"Peck at" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dear," she said, making a peck at Kitty's cheek. "That flunkey, idling his life away on the hall mat, said I should find you here, so I saved him from overwork by showing myself in. How are you, St. John? You're looking a bit peaky this ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... Merrit, as she came into the study one afternoon towards dusk with a step-ladder. "You'd much better leave Peter alone. Starve him into surrender, Mrs. Merrit, and don't leave bananas and seed about for him to peck at when he fancies he's hungry. You're ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... speak, my tears fall on his sleek black wings and his dear gray head. I try to kiss him; but he makes such a spiteful peck at my nose, that I have to give up the idea. Thus one of my good-byes is over. By the time that they are all ended, and we have returned to the house, I am drowned in tears, and my appearance for the day is irretrievably damaged. My nose is certainly very red. It surprises even myself, ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... Amazons against the Greeks, OVIDIUS hints, proud manhood galls and piques. No doubt; yet NASO did it in his day, And we, in ours, who, sorely-pressed, would stay The rising tide of Revolution, check Disintegration, of the claws who'd peck At our political sleeves and platform hearts Must not be frightened. "Rummiest of starts," The ribald Cockney cries; to see at length, "The Tory seeking to recruit his strength Prom those he dubbed, in earlier, scornfuller ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 5, 1891 • Various
... to make the ball roll out of the way of the hen. The stick would slip off it when Bunny reached for it, and whenever the stick came near the hen she would peck at it. Once she almost knocked it ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue on Grandpa's Farm • Laura Lee Hope
... manage her father and the house, especially on the scraps of time left her by her V.A.D. work? The Squire had been like a fractious child over the compulsory rations. Nobody was less of a glutton—he pecked like a bird; but the proper food to peck at must be always there, or his temper was unbearable. Pamela made various blunders; the household knew hunger for the first time; and the servants began to give warning. Captain Dell could do nothing with his employer, and the timber business ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... world for some one to resign it to. Nor is it any lie that, had we used the Navy's bare fist instead of its gloved hand from the beginning, we could in all likelihood have shortened the war. That being so, we elected to dab and peck at and half-strangle the enemy, to let him go and choke him again. It is no lie that we continue on our inexplicable path animated, we will try to believe till other proof is given, by a cloudy idea of alleviating or mitigating something ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... do not mean anything. Yet he is puzzled. Art aims to represent, he tells himself, and it should follow that the best art is that which represents most closely and exactly. He recalls, perhaps, the legend of the two Greek painters, one with his picture of the fruit which the birds flew down to peck at, the other with his painting of a veil which deceived his very rival. The imitative or "illusionist" picture pleads its case most plausibly. A further experience of such pictures, however, fails to bring the beholder beyond his simple admiration of the painter's ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... safest place they could have chosen, as no hand could get into the small hole by which they entered. These Tits show great affection and care for their young. While hatching their eggs, if a hand or stick is put into the nest they rise with enlarged throats, and, hissing like a snake, peck at it till it is withdrawn. On one occasion I told my horse-keeper to put his hand into a hole into which I had seen one of these birds enter. He did so, but soon drew it out with a scream, saying a 'snake had bit him.' I told him to try again, but with no better success; he would ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... been that he is unknown to the indigenous animal life, travellers relate that birds are so tame and friendly and curious, being wholly unacquainted with the bloodthirsty nature of man, that they will perch on his shoulders and peck at his ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... numbers, and with loud chattering commence assailing and annoying him in various ways, and soon drive him out of his retreat. The Jay, usually his first assailant, like a thief employed as a thief-taker, attacks him with great zeal and animation; the Chickadee, the Nuthatch, and the small Thrushes peck at his head and eyes; while other birds, less bold, fly round him, and by their vociferation encourage his assailants and help to terrify ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... her stout little body buttoned into a homespun frock, is also seated in the sand, solemnly munching upon a hunk of corn bread, while the chickens, with easy familiarity, peck at the crumbs which fall upon her black shins. Within the cabin, Polly, the miller's wife, has tied a string of beads about her sleek black throat, and now, in all the bravery of her flowered calico, is ready to set off for the ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... the infant is so helpless that all its needs must be supplied by parents, otherwise it would perish. Immediately after birth a colt or calf can walk or run almost as fast as its mother; the chick just out of its shell can run about and peck at its food. The child at one year of age can barely totter around and all of its needs must be looked after by others. Moreover, the infant at birth is practically blind and deaf and the senses of taste and smell and touch just ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... near Capernaum three geese will seek to turn thee aside. Thy toes will they peck at with much hissing and the hem of thy garment will their necks lift angry beaks to. Tarry not, neither kick nor curse them. They are but birds to tempt the foolish. Waste not thy effort on them. ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... singleness of purpose, singleness of heart; honesty &c 939; plain speaking; epanchement [Fr.]. rough diamond, matter of fact man; le palais de verite [Fr.]; enfant terrible [Fr.]. V. be artless &c adj.; look one in the face; wear one's heart upon his sleeves for daws to peck at^; think aloud; speak out, speak one's mind; be free with one, call a spade a spade. Adj. artless, natural, pure, native, confiding, simple, lain, inartificial^, untutored, unsophisticated, ingenu^, unaffected, naive; sincere, frank; open, open ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... something and was weaponless. He lay on the sand, shrieking. There were four ungainly, monstrous birds like oversized Cornish Game gamecocks pecking at him. Two ran crazily away at sight of the humans. Two others remained. Then they fled. One of them halted, darted back, and took a last peck at Johnny ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... two to four feet in height, with small pods two to three inches long, containing three to five small beans. The pod dries and opens, the beans fall to the ground, and in spring take root and grow again. The beans on the ground are gathered by the Indians, who sometimes find a peck at once, gathered by mice ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... with some sort of religion about them, who never feel any anxiety to say a word to any soul concerning the Master whom they profess to love. I know, of course, that deep feeling is silent, and that the secrets of Christian experience are not to be worn on the sleeve for daws to peck at. And I know that the conventionalities of this generation frown very largely upon the frank utterance of religious convictions on the part of religious people, except on Sundays, in Sunday-schools, pulpits, and the like. But for all that, what is in you will come out. If ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... words she gave the boy a withered bean-pod, and, summoning a meek little brownie, bade him see that the lad did not over-fill the acorn-cup, and that he did not so much as peck at ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... now the babu speaking, while he hopped around Amber with his head critically to one side, like an inquisitive jackdaw, now and again darting forward to peck at him with hands that nervously but deftly arranged details of his attire to please a taste fastidious and exacting in such matters—"Oah, my dear fallow, surely you appreciate danger of venturing into nateeve quarters in European dress? As regular-out-and-out sahib, ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... that, it was Serjeant Saunders that got maltreated: first one judge had a peck at him: then another: till they left him scarce a feather to fly with; and, when Alfred's counsel rose to reply, the judges stopped him, and the chief of the court, Alfred's postponing enemy, delivered his judgment after ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... His insight hangs over us and the world like a nebulous star, seeing us, but, in part, remaining unseen. In fact, his deepest thoughts have never been disclosed. Like Burke, he has not "hung his heart upon his sleeve for daws to peck at." He has profound reticence as well as power, and he has modesty as well as reticence. On subjects with which he is acquainted, such as logic, literature, or political economy, no man can speak with more positive ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... species of one kind from all those of the other. There is also some evidence to show that animals do learn by experience what to eat and what to avoid. Mr. Poulton was assured by Rev. G.J. Bursch that very young chickens peck at insects which they afterwards avoid. Lizards, too, often seized larvae which they were unable to eat ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... he had time to know what was happening, Methuselah—sleepy old dotard as he seemed—had woke up at once to a sense of danger. Turning suddenly round upon the sleek, caressing hand, he darted his beak with a vicious peck at his assailant, and bit the divine finger of the Pillar of Heaven as carelessly as he would have bitten any child on Boupari. Tu-Kila-Kila, thunder-struck, drew back his arm with a start of surprise and a loud cry of pain. The bird had wounded him. He shook his hand and stamped. Blood ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... Paddy-bird felt hungry, she flew to a cocoa-nut and began to peck at it. But she did not know the secret of the three little holes at the top of the cocoa-nut; so she pecked, and pecked, and got no further. At last she gathered all her strength, and gave a tremendous ...
— The Talking Thrush - and Other Tales from India • William Crooke
... hold the cocks with skilful delicacy, taking care not to wound themselves. A solemn silence reigns; the spectators seem to be changed into hideous wax figures. They present one cock to the other, holding his head down so that the other may peck at it and thus irritate him. Then the other is given a like opportunity, for in every duel there must be fair play, whether it is a question of Parisian cocks or Filipino cocks. Afterwards, they hold them up in sight of each other, ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... lamb." "Because," said she, "he meets with Lady Day, and gets his quietus." Whatever we say against them, however, lacks the great essential—truth, and that is why we go on saying, thinking we shall come to it at last. We show more malice than matter. Birds ever peck at the fairest fruit; nay, cast it to the ground, and a man picks it up, tastes it, and says how good is it. He enjoys all good in a good wife, and yet too often complains. He rides a fast mare home to a smiling wife, pats them both in his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh, that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if ...
— A Christmas Carol • Charles Dickens
... little afraid of him," she went on, after she had had a little cry, "I'd ask him. But likely as not he'd peck at me—old peckjabber!" and here she laughed through her tears as she thought of the Caravan in their little sunbonnets. "Or p'r'aps he'd snap me up! I've often heard of snapping people up when they asked too many questions, but seems to me it never meant ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... he was not going to tell this crushing fine lady how well he remembered. If he had not exposed his heart for Elisabeth to peck at in the old days, he certainly was not going to expose it now; then she would only have been scientifically interested—now she would probably ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... unexpected quarter. Grace's rooster had at last been persuaded to rush violently between the required posts. In one of its excited turns, it brushed close behind the old goose. Here was a chance for revenge! The rooster gave a flying peck at the goose's tail feathers and ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... enough it was! After that he came almost every day. If the window was shut they opened it for him. Charley used to hide hemp seed and sugar under the edge of the pillows for the Tramp to find. He always found it. Sometimes he would tie sugar up in a paper and the Tramp would peck at it ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... Why do I do it?" He smiled and shook his head. "Well, I don't know. For two reasons, maybe. First, I'd hate to be responsible for tippin' over such a sky-towerin' idol as you've been to make ruins for Angie Phinney and the other blackbirds to peck at and caw over. And second—well, it does sound presumin', don't it, but I kind of pity you. Say, Heman," he added with a chuckle, "that's a kind of distinction, in a way, ain't it? A good many folks have hurrahed over you and worshipped you—some ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... communicate themselves to others, as there are also men who not only can do so, but cannot do otherwise. And it is hard to say which is the better man of the two. We do not specially respect him who wears his heart upon his sleeve for daws to peck at, who carries a crystal window to his bosom so that all can see the work that is going on within it, who cannot keep any affair of his own private, who gushes out in love and friendship to every chance acquaintance; ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... which Annie felt the awfulness. It seemed to her that Mrs. Bolton's impatience with this intolerable hopefulness must burst violently. She hastened to interpose. "I think the trouble is that people don't fully understand Mr. Peck at first. ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... writer's zoological knowledge is at fault. Animals, which never or very rarely see man, have no fear of him whatever. This is well-known to those who visit the Gull-fairs at Ascension Island, Santos and many other isolated rocks; the hen birds will peck at the intruder's ankles but they do not rise from off their eggs. For details concerning the "Gull-fair" of the Summer Islands consult p. 4 "The History of the Bermudas," edited by Sir J. H. Lefroy for the Hakluyt Society, 1882. I have seen birds on Fernando Po peak quietly await a second shot; and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... we wear our hearts upon our sleeves for cynics such as you to peck at?" she replied. "The art of dissembling is one of our few privileges. But do you think the Countess is angry? She ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... wonderful thing about the pelican, for never did mother-sheep love her lamb as the pelican loves its young. When the young are born, the parent bird devotes all his care and thought to nourishing them. But the young birds are ungrateful, and when they have grown strong and self-reliant they peck at their father's face, and he, enraged at ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... came there upon their business; but the turf roof of it had fallen entirely in; so that the hut was of no use to me, and gave me less shelter than my rocks. What was more important, the shell-fish on which I lived grew there in great plenty; when the tide was out I could gather a peck at a time: and this was doubtless a convenience. But the other reason went deeper. I had become in no way used to the horrid solitude of the isle, but still looked round me on all sides (like a man that was hunted), between fear ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her sons to take part in the wars. "Wherefore, Jonathan," she cried, "wherefore will ye sacrifice yourself, and why will ye gie up my winsome sons to the jaws of death? Is there not enough provided for the eagles' and the ravens' banquet, without their bonny blue een to peck at? Bide at hame, and, with my bairns, plough up the green fields, that the earth may provide us with food, as a fond mother, from its bosom. But go ye to the wars, and your destiny is written—your doom is ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... peeps into nests built by such smaller folk as Blackbirds and Robins. And if it happened that anybody was living in one of those nests, Dickie soon found it out. For the angry owners were sure to fly at him with screams of rage, and peck at his head as they ...
— The Tale of Dickie Deer Mouse • Arthur Scott Bailey
... Mr. Blacksnake withdrew his head, hissing fiercely, and struck savagely at the birds nearest him. Several times the same thing happened. No sooner would his head disappear in that hole than Scrapper or one or the other of Skimmer's friends, braver than the rest, would dart in and peck at him viciously, and all the time all the birds were screaming as only excited feathered folk can. Johnny Chuck was quite as excited as his feathered friends, and so intent watching the hated black robber that he had eyes for nothing else. Suddenly he heard a step just behind him. He turned ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... from mania. At one moment she was writing a 'last letter' to Sidney Herbert; at the next she was offering to go out to India to nurse the sufferers in the Mutiny. When Dr. Sutherland wrote, imploring her to take a holiday, she raved. Rest!—'I am lying without my head, without my claws, and you all peck at me. It is de rigueur, d'obligation, like the saying something to one's hat, when one goes into church, to say to me all that has been said to me 110 times a day during the last three months. It is the obbligato on the violin, and the twelve violins all practise it together, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... love and duty, But seeming so for my peculiar end: For when my outward action doth demonstrate The native act and figure of my heart In complement extern, 'tis not long after But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at: I am ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... I had been younger I could have smiled at Miss Martha, as Susy Gatchell and her graceless friends did, but somehow she appeared to me a creature trying to peck at the world and peek at the stars through the bars of a bird-cage. That's why, when I met her a morning or two before the Morenas exhibit, I asked her if she wouldn't like to see it. I knew that, once asked, she could be kept away by ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... feller. By ginger, it hurt like thunder t' see ol' Jack jest git knocked flat. We was a-standin' purty peaceable fer a spell, 'though there was men runnin' ev'ry way all 'round us, an' while we was a-standin' like that, 'long come a big fat feller. He began t' peck at Jack's elbow, an' he ses: 'Say, where 's th' road t' th' river?' An' Jack, he never paid no attention, an' th' feller kept on a-peckin' at his elbow an' sayin': 'Say, where 's th' road t' th' river?' Jack was a-lookin' ahead all th' time ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... from Sarre directly he heard the news. The body in the meanwhile had been placed under the shelter of one of the titanic caves which giant hands have carved in the acclivities of the chalk. Squire Boatfield ordered it to be removed. It was not fitting that birds of prey should be allowed to peck at the dead, nor that some unusually high tide should once more carry him out to sea, ere his murderer ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... creaking new shoes, leaped down to help Missy in. She had received her mother's last admonition, her father's last banter, Aunt Nettie's last anxious peck at her sash, and was just lifting her foot to the surrey step when ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... answered Clara, holding her work at arms' length, and examining it, with her head on one side, like a bird eyeing the cherry he longs to peck at. "Lovely, ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... knitted are stout, and the structure is therefore, not liable to be torn by the beaks of insectivorous birds, while its pendulous position makes it doubly secure against their attacks, the apparatus giving way when they peck at it. There is a small orifice at each end of the egg-shaped bag, to admit of the escape of the moth when it changes from the little chrysalis which sleeps tranquilly in its airy cage. The moth is ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... benediction thousands streamed slowly out to mingle with the multitudes gathered before the great Entrance where Queen Anne in crown and scepter keeps majestic guard, and where in peaceful days doves flit and flutter down to peck at the grain strewn about her ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... of ponds, yellow patches of village; larks in hundreds are soaring, singing, falling headlong with outstretched necks, hopping about the clods; the crows on the highroad stand still, look at you, peck at the earth, let you drive close up, and with two hops lazily move aside. On a hill beyond a ravine a peasant is ploughing; a piebald colt, with a cropped tail and ruffled mane, is running on unsteady legs after its mother; its shrill whinnying reaches us. We drive on into the birch wood, and drink ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev
... dog, or thrown like a dead rat into the cloaca of the prison? What care I if he is made a hyaena's breakfast in the amphitheatre, all Sicca looking on, or if he is nailed on a cross for the birds to peck at before my door? Ungrateful puppy! it is no earthly concern of mine what becomes of him. I shall be neither better nor worse. No one will say a word against Jucundus; he will not lose a single customer, or be shunned ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... the trust, and, holding her switch as proudly as if it had been a sceptre, was eager and quick to discover occasions to use it. Many a staid and demure-looking hen, or saucy, daring young chicken, had stolen quite near to her post, stopping every few moments to peer cautiously around, or to peck at a blade of grass or an imaginary worm, as if quite indifferent to the attractions presented by the field beyond, but just as they had come close to the fence, thinking themselves unnoticed, Nelly would jump from her perch, and, with a thwack ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers
... particles of food, seems to be started into action through the sense of hearing; for with chickens hatched by artificial heat, a good observer found that "making a noise with the finger-nail against a board, in imitation of the hen-mother, first taught them to peck at ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... thought the wooden buttons would give way, but by the clinking sound she knew that the iron bar had been put across. She was quite quiet for a time. Clambering down, she took from the table a small one-bladed penknife, with which she began to peck at the hard wood of ...
— The Story of an African Farm • (AKA Ralph Iron) Olive Schreiner
... season in the still water, in company with the gulls, which do not fail to improve an east wind to visit our meadows, and swim about by twos and threes, pluming themselves, and diving to peck at the root of the lily, and the cranberries which the frost has not loosened. The first flock of geese is seen beating to north, in long harrows and waving lines; the gingle of the song-sparrow salutes us from the shrubs and fences; the plaintive ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be," truly, truly it is an odd and wonderful thing. And you and I may thank our stars, dear readers, that we are a great deal too sensible to wear our hearts in our sleeves for such a bloodthirsty dew to peck at. Ormiston's flame was longer-lived than Sir Norman's; he had been in love a whole month, and had it badly, and was now at the very crisis of a malady. Why did she conceal her face—would she ever disclose it—would she listen to him—would she ever love him? ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming |
