"On the wing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... possibility of publication. Her diaries are less systematic than I hoped; she only had a blessed habit of noting and narrating. She summarised, she saved; she appears seldom indeed to have let a good story pass without catching it on the wing. I allude of course not so much to things she heard as to things she saw and felt. She writes sometimes of herself, sometimes of others, sometimes of the combination. It's under this last rubric that she's usually most vivid. But it's not, ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... treacherous bond By pressing on his lip a kiss—Besides Unto him gave his sword and carbuncle. "I will," said he, "put your great France to shame And from the Emperor's head shake off the crown!" Mounted on Barbamouche that faster flies Than hawk or swallow on the wing, he spurs His courser hard, and dropping on its neck The rein, he strikes Engelier de Gascuigne; Hauberk nor shield is for him a defense: Deep in the core the Pagan thrusts his spear So mightily, its point comes out behind, And with the shaft o'erturns him on the field A ...
— La Chanson de Roland • Lon Gautier
... we sat down to a most capital dinner,—a joint of roast-beef, fine fish, and Canvass-backs, that had been on the wing within a couple of hours, together with the Red-head, Teal, and two or three other specimens; all excellent in their way, but not comparable for delicacy, fat, or flavour with that inimitable work of nature the ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... her maiden name, but as her dead husband had been called by the same name as the son, we will style her Mrs Ippegoo. There was also the mother of Arbalik, a youth who was celebrated as a wonderful killer of birds on the wing—a sort of Eskimo Robin Hood—with the small spear or dart. The mother of Arbalik was elderly, and stern—for an Eskimo. She was sister to the great hunter Simek. Kannoa, a very old dried-up but ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... converse hour after hour. They passed the Blue Pool, without seeing it or even talking about it for more than a minute. George kept an eye on the quails and declared them fairly plentiful and strong on the wing, but nothing now could keep him from pouring out his whole heart about Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter, until towards noon they caught sight of the statues, and a halt was made which gave my father the first pang he had felt that morning, for he knew ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... said Hildebrand. 'You just see! I hit a swallow on the wing last summer, and when we had a house in Thibet I shot a llama dead with one bullet. He was ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... hear, through the glad April weather, The green grasses waving above them? Do they think there are none left to love them, They have lain for so long there together? Do they hear the note of the cuckoo, The cry of gulls on the wing, The laughter of winds and waters, The feet of ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... approximate—as manners, customs, and laws vary, from the tumultuous intercourse of men—as new facts arise—as new truths are brought to light—as ancient opinions are dissipated, and others take their place—the image of an ideal perfection, forever on the wing, presents itself to the human mind. Continual changes are then every instant occurring under the observation of every man: the position of some is rendered worse; and he learns but too well, that no people ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... and more beautiful as we neared Worcester, and the mountains grew higher and craggier. Presently, a huge bird, like a stork on the wing, pounced down close by us. He was a secretary-bird, and had caught sight of a snake. We passed 'Brant Vley' (burnt or hot spring), where sulphur-water bubbles up in a basin some thirty feet across and ten or twelve deep. The water is clear as crystal, and ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... &c 276; propel &c 284; render movable, mobilize. Adj. moving &c v.; in motion; transitional; motory^, motive; shifting, movable, mobile, mercurial, unquiet; restless &c (changeable) 149; nomadic &c 266; erratic &c 279. Adv. under way; on the move, on the wing, on the tramp, on the march. Phr. eppur si muove [Galileo]; es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille [G.], sich ein Charakter in dem Strom ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... uncleanly lot of people, full of good intentions, but their intentions though taken often, seldom operate as an antidote to foulness. Their one sigh the livelong day is: "Oh, could we be like birds that can stool while on the wing or on foot!" This feat of time-saving being hardly possible in the present incarnation and order of society, they content themselves with making a storehouse out of the intestinal canal for an indefinite length of time as they concern themselves with external affairs ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... great flies buzzing, which I really attributed, for a moment, to some early insect. Turning, I saw two Crows flapping their heavy wings among the trees, and observed that they were teasing a Hawk about as large as themselves, which was also on the wing. Presently all three had risen above the branches, and were circling higher and higher in a slow spiral. The Crows kept constantly swooping at their enemy, with the same angry buzz, one of the two taking decidedly the lead. They seldom struck at him with their beaks, but kept ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... maiden's of the future. He was thinking, as he sat there, Of the days when with such arrows He had struck the deer and bison, 95 On the Muskoday, the meadow; Shot the wild goose, flying southward, On the wing, the clamorous Wawa; Thinking of the great war-parties, How they came to buy his arrows, 100 Could not fight without his arrows. Ah, no more such noble warriors Could be found on earth as they were! Now the men were all like women, Only used their tongues for weapons! 105 She was thinking of a hunter, ...
— The Song of Hiawatha - An Epic Poem • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... saw was on the wing, off the promontory of Fairhead, county of Antrim. I mention this, because, though my tour in Ireland, with Mr. Marshall and his son, was made many years ago, this allusion to the eagle is the only image supplied ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... travels, was to travel: And they who were best acquainted with him, report of him, what St Chrysostom said of the apostle St Paul, "That he ran through the world with an incredible swiftness, and as it were on the wing," yet not without labour, nor that labour without fruit, but preaching, baptizing, confessing, disputing with the Gentiles, rooting out Idolaters, reforming manners, and throughout establishing the Christian piety. His apostolical labours were attended with all the incommodities of life; ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... at 8; very fair travelling considering the mountainous paths we had come over. Find Pike 20 miles off and no stage till the day after to-morrow, so that I might as well have remained at Binghampton another day, but unless there be something interesting, I always find myself most happy when on the wing bringing me nearer home; got tea, and to bed at half past eight, in hopes of getting up the rest I had lost the two and may be the three last nights. Put away the wool from ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... of great spirit and valour, expert in the use of arms, especially in that of the musquet, so much so that, when they go on long journeys, they are accustomed to live on the game which they kill with it. It is common for them to kill birds on the wing, and he is accounted unfit for a soldier who cannot bring down a pigeon. They are such excellent horsemen that there is no one who is not able to tame and ride ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... We, and had too well defined a private opinion on all subjects to be able to express that average of public opinion which constitutes able editorials. But so it is that to the prophet in the wilderness the birds of ill omen are already on the wing with food from heaven; and while Wordsworth's relatives were getting impatient at what they considered his waste of time, while one thought he had gifts enough to make a good parson, and another lamented the rare attorney that was lost in him,[335] ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... for fame; Their swords, their shields, their surcoats were the same: Close by each other laid they pressed the ground, Their manly bosoms pierced with many a grisly wound; Nor well alive nor wholly dead they were, But some faint signs of feeble life appear; The wandering breath was on the wing to part, Weak was the pulse, and hardly heaved the heart. These two were sisters' sons; and Arcite one, Much famed in fields, with valiant Palamon. From these their costly arms the spoilers rent, And softly both conveyed to Theseus' tent: ...
— Palamon and Arcite • John Dryden
... factor which is adverse to his success. Hostile airmen lie in wait, and a fleet of aeroplanes is kept ready for instant service. They permit the invader to penetrate well into their territory and then ascend behind him to cut off his retreat. True, the invader has the advantage of being on the wing, while the ether is wide and deep, without any defined channels of communication. But nine times out of ten the adventurous scout is trapped. His chances of escape are slender, because his antagonists dispose themselves strategically in the air. The invader ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... birds"—and the Doctor set them upon the table. "At first glance you may think them much alike, and if you should see them on the wing you would ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... expressive answer in the strings. On the wing of this song we rise to a height where begins the path of a brief nervous motive (of the first notes of the symphony) that with the descending tone abounds in various guise. As a bold glance at the sun is punished by a sight ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... nightjar would never be recognized by the description of a bird that utters a crackling cry when flying. That it then makes a sound different from its distinctive whirring note is recorded. T.A. Coward writes 'when on the wing it has a soft call co-ic, and a sharper and repeated alarm quik, quik, quik.' It is doubtful whether crackling ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 5 - The Englishing of French Words; The Dialectal Words in Blunden's Poems • Society for Pure English
... all that, for they could make coats, and trousers, and moccasins, and mittens, and they were first-rate cooks, besides bein' handy at almost every kind o' work. They could even use the gun. I've heard o' them bringin' down a wild goose on the wing, when none o' the men were at hand to let drive at the passing flock. I do believe that's Mr Grant himself standin' at the ...
— Away in the Wilderness • R.M. Ballantyne
... out upon our electioneering tours that I was not a good stump-speaker, especially on the wing with five-minute stops of the train. It used to pull out with me inwardly raging, all the good things I meant to say unsaid. The politicians knew that trick better, and I left the field to them speedily. Thereafter I went along just for company. Only ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... that we were on the wing," asserted the general, rising. "Colonel Webb, tell General St. Clair to hold the enemy in check as long as he can. You, Baylor, direct Colonel Forrest to plant his guns on the green, to cover the rearguard. General Greene, let the army file off on ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... New World. They are quite numerous and seem to be confined between the two tropics, for those which penetrate the temperate zones in summer only stay there a short time. They seem to follow the sun in its advance and retreat; and to fly on the wing of zephyrs after ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... over boulders, through willows, grass, and flowers, while the mother, very lame, tumbled and sprawled at my feet. I stood still until the little ones began to peep; the mother answered "Too-too-too" and showed admirable judgment and devotion. She was in brown plumage with white on the wing primaries. She had fine grounds on which to lead and ...
— Travels in Alaska • John Muir
... from the skies he sends, To front Juturna. Down, with sudden spring, To earth, as in a whirlwind, she descends. As when a poisoned arrow from the string Through clouds a Parthian launches on the wing,— Parthian or Cretan—and in darkling flight The shaft, with cureless venom in its sting, Screams through the shadows; so, arrayed in might, Swift to the earth came down ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... the young officer gave a gasp and bending double sat down on the ground like a bird shot on the wing. Everything became strange, confused, and misty ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... were on the wing, And back my fancy fled To where contentment dwelt In the neat humble shed; To shining courts From thence it ran, Where restless ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... again on the wing, and without further incident they were soon in the vicinity of Stanley Falls. They managed to locate a village where there were some American missionaries established. They were friends of Mr. and Mrs. Illington, the ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... men and gods, immortal Jove! O all ye blissful powers that reign above! Why were my cares beguiled in short repose? O fatal slumber, paid with lasting woes! A deed so dreadful all the gods alarms, Vengeance is on the wing, and ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... wheels crunching on the gravel, her fetlocks splashing the slow-moving, chocolate-coloured water. On the opposite bank we reached a sort of plateau, seen vaguely in the light. I "let a bawl out of me." It was like the cry of some lonely, lost bird on the wing. The Friar shook with laughter. I could feel the little rock of his body on the springs of the car. A figure came suddenly out of the darkness and silently took the mare by the head. The car moved on across the vague back meadow. Patch Keetly ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... believed, when he gets his "intended" off entirely to himself, exhibits in peculiar dances and jigs that he is hers and hers only, or rises high on the wing cutting the most peculiar capers and gyrations in the air, protesting to her in the grass beneath the most earnest devotion, or advertising to ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... base, while our back-sight helped us to gauge that imaginary point at which to shoot where our bullets and the enemy machine would meet. In other words, we shot at an enemy machine although we ourselves were travelling rapidly, exactly as a sportsman shoots at a bird on the wing. ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... grim smile about his eyes. He took an early opportunity of paying his respects to me again, saying, "You little devil, do you call this writing your worst?" "No," I replied; "I call it writing my best." The annihilator, as it turned out, was really a good-natured young man; but he was on the wing for Cambridge; and with the rest, or some of them, I continued to wage war for more than a year. And yet, for a word spoken with kindness, how readily I would have resigned (had it been altogether at my own choice to do so) the peacock's feather in my cap ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Oldenburg and Jones at Oxford must have come necessarily also into constant intercourse with that very secret admirer of Milton. Oxford, we do gather, was still Du Moulin's head-quarters; but he was so much on the wing thence that Oldenburg might expect to succeed him in the tutorship of at least one of the young Boyles. Oldenburg was then thirty years of age, and young ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... brigand poet Shanfara boasts, "The ash-coloured Katas can drink only my leavings, after hastening all night to slake their thirst in the morning," it is a hyperbole boasting of his speed. In Sind it is called the "rock pigeon" and it is not unlike a grey partridge when on the wing. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... fitter tale to scream than sing," The Book-man said. "Well, fancy, then," The Reader answered, "on the wing The sea-birds shriek it, not for men, But in the ear of wave and breeze!" The Traveller mused: "Your Manisees Is fairy-land: off Narragansett shore Who ever saw the isle or heard ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... westward, his face was drawn, and his eyes moved quickly to the right and left, as if he would discover something in the squalid fashionable streets some bird on the wing, some radiant archway, the face of some god beneath a beaver hat. He loved, he was loved, he had seen death and other things; but the heart of all things was hidden. There was a password and he could not learn it, nor could the kind editor ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... occasionally rippled by the eddying breeze as it swept along; his own little skiff safe at her moorings, undulating with the swell; the sea-gulls, who but a few hours ago were screaming with dismay as they buffeted against the fury of the gale, now skimming on the waves, or balanced on the wing near to their inaccessible retreats; the carolling of the smaller birds on every side of him, produced a lightness of heart and quickened pulse, to which Edward Forster had ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... a pond, A grass-bank beyond, A blue sky of spring, White clouds on the wing; What a little thing To remember for years— To remember ...
— Sixteen Poems • William Allingham
... comrades on one of the ridges that they had defended so well, listened to the roar of conflict on the wing, ever increasing in volume, and watched the vast clouds of smoke gathering over the forest. He could see from where he stood the flash of rifle fire and the blaze of cannon, and both eye and ear told him that the battle was not ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... gazed out over the water. The tree was very springy, and Hachah felt sure that he could fly; so before long he launched bravely forth from the cliff. He kicked out vigorously and swung both arms as he did so, but nevertheless he came down to the bottom of the water like a crow that had been shot on the wing." ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... off the old birds foraging without—hawks may be abroad, from which they escape or by whom they suffer; but the young ones in the nest have a pretty comfortable unromantic sort of existence in the down and the straw, till it comes to their turn, too, to get on the wing. While Becky Sharp was on her own wing in the country, hopping on all sorts of twigs, and amid a multiplicity of traps, and pecking up her food quite harmless and successful, Amelia lay snug in her home of Russell Square; ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... rose to go. The horses were brought out, and we mounted and rode cautiously home, for it was now quite dark. It was a fine mild night, and we had plenty of time; so we talked and laughed our way through the bush—our voices the only sounds to be heard, except it might be the noise of a bird rising on the wing, startled from its perch by our merry laughter or the clatter of our horses' hoofs on the hard ground as we ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... sir? hey, Arthur? Begad, you look dev'lish well and healthy, sir. I always said my brother Jack would bring the family right. You must go down into the west, and buy the old estate, sir. Nec tenui penna, hey? We'll rise again, sir—rise again on the wing—and, begad, I shouldn't be surprised that you will be a Baronet before ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... sing again this year, these nightingales, for they are late on the wing as it is. It seems as if on such nights they sang as the swan sings, knowing it to be the last time—with the lavish note of one ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... Indian I furnished myself with a good stout pike and a couple of javelins; moreover I set up divers marks, like rovers, and every day I would shoot at these with my bow, so that I soon became so dexterous I could bring down a bird on the wing six times out of seven, though in teaching myself this proficiency I lost four of my ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not a nobleman's seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion's ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... young man peremptorily. "No time to be lost, dear old artist. Time is on the wing, the light is fadin', an' if we want to put this jolly old country—God bless ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... flower-vases in the evening. The Jessamine and Pergolaria odorotissima climbed up the porch, and in the forks of the trees opposite I had air-plants fastened, which flowered every three months, and looked like a flight of white butterflies on the wing. The great mountain of Matang stood in the distance, and when the sun sank behind it, which it always did in that invariable latitude about six o'clock, I sat in the porch to watch the glory of earth and sky. How dear a mountain becomes to you, is only known to those who live in hilly countries. ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... no special attraction for a genuine sportsman, still, through lack of other game at the time (it was the beginning of September; snipe were not on the wing yet, and I was tired of running across the fields after partridges), I listened to my huntsman's suggestion, ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Works of Ivan Turgenev, Vol. I • Ivan Turgenev
... I remember Where I was used to swing, And thought the air must rush as fresh To swallows on the wing; My spirit flew in feathers then That is so heavy now, And summer pools could hardly cool The ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various
... not garbed like the others. They could move out on the wing runway under Hanley's eyes at short range, or climb in and out of the balloon car, and ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... drive in the country before sunrise on a bright, clear morning in midsummer, when "the earth is awaking, the sky and the ocean, the river and forest, the mountain and plain." Who has not felt the sweet freshness of early morning before "the sunshine is all on the wing" or the birds awaken and begin to chatter and to sing? There is a hush over everything; later is heard the lowing of cattle, the twitter of birds and hum of insect life, proclaiming the birth of the new day. Passing ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... dreariness of the place, he remarked that they occasionally shot a hare with a Lee-Metford bullet. This is pretty good shooting if the hare is moving. I remember hearing a Boer say with apparent bona fides that he invariably shot birds on the wing with Mauser bullets. Some of his birds must have looked ugly ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... the trembling spray, And to my duty fly away, To pick a straw or feather; My mate is somewhere on the wing, I think she's gone some moss to bring, For we must work while it is spring, And build our ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 388 - Vol. 14, No. 388, Saturday, September 5, 1829. • Various
... beneath the neck and belly of his mustang, and then, as the latter wheeled, flopping upon the other side of the animal, and firing as before. The corporal held his fire until he attempted one of these turn-overs, when he pulled the trigger and "took him on the wing." The result was a whoop, a beating of the air with a pair of moccasined feet, and the mustang ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... great Angel of the Covenant, with the censer full of much incense, in which are placed your feeblest aspirations, your most burdened sighs—the odour-breathing cloud ascending with acceptance before the Father's throne. The answer may tarry;—these your supplications may seem to be kept long on the wing, hovering around the mercy-seat. A gracious God sometimes sees it meet thus to test the faith and patience of His people. He delights to hear the music of their importunate pleadings—to see them ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... were the wandering albatross—the "Diomedia exulans," as naturalists term it—which sailors believe to float constantly in the upper air, never alighting on land or sea, but living perpetually on the wing! ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring The Winter Garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To fly—and Lo! the Bird is on the Wing. ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam • Omar Khayyam
... Cup, and in the fire of Spring Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling: The Bird of Time has but a little way To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing. ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... way into practice against a scepticism that amounted at times to hostility. One writer upon these subjects gives a funny little domestic conversation that happened, he says, in the year 1898, within ten years, that is to say, of the time when the first aviators were fairly on the wing. He tells us how he sat at his desk in his study and conversed with ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... are on the wing, Eager to taste the honeyed spring, And float amid the liquid noon, Some lightly on the torrent skim, Some show their gaily gilded trim, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... yourself to no unnecessary risks." The strongest self-condemnation stung me, I was vexed at my extreme folly. Shall I add, that my thoughts wandered far over The Desert, skimmed over the surge of the Mediterranean, and ascended on the wing of the east wind, now cooling my burning forehead, and sought some sad solace in dear objects of my fatherland. Oh! the heart shrinks from revealing to the world its secret thoughts, its sorrowful regrets, its bitter self-reproaches! I must be silent of the rest. I now got up, sleep I could ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... on the telegraph wires beside the highway where it passed Orchard Farm. They were resting after a breakfast of insects, which they had caught on the wing, after the custom of their family. As it was only the first of May they had plenty of time before nest-building, and so were having ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... be given than that of a woodpecker for climbing trees and for seizing insects in the chinks of the bark? Yet in North America there are woodpeckers which feed largely on fruit, and others with elongated wings which chase insects on the wing; and on the plains of La Plata, where not a tree grows, there is a woodpecker, which in every essential part of its organisation, even in its colouring, in the harsh tone of its voice, and undulatory flight, ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... never at rest. You must catch her on the wing, and the more quickly you do it the more ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... year, Your young life will change, my dear. Now you're in your early Spring, Hope and joy are on the wing; Flow'rets blooming fresh and gay, Shed their fragrance round your way. Summer's heat is coming fast, And your Spring will soon be past; For, where you are, I have been; All that you see, I have seen. Hopes that beamed around my way, Cast their light on yours to-day. All that you do, I have ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... billows fling shells on the shore, As the sun poureth light on the sea, As a lark on the wing scatters song to the spring, So ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... mats of flags and rushes; Of the past the old man's thoughts were, And the maiden's of the future. He was thinking, as he sat there, Of the days when with such arrows He had struck the deer and bison, On the Muskoday, the meadow; Shot the wild goose flying southward, On the wing, the clamorous Wawa; Thinking of the great war-parties, How they came to buy his arrows, Could not fight without his arrows. Ah, no more such noble warriors, Could be found on earth as they were! Now the men were all like women, Only used their tongues for weapons! She was thinking of a hunter, ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... hung in the air, is a cross, said to resemble that of the military order of Alcantara; but in the print the ends resemble three crescents with their convex sides outwards and their points meeting, like those in many old churches in Europe. Over all is a dove on the wing, as if descending to touch ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... was Junia. To him she was the one being in the world worth struggling for; the bird to be caught on the wing, or coaxed into the nest, or snared into the net; and two of the three things he had tried without avail. The third—the snaring? He would not stop at that, if it would bring him what he wanted. How to snare her! He surveyed himself ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... And half a score of goddesses Trip over daisies in the plain: Already now they loose their hair And peep from out the tangled gold, Or speed the flying foot to reach The brook that's only summer-cold; The lovely locks stream out behind The shepherdesses on the wing, And Laura's is the wealth I love, And Laura's is ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... Markheim drew in a packing case before the cabinet, and began to search among the keys. It was a long business, for there were many; and it was irksome, besides; for, after all, there might be nothing in the cabinet, and time was on the wing. But the closeness of the occupation sobered him. With the tail of his eye he saw the door—even glanced at it from time to time directly, like a besieged commander pleased to verify the good estate of his defences. But in ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his head clerk, upon the other, and midway between, at a nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of a particular old wine that had long dwelt unsunned in the foundations of his house. The fog still slept on the wing above the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like carbuncles; and through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the procession of the town's life was still rolling in through the great arteries with a sound as of a mighty wind. But the room ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... lawn ought to be a thick velvet, and the seeds we sowed two weeks ago up and blooming. If vegetable corresponded to animal life, this would be the case. Fancy that what were eggs long after we came here, and then naked birds, are now full-fledged creatures on the wing, all off getting to housekeeping, each ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... hunter took his paddle, instead of setting-pole, the better to restrain the speed of the boat at the most rapid and dangerous passes, and struck out into the current, adown which, under the quick and skilful strokes of its experienced oarsman, it was borne with almost the swiftness of a bird on the wing, till it reached the quiet waters of the pond; and, this being soon passed over, they entered and descended the next reach of rapids with equal speed and safety. All the dangers and difficulties were now over; and, leisurely rowing homeward, they were, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... the other flies that are apt to be mistaken for the house-fly do not have this vein curved forward. The wings, although apparently bare, are covered with a fine microscopic pubescence. Among these fine hairs on the wing as well as among similar fine ones and coarser ones all over the body, particles of dust and dirt or filth (Fig. 44) or, what interests us more just now, thousands of germs may find a temporary lodgment and later be scattered through the air as the ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... not These hours of precious time With stupid book or useless work— It is indeed a crime; But haste with me to the wood-lands green, Where forest warblers sing And bees are humming—like them, too, We must be on the wing. ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... robin redbreasts, nearly as tame, hopping gayly over the stones, bobbing their heads and puffing out their red breasts; and tomtits, prudently watching awhile from the tops of neighboring trees, then suddenly taking flight, and with quick, sharp cries, seizing the grain on the wing. It was charming to see all these little hungry creatures career around Reine's head, with a joyous fluttering of wings. When the supply was exhausted, the young girl shook her apron, turned ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... companion who would be interested in his pursuits. He had hoped to teach Kate to understand his life work and perhaps help him some, but Kate was by nature a butterfly, a bird of gay colors, always on the wing. He would not have wanted her to be troubled with deep thoughts. Marcia seemed to enjoy such things. What if he should take pains to teach her, read with her, help cultivate her mind? It would at least be an occupation for leisure hours, something ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... knew that Bucky O'Connor's bullet had already annulled the marriage, that happiness was already on the wing to them. ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... single community, but as they advance and attach city after city they grow more numerous and more resistless. I observe that when people wish to take wasps' nests—if they try to capture the creatures on the wing, they are liable to be attacked by half the hive; whereas, if they apply fire to them ere they leave their homes, they will master them without scathe themselves. On this principle I think it best to bring about the battle within the ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... many graceful legends are connected. There is a bird, probably the peewit, which during dry weather may be seen always on the wing, and piteously crying Peet, Peet,[432] as if begging for water. Of it the following tale is told. When God created the earth, and determined to supply it with seas, lakes and rivers, he ordered the birds to convey the waters to their appointed ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... decision its father readily acceded. Sir Thomas, to give the greater sanction to this supposed miracle, as well as to remove all suspicion of fraud from the prying eyes of a censorious world, assumed for his crest an eagle on the wing, proper, looking round as though for something she ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... had left their boat, which, we soon reached, having a fresh breeze of wind in our favour, attended with rain. When we came to the creek which was on the N.W. side of Anchor Isle, we found there an immense number of blue peterels, some on the wing, others in the woods in holes in the ground, under the roots of trees and in the crevices of rocks, where there was no getting them, and where we supposed their young were deposited. As not one was to be seen in the day, the old ones were probably, at that ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... such times, when she was at her wildest, she was all over the place, skipping high like a lamb, twisting like a leveret, wheeling round and round in circles like a young dog, or skimming, like a swallow on the wing, above ground. But she never made a mistake; she turned in a moment or flung herself backward if there was the least risk of contact. When Florrie used to converse with her from outside, in that curious silent way the two had, it would always be the child that put its hands through the wire, ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... I never got into scrapes by blaming people wrongly; but I often do by praising them wrongly. I never praised, without qualification, but one scientific book in my life (that I remember)—this of Dr. Pettigrew's on the Wing;[12] and now I must qualify my praise considerably, discovering, when I examined the book farther, that the good doctor had described the motion of a bird as resembling that of a kite, without ever inquiring what, in a bird, represented that somewhat ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... year's at the spring And day's at the morn: Morning's at seven; The hillside's dew-pearled; The lark's on the wing; The snail's on the thorn: God's in his heaven— All's right with ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... on the wing, doesn't it! Well, I don't mind chasing the old tub, or doing any other damphule thing in reason, but what's the game? Put me next! When was this earthquake that loosened all your little rivets? ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... certain day, When cheerful Summer, bright and gay, Had brought once more her gift of flowers, To dress anew her pleasant bowers; When birds and insects on the wing Made all the air with music ring; When sunshine smiled on dell and knoll, Two Ducks set forth to take a stroll. 'Twas morning; and each grassy bank Of cooling dew had deeply drank— Each fair young flower was holding up Its sweet and freshly painted cup, ...
— The Ducks and Frogs, - A Tale of the Bogs. • Fanny Fire-Fly
... a special interview with him.... By the way, you know that the Hudson Bay flotation is going strong on the wing?" ...
— Swirling Waters • Max Rittenberg
... ye'll hear the cry O' teuchits,[3] skirlin' on the wing, Noo East, noo West, amang the kye, An smell o' whins the wind 'll bring; Aye, lad, it blaws a thocht to mock The licht o' day on ilka thing— For you, that went yon road last spring, Are lying deid in ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob
... it virtually of myself. That is a way you keen lawyers have. Very well; I shall be an honest witness, even against myself. That I wasn't up with the lark this morning goes without saying. The larks that I know much about are on the wing after dinner in the evening. The forenoon is a variable sort of affair with many people. Literally I suppose it ends at 12 M., but with me it is rounded off by lunch, and the time of that event depends largely upon ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... heart, sing; But you cannot keep me beyond to-day, For I am a wayward bird on the wing— A wayward waif, who will never stay. The ivory morn, and the primrose eve, And the twilight, whispering late and low, They kiss the hem of the spell I weave; They tremble, and ask ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... right of the fireplace, over the sofa, there hung an engraving after Landseer, showing a lonely stag paddling into a lake. The stag at eve had drunk or was about to drink his fill, and Cyril was copying him. He had already indicated a flight of birds in the middle distance; vague birds on the wing being easier than detailed stags, he had ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... harriers would soon be knocked up, and would have their feet blistered, nay lamed, for a long time. Besides, the ground is so thickly covered with sturdy vegetation that the hounds could not derive much help from their noses. Mere shooting on the wing the King had long since quitted, and he had ceased to mount his horse; thus the chase simply resolved itself into ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Of course." Then the voice cheered up and she said: "Why, of course—come right out. I understand." A pause and then, "Yes, I know a man has to go where he is called." "Oh, she'll understand—you know father is always on the wing." "No—why, no, of course not—mother wouldn't think that of you. I'll tell her how it was." "All right, good-by—yes, right away." And Jeanette Barclay skipped away from the telephone and ran to her mother to say, ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... things of which we lately chattered— The dearth of taxis or the dawn of Spring; Themes we discussed as though they really mattered, Like rationed meat or raiders on the wing;— ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... parakeets of every color, with solemn cockatoos that seemed to be pondering some philosophical problem, while bright red lories passed by like pieces of bunting borne on the breeze, in the midst of kalao parrots raucously on the wing, Papuan lories painted the subtlest shades of azure, and a whole variety of delightful winged creatures, none ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... it should properly be said that we have, indeed, the expression, but in a form that is not easy of social communication. This, however, is a very variable and altogether relative fact. There are always people who catch our thought on the wing, and prefer it in this abbreviated form, and would be displeased with the greater development of it, necessary for other people. In other words, the thought considered abstractly and logically will be the ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... me. Noble iniquity that yields such delicious crumbs of love as Henry and I stole in moments of ecstasy in park and parlor, in pavilion and veranda, on our drives and rides, be blessed a hundred times. Ah, the harvest of little tendernesses, the sweet words I caught on the wing—recompense for the weeks ...
— Secret Memoirs: The Story of Louise, Crown Princess • Henry W. Fischer |
