"Reptile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a pretty prospect for her," snorted out the Assessor. "There is a person in the house—a person they call her, she ought to be called reptile, or rather devil—who is said to look after the housekeeping, but robs him, and ruins that child. Would you believe it? she and two tall churls of sons that she has about her amuse themselves with terrifying that little girl by dressing themselves up whimsically, and acting ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... "I'll give him such a wonner in the skull," and picking up a heavy piece of stone from the many lying in the half-dry river-bed he pitched it with fairly good aim just above the basking reptile. ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... and again and again hurled the weapon at the snake although now they were safe from any attack by the reptile. Its skin was glossy and the dark folds had a certain beauty of their own. Both boys, however, were unaware of the colors of the great snake. At last Zeke succeeded in severing the body. In a moment he grasped the tail and flung the part to which it ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... Robert Chambers. My father's copy gives signs of having been carefully read, a long list of marked passages being pinned in at the end. One useful lesson he seems to have learned from it. He writes: "The idea of a fish passing into a reptile, monstrous. I will not specify any genealogies—much too little known at present." He refers again to the book in a letter to Fox, February, 1845: "Have you read that strange, unphilosophical but capitally-written ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... even as she was vile? My brain reeled. Surely to the eyes of any beholder, she was the incarnation of purity! That which animated me was not a personal sense of grievance so much as the inborn, natural desire one feels to exterminate a pest, to crush a reptile, the more dangerous that it crawls through flowers to kill. As I have said, I felt power for strategy, unknown to my nature before, rising in me. Certain ideas were suggested to me, on which I acted with coolness and promptness. I felt like a minister of God's will, charged with ...
— A Village Ophelia and Other Stories • Anne Reeve Aldrich
... Pasterns! you poor; base, contemptible, crawling reptile, as if we trampled you under our hooves—oh, you scruff of the ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... unwearied gaiety, for this mean exterior concealed extraordinary powers of will and dissimulation. Guided by instinct, the other children hung about Pierre and willingly accepted his leadership; by instinct also they avoided Antoine, repelled by a feeling of chill, as if from the neighbourhood of a reptile, and shunning him unless to profit in some way by their superior strength. Never would he join their games without compulsion; his thin, colourless lips seldom parted for a laugh, and even at that tender age his smile had an unpleasantly ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... passion's abated, That the Dean hath lampoon'd me, my mind is elated:— Lampoon'd did I call it?—No—what was it then? What was it?—'Twas fame to be lash'd by his pen: For had he not pointed me out, I had slept till E'en doomsday, a poor insignificant reptile; Half lawyer, half actor, pert, dull, and inglorious, Obscure, and unheard of—but now I'm notorious: Fame has but two gates, a white and a black one; The worst they can say is, I got in at the back one: If the end be obtain'd ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... moment Edith had passed around the sliding door and thought herself unobserved, an expression of intense disgust came out upon her expressive face, and with her lace handkerchief she rubbed the hand he had kissed, as if removing the slime of a reptile; and the large mirror at the further end of the room had faithfully reflected the suggestive little pantomime. He saw and understood ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... an old turtle! Not exactly a reptile, for there is food in him. But of a devilish flat head and ...
— Lazarre • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... more powerful and swifter contemporaries, and would soon become extinct." "As it will be unable to spring for some time," said Bearwarden, "we might as well save it the disappointment of trying," and, snapping the used shell from his rifle, he fired an explosive ball into the reptile, whereupon about half the body disappeared, while a sickening odour arose. Although the sun was still far above the horizon, the rapidity with which it was descending showed that the short night of less than five hours would soon be upon them; and though ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... Lust's exhausted stores No more can rouse the appetites of KINGS; When the low Flattery of their reptile Lords Falls flat and heavy on the accustomed ear; When Eunuchs sing, and Fools buffoon'ry make. And Dancers writhe their harlot limbs in vain: Then War and all its dread vicissitudes Pleasingly agitate their ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... undertook to attempt its destruction, which, after a terrible conflict, he accomplished. He was accompanied in this adventure by a vassal of whose fidelity he had no suspicion, but who, seeing his lord overcome by fatigue, after having vanquished the reptile, suddenly bethought himself of monopolizing the glory of the action. Instigated by this foul ambition, he assassinated his lord, and, returning to Normandy, promulgated a fictitious narrative of the encounter; and, to further his iniquitous views, presented a forged ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 396, Saturday, October 31, 1829. • Various
... far behind rose the tufted tail of the king of the forest. From the two great eyes of the gigantic reptile shone dazzling streams of white light, like the rays of a mariner's beacon, and everywhere twinkling yellow lights were moving about the face of the great rock, across the platform whereon the colossal figure rested, even to the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... the predatory habits of the "goanner"—which hitherto had confined his evil deeds to nocturnal visits to the fowl-yards—is stated to be the extermination of the opossum, which has driven the cunning reptile to seek for another source of food. And, as before the shooting of kangaroos, wallabies, and opossums was resorted to as a means of livelihood by hundreds of bushmen who had no other employment open to them, the young of these marsupials furnished the iguana with an ample supply of food, ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... reminded of a Whig or Tory measure. When the newspaper is brought in, I walk round and round it as a dog will do round the spot he is about to lie down upon. I would fain not touch it; but at last, like a fascinated bird who falls per force into the reptile's mouth, so do I plunge into its columns, read it with desperation, and when the poison has circulated, throw it away in despair. If I am reminded to say grace at dinner, I commence "My Lords, and gentlemen;" and when I seek my bed, as I light my taper, I move ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... that little reptile, Ives, shan't have his profit of it." Banneker rose and, disdaining even the diplomacy of an excuse, ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... government, as is abundantly shown by his close association with Lothar Bucher, with his famulus Moritz Busch, and with Maximilian Harden. But Bismarck, whilst using the journalists, profoundly despised them, with the result that "Bismarck's Reptile Press" became a byword in Europe. Under Buelow's regime the humble pressman rose to influence and affluence and basked in Ministerial favour. With the assistance of Mr. Hammann, Prince von Buelow made the Berlin Press Bureau a sinister ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... "had not the lord regent power to punish? And if he see right to hold his hand, those who strike for him invade his dignity. I should be unworthy the honor of protecting a brave nation, did I stoop to tread on every reptile that stings me in my path. Leave Lord de Valence to the sentence his commander has pronounced, and as an expiation for your having offended both military and moral law this day, you must remain at Stirling till I ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... of more than five digits is a great anomaly, for this number is not normally exceeded by any mammal, bird, or existing reptile.[28] Nevertheless, supernumerary digits are strongly inherited; they have been transmitted through five generations; and in some cases, after disappearing for one, two, or even three generations, have reappeared ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... A little reptile, allured by their immobility, had crept out of the stone wall which they were standing near, and lay flashing its keen eyes at them, and running out its tongue, a forked thread of tremulous scarlet. Maxwell brought his heel down upon its head as he spoke, and ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... Son of Man be lifted up. How well I remember preaching outside a kraal, on a boulder under a flowering kaffir tree, on that very text. I liked preaching that day more than I did most days. It wasn't half bad. That's Christ all over that reptile that Worm and no man! The Worm that I tread on with impunity that's Christ! I expect Hunter might say it would be better for me if the Worm would turn and bite better for my eternal interests. Perhaps the Worm will, one of ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... the Irishman with a sick horror, as if the big fellow were turning into a reptile before his eyes. On the face of Harrigan there was an expression like that of the starving man whom the fear of poison induces ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... sanctity. The instant there is a flaw, a 'damned spot' to be concealed, it is glossed over with a doubtful name. Again, we dress up our enemies in nicknames, and they march to the stake as assuredly as in san Benitos.... Strange, that a reptile should wish to be thought an angel; or that he should not be content to writhe and grovel in his native earth, without aspiring to the skies! It is from the love of dress and finery. He is the Chimney-sweeper on May-day all the year round: the soot peeps through ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... you believe that miserable reptile, instead of this honest man? Beside, think of the illogical position. If this man is a spy, you have to admit that there is a war between your people and his, ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... Gerfaut stood on the same spot; but at last arousing himself from this dreamy languor, he climbed the rock so as to reach the top of the cliff. After taking a few steps he stopped with a frightened look, as if he had espied some venomous reptile in his path. He could see, through the bushes which bordered the crest of the plateau at the top of the ladder cut in the rock, Bergenheim, motionless, and in the attitude of a man who is trying to conceal himself ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... also frequently took pleasure in roasting them alive. He once received a present of a very large snake from some person who seemed to understand how to please this remarkable young prince. After a time, however, the favorite reptile allowed itself to bite its master's finger, whereupon Don Carlos immediately retaliated by biting ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... crew, as she backed out into the river and headed away on her long northern trip. Paul had snug quarters and spent much of his time feeding the red birds and playing with his alligator. He saw great fun ahead in the tricks he hoped to spring on his sisters and friends with the cunning little reptile. Whenever the boat made a landing, he was always on deck watching the negroes, as they rolled bales of cotton down the steep bluffs or struggled with the refractory hogs who refused to come aboard. ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... Be not discouraged by such gross affronts, prompted by splenetic hearts and spewed forth by empty heads. You may be flouted on the one hand by a few purse-proud parvenues and pitied on the other hand by bedizened prostitutes, but the great world, which learned long ago that the reptile as well as the eagle can reach the apex of the pyramid, estimates you at your true worth and binds upon your pure brows the victor's wreath, while ringing ever in your ears like a heavenly anthem are the words of Israel's wisest—"A good name is ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... that when AEsculapius was in the house of his patient, Glaucus, and deep in thought, a serpent coiled itself around his staff. AEsculapius killed it, and then another serpent appeared with a herb leaf in its mouth, and restored the dead reptile to life. It seems probable that disease was looked upon as a poison. Serpents produced poison, and had a reputation in the most ancient times for wisdom, and for the power of renovation, and it was thought ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... a dead bough from a scrub oak he approached the snake cautiously while the rest sat in their saddles silently anxious, and Charley edged his restive pony a little closer to the repulsive reptile. ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... who brings some of his birds. The drawings are of the first order—the attitudes of the birds of the most animated character, and the situations appropriate; one of a snake attacking a bird's nest, while the birds (the parents) peck at the reptile's eyes—they usually, in the long-run, destroy him, says the naturalist. The feathers of these gay little sylphs, most of them from the Southern States, are most brilliant, and are represented with what, were it [not] connected ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... servant, was astonished at such a threat, and wondered why his master was so anxious that no one else should eat any of the fish. Then examining it curiously he said, "Never in all my life have I seen such an odd-looking fish; it seems more like a reptile. Now where would be the harm if I did take some? Every cook tastes of the dishes ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko
... once in his place, And over the rags and the squalor beamed out his beautiful face, And his sweet voice rang through the tumult, and I think the crowd would have hushed And hearkened his manly words; but a well-dressed reptile pushed Right into the ring about us and screeched out infamies That sickened the soul to hearken; till he caught my angry eyes And my voice that cried out at him, and straight on me he turned, A foul word smote my heart and his cane on my shoulders burned. But e'en as a kestrel stoops down ...
— The Pilgrims of Hope • William Morris
... tray, easily seen through the transparent lids, was a carved figure. The weird denizens of the Venusian polar swamps were there, along with lifelike effigies of Terran animals, a Martian sand-mouse in all its monstrous ferocity, and the native animal and reptile life of half a hundred different worlds. Weeks put down a second tray beside the first, again displaying a menagerie of strange life forms. But when he clicked open one of the compartments and handed the figurine it contained to the Captain, Dane understood the reason ...
— Plague Ship • Andre Norton
... to his speed, for he was running directly upon it. Something behind him occupied all his thoughts, and he did not see the alligator at all; for, although his brothers shouted to warn him, he ran on; and, stumbling over the hideous body of the reptile, fell flat upon his face—his gun pitching forward out of his hands as he fell. He was not hurt, however, but, scrambling to his feet again, continued his race, shouting, as he emerged half breathless out of the bushes, ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... The snake was now uncoiled, and writhing over the ground. Another rush from the peccary, another spring, and the sharp hoofs of the animal came down upon the neck of the serpent, crushing it upon the hard turf. The body of the reptile, distended to its full length, quivered for a moment, and then lay motionless along the grass. The victor uttered another sharp cry, that seemed intended as a call to her young ones, who, emerging from ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... travelled to the water was very deeply furrowed, thus proving how the great lizard had repeatedly dragged its heavy bulk over the same spot on its way to drink at the stream, and I bethought me of a plan to deal with the reptile. The only weapon I had upon me when kidnapped from my ship was a short sabre or manchette, which I wore as a sidearm. But this I hoped would prove a formidable weapon when put to the use for which I now ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... suggestion, Dunston Porter hurried back to one of the bungalows. He reappeared with a shotgun, and lost no time in making for the vicinity of the rock where the reptile had been seen. In the meanwhile the four boys rejoined Luke and Shadow, and all ...
— Dave Porter At Bear Camp - The Wild Man of Mirror Lake • Edward Stratemeyer
... she? Can you eat her? can you drink her? Who has ever seen her? Your birds were real: all could hear them sing! Oh, fool! vile reptile! atheist!" they cried, ...
— Dreams • Olive Schreiner
... trembling, weak, suppliant. The words will be brought out with a visible anxiety and diffidence, approaching to hesitation; few and slow; nothing of vain repetition, haranguing, flowers of rhetoric, or affected figures of speech; all simplicity, humility, and lowliness, such as becomes a reptile of the dust, when presuming to address Him, whose greatness is tremenduous beyond all created conception. In intercession for our fellow creatures, which is prescribed in the scriptures, and in thanksgiving, the countenance will naturally assume a small ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... meeting and pass resolutions to the effect that Cooper had rendered "himself odious to a greater portion of the citizens of this community," and why should Fraser's Magazine, three thousand miles away, call Cooper "a liar, a bilious braggart, a full jackass, an insect, a grub, and a reptile"? ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... discovered twenty-seven species of poisonous serpents and one poisonous lizard; eighteen species of these are true rattlesnakes; the remaining nine are divided between varieties of the moccasin, copperhead or the viper. The poisonous lizard is the Texan reptile known as the "Gila Monster." In all these serpents the poison fluid is secreted in a gland which lies against the side of the skull below and behind the eye, from which a duct leads to the base of a hollow tooth or fang, one ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... almost always a placental mode of reproduction, i.e. the blood of the foetus is placed in nutritive relation with the blood of the mother by means of vascular prominences. No trace of such a structure exists in any bird or in any reptile, and yet it crops out again in certain sharks. There indeed it might well be supposed to end, but, marvellous as it seems, it reappears in very lowly creatures; namely, in certain of the ascidians, sometimes called tunicaries ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... he groaned, "and t-that crawlin' r-reptile couldn't let you pass, you poor little ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... way to the Reptile House?" Cassandra asked him, not from a genuine desire to visit the reptiles, but in obedience to her new-born feminine susceptibility, which urged her to charm and conciliate the other sex. Denham began to give her directions, and Katharine ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... have ever felt in exercising this prerogative to the full, in executions on a large scale, and sudden overwhelming massacres, shedding blood like water, and playing with the life of man as though it were the life of a mere beast or reptile. I might call your attention to particular instances of such atrocities, such as that outrage perpetrated in the memory of many of us,—how, on the insurrection of the Greeks at Scio, their barbarian masters carried fire and sword throughout the flourishing island till ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... will, a vegetarian: none the less you must eat forms that have feeling and desire. Sterilize your food; and digestion stops. You cannot even drink without swallowing life. Loathe the name as we may, we are cannibals;—all being essentially is One; and whether we eat the flesh of a plant, a fish, a reptile, a bird, a mammal, or a man, the ultimate fact is the same. And for all life the end is the same: every creature, whether buried or burnt, is devoured,—and not only once or twice,—nor a hundred, nor a thousand, nor a myriad times! Consider the ground ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... roller go over Truth, and Right, and Justice, by main strength and red-hot power; but Truth and Right refuse to stay flat down. There is on this earth not one wild-animal species—mammal, bird or reptile—that can long withstand exploitation for commercial purposes. Even the whales of the deep sea, the walrus of the arctic regions, the condors of the Andes and alligators of the Everglade morasses are no ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... minutely, my dear children, you investigate the hidden wonders of nature, the more firmly will you be convinced of the unlimited power, as well as infinite mercy, of its Supreme Author. The superintending providence of God, is as plainly manifested in the provision made for the meanest reptile, as it is in the wonderful formation of man. Each bird, beast, fish, and insect, is endowed with powers best suited to its wants, and most calculated to promote its enjoyment. In the cassowary of Java, a region of great fertility, the ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux
... we find out? Go by science into nature, and there's no proof of it; God never forgives what seems to be the mistake of even a reptile!" ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... intelligence!" fretted the Professor, glorying in his inability to classify this marvelous specimen. "No fish could ever attain such mental development. Evolution working backward from human to reptile and then fish—or a new freak of evolution whereby a fish on a short cut toward becoming human?" He sighed and gave it up. But more ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... you get it all from him I suppose it can't be helped. Nor changed, except by killing and burying you. One thing is sure, when I'm done you won't be trying any more deals like this. Bah, you slimy reptile, ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... voit cet oiseau qui porte le tonnerre, Blesse par un serpent elance de la terre; Il s'envole, il entraine au sejour azure L'ennemi tortueux dont il est entoure. Le sang tombe des airs. Il dechire, il devore Le reptile acharne qui le combat encore; Il le perce, il le tient sous ses ongles vainqueurs; Par cent coups redoubles il venge ses douleurs. Le monstre, en expirant, se debat, se replie; Il exhale en poisons les restes de sa vie; Et l'aigle, tout sanglant, fier et victorieux, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... reply, a snake, warmed by the hot sun, curled upward from the terraced wall behind them, where it had basked, and glided swiftly between them. Nobili's heel was on it; in an instant he had crushed its head. But there between them lay the quivering reptile, its speckled scales catching the light. Enrica ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... had lived a beautiful purple life, went to sleep under a tree in the forest. Jove sent a huge serpent to destroy him. The man awakened as the reptile drew near. ...
— Fables For The Times • H. W. Phillips
... a little and turned to look at the edge of the cliff. On hands and knees, like a gigantic reptile, he crawled, then lay flat on the ground, on the extreme edge, his eyes peering down into those depths wherein floating vapors lolled and stirred, with subtle movements ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... a triumph which history would report to the latest posterity, the Courier added—"Rulers will henceforth recoil from the virtuous indignation of the people, as the reptile recoiled from the touch of Ithuriel's spear." It was supposed by Wilmot that this not very lucid prediction conveyed a gross and personal insult, and that it attributed to him the artifices and loathsome habits of the fiend. The private secretary was ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... what feelings does the scaly, venomous serpent inspire one when he approaches with slimy track and fetid breath, with stealthy, coil and sickening glare? Think you would not that fascinate with terror, cause a tremble of disgust, and produce insensibility and delirium that such a loathsome reptile should exist and breathe the same air? Yet having now called forth that emotion in its deepest degree, you rejoice to have moved me! Truly you have, and I can conceive your mind just fitted to appreciate ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... interview, but he had kept himself well under control. Later he found it was horror, ever to have been linked with a monster; and dread too that in a sudden access of passion he might have done her to death. It seemed natural and righteous to strike and destroy the reptile. ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... get hold of him." Quick as thought he stooped down, seized firm hold of the snake by the tail, and, whirling him rapidly round his head three or four times, he dashed him against the boards of the hut and let him drop, crushing the reptile's head with his boot-heel. The snake was four feet six inches in length, and said to be ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... led along to the reptile house; but he was silent. He entered the last of the three. He stood in the middle of the room, and looked around him ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... cabins or vacant shop windows, from which not only familiar faces, but even the window sashes themselves, were gone. The great unfinished serpent-like flume, crossing the river on gigantic trestles, had advanced as far as the town, stooping over it like some enormous reptile that had sucked its life blood and was gorged ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... three girls, with a good deal of pluck, I think, rushed into the shallow water and grabbed hold of their comrade. The snake did not let go, but the dress was torn from her body by the wrestle between the strength of the reptile and that of the four girls. I know one of the sisters quite well. She's an old woman, now, but she lives in Sangre ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... speak. I was fascinated by this wretch: it was reptile and rabbit with us. Treachery I knew he meant; my death, for one; my death was certain; and yet I could ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... altogether; the word-formula will be enough; it is that, not thought, not action, that saves. I believe in—such and such an arrangement of consonants and vowels;—and therefore I am saved, and highly superior; and you, poor reptile, who possess not this arrangement, but some other and totally false one;—you, thank God, are damned. You are lost; you shall go to hell; I scorn and look down on you from the heights of the special favor of the Maker of the Stars and ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... open yonder package that came last night?" inquired Eleanor, as they were sitting down to breakfast. Maria shuddered, as though something loathsome had crossed her. She shook off the reptile thought, which had all the character of some crawling and offensive thing as it passed ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... replied: "Of reptile race Is every courtier, whilst in place. Yes, they can take the dragon form, Bask in the sun, and flee the storm; With envy glare, with malice gloat, And cast, like you your skin,—their coat! And in a dunghill born and bred, With ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... frogs and toads that have been discovered in rocks, where they must have been encased for years or centuries, alive: first, because, although they are true, you might equally question these; secondly, because a human being cannot compete in vitality with a cold-blooded reptile. I shall content myself with falling back upon the evidence already adduced. The disinterred bodies proved, by their appearance, some even by their behaviour, that they were alive; and I shall retort upon you the question, how came you not to know that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... a vicious little reptile he was," Beverly replied. "But Uncle Esmond told me that his father took him away early and had him schooled like a gentleman in the best Saint Louis had to give. I wonder whose ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... taking a different view of the subject, naturally met that mistake by another; he viewed the crocodile as a thing sometimes to worship, but always to run away from. And this continued until Mr. Waterton changed the relations between the animals. The mode of escaping from the reptile he showed to be, not by running away, but by leaping on its back, booted and spurred. The two animals had misunderstood each other. The use of the crocodile has now been cleared up—it is to be ridden; and the use of man is, that he may improve the health of the crocodile by ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... a reptile; I'm worth a dozen of her, I'd have you know. If you don't want Bonnebault for a son-in-law, it is high time for you to tell him to go and play billiards somewhere else; he's losing a hundred ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... of India, the cobra di capello holds foremost rank, though it is claimed that a still more deadly reptile has been found in the interior, and I believe the British Museum has one of these terrible creatures, whose bite brings death with the suddenness of the lightning stroke. However, the cobra has been known to strike two persons in instant succession, proving fatal to ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... definite relation to the whole world, and the whole world has a relation to it. Really, by-the-by, I cannot give you a better instance of what I mean, than in my little diatribe on the Geryon Trifurcifer, a small reptile which I found, some years ago, inhabiting the mud of the salt lakes of Balkhan, which fills up a long-desired link between the Chelonia and the Perenni branchiate Batrachians, and, as I think, though Professor Brown differs from me, connects both ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... and, springing up, we awoke my father. Being all three armed, we began by looking under my bed, as the noise seemed to proceed from the bottom of a large hole, deep under ground. We were then convinced it was caused by a serpent, but found it impossible to get at it. The song of this reptile so frightened us that we could sleep no longer; however, we soon became accustomed to its invisible music, for at short intervals we heard it all the night. Some time after the discovery of the den of this reptile songster, my sister, going to feed ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... other venomous reptile was the Vibora de la Cruz, the "Viper with the Cross," much dreaded ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... beds near Jubbulpore, described in the text, seem to belong to the group now classed as the Lameta beds. The bones of a large dinosaurian reptile (Titanosaurus indicus) have been identified (I.G., 1907, vol. i, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... by its head and tail, is slowly drawn, by some one standing by, nine times across the front part of the neck of the person affected, the reptile being allowed, after every third time, to crawl about for a while. Afterwards the snake is put alive into a bottle, which is corked tightly and then buried in the ground. The tradition is, that as the snake decays ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various
... I say, as distinguished from the still wider original sense of advancing with a stealthy, creeping, or clinging motion, as a serpent on the ground, and a cat, or a vine, up a tree- stem. And there is one of these reptile, creeping, or rampant things, which is the first whose action was translated into marble, and otherwise is of boundless importance in the arts and ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... talionis, in opposition to the Edgefield lex loci, as Mr. McDuffe truthfully says, "God has planted in the breast of man a higher and holier principle than that by which he is prompted to resist oppression; the vilest reptile that crawls on the earth, without the gift of reason to comprehend the injustice of its injuries, would bite, or sting, or bruise the hand by which they were inflicted. Is it to be expected, then, that ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... observer,—which, I suspect, is almost as rare a character as even an original poet; and Nature, in return for his love, seems to adopt him as her especial child, and shows him secrets which few others are allowed to witness. He is familiar with beast, fish, fowl, and reptile, and has strange stories to tell of adventures and friendly passages with these lower brethren of mortality. Herb and flower, likewise, wherever they grow, whether in garden or wild wood, are his familiar friends. He is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... crowd, "I aint agoin' to make no speech to this jury, but I want to remark that this here blank reptile is a blank liar, and if he aint a murderer 'taint his fault. That there pouch of his," continued Ike, putting a long forefinger down upon the article lying on the table, "that there pouch of his was found ...
— The Prospector - A Tale of the Crow's Nest Pass • Ralph Connor
... pleased herself with the hopes of seeing my exaltation, dressed me with all the exuberance of finery; and when I represented to her that a fortune might be expected proportionate to my appearance, told me that she should scorn the reptile who could inquire after the fortune of a girl like me. She advised me to prosecute my victories, and time would certainly bring me a captive who might deserve the honour ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Fred!" cried Tom, and Garrison, who had his shoes on, did so. Then Tom caught the reptile by the tail and flung it into ...
— The Rover Boys in Camp - or, The Rivals of Pine Island • Edward Stratemeyer
... class of reptile understand these things," Wingate declared scornfully. "She came to me in New York with a letter from her father, my old tutor, who had died out in the Adirondacks without a shilling in the world. He sent the girl to me and ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... you idiot, let go!" hissed Escombe through his clenched teeth, as he braced his feet against a stanchion and flung himself back, clinging with both hands to Arima's belt, while that individual vainly strove to hold the now frantically struggling reptile—"let go, man, if you don't want to be dragged overboard and eaten alive! Haul down ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood
... and jacket lying just inside the nearest trunk, and the farm-wife picked them up gingerly, letting them unfold as she did so. Just for one moment she inspected them, then she hurriedly let them drop back into the trunk as though they were some dangerous reptile, and, folding her arms, glared into the girl's smiling face in ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... thus lay, not daring even to draw a breath. I felt at last that I must give up the contest. I prayed for mercy. The oppression on my chest became almost insupportable. Still I dared not move. The deadly reptile stretched out its head—slowly it began to uncoil itself—the dread sound of its rattle struck my ear. I felt that now I must muster all my nerve and resolution, or be lost; the huge reptile stretched itself out and slowly crawled on—oh, horror!—it passed directly ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... may assert that he developed himself from the protoplasm of ignorance, and in the gloomy fog of fear and superstition grew by degrees into a formidable monster, being changed by the overheated imaginations of dogmatists into a reptile, an owl, a raven, a dog, a wolf, a lion, a centaur, a being half monkey, half man, till, finally, he became a polite and ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... order that he might pursue his amusement without interruption, the Giant put him, with the cage, on the top of the tower; and when our friends left the hollow mountain through the gap the Giant had made, the poor sorceress was being changed from bird to beast, and from beast to fish or reptile, as fast as the little demon was satisfied with her performance in any one character; and he may be keeping up this amusing pastime yet, for all ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... grow into a completely formed and healthy individual. Animals, too, such as polyps or zoophytes, and many beautiful and elaborate worms, multiply by "fission," dividing into two or more parts, each of which becomes a complete animal. This process is not seen in any fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, or mammal, nor in molluscs, nor in insects, crustaceans, myriapods, and arachnids (spiders and scorpions). It is almost wholly confined to lower animals (worms and polyps) and to plants, and ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester
... I killed a viper in our serpentine path, and Mrs. Fernor says I am by that token to overcome an enemy. Is Taylor or Hessey dead? The reptile was dark and dull, his blood being yet sluggish from the cold; howbeit, he tried to bite, till I cut him in two with a stone. I thought of Hessey's long back-bone when ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... that was found among them, and he put on the Helmet of Dread, which had once been the terror of the mid-world, and the like of which no man had ever seen; and then he gazed with greedy eyes upon the fateful ring, until he, too, was changed into a cold and slimy reptile,—a monster dragon. He coiled himself about the hoard; and, with his restless eyes forever open, he gloated day after day upon his loved gold, and watched with ceaseless care that no one should come near to despoil him of it. This was ages and ages ago; and still he wallows ...
— Hero Tales • James Baldwin
... from undoubted authority, that some ladies (ladies you will say of peculiar taste) took a fancy to a toad, which they nourished summer after summer, for many years, till he grew to a monstrous size, with the maggots which turn to flesh flies. The reptile used to come forth every evening from an hole under the garden-steps; and was taken up, after supper, on the table to be fed. But at last a tame raven, kenning him as he put forth his head, gave him such a severe stroke with his horny beak as put out ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... Oolite, deposited like heaps of travelled soil, or of lime shot down by the agriculturist on the surface of a field. The Old Red platform is mottled by the outliers of a comparatively modern time: the sepulchral mounds of later races, that lived and died during the reptile age of the world, repose on the surface of an ancient burying-ground, charged with remains of the long anterior age of the fish; and over all, as a general covering, rest the red boulder-clay and the vegetable mould. Mr. Duff, in ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... the higher mammals are probably derived from an ancient marsupial animal [usually provided with a pouch for the reception and nourishment of the young, as in the case of the kangaroo] and this through a long line of diversified forms, from some reptile-like or some amphibian-like creature, and this again from some fish-like animal. In the dim obscurity of the past we can see that the early progenitor of all the Vertebrata must have been an aquatic animal, provided with branchiae [gills], with the two sexes united in the same individual, and ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... lays or touching their viols; and through that door De Lorge returned in glory, after leaping down into the lions' den to rescue his lady's glove. The house still derives its name from the great carved image of a reptile which stretches down its outer wall, from garret to ...
— Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... glittered in her eyes, and fell slowly down her pale cheeks. Count Esterhazy approached and caressed her with his hands. She shuddered at his touch, recoiling as if from contact with a reptile. Meanwhile, he was imploring her to begin a new life with him—to give him her hand, to make him the happiest ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... forward on his hands and knees. Again came that dizzy, sickening shaking of the earth, that nauseating sense of being lifted to a height and suddenly let fall, that squirming of the ground beneath him as though it were a gigantic reptile. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... spots down his back, his flat head with deadly tooth, did not harmonise as the green snake does with leaf and grass. He was too marked, too prominent—a venomous foreign thing, fit for tropic sands and nothing English or native to our wilds. He seemed like a reptile that had escaped from the glass case ...
— Field and Hedgerow • Richard Jefferies
... deteriorated practical form. The sense of obligation, if continuing to recognize the nature of duty in things which could then no longer retain any such quality, otherwise than as looking to the most immediate and tangible benefit or harm, the lowest of moral calculations, would be reduced to a vulgar and reptile principle. The best of its strength, and all its dignity, would be departed from it when it could refer no more to eternity, an invisible world, and a judgment to come. It would therefore have none of that emphasis of impression ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... sickly hound, you priest-ridden worm! It is intolerable! It is the first time you have ever dared; do you think I am going to allow you to think for yourself after all the pains I have taken to educate you, to teach you my art, you ungrateful reptile?" ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... then; let her once suspect your true character—a drinking, gambling, fortune-hunting roue—and she'll turn from you with the same fear and loathing that she would feel for a venomous reptile." ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... I do not need this Goliath of a frog. I am merely valuing the reptile for your future guidance. Let ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... present animals. They were not. No one traveling in a far country could find there animals as strange to him as would be those of the earlier stratified rocks. In these there were no fishes as we know them to-day, not a single member of the frog and salamander class, not a reptile, not a bird, not a mammal, and probably no air-living insects. It is highly doubtful whether there was any animal living upon the land and breathing the air ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... the grasses. This noisome fruit of clustering berries, like an ear of maize stained red, they told her was 'snake's victuals,' and to be avoided; for, bright as was its colour, it was only fit for a reptile's food. ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... though roughly expressed. Few things are more improbable than that we (the human species) should be the highest order of beings in the universe: that animated nature should ascend from the lowest reptile to us, and all at once stop there. If there be classes above us of rational intelligences, clearer manifestations may belong to them. This may be one of the distinctions. And it may be one to which we ourselves ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... indicates the belief that not only do crocodiles shed tears, but that sympathizing passengers, turning to commiserate the reptile's woes, are seized and destroyed by the treacherous creatures. That quaint and credulous old author—the earliest writer of English prose—Sir John Mandeville, in his "Voiage," or account of his "Travile," published about 1356—in which, by the way, there ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... The snake is getting busy!" screamed Sam, and he was right; the reptile had left the shelter of the bed and was darting across the room, ...
— The Rover Boys on the Farm - or Last Days at Putnam Hall • Arthur M. Winfield (AKA Edward Stratemeyer)
... of year and general aspect of the country from which it came. Its plumage is like a mirror which reflects the snow, the moss, or the lichens in turn. It is, indeed, a feathered chameleon, but with changes of colour taking place more slowly than is the case in the reptile. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... in the face; full of lean excuses for self-imposed starvation, only revelling in the impurity and duskiness of its own shut-up heart. At last the joy-bells ring its knell, while it crawls into eternity like a vile reptile, leaving a slimy track upon ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... skin was like enamel; his banded scales shone bright and silvery. She didn't know why, but somehow she felt she wasn't in the least afraid of him. "I suppose one ought to be repelled at once by a snake," she said, taking the opposite seat, and keeping her glance fixed firmly upon the reptile's eye; "but then, this is such a handsome one! I can't say why, but I don't feel afraid of him at all as I ought, to do. Every right-minded person detests snakes, don't they? And yet, how exquisitely flexible and ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... ample stock. They were very much disposed to remain in the house and give my servants their view of the cause of Krause's strange disappearance, which was—as they had previously told me—that he had been seized and devoured by an enormous reptile, half eel and half turtle, which had been known to swallow not only human beings, but such trifles as double canoes, groves of coco-nut trees, etcetera; but on my telling them that I was very tired and wanted a quiet house, they retired ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... village, and others part only in the next parish. A man in his development runs for a little while parallel with, though never passing through, the form of the meanest worm, then travels for a space beside the fish, then journeys along with the bird and the reptile for his fellow travellers; and only at last, after a brief companionship with the highest of the four-footed and four-handed world, rises into the dignity of pure manhood. No competent thinker of the present day dreams of explaining ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley
... seen a viper in the shrubberies, or the ivy, or under an old piece of bast. Since so few can distinguish at a glance between the common snake and the adder it is as well not to press too closely upon any reptile that may chance to be heard rustling in the grass, and to strike tussocks with the walking-stick before sitting down to rest, for the adder is ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... was reposing himself in the hay, A reptile concealed bit his leg as he lay; But, all venom himself, of the wound he made light, And got well, while the ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... the jingle-bell, and the boat soon came down to half-speed. The five hunters, including Achang, had their rifles ready for use, though they still retained their seats. The reptile was not asleep; and he appeared to have some notions of his own, for he was not disposed to wait for the coming of the boat. He settled down in the dark water so that he could not be seen, but the surface ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... rain-swept mountain the prostrate rider had regained his senses and now was crawling painfully towards the road-house. Seen through the dark he would have resembled some misshapen, creeping monster, for he dragged himself, reptile-like, close to the ground. But as he came closer the man heard a cry which the wind seemed guarding from his ear, and, hearing it, he rose and rushed blindly forward, staggering ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... bite ain't pizen; but if dat hawn on de een of his tail dess on'y tetch you, you' gone! Look at dat man! Kill' him so quick dey wa'n't time for de place to swell whah he was hit!" But Tarbox quietly pointed out to St. Pierre that the tiny wounds were made by the reptile's teeth. ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... did not strike that reptile? he tried to strike me," Angelot reflected as he walked down the quiet lane. "Well! the Prefect and my father would have been vexed, and he had his little punishment. Some day we shall meet independently, and then we shall see, Monsieur Ratoneau, we shall see! But what a somersault ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... we had a famous embroglio between our chaouch and the marabout. The latter had caught a waran, or large species of lizard, and skinned it to dispose of the skin. The chaouch impudently swore he had been eating the flesh of the reptile—a direful accusation. A tremendous war of words ensued; and not of words only, for presently the holy man came in for a gratification of ropes' end. All the Fezzanees rushed forward to save the honour of the marabout; and the chaouch retreated to my tent in search of arms. ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... as Bob Roberts returned with the ammonia, and realised what was wrong, he pulled out his pocket-knife, placed his foot on the reptile's neck, as it still writhed feebly, ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... Ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in truth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it would much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly up to ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... the rapidity of a single bullet the whole contents of the automatic's magazine poured out and every missile took effect in the reptile's huge head. In its death agony it straightened out its folds and Frank's senseless body dropped from them, ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... gently he was made Of nicely tempered mud, That man no lengthened part had played Anterior to the Flood. 'Twas all in vain; he heeded not, Referring plant and worm, Fish, reptile, ape, and Hottentot, ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... vague. About the only memory it has is that of falling. But many of us have sharper, more distinct other-personalities. Many of us have the flying dream, the pursuing-monster dream, color dreams, suffocation dreams, and the reptile and vermin dreams. In short, while this other-personality is vestigial in all of us, in some of us it is almost obliterated, while in others of us it is more pronounced. Some of us have stronger and ...
— Before Adam • Jack London
... occasion to know some of the baser parts of it, and regards him accordingly with shuddering abhorrence, and just so much fear as he deserves. In him is to be dreaded the crawling of the centipede, not the spring of the tiger—the venom of the reptile, not the strength of the animal—the rancour of the miscreant, not the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... parts of the cave, where darkness prevailed, and locomotion was only possible on the lowest reptile principles, M. announced that she could see clear through the ice-floor, as if there were nothing between her and the rock below. I ventured to doubt this, for there was an air of immense thickness about the whole ice; and as soon as A. and ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... its freedom, its superior powers of locomotion, its triumph over time and space. The reptile measures its length upon the ground; the quadruped enjoys a more complete liberation, and is related to the earth less closely; man more still; and the bird most of all. Over our heads, where our eyes travel, but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... you put a poisonous reptile in my hand," said the odd man, as he dropped the ugly-looking toad on the floor, and got behind the show case, while the boy laughed fit to kill. "Now tell your story and vamoose, by ginger, or I will ring for the patrol ...
— Peck's Bad Boy With the Cowboys • Hon. Geo. W. Peck
... one of these would consider himself happy in killing you, in crushing you like a reptile. Each one of these is your death. Why, they beat a simple thief to death, a horse thief. What would they not do to you! You who wanted to steal ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... the prehistoric figures, surmounting the piers of the arcade, also the first group over the tower entrance, show earliest forms of human, animal, reptile and bird life, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... and use it as a specific against asthma, as they believed that any asthmatic person who lived on the flesh for a certain time would be infallibly cured. Another native wished the fat as an antidote for rheumatic pain. The head of this huge reptile was presented to an American, who in turn presented it to the Boston Museum. Unfortunately La Gironiere's picturesque descriptions must often be taken with a grain of salt. For some information regarding the reptiles of the islands see Report of U.S. ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... fulfil the conditions of their elevated rank, who will not endeavour after the great human-divine idea, striving to ascend, are sent away back down to that stage of development, say of fish or insect or reptile, beyond which their moral nature has refused to advance. Who has not seen or known men who appeared not to have passed, or indeed in some things to have approached the development of the more human of the lower animals! Let those take care who look contemptuously upon the animals, lest, ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... had been exposed to the fire. As it was, several inches of water stood between, a more effective armour than a two-inch steel plate on a battleship. Of course the shock carried through, a smashing blow that caused the reptile to release his hold on Singhai's leg; but before the native could get to his feet he had struck again. The next instant both men were ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... was on a litter that had just been set down. Evidently this was by order of the colonel, who was standing over Hugo in the company of some officers. All were regarding him as if he were a species of reptile. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... trap across the moor to close by the tower. I could tell by the way that trap went over the grass that there was some sort of a load in it and it wouldn't have surprised me, gentlemen, if the old reptile had brought a dead body out of it. After a bit, I hear him taking something out, something which he bumped down on the ground with a thump—I counted nine o' them thumps. And then after a bit I heard him begin a moving of some of the loose masonry what lies in such heaps ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... to sketch attractively and simply the wonders of reptile and insect existences, the changes of trees, rocks, rivers, clouds, and winds. This is done by a family of children writing letters, both playful and serious, which are addressed to all children whom the books ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott
... Grecians made The soul's fair emblem, and its only name— But of the soul, escap'd the slavish trade Of mortal life!—For in this earthly frame Ours is the reptile's lot, much toil, much blame, Manifold motions making little speed, And to deform and kill ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... On excavating the circular cairn, or circle of stones forming the head, a chamber containing burnt bones, charcoal and burnt hazelnuts, and an implement of flint were found. The removal of peat, moss and heather from the back of the reptile showed that the whole length of the spine was carefully constructed, with regularly and symmetrically placed stones at such angles as to throw off rain... The spine is, in fact, a long narrow causeway made of large stones, set like the vertebrae of some huge animal. They form a ridge, ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... upon an open space almost quite bare of vegetation, a poisonous green carpet spread in the heart of the woods. Here the vapour was more dense than ever, but I welcomed the sight of open ground after the reptile-infested thicket. Alas! it was a snare, a death-trap, a sort of morass, in which we sank up to our knees. Pah! it was filthy—vile! And I became aware of great—lassitude, do you say?— whilst Valera's panting breath told that he had almost ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... ground, however, we perceived at once what had set the jay to scolding. Slowly drawing itself along the earth, gliding through the grass and over the dry leaves—without causing even the driest of them to rustle—went a hideous reptile—a snake. Its yellowish body, dappled with black blotches, glittered as the sun glanced from its lubricated scales; while it rose and fell in wavy undulations as it moved. It moved slowly—by vertical sinuosities, almost in a direct line, with its head slightly raised from the grass. At intervals, ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... me to smell it. Straightway a scent steals into my nostril, a form presses against my palm in all its dilating softness, with rounded petals, slightly curled edges, curving stem, leaves drooping. When I would fain view the world as a whole, it rushes into vision—man, beast, bird, reptile, fly, sky, ocean, mountains, plain, rock, pebble. The warmth of life, the reality of creation is over all—the throb of human hands, glossiness of fur, lithe windings of long bodies, poignant buzzing of insects, the ruggedness of the steeps as I climb them, the liquid mobility ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... harmless carpet snake, but the deadly brown and black-necked tiger variety; though against this were a corresponding number of iguanas, both of the tree-climbing and water-haunting species. The latter, to which I shall again allude, is a particularly shuddersome reptile. I had never before seen these repulsive creatures, and, indeed, had never heard ...
— "Five-Head" Creek; and Fish Drugging In The Pacific - 1901 • Louis Becke
... possess in common, each puts his own original embroidery. True, the differences between the descendant and the ancestor are slight, and it may be asked whether the same living matter presents enough plasticity to take in turn such different forms as those of a fish, a reptile and a bird. But, to this question, observation gives a peremptory answer. It shows that up to a certain period in its development the embryo of the bird is hardly distinguishable from that of the reptile, and that the individual ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... The reptile press of the South began on the President a bitter, malignant and unceasing vilification for this, his ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... moment when the Comte de la Fere," resumed Raoul, "said, 'Come, Bragelonne, draw your sword;' then only I rushed upon the reptile and cut it in two, just at the moment when it was rising on its tail and hissing, ere it sprang upon me. Well, I vow I felt exactly the same sensation at sight of that man when he said, 'Why do you ask me that?' and looked ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... boarding-house, and, with his boots upon the pillow, sunk into an instantaneous sleep of unfathomable depth. Dreaming, towards morning, that he was engaging a large boa-constrictor in single combat, and struggling energetically to restrain the ferocious reptile from getting into his boots, he had suddenly awakened, with a crash, upon the floor—to miss his umbrella and nephew, to forget where he had put them, and to fly to Gospeler's Gulch with incoherent charges of larceny and manslaughter. All this he could now vaguely ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., Issue 31, October 29, 1870 • Various
... her. His curious eyes at once perceived the hideous, thickset lizard that lay flattened upon the shadowed sand as if in a torpor. The reptile's dirty orange-mottled black body was as loathsome as its ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... whatsoever reason you will, in one of those questionable labyrinths still existing in the most civilized Italian cities, would certainly not run less risk than in facing the dangers of the forest. The dart, the trap, the attack of beast and reptile may be, with courage and calmness, averted or parried, but the evils which menace man, under the hypocritical euphemisms of Society (ever ready to vaunt its impeachableness) injure not only the body but, what is ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... In form some of it was fern-like, some cactus-like, some vaguely tree-like; but it was all outrageous, inherently repulsive to all Solarian senses. And no less hideous were the animal-like forms of life, which slithered and slunk rapaciously through that fantastic pseudo-vegetation. Snake-like, reptile-like, bat-like, the creatures squirmed, crawled, and flew; each covered with a dankly oozing yellow hide and each motivated by twin common impulses—to kill and insatiably and indiscriminately to devour. Over this reeking wilderness Roger drove his vessel, untouched by ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... Menu, ii. 191 to 218, 242, 8. "By censuring his preceptor, though justly, he will be born an ass; by falsely defaming him, a dog; by using his goods without leave, a small worm; by envying his merit, a larger insect or reptile." As the Roman law did not contemplate the possibility of parricide, that of Menu has no provision against the crime ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... if that day should ever dawn," said Aramis, tranquilly, "we will think over a means of dispensing with the friendship, or of braving the dislike of M. Colbert. But tell me, my dear Fouquet, instead of conversing with this reptile, as you did him the honor of styling him, a conversation the need for which I do not perceive, why do you not pay a visit, if not to the king, at ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... contents; he smote a forefinger on it and crumpled it in his hand. That was the dumb oration of a man shocked by the outrage upon passionate feeling to the state of brute. His fist, outstretched to the length of his arm, shook the reptile letter ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... shame, and curses without number, Upon that reptile head be laid, Whose insults now shall vex the slumber Of him—that sad discrowned shade! No! for his trump the signal sounded, Her glorious race when Russia ran; His hand, 'mid strife and battle, founded Eternal liberty ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... passions floating through the country, without any dread of the horsewhip. Hence it is the commonest thing in the world to hear one editor abusing, like a pickpocket, an opposition brother; calling him a reptile—a crawling thing—a calumniator—a hired vendor of lies; and his paper a smut-machine—a vile engine of corruption, as base and degraded as the proprietor, &c. Of this description was the paper I now held in my hand, which had the ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie |
