men mad. He stood in the heart of a vast world, and for him that world was empty. He was an outcast. His heart crying out for comradeship, he found that all things feared him or hated ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood

... we returned to our encampment. On the way we fell in with the traces of some four-footed animal, but whether old or of recent date none of us were able to guess. This also tended to raise our hopes of obtaining some animal food on the island; so we reached home in good spirits, quite prepared for supper, and highly satisfied ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne

... strangely mixed characteristics, for it has the feet of a Giraffe, the glands of a goat, the coat of a Deer, the horns of an ox and Deer combined, the eyes of a Gazelle, the build of an Antelope, and—the speed of the wind. It is the swiftest four-footed creature native to the plains, and so far as known there is nothing but a blooded race horse that can ...
— Wild Animals at Home • Ernest Thompson Seton

... and it has a nose. Which of the three it most relies on depends upon the manner of its life. A bird lives in trees or the air, looking down at the prowling cat or up at the hawk hovering in the clear sky; so it does not keep ears, and its nose is of no account. But what four-footed thing can see like a bird? The squirrel also lives in the trees, and its ears are frivolously decorated with tufts of hair. You will not find many beasts that can afford to prostitute their ears to ornamental purposes. The only other beast that I can think of at this moment ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... Trees you see; and all express'd to the Life. As many Birds as you see, so many Kinds you see; especially if there be any scarce Ones, and remarkable upon any Account. For as for Geese, Hens, and Ducks, it is not worth While to draw them. Underneath are four-footed Creatures, or such Birds as live upon the Ground, after ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus

... senses aiming at the noise. Some strong bad eagerness kept tightly rigged The cordage of his body, till his nerves Loosed on a sudden. He yelled, "What do we here, High up among bleak winds, always afraid Of murder from the wolves? I will be man No more; the grey four-footed fellows have The good meats of the world, and the best lodging, Forest and weald." And then he wolfish howled, And hurled off towards the snarling and the baying. And now his soul wears the strength and fury Of a huge dun-pelted wolf; he's the wolves' king; And the fiends have learnt ...
— Emblems Of Love • Lascelles Abercrombie

... transit, it loses its power and becomes a flat, horned, toad-like creature, horrid-looking and harmless, of the color of the soil; and the curio dealer will give you two bits for it, to stuff. Men have their season on the mesa as much as plants and four-footed things, and one is not like to meet them out of their time. For example, at the time of rodeos, which is perhaps April, one meets free riding vaqueros who need no trails and can find cattle where to the layman no cattle exist. ...
— The Land of Little Rain • Mary Austin

... us!" Then the old King said, "Be easy, he shall be punished," and he at once flew with the Queen to the bear's cave, and called in, "Old Growler, why hast thou insulted my children? Thou shalt suffer for it we will punish thee by a bloody war." Thus war was announced to the Bear, and all four-footed animals were summoned to take part in it, oxen, asses, cows, deer, and every other animal the earth contained. And the willow-wren summoned everything which flew in the air, not only birds, large and small, but midges, and hornets, ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... would be destroyed by a deluge. He bade him bury in Sippara, the City of the Sun, the extant writings, first and last; and build a ship, and enter therein with his family and his close friends; and furnish it with meat and drink; and place on board winged fowl, and four-footed beasts of the earth; and when all was ready, set sail. Xisuthrus asked 'Whither he was to sail?' and was told, 'To the gods, with a prayer that it might fare well with mankind.' Then Xisuthrus was not disobedient to the vision, but built a ship five furlongs (3125 feet) ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson

... four! You cannot kill time, you see, by stopping clocks—with nature day Is, beyond all dispute. In two days, by obeying instead of opposing natural sun time, we had swung half round the clock, only now and then imitating the habits of our four-footed brothers that steal abroad in the ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... man is unlike the chimpanzee. Springing, I hazard, from the stegocephalia, the ancestor of the frogs, these batrachians followed a different line of evolution and acquired the upright position just as man did his from the four-footed folk. ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... free access to really good books—for the home was in Haverhill, Mass. She began to carry out a cherished wish to write for young girls in 1901, when her first book (for girls of about sixteen) was published in St. Nicholas. She has a habit of transplanting four-footed friends in her stories under their own names—as where, in the Jack-in-the-Box series, one finds Pincushion, Miss Taggart's own ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... the intelligent little creature. With a quick, sharp yelp of satisfaction, Tag set off at such a pace that Mr. Scott had hard work to keep him in sight. In fact, as soon as they turned into a thronged business street, he lost sight of his four-footed guide entirely, but the direction Tag had taken was a sufficient clue. The young man was so certain that the Emergency Hospital was the place to which the dog was leading him, that he boarded a car ...
— The Bishop's Shadow • I. T. Thurston

... repose! Into what delicate curves do form and drapery harmoniously flow! How softly distinct stands the lithe image against the purple hues of the sky! Then again comes the sweet voice, gay and carolling as a bird's,—now in snatches of song, now in playful appeals to that dull four-footed friend. She is telling him something that must make the black ears stand on end, for I just catch the words, "He is ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... himself wrestled, bending his knees, and praying to the Lord. And it was truly worthy of wonder that, alone in such a desert, he was neither cowed by the daemons who beset him, nor, while there were there so many four-footed and creeping beasts, was at all afraid of their fierceness: but, as is written, trusted in the Lord like the Mount Zion, having his reason unshaken and untost; so that the daemons rather fled, and the wild beasts, as is written, were at ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... Sepharvaim, the city of the sun, all the ancient, mediaeval, and modern records, and build a ship and embark in it with his kindred and his nearest friends. He was also to take food and drink into the ship, and pairs of all creatures winged and four-footed. ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus

... of Honorable Patches was begun without further delay. Because Phil's time was so fully occupied with his four-footed pupils, the Dean himself became the stranger's teacher, and all sorts of odd jobs about the ranch, from cleaning the pig pen to weeding the garden, were the text books. The man balked at nothing. Indeed, he seemed to find a curious, grim satisfaction in accomplishing the most menial and ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... cultivate a taste for dogs, and always keep at large one of these incorruptible guardians under your windows; you will thus gain the respect of the Minotaur, especially if you accustom your four-footed friend to take nothing substantial excepting from the hand of your porter, so that hard-hearted celibates may ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac

... figures posing in breeches and peruke, we may try to forgive certain cruel blows to the dignified assumptions, solemn words, and high heels of convention, in one who would not lie, nor dissemble kinship with the four-footed. Intense subjective preoccupations in markedly emotional natures all tend to come to the same end. The distance from Rousseau's odious erotics to the glorified ecstasies of many a poor female saint is not far. In any case, let us know the facts about human nature, and the pathological ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... new subscribers to that widely-popular sheet; being no less than any five of those fine large quarto engravings on steel, from original paintings, of Col. JOHNSON and M'lle AUGUSTA, among 'us humans,' and among our four-footed friends 'of the lower house,' Ripton, Confidence, Boston, Wagner, Monarch, Leviathan, Argyle, Black-Maria, Grey-Eagle, Shark, Hedgeford, John Bascombe, and Monmouth-Eclipse. On the second day of March a new volume commences; when we hope ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various

... in the cave, with this four-footed Chiron, from the time that he was an infant, only a few months old, until he had grown to the full height of a man. He became a very good harper, I suppose, and skilful in the use of weapons, and tolerably acquainted with herbs and other doctor's stuff, and, above all, an ...
— Tanglewood Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... street and bent over the poor animal. Meg was "just crazy," her brothers said, about animals, and she was never afraid of any four-footed creature. Now, as she leaned over the little dog, he began to lick her ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley

... who were now doing their best to convert it into a divan; and the consumption of tobacco on that day between Birmingham and Oxford must have materially benefited the revenue. The passengers were not limited to the two-legged ones, there were four-footed ones also. Sporting dogs, fancy dogs, ugly dogs, rat-killing dogs, short-haired dogs, long-haired dogs, dogs like muffs, dogs like mops, dogs of all colours and of all breeds and sizes, appeared thrusting out ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... also the case with all wild animals and birds worth shooting in this country. A footman, you see, they all mistake for their hereditary enemy, the blackfellow; but, as yet, they have not come to distinguish a man on horseback from a four-footed beast. And, this seems to show that animals ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley

... their impious vow, that when the British armies traversed, as they did, the Carnatic, for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march they did not see one man—not one woman—not one child—not one four-footed beast of any description whatever! One dead, uniform silence reigned over the ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey

... last he made another offer. "Let me have but my good horse to help me, and I will try," he urged. "Let me bring the useful Svadilfoeri with me to the task, and I will finish the work in one winter of short days, or lose my reward. Surely, you will not deny me this little help, from one four-footed friend." ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various

... command of the situation in a masterly manner—a manner that had American energy and decision as its foundation and Italian fluency as its superstructure. She questioned the virtue of no one's ancestors, cast no shadow of doubt on the legitimacy of any one's posterity, called no one by the name of any four-footed beast or crawling, venomous thing, yet she somehow brought order out of chaos. Her language (for which she would have been fined thirty days in her native land) charmed and enthralled the Venetians by its delicacy, reserve, and restraint, and they dispersed pleasantly. ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... said the Eagle, "who bow to no one and even sleep sitting erect—we, whose females are larger than the males for the better protection of our nests, are accused of eating not only our smaller brethren, but also four-footed animals which are of service to man. I deny that we do this as a tribe, except when we are pressed for food, and Heart of Nature says to us all, 'Take what ye ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues

... excitement, was a spotted coach-dog—the truck squad's mascot. Blount was within a few feet of the farther sidewalk, and was well out of danger when the long truck slewed into the avenue. But at the passing instant the mascot dog, leaping and whirling like a four-footed dervish, sprang backward. Blount felt the catapulting shock of a yielding body between his shoulders, heard a yell from the truck-driver on his high seat, and went plunging headlong to the curb. After which he felt ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde

... the party strayed off into the woods in search of game. Squirrels were the only four-footed creatures found, and enough of these were shot to make a good-sized "pot-pie;" and it may be here remarked, that no sort of flesh is better for this purpose than that ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... scarce a cloot left. I kenna how we're to carry on—We maun a' gang to the wars, I think. Westburnflat hasna the means, e'en if he had the will, to make up our loss; there's nae mends to be got out o' him, but what ye take out o' his banes. He hasna a four-footed creature but the vicious blood thing he rides on, and that's sair trash'd wi' his night wark. We are ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott

... that these habits are seen in some measure in all animals; yes, down to the mice and shrews. We see little of it because our senses are blunt and our attention untrained; but the naturalist and the hunter always know where to look for the four-footed inhabitants and by them can tell whether or not the land is possessed by such and such ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton

... was barking at something," replied Scott, with a grin. "Might have been a plain, four-footed one, and it might have been a human puss. If you don't mind, I reckon I'll tie him to the front door down ...
— Across the Mesa • Jarvis Hall

... sixty yards down the ditch, and the impetuous hounds rushed forward and overran the scent. They raved about to and fro, till at last one of the gentlemen descried the fox running down a double furrow in the middle of the field. He had got into this, and so made his way more smoothly than his four-footed pursuers could. The dogs were laid on, ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade

... I am afraid," breathed Diana. "I don't care about greatness. I don't want to be great. It all seems so unreal. I like the sunshine, and flowers, and trees, and birds, and four-footed things. I don't want to be bothered with my fellow-creatures; they are a nuisance. If they are in difficulties, and can't find a way out for themselves, they might just as well ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page

... electricity as a lighting and motive force, its creation by water power looms into immense importance. The exhibition of its achievements to be seen in Washington today is amazing to the men whose vision of light and power was first with the tallow dip and four-footed beasts, and later with kerosene and steam. Electricity, created by our water falls, lights our cities and farm homes, draws our street cars and some railroad cars—pushes most of the machinery used in manufactories, to the great satisfaction ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell

... stories for children from three to eight years, tells of the adventures of the four-footed creatures of our American woods and fields in an amusing way, which delights small two-footed ...
— The Tale of Miss Kitty Cat - Slumber-Town Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey

... level of the ground, and paved with some kind of hard concrete. Each ditch was crossed by a bridge of planks, in the middle of which was a stake or short pole, round which we passed with ease, but which would obviously baffle a four-footed animal of any size. The crops were of great variety, and wonderfully free from weeds. Most of them showed fruit of one kind or another, sometimes gourd-like globes on the top of upright stalks, sometimes clusters of a sort of nut on vines creeping along the soil, sometimes a number of ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... not existing, or {but} a boy; {and} now my age is failing. Why tell thee of Periphas, the conqueror of the two-formed Pyretus? Why of Ampyx, who fixed his cornel-wood spear, without a point, full in the face of the four-footed Oeclus? Macareus, struck down the Pelethronian[41] Erigdupus,[42] by driving a crowbar into his breast. I remember, too, that a hunting spear, hurled by the hand of Nessus, was buried in the groin of Cymelus. And do not believe that Mopsus,[43] the son of Ampycus, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso

... morning he began to ask after Farmer Weathersky. 'No! she never heard tell of him, but she ruled over all the four-footed beasts; perhaps some of them might know him.' So she played them all home with a pipe she had, and asked them all, but there wasn't one of them who knew anything ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent

... of his attributes being the reckoner of time. [188] Of the former divinity, Rawlinson relates an instructive myth. "According to one legend Thoth once wrote a wonderful book, full of wisdom and science, containing in it everything relating to the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and the four-footed beasts of the mountains. The man who knew a single page of the work could charm the heaven, the earth, the great abyss, the mountains and the seas. This marvellous composition he inclosed in a box of gold, which he placed within a box of silver; the box of silver within a box of ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley

... from amphorae of clay, glass, or metal held in elegant woven baskets placed on four-footed pedestals made of a light, supple wood interlaced in ingenious fashion. The baskets contained seven sorts of wines: date wine, palm wine, and wine of the grape, white, red, and green wines, new wine, Phoenician and Greek wines, and white Mareotis ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... in it an interesting account of some trained poodles who could do the most wonderful things. Would you like to hear it while you put your maps and puzzles together?" asked Miss Celia, glad to keep her brother interested in their four-footed ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott

... There, four-footed Fury, blast Engender'd brute, without the wit Of brute, or mouth to match the bit Of man—art satisfied at last? Who, when thunder roll'd aloof, Tow'rd the spheres of fire your ears Pricking, and the granite kicking ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... the necessary blank of her eye the ground and not the horizon, the form divine deformed towards that of the four-footed animals, this woman had been in bondage eighteen years. Necessary as it is to one's faith to believe every trouble fitted for the being who has to bear it, every physical evil not merely the result of moral evil, but antidotal thereto, no one ought ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald

... man of science, the name of Dr Duncan is associated with the discovery of footprints of four-footed animals in the New Red-Sandstone. He made this curious geological discovery in a quarry at Corncocklemuir, about fifteen miles distant from his parochial manse. In 1823, he received the degree of D.D. from ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... Malays was followed by the construction of a large bathing-place for the men, which being carefully stockaded round with stout bamboos, allowed the free flow of the river-water, without the addition of any four-footed creatures, in the shape of crocodiles, which were far too common to be pleasant, especially where lower down the river the salt water mingled with the fresh. In fact, it was dangerous there for a hand to be dragged in the water beside a boat, the hideous creatures ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn

... during their journey, for from the very first they realised what a tramp through such a desert meant—the sun came down with scorching power, and it was reflected up from the white sand and salt. At mid-day when they halted where there was no shadow but that cast by their four-footed companions, there was not a breath of air, and the poor brutes stood with hanging heads and drooping ears, panting and even sighing, while when the evening drew near the wind swept boisterously over the plain, but brought no refreshment, for not only was ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... mankind had chosen barren desert—the "white sands" of New Mexico—as a testing ground for atomic experiments. Humankind could be barred, warded out of the radiation limits; the natural desert dwellers, four-footed and winged, ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton

... trembling in the door, Bart cast the departing favor of a throat-tearing growl, and then shambled across the meadow with that smooth trot which wears down all other four-footed creatures. He was already on the far side of the meadow, and beginning the ascent of the first slope when the glint of the sun on the yellow wild flowers flashed on the eye of Kate. It had all seemed natural until that moment, the only possible thing to do, but now she felt suddenly that Joan ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand

... the train, Waife found voice. "So you too, you too desert and despise me! God's will be done!" He moved away,—spiritless, limping, hiding his face as well as he could. The porter took the dog from him, to thrust it into one of the boxes reserved for such four-footed passengers. ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... amiable readers no doubt are in the custom of visiting that famous garden in the Regent's Park, in which so many of our finned, feathered, four-footed fellow-creatures are accommodated with board and lodging, in return for which they exhibit themselves for our instruction and amusement: and there, as a man's business and private thoughts follow him everywhere, and mix themselves with all life and nature ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... her great-aunt. The Manor House was just a little gayer than the Flemish Convent—for the voices and footsteps of the few inhabitants had a freer sound, which made the few seem more populous than the many. And then there were the dogs. What a powerful factor in home life those four-footed friends were! Out-of-doors a stone barn had been turned into a kennel for five couple of foxhounds; indoors a couple of setters, sent by a friend over sea from Waterford, had insinuated themselves into the parlour, where they established ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... them with him whenever he went to walk. There was an old staghound named Maida, and a black greyhound called Hamlet, after one of Shakespeare's heroes. Then there was a beautiful setter with long ears and a silky coat. Her name was Finette. Sir Walter would often stop and talk to these four-footed friends and they seemed to understand what he said. In one of his best stories a dog plays ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... view the lacteal product of these four-footed giants, we are fully warranted in ascribing to it not only extreme richness, but also great delicacy ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... the expectation of running across such four-footed enemies that had influenced Elmer to have the boys arm themselves with clubs. He knew what a power for good a stout cudgel may prove ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas

... two later, as the organisation of his mule-train was now complete, and transports were already arriving to embark their four-footed freight, he returned to Gibraltar, meaning to go on to ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... first night at a tambo, or road-side inn, a bamboo hut of two stories, thatched with plantain leaves. As the lower part was occupied by four-footed animals, we had to climb into the upper story by means of a couple of stout bamboos with notches cut in them. We here hung up our hammocks, and screened off a part for Ellen and Maria. Next day we began to ascend the mountains by ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... laughed at by some very knowing people who scouted the idea that wild geese build their nests in trees. But later travellers have confirmed their story; the wise geese avoid foxes and other of their four-footed enemies by fixing their homes in the tall cottonwoods. In other words, they ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... because they are stealers of four-footed beasts, who are condemned to death by the laws of Spain, in the wise code of the famous King Don Alonso; which enactment became a part ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow

... contempt. One, for instance, saw his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle, another in the dog, another in the owl, another in the lizard, and so on throughout all the fish of the sea, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. In some of the shell-fish, even, gods were supposed to be present. A man would eat freely of what was regarded as the incarnation of the god of another man, but the incarnation of his own particular ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner

... from his master's detaining grasp and bounded up the bank, barking fierce and loud at every jump. This must have been what Jack was thinking of when he left Bose behind. As quickly as he could Marcy got upon his feet and shouted words of encouragement to his four-footed friend. ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon

... live Arabs were still prowling around, or taking advantage of the darkness to escape from the nooks where they had lain concealed. Presently, however, the moon topped the higher ground, and he saw one of these moving forms more distinctly, and perceived that it was a four-footed animal, not a biped. Probably they were beasts of prey stealing to the scene of carnage. It takes a good deal of the gilt off glory that the foulest beasts and birds should fake heroes for carrion. And yet, after all, this is a ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... quality distinct from the dog. This quality, four-footedness, therefore, is at least in some measure recognized as a quality that may occur in other objects. In other words, it takes on a general character, and will likely be applied in interpreting the next four-footed object which comes under the child's attention. So also when an adult first meets a strange fruit, guava, he observes perhaps that it is pear-shaped, yellow-skinned, soft-pulped, of sweet taste, and aromatic flavour. All such quality ideas as pear-shaped, ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... pleasant sport before the Middle Ages drifted by him in the valley; before the Romans marched past, and before the antique and recordless barbarians fished and hunted here and wondered who he might be, and were probably afraid of him; and before primeval man himself, just emerged from his four-footed estate, stepped out upon this plain, first sample of his race, a thousand centuries ago, and cast a glad eye up there, judging he had found a brother human being and consequently something to kill; and before the big saurians wallowed ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... also, for himself, a uniform similar to that worn by the captain. Among other presents made by Cook to this friendly chief were two dogs, as there were none at that time in the island; indeed, pigs appear to have been the only four-footed animals in the possession of the inhabitants, although they knew of the existence of dogs. Besides fowls, there were pigeons, doves, parrots, and other birds. The whole island was thoroughly cultivated, and produced bread-fruit, cocoanut trees, ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston

... allotted the monks for manual labor, and two for pious reading, besides meditation from matins till break or day. But manual labor has been exchanged in most places for sacred studies and spiritual functions. The rule commands perpetual abstinence from flesh-meat, not only of four-footed animals, but also of fowls, which at that time were only served at the tables of princes as most exquisite dainties, as Mabillon shows from the testimony of St. Gregory of Tours. This law of abstinence is restored in the reformed congregation of St. Maur, and ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... to accomplish anything of themselves. Others again worshipped fire and water, and the other elements, things without soul or sense; and men, possest of soul and reason, were not ashamed to worship the like of these. Others assigned worship to beasts, creeping and four-footed things, proving themselves more beastly than the things that they worshipped. Others made them images of vile and worthless men, and named them gods, some of whom they called males, and some females, and they themselves ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... to consider what this might be there approached from above a whistling, calling, and other sounds which Heidi immediately recognised. She ran out and found herself surrounded by her four-footed friends. They were apparently as pleased as she was to be among the heights again, for they leaped about and bleated for joy, pushing Heidi this way and that, each anxious to express his delight with some sign ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri

... stop with high-held nose, sniffing searchingly. At other times a quick, brief incursion into the branches above delayed it momentarily in its steady journey toward the east. To its sensitive nostrils came the subtle unseen spoor of many a tender four-footed creature, bringing the slaver of hunger ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... and martial contests leave to men. "The spear which Caeneus hurl'd, deep in his side "Bare as he cours'd, expos'd the blow to meet, "Pierc'd him when boasting thus, just where the man "Join'd the four-footed form. With smart he rag'd, "And to the Phyllian warrior's face his spear "Presented. Back the spear rebounded: so "Bound the hard hailstones from the roof; so leap "The paltry pebbles on the hollow drum. "Now hand to hand he rushes to engage, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid

... black bear, the latter brought from Russia,[3] and presented to the Society, by the Marquess of Hertford. There is usually a crowd of visiters about this spot, and the sagacity and antics of our four-footed friends ensure them liberal supplies of cakes and fruit, handed to them on a pole. We were much interested with their tricks, especially with the vexation betrayed by one of them, at the top of the pole, when ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various

... the bank, the party were in what might be called the main or only street of the town. The grass had been worn smooth by the feet of the villagers, among whom was not a dog, cat, horse, and, indeed, any four-footed animal. ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... coats-of-arms. David clamored for attention, begged to be shown the horse, the dogs, and all the live-stock which the ranch afforded. Priscilla was an obedient guide. Nothing was omitted from the itinerary. When David, satisfied as to the other four-footed possessions, said "Pigs" in his funny Scotch way, pigs ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... are willing to pay a very trifling sum for the luxury of sleeping under cover, and, if they like, for having their horses near them. Carts and oxen are always in the open. Sellers of grain and wood are always there with everything native travellers require. If a bedstead—a low four-footed article with rope for its bottom and mattress—be preferred to the bare ground, it can commonly be procured for three-halfpence for the night. When in the evening we were near these places we went to them, and saw the poor weary travellers setting to the preparation of their simple ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy

... and from the wax figures at Madame Tussaud's to pictures such as the "Rake's Progress" the plastic arts had a moral tendency. Even the animals of Sir Edwin Landseer were the most decorous of all four-footed creatures; Killigrew blasphemed by calling the admired paintings still-life studies of animals. But then Killigrew was from Paris and chanted the newer creed; he was always comparing London unfavourably with Paris even when he was ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... course, that a more satisfactory test of this general nature could be devised; such, for example, as having the subject name all the words he can of a given class (four-footed animals, things to eat, articles of household furniture, trees, birds, etc.). The main objection to this form of the test is that the performance would in all probability be more influenced by environment and formal instruction than is the case with ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman

... when Cissy was about four years old an event occurred in her life that seemed for a time to endanger the intimacy between the little girl and her four-footed friend, and caused Moses considerable anxiety. It was a rainy morning and she could not play under the trees as usual, so she took her little chair and climbed up to the window to see if the trees were lonesome without her. Something unusual going on in the ...
— The Children's Portion • Various

... journeyings to and fro, the Bob Lincolns met many enemies, and these enemies wrought sad havoc in their ranks. When they were flying in the air, the hawks and the eagles would swoop upon them and kill them. If they sat upon the ground, the weazels and the minks, the wildcats and other four-footed prowlers, would pounce upon them and devour them. Even the Red Men, with their feathered arrows, would shoot them. So many of them were killed that they began to fear that soon none of their family would ...
— The Magic Speech Flower - or Little Luke and His Animal Friends • Melvin Hix

... thought pursued by Elinor, during this morning stroll, we shall not attempt to follow; but that she was fully aware of the importance of the decision was evident, by the unusual absence of manner, which seemed to have struck even her four-footed friend Bruno. She had, indeed, made an important discovery lately, one which was startling, and even painful to her. She found that there are moments in life, when each individual is called upon to think and to act alone. It is a truth which most of us are ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... be good friends," he said, and he spoke so low that only the dogs heard his voice. "It's a big price, but we'll charge it to the Smithsonian, lads. I'm going to need a couple of four-footed friends of your ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... taking for a wood turned out to be a dark round hillock. 'But where am I, then?' I repeated again aloud, standing still for the third time and looking inquiringly at my spot and tan English dog, Dianka by name, certainly the most intelligent of four-footed creatures. But the most intelligent of four-footed creatures only wagged her tail, blinked her weary eyes dejectedly, and gave me no sensible advice. I felt myself disgraced in her eyes and pushed desperately ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev

... I have said, there is no reason why sculpture, even for simplest persons, should confine itself to imagery of fish, or fowl, or four-footed things. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... boys they had thirsted for one another's blood, as men each prayed that misfortune might fall on the other, and this wind-scourged winter night Ulrich had banded together his foresters to watch the dark forest, not in quest of four-footed quarry, but to keep a look-out for the prowling thieves whom he suspected of being afoot from across the land boundary. The roebuck, which usually kept in the sheltered hollows during a storm-wind, were running like driven things to-night, and there was movement and unrest ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... by kindness"—and records many thrilling exploits and heroisms of his friends. Further, he states at some length some rather attractive views on dog metaphysics, of which one need say no more than that, if you wish to believe that your four-footed pal has a soul to be saved as well as a body to be patted, here is high authority to support you. I think what one misses all through these pages is the dog's own story. Without it one never seems to get quite to grips with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 1, 1920 • Various

... that I saved the skins of all the creatures that I killed, I mean four-footed ones; and I had hung them up, stretched out with sticks, in the sun, by which means some of them were so dry and hard that they were fit for little, but others I found very useful. The first thing I made of these was a great cap for my head, with the hair on the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe

... Giant Reptiles par-excellence, for all of them were of enormous size, and some were by far the largest of all four-footed animals, exceeded in bulk only by the modern whales. In contrast to the carnivorous dinosaurs these are quadrupedal, with very small head, blunt teeth, long giraffe-like neck, elephantine body and limbs, long massive tail prolonged at the tip into a whip-lash as in the lizards. Like the elephant ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew

... parts of birds, and other animals, are hard and viscid, as the head, neck, feet, and tail; the parts about the wings, back, and breast of birds, are in general the most tender, and of the finest flavour. In four-footed animals, the upper part of the leg and shoulder, the back, breast, and long bones of the neck, are generally superior to the rest. The heart and other viscera are nutricious, but hard of digestion, and improper for weak stomachs. ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton

... makes me less then ever worthy of the name of a human being! If now that father is no more, I manage, instead of showing you plenty of filial piety, mamma, and you, sister, plenty of love, to provoke my mother to anger, and annoy my sister, why I can't compare myself to even a four-footed creature!" ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... of a badger, whose only playmate was an exceptionally clever dog, who from his earliest youth had been taught to live with different kinds of animals. "Together they went through a series of gymnastic exercises on pleasant afternoons, and their four-footed friends came from far and near to witness the performance. The essentials of the game were that the badger, roaring and shaking his head like a wild boar, should charge upon the dog, as it stood about fifteen paces off, and strike him in the side with its head; the dog, ...
— The Human Side of Animals • Royal Dixon

... Besides our four-footed companions, we took with us a two-footed one, not so much on account of the serious work in the Polar regions as for pleasant entertainment on the way. This was our canary "Fridtjof." It was one of the many presents ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen



Words linked to "Four-footed" :   quadrupedal, biped, bipedal, quadruped



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