"Owl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... family lived here in cages and hutches of all kinds, generally made out of old packing-cases. There was a large colony of white rats, two dormice named Paul and Silas, a jackdaw, rabbits, and a little yellow owl, not to mention the pigeons who fluttered in and out through the open door at will. They came whirling round Bridget now as she entered and settled on her shoulders and head, and pecked boldly at her shoes expecting to be fed. All the different little creatures in cages roused themselves too, and ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... me one day I was a miserable young idiot, and that I thought about nothing but birds and butterflies. Can't help it. I like to. I say, we'll go egging as soon as we've seen the owls. Wonder whether I can get an owl's egg for my ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... of the house-tops you'll see her, In form of a vampire; 'tis then you must flee her; A crow of ill-omen she often is roaming, Or else as an owl that ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... things which are nothing, and so melancholy for lack of amusements properly to follow Old Veuve, that he could ask himself whether he had not done a deed of night, to be blinking at his fellow-men like an owl all mad for the reveller's hoots and flights and mice and moony roundels behind his hypocritical judex air of moping composure, chanced on Mr. Carling, the solicitor, where Lincoln's Inn pumps lawyers into Fleet Street through the drain-pipe of Chancery Lane. He ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... that he guessed likely there wouldn't be much trouble at his end of the line, providing she could manage to worry along with a feller that went to sleep sittin' up, and in the daytime, like an owl. After she had gone, however, he again relapsed into slumber, and his dreams, judging by his ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... half-seen, half-guessed, as if a wisp of wood mist had broken loose and was floating about. Once a fox, somewhere in the utter silence of the forest depths, barked a hoarse, sharp, malicious sound; and once, hoarser still and very hollowly, a great horned owl hooted with disconcerting suddenness. (The scream of a rabbit followed these two, but whether fox or owl had been in at that killing the wolverine never knew.) Twice a wood-hare turning now to match the whiteness ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... moon drifted behind a cloud, the sea darkened, something huge and shadowy lumbered down to the water and splashed heavily away, the cat owl hooted. A mist drooped trailing fingers over the water as the ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... droves of cattle with their drivers, passing through the streets of the city. Some of the men have a way of leading the cattle by a peculiar call, a wild, pensive hoot, quite musical, prolong'd, indescribable, sounding something between the cooing of a pigeon and the hoot of an owl. I like to stand and look at the sight of one of these immense droves—a little way off—(as the dust is great.) There are always men on horseback, cracking their whips and shouting—the cattle low—some obstinate ox or steer attempts to escape—then a lively scene—the ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... shining, columned marble here. The Latin put the Mongol horde to flight, And Mussulmans prayed eastward morn and night. The owl and vulture of dark wing and drear Are fluttering like black banners overhead In cities where the ...
— Sonnets from the Crimea • Adam Mickiewicz
... the deaf for the cause of mankind? The owl hoots at noon that the eagle is blind! We ask not your reasons,—'t were wasting our time,— Our life is a ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of Nature strung out in a wild, sweet forest song. Jinnie had backed against the wall as she played, and when out of her soul came the twitter of the morning birds, the babbling of the brook on its way to the sea, the scream of the owl in a high woodland tree, Lafe turned to watch her, and from that moment until she dropped exhausted into a chair, he did not take ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... about losing the Roma and getting canned by the boss," explained a fisherman who was passing by. "Boris is sorer than a boiled owl at being run on the rocks by ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... perfort'ajxo, -i. oval : ovalo, ovoforma. oven : forno. overall : kitelo, supervesto. overcoat : palto. overlook : esplori, pardoni, malatenti. overseer : laborestro, kontrolisto, vokto. overtake : kuratingi. overturn : renversi. owe : sxuldi. owing to : pro, kauxze de. owl : strigo, gufo. own : propra; posedi; konfesi. ox ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... which stage their questions became so searching as to completely confound me; and as no one likes being confounded, and it is especially regrettable when a parent is placed in such a position, I brought the course to an abrupt end by assuming that owl-like air of wisdom peculiar to infallibility in a corner, and telling them that they were too young to understand these things for the present; and they, having a touching faith in the truth of every word I say, gave three contented little purrs of assent, and proposed that we should play ...
— The Solitary Summer • Elizabeth von Arnim
... There 's some stratagem In the confining all our courtiers To their several wards: I must have part of it; My intelligence will freeze else. List, again! It may be 'twas the melancholy bird, Best friend of silence and of solitariness, The owl, that ...
— The Duchess of Malfi • John Webster
... thoroughly bad man; he had been turned out of the provincial treasury and had had to stand his trial on more than one occasion; he was often of use to my father.... They used to "do business" together. In appearance he was a round, podgy figure; and his face was like a fox's with a nose like an owl's. His eyes were brown, bright, also like a fox's, and he was always moving them, those eyes, to right and to left, and he twitched his nose, too, as though he were sniffing the air. He wore shoes without ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the several statues of Discoboli, or Quoit-throwers—was found by the present writer in the Montreal Museum of Natural History; it was, however, banished from public view, to a room where were all manner of skins, plants, snakes, insects, &c., and in the middle of these, an old man, stuffing an owl. The dialogue—perhaps true, perhaps imaginary, perhaps a little of one and a little of the other—between the writer and this old man gave rise to the lines ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... toss. It fell upon the ermine muff of a furbelowed old dowager, who was skating bravely about, notwithstanding her seventy years. "I will see how I look," she said, with a simpering smile; and behold, there was a puffy white owl in the mirror. Down fell the glass, but Rosamond caught and ...
— The Magician's Show Box and Other Stories • Lydia Maria Child
... the night, the solemn silence and lonely situation of the place, conspired with the occasion of his coming and the dismal images of his fancy, to produce a real rapture of gloomy expectation... The clock struck twelve, the owl screeched from the ruined battlement, the door was opened by the sexton, who, by the light of a glimmering taper, conducted the despairing ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... after walking nearly a mile without seeing a sign of him, they began to fear that their search would prove fruitless. They kept calling, "Matamore! Matamore!" but there was no reply, nothing to be heard but the howling of the large black dog, at intervals now, or the scream of an owl, disturbed by the light of the lantern. At last de Sigognac, with his penetrating vision, thought he could make out a recumbent figure at the foot of a tree, a little way off from the road, and they all pressed forward to the ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... the land of Nod When the rascal was alone Like an owl in an ivy tod Built a city as ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... Annie's hand with his cold nose, but hurrying away, though she would fain have patted him.—Success to your search, Fidelity!—And there sits a great yellow cat upon a window-sill, a very corpulent and comfortable cat, gazing at this transitory world with owl's eyes, and making pithy comments, doubtless, or what appear such, to the silly beast.—Oh, sage puss, make room for me beside you, and we will be a ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the doctor; "birds are the warmest blooded, and of these the duck and hen are the most remarkable; their temperature is above 110 degrees, while that of the owl is not more than 104 degrees; then come the mammalia, men; the temperature of Englishmen is generally ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... the side of a cliff, and was dark and gloomy as a tomb. The only sounds they heard were the hooting of an owl and the wails and howls of wandering ghosts; the only sights were the corpses of men hanging on trees or lying stark upon the ground. Sir Trevisan turned his horse's head and would fain have fled, but the Red ...
— The Red Romance Book • Various
... found a songbird," he went on smiling, "but I was afraid he didn't know the difference between that and an owl—I see he did. I'll be glad to have you for a pupil. Royal can bring you to ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... Monte-a-l'assaut and Chante-en-hiver. He gave them further orders, and continued on his way, bearing to the left and skirting the edges of a little wood which lies between Grandchamp and Larre. There Cadoudal halted, imitated, three separate times in succession, the cry of an owl, and was presently surrounded by his ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... but wouldn't it!" said Ferguson. "Then we'd have seen scientific work. Intellect—just pure intellect—away up on the upper levels, dontchuknow. Archy is all right, and it don't become anybody to belittle him, I can tell you. But his gift is only just eyesight, sharp as an owl's, as near as I can make it out just a grand natural animal talent, no more, no less, and prime as far as it goes, but no intellect in it, and for awfulness and marvelousness no more to be compared ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... cried, running wildly up and down till his dressing-gown flapped round him like the wings of an owl. "So he has made nearly three thousand dollars! I have always had a bad opinion of that man; now I know what he is. He is a rascal—a double dealer. He never advanced the seven thousand either; his whole shop is not ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... belts of pinewood, where the wild cat howled and the owl screeched, and across broad stretches of fenland and moor, where the silence was only broken by the booming cry of the bittern or the fluttering of wild duck far above our heads. The road was in parts overgrown with brambles, and was so deeply rutted and so studded with sharp and dangerous hollows, ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... damnation!" he exclaimed, as he strode away after the encounter; "'tis the ugliest yet. A yellow-faced girl brat, with eyes like an owl's in an ivy-bush, and with a voice like a very peacocks. Another mawking, plain slut that no man ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... upbraid thee with thy foolish speeches, yet would I thou hadst not spoken so lightly of the good people. But take courage, goodman; thou art never the worse yet for thy mishap, I trow; so tell me what has befallen thee, and ha' done snoring there, like an owl in a barn riggin'." ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... to a few telling strokes their wearers are overwhelmed with the honors of publicity; with which, on the other hand, nothing is more likely to interfere than the possession of a countenance neatly classical. Daumier had only to give M. Thiers the face of a clever owl, and the trick was played. Of course skill was needed to individualize the symbol, but that is what caricaturists propose to themselves. Of how well he succeeded the admirable plate of the lively little minister in ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... (patience under trial by pain); and Temperance (patience under trial by pleasure). With respect to these four virtues, the attributes of Athena are all distinct. In her prudence, or sight in darkness, she is "Glaukopis," "owl-eyed."* In her justice, which is the dominant virtue, she wears two robes, one of light, and one of darkness; the robe of light, saffron color, or the color of the daybreak, falls to her feet, covering her wholly with favor and love,—the calm of the sky in blessing; ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... plan the king put it into execution. Satan incensed with indignation stood unterrified. My friend seeing me in need offered his services. James being weary with his journey sat down on the wall. The owl hid in the tree hooted ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... of the same mind as he. They acted as if they would rather make the nights ring with their music than do anything else. And Johnnie Green said one evening, when he heard Solomon Owl hooting over in the hemlock woods, that it was lucky there weren't as many Owls as there were ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... half-ruined Genoese tower, on the shore of the Bay of Ajaccio, with this inscription on a tarnished panel over its hermetically closed door: 'Paganetti Agency, Maritime Company, Bureau of Information.' The bureau is kept by fat gray lizards in company with a screech-owl. As for the railroads, I noticed that all the excellent Corsicans to whom I mentioned them, replied with cunning smiles, disconnected phrases, full of mystery; and not until this morning did I obtain the exceedingly farcical ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... to the Western sea, they did— To a land all covered with trees; And they bought an owl, and a useful cart, And a pound of rice, and a cranberry-tart, And a hive of silvery bees; And they bought a pig, and some green jackdaws, And a lovely monkey with lollipop paws, And forty bottles of ring-bo-ree, And no end of Stilton cheese. Far and ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... might have been told to bring from a far distant country before he could hope to win the hand of some lovely princess. Among them was a clock under a glass case, consisting of a golden tree, with a peacock, an owl, a cock, a mouse, a stream of running water, and many other things. At each hour the peacock unfolds his tail, the cock crows, the owl rolls his goggle eyes, and the mouse runs out of its hole. But far more interesting than ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... be buried pretty deep. Your grandfather was a trifle eccentric, I judge, but not a fool by any manner of means. The situation appeals to my imagination, Jack. I like the idea of it,— the lost treasure and the whole business. Lord, what a salad that is! Cheer up, comrade! You’re as grim as an owl!” ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... clink of glass and rattle of crushed ice, while next the church, on old Mrs. Pancoast's portico, with its tall Corinthian columns—Mr. Pancoast was the archdeacon of the Noah's ark church—one or two old grandmothers and a grave old owl of a family doctor were sure to fill the rocking-chairs. As for Richard Horn's marble steps they were never free from stray young couples who flew in to rest on Malachi's chairs and cushions. Sometimes only one bird and her mate would be tucked away in the shadow of ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... perpetual fountain of "hot water". Among less important controversies may be mentioned that with Grainger, the translator of Tibullus. Grainger replied in a pamphlet; and in the next number of the Review we find him threatened with "castigation", as an "owl that has broken ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of light in all the sad landscape, and the abyss seems waiting at my feet to swallow me up with everything that I cherish. It is no use saying to this demon of the darkness that I know he is a humbug, a mere Dismal Jemmy of the brain, who sits there croaking like a night owl or a tenth-rate journalist. My Dismal Jemmy is not to be exorcised by argument. He can only be driven out by a ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... Crumpetty Tree Came the Stork, the Duck, and the Owl; The Snail and the Bumblebee, The Frog and the Fimble Fowl (The Fimble Fowl, with a corkscrew leg); And all of them said, "We humbly beg We may build our homes on your lovely Hat,— Mr. Quangle Wangle, grant us that! Mr. Quangle ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... Jeekie went the round of the camp to see that everyone was at his post. Then he did what most people would have thought a very curious and strange thing, namely climbed the fence and vanished into the forest, where presently a sound was heard as of an owl hooting. ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... proved that they were some distance beyond where they had entered the woody labyrinth on the previous day, but their guide was at no loss, and after about an hour's walking the black set up a long, low, penetrating, owl-like cry, which before long was answered from apparently a great distance, but which must have been close at hand, for before a couple of minutes had elapsed a pair of the pigmies glided into sight, turned and led the way back from ...
— Dead Man's Land - Being the Voyage to Zimbambangwe of certain and uncertain • George Manville Fenn
... them, from my post of observation behind the kitchen door, and he did appear so ridiculous with his gold eye-glasses, looking as solemn as an owl, and glancing around with that expression of supercilious curiosity, as though he expected to find us all wild Indians, or ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... twig snapped under Hugh's foot and the boys stopped short, their breath coming fast. The hoot of an owl directly overhead startled them violently and unconsciously they clutched each other's arm. The giant trees loomed black and forbidding in the darkness, and it was easy to imagine all kinds of things lurking behind to spring out ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... shafts having been similarly prepared, the Indian was ready to feather them. A feather he called pu nee. In fledging arrows Ishi used eagle, buzzard, hawk or flicker feathers. Owl feathers Indians seem to avoid, thinking they bring bad luck. By preference he took them from the wings, but did not hesitate to use tail feathers if reduced to it. With us ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... resulted to him individually, if not to the world at large, from the discovery? It seems to me quite incredible that any man of common understanding could have discovered what Mr. Kissam says he did, and yet have subsequently acted so like a baby—so like an owl—as Mr. Kissam admits that he did. By-the-way, who is Mr. Kissam? and is not the whole paragraph in the 'Courier and Enquirer' a fabrication got up to 'make a talk'? It must be confessed that it has an amazingly moon-hoaxy-air. Very little ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... he called to her; 'tell me if you see a squirrel stirring, or the eyes of an owl ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... waving hands, without any spiritual act of deprecation or supplication. In such a sense and such alone they worship the sun and moon (but not the stars), the forest, and the sea. The wolf, the black snake, the owl, and several other beasts and birds have the word kamoi, god, attached to them, as the wolf is the "howling god," the owl "the bird of the gods," a black snake the "raven god;" but none of these things are now "worshipped," wolf-worship having quite ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... with weary gait, His day's hot task hath ended in the west; The owl (Night's herald) shrieks; 'tis very late, The sheep are gone to fold, the birds to nest, The cool black clouds that shadow heaven's light Do summon us to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... higher up the walls. They clung around the necks of the big stone idols and shrieked as they skipped along the battlements, while Mowgli, dancing in the summerhouse, put his eye to the screenwork and hooted owl-fashion between his front teeth, to show ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... the birds, their solemn, dignified faces, their flight so soft and broad-winged. And then to the birds his brother had shot, fluffy, dust-coloured, dead heaps of softness with faces absurdly asleep. It was a queer thing, a dead owl. ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... pluck'd up the latch, And with his knee the door he opens wide. The dove sleeps fast that this night-owl will catch: Thus treason works ere traitors be espied. Who sees the lurking serpent steps aside; But she, sound sleeping, fearing no such thing, Lies at the mercy ...
— The Rape of Lucrece • William Shakespeare [Clark edition]
... (Dr. 12b and 13b) he is represented apparently with distended abdomen. A distinguishing article of his costume is the stiff feather collar, which is worn only by this god, his companion, the war-god F, and by his animal symbol, the owl, which will both be discussed farther on. His head ornament varies in the Dresden Codex; in the first portion of the manuscript, relating in part to pregnancy and child-birth (see the pictures of women on p. 16, et ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... in the air, The evening gnats; and there The owl opes broad his eyes and wings to sail For prey; the bat wakes; and the shell-less snail Comes forth, ...
— Goblin Market, The Prince's Progress, and Other Poems • Christina Rossetti
... better ask me. Well, her name is Musetta Her surname is Temptation. As to her vocation: Like a rose in the breezes, So she changes lover for lover without number. And like the spiteful screech owl, A bird that's most rapacious, The food that most she favors is the heart! Her food the heart is; Thus have I now none left! (to his friends, concealing his agitation) So pass me ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... a hooting Owl, A Hawk, a Canary, an old Marsh-Fowl, One day all meet together To hold a caucus and settle the fate Of a certain bird (without a mate), A ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... come to pass. For the strain had been too great, and at nine o'clock on a working day morning, steady, reliable, dependable, automatic Andrew Daney having imbibed Dutch courage in lieu of Nature's own brand, was, for the first time in his life, jingled to an extent comparable to that of a boiled owl. ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... woodpeckers, bluebirds and their like, the mahogany-like dense heart-wood rots, leaving hollow passages in the trunk and larger limbs, and often in the smaller ones, too. Here are homes for all who seek complete seclusion from storms and enemies. The little screech owl loves these hollows more than those of any other tree, and sings his little quavering night song from the dusky tops, while his mate and her eggs are safely hidden in the blackness of the hollow below. The downy woodpecker bores his nest hole in the softened heart-wood of upright ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... complete accordance with all directions, and then went off to finish her Latin translation. It was a particularly stiff piece of Virgil, and she puzzled over it so long that she utterly forgot all about the chickens, and it was only the call of an owl waking up on the ivy-covered ash tree at the bottom of the garden that reminded her of her ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... the moving stream, And fling, as its ripples gently flow, A burnished length of wavy beam In an eel-like, spiral line below; The winds are whist, and the owl is still, The bat in the shelvy rock is hid. And naught is heard on the lonely hill But the cricket's chirp, and the answer shrill Of the gauze-winged katy-did, And the plaint of the wailing whippoorwill, Who moans unseen, and ceaseless sings, Ever a note of wail and woe, Till the morning ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... without eating, drinking, or sleeping. On the evening of the third day he was quite worn-out with fatigue, and stopping his horse in a field, got down to rest for a short time. Suddenly he heard cries, as of something in pain, and looking round saw an enormous owl tearing a hare with its claws. The prince laid hold of the first hard thing that came to his hand; he imagined it to be a stone, but it was really a skull, and aiming it at the owl, killed the bird with the first blow. The rescued hare ran up to him and gratefully licked ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... back of the head. For a moment I was so terrified that I nearly fell off the plank, as I thought that the lion had sprung on me from behind. Regaining my senses in a second or two, I realised that I had been hit by nothing more formidable than an owl, which had doubtless mistaken me for the branch of a tree—not a very alarming thing to happen in ordinary circumstances, I admit, but coming at the time it did, it almost paralysed me. The involuntary start which I could not ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... spruce-tops; but in this silence it fell upon the starving man's hearing with a distinctness that drew his muscles rigid and set his eyes staring about him in wild search. Just beyond the hanging pails a moose-bird hopped out upon the snow. It chirped hungrily, its big, owl-like eyes scrutinizing Dixon. The man stared back, fearing to move. Slowly he forced his right foot through the snow to the rear of his left, and as cautiously brought his left behind his right, working himself backward step ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... "r's" with unctuous joy And, preening, wonders whom he may annoy, Then imitates a hen, a water-fowl And next the "Be quick" of a white barn-owl. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... suddenly by the creaking of a door. It was an extraordinary thing at that hour. The whole house hold was asleep. Nothing could be heard save the footsteps of the watch-dogs on the sand, or their scratching at the foot of a tree in which an owl was screeching. An excellent opportunity to use his listening-tube! Upon putting it to his ear, M. Gardinois was assured that he had made no mistake. The sounds continued. One door was opened, then another. The bolt of the front door was ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... 'Cause why? You don't generally kill a little gopher or a little owl that's settin' up tendin' to his business, because you ain't scared of them. But you will go off of the trail to kill a rattler, a side-winder, because he's able to kill you if he takes a notion. Correct. Now ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... beard, a pair of piercing owl-like eyes and large bare feet, mark "Prophet" Kemp among the citizenry of Daytona Beach, Florida. The "Prophet", christened John Henry—as nearly as he can remember—is an 80 year old ex-slave whose remininiscences of the past, delight all those who can prevail ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... There waits a haven, pleasant, bright, and warm, And one to lead you thither from the storm And lurking dangers, yet you turn away, And, thinking to be your own protector, stray Into the open jaws of death: for, see! An owl is sitting in this very tree You thought safe shelter. Go now to your pen." And, followed by the clucking, clamorous hen, So like the human mother here again, Moaning because a strong, protecting arm Would shield her little ones from cold and harm, I carried ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Joseph with asses' ears. Such foolish Munchausenisms give to young girls a false idea of the opposite sex, relax their vigilance and imperil their virtue. From such ridiculous romances, solemnly approved by an owl-like priesthood, sprung that false code—so insulting to womankind—that a wife's honor is not committed to her own keeping, but to the tender care of every man with whom she comes in contact. When ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... me whether any Fringillidae or Sylviadae erect their feathers when frightened or enraged? (469/1. See "Expression of the Emotions," page 99.) I want to show that this expression is common to all or most of the families of birds. I know of this only in the fowl, swan, tropic-bird, owl, ruff and reeve, and cuckoo. I fancy that I remember having seen nestling birds erect their feathers greatly when looking into nests, as is said to be the case with young cuckoos. I should much like to know whether nestlings ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... a huge stuffed albatross, and just opposite was a small but exquisitely-carved Venetian cabinet adorned with grotesque heads of men and animals, and surmounted by a small square case in which was a beautifully-mounted specimen of the little spotted brown owl of Greece, the species so common among the ruins of the Acropolis. On the mantelpiece were a small bronze clock, a quaint Chinese teapot and a pair of delicately-flowered Sevres vases. On the table the engraved tooth of a sperm whale did duty as a paper-weight, a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... over a forest far away with slow sweep of its wings; another flew with exactly the same motion in the same direction and vanished. The birds twittered more and more loudly and busily in the thicket. An owl hooted not far off, and Laska, starting, stepped cautiously a few steps forward, and putting her head on one side, began to listen intently. Beyond the stream was heard the cuckoo. Twice she uttered her usual cuckoo call, and then gave ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... plains; for the armadillos were most abundant, and in the long grass it was impossible to see their holes. In addition to the armadillos, the ground is in many places honeycombed by the bischachas, which somewhat in size and appearance resemble rabbits, and by a little burrowing owl. ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... though the tigers which infest the jungle never attack a party, we might chance to see their glaring eyeballs; that even if men could be bribed to undertake to carry us, they would fall with us, or put us down and run away, for no better reason than that they caught sight of the "spectre bird" (the owl); and he adds, with a gallantry remarkable in a Mohammedan, that he should not care about Mr. Hayward, "but it would not do for the ladies." So we are apparently stuck fast, the chief cause for anxiety ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... they grew worse and worse; Downy had warned them of all the dangers which they ran in roaming so far from home, and told them of the cat that haunted the garden, and of the mousehunt, and the great white owl, but these bad mice paid no attention to what their kind good mother said ...
— Little Downy - The History of A Field-Mouse • Catharine Parr Traill
... in some provinces, elsewhere a doe. The Athene of the Acropolis is a serpent. Apollo is sometimes connected with the mouse. Along with these identifications of the gods with animals we may mention the animal emblems with which they are generally represented. The eagle is the bird of Zeus, the owl of Athene, the peacock of Hera, the dove of Aphrodite. In this connection we cannot help thinking of the sacred animals of the Egyptian nomes; and the question may be asked whether such animals must be taken to be in Greece also the signs ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... echoed with the songs of jubilant multitudes welcoming them home from victory are buried under the drifting desert sands; in the ruins of thy holy temples the statues of the gods lie prone in the dust, and the owl rears her brood on thy crumbling altars, and hoots to the moon where once rose the solemn chant of priests and the sweet hymns of the Sacred Virgins; the jackal barks where once the mightiest monarchs of earth gave judgment ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... woods and rocks around—the fire, throwing fitful gleams on the faces of the sleeping savages—and the Heer Antony, too, who so singularly, yet vaguely reminded him of the nightly visitant to the haunted house. Now and then he heard the cry of some animal from the forest; or the hooting of the owl; or the notes of the whip-poor-will, which seemed to abound among these solitudes; or the splash of a sturgeon, leaping out of the river, and falling back full length on its placid surface. He contrasted all this with his accustomed nest in the garret-room of the doctor's ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... too, and an old lame horse-twenty-five years of age—and chickens, and pigeons, and two lambs, and many other animals. But his favorite pets were Dab-Dab the duck, Jip the dog, Gub-Gub the baby pig, Polynesia the parrot, and the owl Too-Too. ...
— The Story of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... ask Nan to play and sing now," said Daisy to her brother, who sat looking very much like an owl, as he gravely regarded the festive scene between ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... better buried in oblivion. You and your camera want to remind a fellow constantly of events that ought to be forgotten. But Frank, that must have been an owl you heard. I haven't caught any call for ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... Bison Herd Pheasant Snares Pheasant Skins Seized at Rangoon Deadfall Traps in Burma One Morning's Catch of Trout near Spokane The Cut-Worm The Gypsy Moth Downy Woodpecker Baltimore Oriole Nighthawk Purple Martin Bob-White Rose-Breasted Grosbeak Barn Owl Golden-Winged Woodpecker Kildeer Plover Jacksnipe A Food Supply of White-Tailed Deer White-Tailed Deer Notable Protectors of Wild Life: Madison Grant, Henry Fairfield Osborn, John F. Lacey, and William Dutcher Notable Protectors: Forbush, Pearson, Burnham, Napier Notable ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... with a windy glitter that was flung back by a neighboring tarn. The call of the curlew seemed more mournful, the crying of lapwing rose from the meadow land, and she started at a hollow hoot as an owl swept by on muffled wing. The night voices filled her with an eerie sensation—there was, she recollected, always something creepy about Crosbie Ghyll, and, for Millicent was superstitious, she shivered ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... and voluminous individual who had joined them sat down before Stuart and Jules and treated the two of them to an amiable grin, made all the more amiable and owl-like by those glasses. ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... and the stars are in the sky, Then the owl awakes and sings a plaintive song, While the crickets in the thickets sing the soothing lullaby, And the katydid ...
— Cap and Gown - A Treasury of College Verse • Selected by Frederic Knowles
... would enjoy his company, and every woman would adore him. He had not then published "Piccadilly"; perhaps he was writing it; while, like all the young men about the Foreign Office, he contributed to The Owl. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... thousand lamps. Odours of the woods floated on the air: the spicy fragrance of the firs; the breath of hidden banks of twin-flower. Muskrats swam noiselessly in the shadows, diving with a great commotion as the canoe ran upon them suddenly. A horned owl hooted from the branch of a dead pine-tree; far back in the forest a fox barked twice. The moon crept up behind the wall of trees and ...
— The Blue Flower, and Others • Henry van Dyke
... felt the wound. Next Anger rushed, his eyes on fire. The moping Owl doth to the Moon complain. True Hope is swift and flies with swallow's wings. Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, as to be hated needs but to be seen. Speckled Vanity ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... into misfortunes, and suffer as much from trifling accidents as from real evils. I have known the shooting of a star spoil a night's rest; and have seen a man in love grow pale, and lose his appetite, upon the plucking of a merry-thought. A screech-owl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket hath struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing so inconsiderable, which may not appear ...
— Apparitions; or, The Mystery of Ghosts, Hobgoblins, and Haunted Houses Developed • Joseph Taylor
... beauteous scenery. Seated in the cool of the evening under one of the noble trees on your shore, the only sounds I heard were the soft ripple of the water, and the late warbling of the redbreast—Yes, I forget the humming beetle as it rapidly passed, and the owl calling to its mate in the distant wood. How ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... out of my own pocket to see Godolphin's face when he reads my dispatch, and finds that he's got to honor bills for a hundred thousand pounds; it will be better than any comedy that ever was acted. How the pompous old owl will fret and fume! But he will have to find the money for all that. He can't begin the campaign by dishonoring bills of her majesty's general, or no one would trust us hereafter. You haven't seen my lord ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... seemed very faint, and it heaved and panted. By that time a conglomeration like a mass of writhing serpents was letting itself down the side of the den, and when it got to the bottom it shot out a head, made itself into the exact shape of an owl without wings, and began to fly about the place. ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... little boy cried: "Let me go—let me go!" For a scared—scared boy was he! But the Thunder growled from a black cloud: "No!" And the Wind roared: "Follow me!" And an old gray Owl from a treetop flew, Saying: "Who are you-oo? Who are you-oo?" And the little boy sobbed: "I'm lost away, And I want to go home where my parents stay!" Oh, the awful day When the little boy ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... night in Korea, he had been wakened by the yammering of a tigress. His terror for a moment had been primal, literally a simian's helpless quaking. Earlier still, he had heard a hoot-owl, and encountered through it, his first realization of phantom horrors; he knew then there was an Unseen, and nether acoustics; here was a key to ghostly doors. A mourning-dove had brought back in a swift passage ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... sketching portraits," said the Baronet. "I am a blind owl; I had misread you strangely. And yet remember this: a sprint is one thing, and to run all day another. For I still mistrust your constitution; the short nose, the hair and eyes of several complexions; no, they are diagnostic; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the grass, the tits playing on the branches of a silver birch silhouetted against the sky, the little blue butterflies chasing each other over the pink crab-apple bloom. He would follow the tapping of a woodpecker, and wait in the evening for the owl's cry to begin; and here, as elsewhere, to be with him was to ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... him tilted back in his chair in a debonnair manner beside his polished desk, the hint of a smile on his lips; and leaning close to him was a yellow, owl-like person whose eyes, as they turned to me, gave the impression of having stared for years into hard, artificial lights. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... her own head Megaera[1] takes A periwig of twisted snakes: Which in the nicest fashion curl'd, (Like toupees[2] of this upper world) With flower of sulphur powder'd well, That graceful on his shoulders fell; An adder of the sable kind In line direct hung down behind: The owl, the raven, and the bat, Clubb'd for a feather to his hat: His coat, a usurer's velvet pall, Bequeath'd to Pluto, corpse and all. But, loath his person to expose Bare, like a carcass pick'd by crows, A lawyer, o'er his hands and face Stuck artfully a parchment case. No new ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... was whispering this in my ear, his arm round me, my head resting on his shoulder, the cries of a bat, surprised by an owl, disturbed us. This death-cry struck me with such terror that Felipe carried me half-fainting to my bed. But don't be alarmed! Though this augury of evil still resounds in my soul, I am quite myself this morning. As soon as I was up, I went to Felipe, and, kneeling before him, ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... Tree, that stands beside the grave Of the Self-slaughter'd, to the misty Moon Calls the complaining Owl in Night's pale noon; And from a hut, far on the hill, to rave Is heard the angry Ban-Dog. With loud wave The rous'd and turbid River surges down, Swoln with the mountain-rains, and dimly shown Appals the Sense.—Yet see! from yonder cave, Her shelter in the recent, stormy showers, ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... markings of very dark colour and white on the thorax, head, shoulders, and back wings next the body. The big eyes, quite the largest of any moth I remember, reminded me of owl eyes in the light. The antennae, dark, grey-brown on top, and white on the under side, turned back and drooped beside the costa, no doubt in the position they occupied ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Lescarbot calls it "La Baye des Iles:" and Charlevoix, "Baye de toutes les Isles." It was the bay, or rather the waters, that stretch along the shores of Halifax County, between Owl's ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... to our board. I was too sleepy to see much of you after your arrival last night. Mine eyes blinked like those of an owl. Kiss me, wife and daughter," he added, giving the ladies a salute that resounded through the room. "Have they told you yet about our poor ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... bark canoe, in which they crossed the Ohio, near the mouth of Licking, and having buried it, so as to secure it from the action of the sun, they advanced into the country and encamped at the distance of fifteen miles from the river. Here their father was alarmed by hearing an owl cry in a peculiar tone, which he declared boded death or captivity to themselves, if they continued their expedition—and announced his intention of returning without delay to the river. Both of his sons vehemently opposed this resolution, and at length prevailed upon ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... the image of an owl, I hurried to the cliffs of Donegal, And saw, creeping on the uneasy surge, Those ships that bring the woman grain and meal; They are five days from us. I hurried east, A grey owl flitting, flitting in the dew, And saw nine ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... ale; and I paid the scot. Towards midnight Sergeant Inch had so far forgot his rancour as to strike up his song of Robin and the Night Owl—'Robin,' I should explain, being the Earl of Essex, and the 'Night Owl' our own general, so nicknamed ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... and the wind blew louder, rushing amongst the branches of the old pines, and making them moan more and more sadly. The cries of strange weird birds were heard, probably the shrieks of the ill-omened screech-owl, and the place seemed more and more remote from all human sympathy. Genji could only helplessly repeat, "How could I have chosen such a retreat." While Ukon, quite dismayed, cried pitifully at his side. ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various
... of several spiders and of some larvae. The spider, it appears, is an "undescribed species of Erigone," and the larvae are probably lepidopterous. A small shrike was also secured as a specimen. We saw several species of gulls, a snowy owl—which by the way was very shy—a few lemmings, and the tracks ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... the winter-tam most all the animals in the wood he'll go white. Those hare, he'll get white just same color as the snow. Those picheu, those lynx, he'll get gray, almost white. The ptarmigan, he'll get white, too, so those owl won' see heem on the snow; an' the owl he'll get white, so nothing will see heem when he goes on the snow. Some tam up north the wolf he'll be white all over, an' some fox he'll also be white all same ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... a degree of loudness are found that enable him to recognize these sounds with unfailing accuracy, or at least 90 per cent. of the time, then other sounds can be added, such as aw (a with diaresis below), (a with breve) (as in hat), (i with macron) (as in ice), oo (as in cool), ow (as in owl). Using these sounds at different pitches, and with different intensities and distances, a sufficiently accurate estimate can be formed of the degree of his hearing power so far as his present ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... help me to remember the levers of the second order. It's my physiology class tonight, and I feel, as Tom would express it, like a 'boiled owl.'" ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... an embarrassing position? Anything, anywhere, any time, regardless of nature or location. Everybody's friend. Consultation at all hours. Suite 152, Owl Building, Brooklyn. ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams |
