"Kingfisher" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the boat, Burney came out with the drag-hooks. Shawn sat at the oars and they started up the stream. The white pebbles on the shore gleamed in the rosy sunlight. A kingfisher perched on a rock by the stream, tilted his head to the side in a quizzical way and watched the boat approach. The leaves from the tall sycamores and cottonwoods came tumbling down to the edge of the water as ...
— Shawn of Skarrow • James Tandy Ellis
... Snake River, Wolf Creek, White Fish River, Leech Lake, Beaver Bay, Carp River, Pigeon Falls, Elkhorn, Wolverine, Crane Hill, Rabbit Butte, Owl, Rattlesnake, Curlew, Little Crow, Mullet Lake, Clam Lake, Turtle Creek, Deerfield, Porcupine Tail, Pelican Lake, Kingfisher, Ravens' Spring, Deer Ears, Bee Hill, Fox Creek, White Rabbit—can any one mistake the animals haunting these places in earlier days? Trapper's Grove tells a story we feel, but need not rehearse. So, descriptive words ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... I can tell you what that bird was—a kingfisher, the celebrated halcyon of the ancients, about which so many tales are told. It lives on fish, which it catches in the manner you saw. It builds in holes in the banks, and is a shy, retired bird, never to be seen far from the stream where ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... in this spectacle stretched before us. An hour ago it had been so softly peaceful, with the little brook picking its clean way in the sunlight through the morass, and the kingfisher flitting among the willows, and the bees' drone laying like a spell of indolence upon the heated air. Now the swale was choked with corpses! The rivulet ran red with blood, and sluggishly spread its current around ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... veil over the low ground bordering the swamp was fast dissolving in curling wisps of vapor under the ardent rays of the sun. The forest was alive with bird song; squirrels chattered to him from the trees and the rattle of the kingfisher was in his ears, but Mokwa held a steady course northward, his little eyes fixed on ...
— Followers of the Trail • Zoe Meyer
... turned at a right angle where the nest, merely a layer of small fish-bones, was placed, and ended horizontally on the side of the bank. I once saw six young kingfishers sitting side by side on a dead branch, close together, evidently just out of the nest. And I was fortunate in seeing a kingfisher dart upon the water, hover for an instant like a hawk-moth over honeysuckle, and, having caught a small gudgeon, fly away with it in its beak. They, like the martin, always perch on leafless wood, so that the leaves ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... Canada, in most of whose rivers he had killed salmon. As an angler he was a thorough artist, as a woodsman he was an expert, and as a companion he was most agreeable. Among the Indians, who have the habit of naming every person from some personal trait, he was known as "the Kingfisher," and by that name I shall call him. The second of our party, who procured the right of fishing the Restigouche, and made up the party, I shall call Rodman, which suits him both as fisherman and in his professional character ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... however high they went, the desert still blossomed like the rose. The fields were burnished in sun and wind with the colour of kingfisher and parrot and humming-bird, the hues of a hundred flowering flowers. There are no lovelier meadows and woodlands than the English, no nobler crests or chasms than those of Snowdon and Glencoe. But Ethel Harrogate had never before seen ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... Like balm upon me from the boughs o'erhead. My coming strikes a terror on the scene. All the sweet sylvan sounds are hushed; I catch Glimpses of vanishing wings. An azure shape Quick darting down the vista of the brook, Proclaims the scared kingfisher, and a plash And turbid streak upon the streamlet's face, Betray the water-rat's swift dive and path Across the bottom to his burrow deep. The moss is plump and soft, the tawny leaves Are crisp beneath my tread, and scaly twigs Startle ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... his stout saw-log legs and settling his big shoulders into the soft cushions made by the sacks, his mind went back to the old sawmill,—Baker's Mill,—and the dam backed up alongside the East Branch. An old kingfisher used to sit on a limb over the still water and watch for minnows,—a blue and white fellow with a sharp beak. He had frightened him away many a time. And there was a hole where two big trout lived. He remembered the willows, too, and the bunch of ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... opportunity, and partly by those who have an inherent love for destroying every living object around them. Gamekeepers, too, are up in arms against him, because of his inordinate love of preying on the finny tribe. Where the Kingfisher now is seen is in the most secluded places, the author adds, where the trout streams murmur through the silent woods, but seldom trod by the foot of man; or in the wooded gullies down which the stream from the mountains far above rushes and tumbles ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... she had come to us for the express purpose of dying in her daughter's society, and from illness had lived perfectly secluded, our nursery circle knew her but little, and were certainly more affected by the death (which I witnessed) of a beautiful bird, viz., a kingfisher, which had been injured by an accident. With my sister Jane's death (though otherwise, as I have said, less sorrowful than perplexing) there was, however, connected an incident which made a most fearful impression upon myself, deepening my tendencies to thoughtfulness and abstraction ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... For Kingfisher, the West-country horse, riderless and with trailing reins, was careering alongside him like a rudderless ship ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... unvexed by storms; hence "halcyon days." The feathers of this bird are employed by the Tartars for many superstitious purposes; they consider them amulets of priceless value, enabling them to inspire women with love. In more civilized countries it was once believed, that if the body of a kingfisher were suspended by a thread, some magnetic influence would turn its breast to the north: others thought it a preserver of woollen cloths from moths. The Albatross (by some considered the kingfisher or halcyon,) ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various
... silence is suddenly broken by the harshest of chattering, and a crested kingfisher descends like a shot from some dead limb high up in the very tree under which you are sitting, and, skimming low over the surface of the water, finally disappears without his prey. Then the pole is almost jerked from your careless hands, and, if you have luck, a fine bass is floundering ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... that by the time he had completed his eighth year he was familiarly acquainted with the animals of that region, and had the most lively admiration for the more interesting specimens. He watched with delight the kingfisher, and loved to distinguish the voices of ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... should be swept into the hands of some greedy official from the court.[100] In 1686 James II. sent Sir Edmund Andros to New England as a "Commissioner" to destroy the liberty of the people. He came to Boston in the "Kingfisher, a fifty gun ship," and brought two companies of British soldiers, the first ever stationed in this town to dragoon the people into submission to an unrighteous law. Edward Randolph, the most determined enemy of the colony, greedily ...
— The Trial of Theodore Parker • Theodore Parker
... know any case of both sexes, more especially of the female, [being] more brightly coloured whilst young than when come to maturity and fit to breed? An imaginary instance would be if the female kingfisher (or male) became dull ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... Jonas. "Betsey Malcolm to thunder!" and then he whistled. "Set a dog to mind a basket of meat when his chops is a-waterin' fer it! Set a kingfisher to take keer of a fish-pond! Set a cat to raisin' your orphan chickens on the bottle! Set a spider to nuss a fly sick with dyspepsy from eatin' too much molasses! I'd ruther trust a hen-hawk with a flock of patridges than to trust Betsey Malcolm with your affairs. I ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... of the slums, reaching toward 'that broken image of the mind of God—human love,' goes pretty deeply into me. Since reading those last words of the book—'Beauty touched him. It was as if he saw, with a flash of jewelled wings, a Kingfisher fly home'—I keep going back and ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... trees growing wild, but the natives claim the crops. The dark woods resound with the lively and exultant song of the kinghunter (Halcyon striolata), as he sits perched on high among the trees. As the steamer moves on through the winding channel, a pretty little heron or bright kingfisher darts out in alarm from the edge of the bank, flies on ahead a short distance, and settles quietly down to be again frightened off in a few seconds as we approach. The magnificent fishhawk (Halietus vocifer) sits on the top of a mangrove-tree, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... A daughter of Aeolus, who, for love of her drowned husband, threw herself into the sea and was changed into the kingfisher. Hela (hel' a). The ruler of the land of death. Helicon (hel' i kon). Famous mountain of Greece. Hercules (her' ku lez). The most famous hero of Greek mythology, son of Zeus or Jupiter. Hermod (her' mod). A hero of Norse mythology, and a brother of Baldur. Hjuki ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... heavens. I had been lying there a full hour wondering vaguely of my last night's adventure, listening to the spring-time chorus of the birds, lazily and listlessly watching a bough that bent and waved its fan of foliage across my face, or the twinkle of the tireless kingfisher flashing down-stream in loops of light, when a blackbird lit on a branch hard by my left hand, and, all unconscious of an audience, began to pour forth ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... since the Indian advised it. On account of the rise of the Penobscot, the water ran up this stream quite to the pond of the same name, one or two miles. The Spencer Mountains, east of the north end of Moosehead Lake, were now in plain sight in front of us. The kingfisher flew before us, the pigeon woodpecker was seen and heard, and nuthatches and chickadees close at hand. Joe said that they called the chickadee kecunnilessu in his language. I will not vouch for the spelling of what possibly was never spelt before, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... rusty. Bill large and heavy. Middle and outer toes joined for half their length. Call-note loud and prolonged, like a policeman's rattle. Solitary birds; little inclined to rove from a chosen locality. Migratory. Belted Kingfisher. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... though she relaxed not a bit in her own dainty cleanliness, the shrinking that she felt when she first arrived home, came to her at longer and longer intervals. Once a week she went down to Uncle Billy's, where she watched the water-wheel dripping sun-jewels into the sluice, the kingfisher darting like a blue bolt upon his prey, and listening to the lullaby that the water played to the sleepy old mill—and stopping, both ways, to gossip with old Hon in her porch under the honeysuckle vines. Uncle Billy ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... a February day, we may, on very rare occasions, be fortunate enough to hear unexpected sounds, such as the rattle of a belted kingfisher, or the croak of a night heron; for these birds linger until every bit of pond or lake is sealed with ice; and when a thaw comes, a lonely bat may surprise us with a short flight through the frosty air, before it returns to its ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... heart of the woods, in the deep bosky dells, where the pungent scent of moss and pine-boughs fills the air with invigorating influences, or by the quiet rivers, flowing peacefully under bending willows and past wide osier-beds, where the kingfisher swoops down with the sun-ray and the timid moor-hen paddles to and from her nest among the reeds,—in such haunts as these, the advent of a warm and brilliant May is fraught with that tremor of delight which gives birth to beauty, and concerning which that ancient and picturesque chronicler, ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... uprear itself in a second into pyramids of force and foam. This seemed to fascinate Clark, and he peered with unwinking eyes till a sharp clatter just over his head caused him to look up. Still he did not move his body, and a kingfisher on a branch, after regarding him for an instant with bright suspicious eyes, flung himself into the air and hovered over a nearby eddy with an irregular flapping of quick, blue wings. Then, like a bullet, he dived into the flashing stream immediately ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... Little Bear went for a long walk along the river path. He was alone, and so did not know that he had gone far from home until Father Kingfisher ...
— Little Bear at Work and at Play • Frances Margaret Fox
... Given fine weather, and a good novel, nothing can he more soothing than to sit on a convenient stump, under a willow, and watch the placid kine standing in the water, while the brook murmurs on, and perhaps the kingfisher flits to and fro. Here you sit and fleet the time carelessly, till a trout rises. Then, indeed, duty demands that you shall crawl in the manner of the serpent till you come within reach of him, and cast a fly, which usually makes ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... impenetrable to the eye, diversified, however, by the various water fowl which the passing vessels disturb, in their otherwise solitary haunts, and by the number of black and grey squirrels leaping from branch to branch in the trees. The great blue kingfisher, which is common here, is so tame, as scarcely to move, as the boat passes, and we frequently saw, and passed close to large alligators, which generally appeared to be asleep, stretched on the half-floating logs. Several were fired at from the vessel, but none ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... must keep as carefully as I have done, and which will give you wealth and happiness. Ten years ago, the same year that your father died and your mother also left us, I went out one morning before daybreak to surprise the crabs asleep in the sand. As I was stooping down, hidden by a rock, I saw a kingfisher slowly floating toward the beach. The kingfisher is a sacred bird which should always be respected; knowing this, I let it alight and did not stir, for fear of frightening it. At the same moment ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various
... This was a name of the robber Procrustes, who was slain by Theseus. Halcyone, the daughter of his son Scyron, having been guilty of incontinence, was thrown into the sea by her father, on which she was changed into a kingfisher, ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... at morning with the earliest swallows' cry, kingfisher of Pallas in the loom, and the heavy-headed twirling spindle, light-running spinner of the twisted yarn, and the bobbins, and this basket, friend to the distaff, keeper of the spun warp-thread and the reel, Telesilla, the industrious daughter of good Diocles, dedicates to the ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... alders, and two or three stand on separate little islands held together by roots. The winter floods biting into the banks have cut miniature cliffs, and at their base grow the forget-me-not, the willow-herb, and flowering rush. A brightly-plumaged bird, too swift to be recognised—could it be a kingfisher?—darts along the margin of the stream and disappears in its black shadows. The wind blows gently from the west: it is just strong enough to show the silver sides of the willow leaves. The sound of the weir, although so soft, is able to exclude ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... middle islands, obtained nearly a hundred species of terrestrial and fluviatile mollusca. The scarcity of birds during our walk surprised me, for the only one which I saw on shore was a solitary kingfisher (Halcyon vagans): during our ascent of the Keri-Keri, however, many ducks (Anas superciliosa) flew past the boat, and gulls, terns, and two ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... about a year old—had been seized and swallowed by a Mugger. Although convinced that aid was now impossible, we took our guns and hastened to the spot where the accident happened; but all was still there, not a wavelet disturbed the surface of the stream. A small speckled kingfisher was hovering overhead, as if balanced in the air, with its beak bent down on its breast, watching the fish beneath; presently it darted like an arrow into the water; returned with an empty bill, and then went off, with its ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... brook that had frightened him?" he wondered. "Perhaps it was only the hedge-hog waddling along back from the brook to his hole in the ledge above, or it might be the kingfisher, who had tired of the bend of the brook a week before and had changed his thieving ground to the rapids above, where he terrorized daily a shy family of trout, pouncing upon the little ones with a great splashing and hysterical chattering as they darted about, panic-stricken, ...
— The Lady of Big Shanty • Frank Berkeley Smith
... knows that sheep could not have had a colour more adapted to render them inconspicuous, and that it is almost impossible to distinguish them from the rocks which so constantly crop up on hill sides. Even the brilliant blue of the Kingfisher, which in a museum renders it so conspicuous, in its native haunts, on the contrary, makes it difficult to distinguish from a flash of light upon the water; and the richly-coloured Woodpecker wears the genuine dress of a Forester—the green ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... little Kingfisher (Alcedo ispida), the most gay in colour of all our birds, may still sometimes be seen, darting about the only rivulet which we can boast of at Woodhall, and which rejoices in the unattractive name of “The Sewer,” {46b} although its water, welling ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... on that hot day in the steamy jungle, and the band was refreshed—Mark having hard work to refrain from chasing some gorgeous butterfly of green and gold, or with wings painted in pearl-blue, steel, and burnished silver. At other times some lovely kingfisher, with elongated tail, settled almost within reach. Then it would be a green barbet, with bristle-armed beak and bright blue and scarlet feathers to make it gay. Or again, one of the cuckoo trogons, sitting on some twig, like a ball of feathers ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... this is a mere fairy tale, but the author has sometimes seen wild birds (a lark, kingfisher, robin, and finch) come to men, who certainly had none of the charm of Joan of Arc. A thoughtful child, sitting alone, and very still, might find birds alight on her in a friendly way, as has happened to the author. If she fed them, so ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... (animals) bucxi. Kilogramme kilogramo. Kilolitre kilolitro. Kilometre kilometro. Kin parenceco. Kind (species) speco. Kind bona. Kindle ekbruligi. Kindness boneco. Kindred parencaro. King regxo. Kingdom regxolando, regxlando. Kingfisher alciono. Kingly (adj.) regxa. Kingly (adv.) regxe. King's evil skrofolo. Kinsfolk parencaro. Kinsman parenco. Kiss kisi. Kitchen kuirejo. Kitchen-garden legoma gxardeno. Kitchen-gardener legomgxardenisto. Kitchen-jack turnrostilo. Kitchen utensils ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... among the eddies, and the silver grayling dimpled and wandered upon the shallows, and the may-flies flickered and rustled round him like water fairies, with their green gauzy wings; the coot clanked musically among the reeds; the frogs hummed their ceaseless vesper-monotone; the kingfisher darted from his hole in the bank like a blue spark of electric light; the swallows' bills snapped as they twined and hawked above the pool; the swift's wings whirred like musket-balls, as they rushed screaming past his head; and ever the ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... flowered satin, covered with hundreds of butterflies, embroidered in gold, interspersed with flowers. Over all, she had a variegated stiff-silk pelisse, lined with slate-blue ermine; while her nether garments consisted of a jupe of kingfisher-colour foreign ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... for a clearance and pass, with proper witnesses of his demand. "Were it mine," said a leading merchant, "I would certainly send it back." Hutchinson acquainted Admiral Montagu with what was passing; on which the Active and the Kingfisher, though they had been laid up for the winter, were sent to guard the passages out of the harbor. At the same time orders were given by the Governor to load guns at the Castle, so that no vessel, except coasters, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... shining tree-tops kissed; Then the fiery Scorpion vanished, the magpie's note was heard, And the wind in the she-oak wavered, and the honeysuckles stirred, The airy golden vapour rose from the river breast, The kingfisher came darting out of his crannied nest, And the bulrushes and reed-beds put off their sallow gray And burnt with cloudy crimson at ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... straw, with a wreath of artificial daisies round the crown. When the tempered sunshine fell upon her as she stood up to sing, she looked like something composed of vivid color, light, and life—like a flower glowing in a garden, a kingfisher hovering over a stream, a rainbow trembling on the crest of a hill. Dale, watching her, thought that in comparison the other maidens on the ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... away, having plenty to occupy him in helping to organise the new district. He was strolling past the saloon the morning after the Secret Meeting, when down into the street, like a kingfisher into a stream, Maudie darted, and held ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... sound breaks the silence except the gurgle of the river as it sweeps round the rocks, the lonely Kingfisher sits upon an overhanging branch, his turquoise plumage hardly less intense in its lustre than the deep blue of the sky above him; and so intent is his watch upon the passing fish that intrusion fails to scare him from his post; the emblem of ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... pushes out farthest toward Spain and Africa and the southern stars. Their leathery leafage had sprouted in advance of the faint mist of yellow-green around them, and it was of another and less natural green, tinged with blue, like the colors of a kingfisher. But one might fancy it the scales of some three-headed dragon towering over a herd of ...
— The Trees of Pride • G.K. Chesterton
... that are laid in holes or other dark places are white without markings of any kind, as illustrated by those of the Chimney Swift, Belted Kingfisher, and all Woodpeckers. In such instances Nature shows no disposition to be lavish with her colouring matter where it is ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... lasse, tout casse, tout passe; and while the kingfisher turns his sapphire back in the sun against the lemon-yellow of the willow leaves, and the smouldering russet of the oak-crowns succeeds to the crimson of the beeches and the gold of the elms, we shall do well to emulate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... to this presence could rehearse The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whir, The rattle of the kingfisher." ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... protection of a pelisse lined with fur, and a dog's-skin bonnet, such as was worn by the peasants, I walked daily on the ramparts, or on a sort of public ground or garden, in which was a pond. Here I had no companion but a kingfisher, a beautiful creature that used to glance by me. I consequently became much attached to it. During these walks I composed the poem that ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... of young pickles I never hatched before!" said she to Mrs. Kingfisher, who came to ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... aquaticus, Bechstein. French, "Aquassiere," "Cincle plongeur."—The Dipper or Water Ouzel, though not very common, less so, indeed, than the Kingfisher, is nevertheless a resident species, finding food all through the year in the clear pools left by the tide, and also frequenting the few inland ponds, especially the rather large ones, belonging to Mr. ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith
... he said to Gudrid, "there will be matters for you to see to, which will last you a good while. Fine cloth, Einar always brings, and embroidered lengths from Russia. We shall have you going as gay as a kingfisher about the ways." ...
— Gudrid the Fair - A Tale of the Discovery of America • Maurice Hewlett
... "Kingfisher feathers," said Ah Cum. "It is an ordinary wedding," he added; "some shopkeeper's daughter. Probably she was married years ago and is now merely on the way to her husband's house. The palanquin is hired and so is the ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... teni, gardi, konservi. kernel : kerno. kettle : kaldrono, bolilo. key : sxlosilo, (piano) klavo. kick : piedfrapi. kidney : reno. kill : mortigi, bucxi, senvivigi. kind : speco; afabla, bonkora kingdom : regno, regxlando. kingfisher : alciono. kiss : kisi. knapsack : tornistro. knave : fripono; (cards) lakeo. knead : knedi. knee : genuo. kneel : genufleksi. knife : trancxilo. knight : kavaliro. knit : triki. knock : frapi. knot : nodo, (in wood) lignotubero ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... 14th Captain Hudson made a signal to the Daphne to go in chase of a sail seen to the southward, and shortly afterwards another sail was seen standing towards us from the westward. We soon made her out to be a man-of-war, and on exchanging signals she proved to be the Kingfisher sloop-of-war. Within an hour after she joined us. As we continued our course to the southward the look-out at the mast-head hailed the deck. "A sail ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... King. Furthermore, he ordained that this worshipful guild which did so much towards encouraging cleanly habits should hold as its crest or cognizance within a garland argent and azure, a kingfisher proper. Some chroniclers suggest that the bird was a parrot, but this seems unlikely—parrots can be so indiscreet. Moreover, you may see for yourself on the Old Town side of the tower of the Charles Bridge the bird within the garland, and ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... birds also, innumerable. One, styled the "king-hunter," sang wild exultant airs, as if it found king-hunting to be an extremely exhilarating occupation, though what sort of kings it hunted we cannot tell. Perhaps it was the king of beasts, perhaps the kingfisher, a bright specimen of which was frequently seen to dart out from the banks, but we profess ignorance on this point. There were fish-hawks also, magnificent fellows, which sat in regal dignity on the tops of the mangrove trees, and the glossy ibis, with others of the feathered ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... silk and bright embroidery At the first call of Spring the fair young bride, On whom as yet Sorrow has laid no scar, Climbs the Kingfisher's Tower. Suddenly She sees the bloom of willows far and wide, And grieves for him she lent to ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... Halcyon days, ones of peace and tranquillity; anciently, days of calm weather in mid-winter, when the halcyon, or kingfisher, was supposed to brood. It was fabled that this bird laid its eggs in a nest that floated on the sea, and that it charmed the winds and waves to make them ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... at a few sea birds, shore birds, and a marsh bird. Many inland birds, too, are fond of the shore. The artful Jackdaw builds in the cliffs, and his cousin, the Crow, searches the shore for food. Even the gay Kingfisher has been seen diving in the ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith
... could be watched at work of all kinds, from blacksmithy to finest filigree silver work inlaid with the tiny colored feathers of the brightly colored kingfisher; and from rough carpenter work to the finest ivory carving for which the Chinese are famous. Of course the amount they pay for some of this work of extreme skill is ridiculously small, yet their living expenses are so small that they are doubtless in better ...
— Wanderings in the Orient • Albert M. Reese
... pound fish fall back into the water with a meditative flop, he may pay the pond the compliment of wishing himself elsewhere. One accompaniment of a trout farm he may hope to escape—the sight of a dead kingfisher. Without wire netting, kingfishers find out the young fry only too quickly, and a dead kingfisher spoils all pleasure for ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... obviously impossible is it to explain as due to use or disuse the colours of animals. No direct adaptation to function could have produced the blue protuberances on a mandril's face, or the striped hide of a tiger, or the gorgeous plumage of a kingfisher, or the eyes in a peacock's tail, or the multitudinous patterns of insects' wings. One single case, that of a deer's horns, might alone have sufficed to show how insufficient was the assigned cause. During ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... the Downs of Sussex, &c., still they come here in the spring, and are generally seen by the roads, or on stone walls in which they build their nests, and even in the heaps of stones, as also in the rails of bark. I remember that beautiful bird, the kingfisher, by the Forest brooks, but now you never see one. Flocks of rooks sometimes come into the neighbourhood when the oaks are much blighted, to feed on the grubs, and in such quantities that the trees are quite black with ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... down to the shore, and we will show you a clam's nest," she said, remembering that only yesterday she had discovered the nest of a kingfisher in an oak tree whose branches nearly touched the shore, and could point this out ...
— A Little Maid of Old Maine • Alice Turner Curtis
... mourner at their funerals than a physician endeavouring to maintain their flickering vitality. He tries experiments and has a taste for dissection. He proves by the evidence of his senses, and believes them in spite of the general report, that a dead kingfisher will not turn its breast to the wind. He convinced himself that if two magnetic needles were placed in the centre of rings marked with the alphabet (an odd anticipation of the electric telegraph, minus the wires), they would not point to the same letter ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... the first birds I went out to seek—perhaps the most medicinal of all birds to see—was the kingfisher; but he was not anywhere on the river margin, although suitable places were plentiful enough, and myriads of small fishes were visible in the shallow water, seen at rest like dim-pointed stripes beneath the surface, and darting away and ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... had scanned many a crank in his day—was not so alarming as it had once seemed to Clara; its coarse-woven, deep-blue linen and needle-worked yoke were pleasing to him, and he could hardly take his gaze from the kingfisher-blue band or fillet that she wore ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Commerce. Education is another kind of commerce. The authors and publishers are the wholesale market, and teachers and schools and colleges are a kind of retail dealers. Of course, not being human, we can't expect to find it quite clear, but that is what we do make out. The kingfisher and I were listening lately to a whole course of lectures on Political Economy; we were on a skylight in the roof of the building, and we found that Popular Education was part of the system of co-operation. The ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... way, a natural weathercock instead of the gilded vane, as defined by Brown, would have been a rara avis: "A kingfisher hanged by the bill, converting the breast to that point of the horizon whence the wind doth blow, is a very strange ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20. No. 568 - 29 Sept 1832 • Various
... show you your way. Here you will sleep, not far from the waters. Every day they will bring you the image of your memories: the azure of the kingfisher like your mother's eyes, the down of the turtle-dove like her sweetness, the echo of the leaves like the grave calm voice of your father, the reflected brightness of the road white as your first communion, and the form of your beloved ...
— Romance of the Rabbit • Francis Jammes |
