"Boa" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the room suddenly opened, and the woman of the breakfast table disclosed herself. She was dressed for going out, wearing a hat that seemed a yard in diameter, and a feather boa, from which her hen-like face and neck rose to the crowning ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... round its boughs, the misletoe, with its many home associations—the elegant cedar—the close-growing mangrove—and strange parasitical plants, pushing through huge fungi, and clasping with the remorseless strength of the wrestler, and with the round crunching folds of the boa, the trees they were gradually ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... all. She just stood still, looking at Jimsy until it seemed as if she were all eyes. "It comes so suddenly,"—Carter had told her—"like the boa constrictor's hunger ... and then he was ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... been a quaint spectacle to the Lowestoft fishermen, for Posh assures me that he always went to sea in a silk hat, and generally wore a "cross-over," or a lady's boa, round his neck. Now a silk hat and a lady's boa aboard a longshore punt would be about as incongruous as a court suit in a shooting field. But FitzGerald was not vain enough to be self-conscious. He knew when he was comfortable, and that was ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... at me as I buttered his toast, piping hot from the range. "Well, Lady Bird, you're not the kind that'll need paprika, anyway!" he announced as he fell to. And he ate like a boa-constrictor and patted his pajama-front and stentoriously announced that he'd picked a queen—only he pronounced it kaveen, after the manner of our poor ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... others, 'good men and true.' Holland's society is very good; you always see some one or other in it worth knowing. Stuffed myself with sturgeon, and exceeded in champagne and wine in general, but not to confusion of head. When I do dine, I gorge like an Arab or a Boa snake, on fish and vegetables, but no meat. I am always better, however, on my tea and biscuit than any other ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... to managing' she told him confidently, and mentally resolved to buy herself, so soon as she was married, a black feather boa, such as she had ...
— Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages • Rudyard Kipling, Ella D'Arcy, Arthur Morrison, Arthur Conan Doyle,
... to be beautiful and admired. I want two new dresses; a hat with plumes, and a silk petticoat that rustles. I want some new kid gloves and a feather boa (a long one made of ostrich feathers). I wish——" The small, blunt pencil had been lifted in air for the space of three minutes before it again descended; then, with cheeks that burned, Miss Philura had written the fateful words: "I wish to have a ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... thought of that, and guarded against it. I shall fill the jungles with animated life—elephants, lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, giraffes, zebras, crocodiles, boa constrictors, and other specimens of natural history indigenous to that ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... were up early in the morning. There were dolls and toys for the little ones, with hoods and mittens, and for me a lovely squirrel muff, lined with blue, with a soft little boa for my neck. I was a happy girl that Christmas, I can ...
— The Night Before Christmas and Other Popular Stories For Children • Various
... the switch, flooding the room with light, and as I leaped forward to the bed a word picture of what I had seen formed in my mind; and I found that I was thinking of a gray feather boa. ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... carrying her smart bags, and, even with so much assistance, she was draped with extra garments, which hung from her arms in varying and seductive shades of green. She herself was in green of a subtle olive shade, and her plumes and boa, her chains and chatelaine, her hand-bags and camera, marked her as the traveler triumphant and expectant. Like an Arabian princess, borne across the desert to the home of her future lord, she came panoplied with splendor. The consciousness of ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... him. Her face was scarlet, for the coupling of their names, and Drexley's quiet smile, was significant. But Douglas only laughed gaily as he reached for his hat, and drew Cicely's feather boa around her with ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... over the beautiful sea anemone, half animal, half vegetable, with its colors as variegated as a rose garden. Seaweed and kelp wave to us as we pass, long-stemmed sea grasses moving by the action of the waves, like a feather boa worn by some sea nymph, twist and turn like a thing alive; tall, feathery plumes, as white as snow, or as green as emerald, toss to and fro, and make obeisance to old Neptune. Sea onions, with stems thirty feet long, and bulbous air-filled sacks, reach out their long snaky arms, ...
— Byways Around San Francisco Bay • William E. Hutchinson
... pulse fluttered. She ran into the house by a side door, and up to her room, where she smoothed her hair anxiously, and lightly powdered her face. There was no time to change her dress, but she took out a feather boa which she kept for great occasions, and prepared to descend with dignity. Oh the stairs she met Mrs. Dixon, ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... pachydermatous animal besides the tapir indigenous to South America is the little truculent peccary—a herd of which creatures is more feared by the natives than the jaguar, boa, or anaconda. There are two species—the Dicotyles tajacu and Dicotyles labiatus, or white-lipped peccary; the latter being the larger and fiercer of the two. The peccary is very like a small hog. Its form is short and compact, ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... blackbird : merlo. blacking : ciro. bladder : veziko. blade : klingo; (of grass), folieto blaspheme : blasfemi. bless : beni. blind : blinda. "window"-, rulkurteno. blond : blonda. blood : sango. blot : makulo. blow : blovi; bato, frapo. blouse : bluzo. blue : blua; -"bell", hiacinto, kampanoleto. boa-constrictor : boao. boast : fanfaroni. boat : boato. bobbin : bobeno. body : korpo. bog : marcxo. boil : boli; absceso. bold : kuragxa, sentima. bolt : rigl'i, -ilo; bolto. bomb : bombo. bombard : bombardi. bond : obligacio, garantiajxo bondage : servuto, sklaveco. bone : ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer
... 28. The Boa Bidarra, or Rhamnus Jujuba of Linnaeus. This is a round yellow fruit, about the size of a gooseberry; its flavour is like that of an apple, but it has the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... nude form of a young woman lay on a couch. Horror was depicted upon her countenance, and she was frantically but vainly struggling to free herself from the great boa-constrictor which had coiled his ugly thick body about her. Standing beside her and looking on with a dreadful expression of devilish satisfaction was a representation of Satan, whilst coming in at the open door reeled a young man in a woeful ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... mine. Maybe you don't know how husky you are, but you've got a squeeze like a full grown boa constrictor!" He held her off at arms' length and studied her with admiration. "Gee, it's fine to see you again, Sis. You're looking great, too—I think I'll bring my girl out here to live. You always were a knockout, but now you're the loveliest thing ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... the evidence that the wood afforded, it had been untrodden for many years. Giant ceiba trees reared themselves two hundred feet into the air. Lianas hung in festoons from the boughs like monstrous boa constrictors. Parrots flew squawking from branch to branch, and humming birds and butterflies of many hues and gorgeous beauty darted like bright ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... to me if, to all future posterity coming after us, the word 'Macleod' don't shut up their jaws from bragging of British valour just about as tight as the death-squeeze of a boa-constrictor round a smashed-up buffalo! ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, October 23, 1841 • Various
... submarine continued to whirl about faster and faster in the swirling waters. Five times each minute now it made the circuit, and, like the coils of a boa constrictor that is enfolding its victim, ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. extending it upon the forecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the .. rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the night, I shall divide them both into quarter-watches, and have one man on duty all the time; for we may be boarded by a huge crocodile or a boa-constrictor if we are not on the lookout. But Achang is a pilot for these rivers. Isn't that ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... Ceiba trees, looming weird and gigantic with their buttressed trunks, all knotted and entwined with hanging lianas and curiously hung with air plants dropping from the branches. Gay-colored birds flashed in the patches of sunlight that filtered through the trees. The Cuban boa-constrictor or Maja, big and cowardly, wound its great length away, and the air was full of the rich—and not always pleasant—insect life characteristic of the Cuban ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... a little bewildered by the glitter, and the variety of gifts hanging about, but she spied a lovely muff and boa of fluffy white fur that she felt sure must be ...
— Marjorie's New Friend • Carolyn Wells
... first—very large, submerged in a feather boa and a feathered hat! salmon pink as to the bust, cream silk as to the skirt. The kids came next, two of the sweetest, merriest girls I know. Miss Fifteen simply tumbled with brown curls and smiles; she was of The Gay Glowworms, a troupe of dancers. Miss Thirteen ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... quickened his pace to keep step with hers. Miss Nugent with her chin sunk in a fur boa looked neither to the right nor the left, and turning briskly into the alley, turned the handle of Mr. Wilks's door and walked in, leaving her companion ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... for, though they eat them in some countries, I don't hanker after any monkey-flesh," replied the young hunter. "I met a man at my father's house who had lived for years in Africa, and he said they ate the boa-constrictor there,—the natives did, ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... mind this—if he comes, you've got to care for him the whole length of your boa—you won't persuade him to run in couples with anybody else. That's why he broke away the first time—and you were ever so mad with me because you thought I was at the bottom of it. But it was all his pride. He's too real independent to share ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various
... best one, which was 'The Garland of Frien'ship,' and had poems in it about the bleeding of hearts, and so forth. Father was n't expectin' anything, but you left him a new pair of mittens, and mother got a new fur boa ...
— The Holy Cross and Other Tales • Eugene Field
... aquatic boa, inhabiting the swamps and rivers of the dense forests of tropical South America. It is the largest of all modern snakes, said to attain over 30 ft. in length. The Eunectes murinus (formerly called ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Boa-Constrictors are also found, but they are rare, and I have never seen one in freedom. They are the most harmless of all snakes in the Philippines. Sometimes the Visayos keep them in their houses, in cages, ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Sunday afternoon she came to the Lehntmans', much dressed up in her new, brick red, silk waist trimmed with broad black beaded braid, a dark cloth skirt and a new stiff, shiny, black straw hat, trimmed with colored ribbons and a bird. She had on new gloves, and a feather boa about her neck. ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... own, and other people's individ- uality, health, and morals; whereas, the opposite image of man, a sinner, kept constantly in mind, can no more improve health or morals, than holding in thought the [5] form of a boa-constrictor can aid an artist ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... eye on the spot and cried out, "Fly all of you to the Cave! fly for your lives!" for I saw it was a huge snake, or boa, that would make a meal of one of us, if we did not get ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson Told in Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin
... opportunity. Though the Advertiser has succeeded in temporarily securing three lions, a chimpanzee, a couple of hyaenas, and a young hippopotamus in the Vicarage drawing-room, and has managed to envelope a boa-constrictor in a lawn-tennis net, yet, as five full-grown Bengal tigers, and about thirty other wild beasts of a miscellaneous character are at large in the village, and have, to his knowledge, already devoured the Postman, the Curate, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various
... in the pages of Ruskin, and opened the door. A woman entered, of whom it is simplest to say that she was not respectable. Her appearance was awesome. She seemed all strings and bell-pulls—ribbons, chains, bead necklaces that clinked and caught—and a boa of azure feathers hung round her neck, with the ends uneven. Her throat was bare, wound with a double row of pearls, her arms were bare to the elbows, and might again be detected at the shoulder, through ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... parasols, golf sticks, tennis racquets and all sorts of queer things, and was dressed in a most conspicuous and elaborate manner. She was represented as striding up and down a railway platform covered with diamonds, boa, flashy hat and fancy finery, while the English girl, in a close fitting ulster and an Alpine hat, leaned quietly upon her umbrella near a small "box," as they call a trunk, and a modest traveling ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... with his own. With her natural elegance stamped on her as by a die, with her dim and disinherited individual refinement of grace, which would have made any one wonder who she was anywhere—hat and veil and feather-boa and smart umbrella-knob and all—with her regular God-given distinction of type, in fine, she couldn't abide vulgarity ...
— The Finer Grain • Henry James
... well,' she replies, removing her boa and settling herself comfortably before the fire, her feet resting on ...
— Lippa • Beatrice Egerton
... Charles and Lemon, who stood prepared to drive it up to the goal, if, as they hoped, they could elude the vigilance of the stout gentleman. He, however, was not asleep, and watching their movements, as Tom Bouldon observed, as keenly as a boa-constrictor, glided swiftly up to the spot where they had driven the ball, and sent it spinning back, till once more Frank and Ernest got it within their power. Thus the game continued fluctuating; but finally, after many a bandy here and there, ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... departed. At four o'clock we began to unmoor; and as soon as it was light, Oreo, his son, and some of his friends, came aboard. Many canoes also came off with fruit and hogs, the latter they even begged of us to take from them, calling out Tiyo boa atoi.—I am your friend, take my hog, and give me an axe. But our decks were already so full of them, that we could hardly move, having, on board both ships, between three and four hundred. By the increase of our stock, together with what ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... might pass before we could descend and travel over the dry ground; and even then, in what direction should we go? Very probably we should fall into the hands of savages, who would keep us in slavery; at all events, we should have to encounter several wild beasts and venomous serpents,—the mighty boa, or anaconda, or the still more terrible bush-master, or labarri, ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... to the size of a boa-constrictor. The brook behind me roared in my ears like Niagara. The snake began to drive his head toward me, showing his fangs as though he were making a reconnoissance of the air before his spring. He was so terrible that I knew that when he ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... charge of a wife, what are you going to say about it? We hope that this rapid review of the question does not make you tremble, that you are not one of those men whose nervous fluid congeals at the sight of a precipice or a boa constrictor! Well! my friend, he who owns soil has war and toil. The men who want your gold are more numerous than ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... Cathay, and from the Poles unto the Nile, From Boston unto Goa, on the track Of flying Fortune, emulously panting, The empires, kingdoms, dukedoms of the earth I saw, now clinging to her waving locks, Now to the end of her encircling boa. Beholding this, and o'er the ample sheets Profoundly meditating, I became Of my sad ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... she liked the horses. She was fond of cats and had a favourite smoke-blue Persian, between whom and the Poms there was an armed neutrality. The cat's name was Cleopatra, and she deserved it. Her green eyes shone like emeralds when she curled boa-fashion about her mistress's white neck and looked down ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan
... itself on the simple ground that it exists! Under such an argument a howitzer is as good as a plough, a sword is as good as a sickle, a pillory is as good as a baby-wagon. By such reasoning a shark is as useful as a horse. By this logic a boa-constrictor is as good as a reindeer, a tiger is as useful and salutary in his office as an ox or a St. Bernard, and a cancer is as beautiful as a blush. That is, everything is good, not because it is useful and just, but because ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... moca, boa figura e de muito boa indole, com tres filhos, sendo uma negrinha de 6 annos, um moleque de 5 e uma ingenua de 3, cabenda cozinhar bem, lavar e engommar; na mesma casa vende-se so uma negrinha de 12 annos, de conducta afiancada e muito propria para servico de ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... a moment that Tom stood appalled. He knew that, at any instant, by the tightening of its folds the great boa could crush every bone of Ned's body; while the very closeness of its embrace rendered it impossible for him to strike at it, for fear of injuring its captor. There was not an instant to be lost. Already the coils were tightening, ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... big toothsticks. But 'dragons' proper have existed, and perhaps memories of these portents long lingered in the brain of protohistoric man. Even if they had been altogether fabulous, the fanciful Hellenic mind would easily have created them. The Dragoeiro with its boa-like bole, its silvery, light-glancing skin, and its scars stained with red blood, growing in a wild garden of glowing red-yellow oranges, would easily become the fiery saurian guarding the ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... also obtained some food and small comforts for a few rebel officers, including young Johnston, Wolfe, and the Colonel Deshler already mentioned. Then hunted up General Sherman, whom I found sitting on a cracker-boa in the white house already mentioned, near where the white flag first appeared. Garland was with him, and slept with him that night, while the rest of us laid around wherever we could. It was a gloomy, bloody house, and suggestive of war. Garland was blamed by the other Confederate officers for ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... a cut of pie and; I tell you, it looks gay. That's what it does. It looks gay. Some of the hook-and-ladder trucks are just one mass of golden-rod and hydrangeas, and some of them are all fixed with this red-white-and-blue paper rope, sort of chenille effect, or more like a feather boa. Everybody has on white cotton gloves, and those entitled to carry speaking trumpets have bouquets in the bells of them, salvias, and golden-rod, and nasturtiums, and marigolds, ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood
... rushing would they not have made through the ranks of the astonished professors and students? The Anniversary set, for example, who sweep the pews of men, or, coming upon one forlorn, crush him as a boa does a sheep. Our silly little flock only laughed, colored, and retreated to the volantes, where they held a council of war, and decided to go visit some establishment where possibly better manners ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... (as ghosts oft use) To be 'dearheaven'd!' and 'oh'd!' But briskly said: "Good-evenin'; what's the news? Consumption? After boa'd? ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... this for the approach: classical, you perceive, sir; elegant, graceful. Then, sir, this is a sketch, made by an American friend of mine: Whee-whaw-Kantamaraw's wigwam, King of the—Cannibal Islands, I think he said, sir. Log, you observe; scalps, and boa-constrictor skins: curious. Something like this, sir, would look neat, I think, for the front door; don't you? Then, the lower windows, I've not quite decided upon; but what would you say to Egyptian, sir? I think I should like my windows Egyptian, with hieroglyphics, ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... mariners call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the forecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... what it was, he answered,— "Tree fall." There is something singularly grand and impressive in the sound of a tree falling in a perfectly calm night like this, as if the agencies which overthrow it did not need to be excited, but worked with a subtle, deliberate, and conscious force, like a boa-constrictor, and more effectively then than even in a windy day. If there is any such difference, perhaps it is because trees with the dews of the night on them are heavier ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... less than that vital energy and power about the lawless brute, which to her seemed the elements of heroic character, though but the attributes of riotous spirits, magnificent formation, flattered vanity, and imperious egotism. She was a bird gazing spell-bound on a gay young boa-constrictor, darting from bough to bough, sunning its brilliant hues, and showing off all its beauty, just before it takes the bird ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... perfection. They are as clever at the demi-toilette as the Parisian, and the extreme neatness and smartness of their walking gowns is very refreshing after the floppy, blowsy, trailing dresses, accompanied by the inevitable feather boa, of which English girls, who used to be so tidy and "tailor-made," now seem so fond. The universal white "waist" is so pretty and trim on the American girl. It is one of the distinguishing marks of a land of the free, a land where "class" hardly exists. The ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... be on the lake, or sliding on the snow, And breathing on your hands to make the circulation flow, Nestling your nose among the furs of which your boa's made,— The Fahrenheit here registers ...
— Christmas - Its Origin, Celebration and Significance as Related in Prose and Verse • Various
... seconds, as they raced up the post. I have now called in an artist and an astronomer to verify my results, these two being the only living beings within hailing distance as I write, except a baby red howling monkey curled up in my lap, and a toucan, sloth, and green boa, beyond my laboratory table. Our results are identical, and I can safely announce that the amateur record for speed of army ants is equivalent to a mile in two hours and fifty-six seconds; and this when handicapped by gravity and burdens ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... severe cold is drawn an outer hood bordered with dog-skin. The outer hood is often quite close under the chin, and extends in a very well-fitting way over the shoulders. To a complete dress there also belong a skin neckerchief or boa, and a neck covering of multiple reindeer-skins, or of different kinds of skins sewn together in chess-board-like squares. In summer and far into the autumn the men go bareheaded, although they clip the hair on the crown of the head close ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... and the cheekiest thing ever I heard of, but what could I do? I was fixed a good deal like an English feller by the name of Gatenby that I used to know in South America. He woke up in the middle of the night and found a boa constrictor curled on the foot of his bed. Next day, when a crowd of us happened in, there was Gatenby, white as a sheet, starin' down at the snake, and it sound asleep. 'I didn't invite him,' he says, 'but he looked so bloomin' ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... warn all persons of whatsoever nation that the right of trade and navigation from Cape Verde to the Cape of Good Hope belonged exclusively to the king of England. Holmes ordered the Dutch to vacate their forts and to abandon the coast within six or seven months[8]. Thereupon he seized the island of Boa Vista, one of the Cape Verde group claimed by the Dutch since 1621. Later he sent a frigate into the mouth of the Gambia. Otto Steele, the Courland commander of Fort St. Andre, unable to discern whether friend or foe was approaching, fired upon the frigate. Holmes ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... so vast that the brain is atrophied (as it were), that a second brain, located in the diaphragm, may come into play, and the suspension of all the faculties is in itself a kind of intoxication. A boa constrictor gorged with an ox is so stupid with excess that the creature is easily killed. What man, on the wrong side of forty, is rash enough to work after dinner? And remark in the same connection, that all great men have been moderate ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... this moment Agnes opened the door and saw what appeared to be an animated feather-boa dashing about the kitchen, with the bulk ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill
... feat, that he turned about a dozen somersaults, and then, for the amusement of the Giant and his friends, he changed the old sorceress successively into a lion, a pig, an old hen, a turtle, a kangaroo, a boa-constrictor, an ape, a lobster, a cat, a crocodile, and a crane. He declared his intention of going through these exercises until he had used up the whole animal kingdom, and seemed delighted to ...
— Ting-a-ling • Frank Richard Stockton
... monster ate it! The lipless jaws gaped widely. The shapeless hands forced in the head of the animal. The throat muscles expanded hugely: and in less than a minute it had swallowed its living prey as a boa-constrictor swallows a monkey. ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... between six dolars and fifteen per skin, according to the shade and size. The mink is a keen observer, he lives on meat and eggs, being somewhat like a weasel, also loving blood. The mink is used for collarettes, boas, and ladies coats. A boa made from black water mink is worth about 50 dollars, a collarette about $100,00 and a coat reaching down to the hips would cost about $250,00. We took our way to the old rendavous near the sweet water mountains. While hunting one day I shot a Black ...
— Black Beaver - The Trapper • James Campbell Lewis
... generous woman of all the purchase money to the Colonel's slender bank account: a transaction which, to quote his own words as he gallantly drank her health in acknowledgment of the gift, "enabled him to provide for one of the loveliest of her sex—she who graces our boa'd—and to enrich her declining days not only with all the comforts, but with many of the luxuries ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... forced, and the army of Wallace was enveloped in the embrace of a hideous boa-constrictor—tightening, closing, crushing every semblance of life from the victim enclosed in his toils. The flanking parties of horse were forced in upon the centre, and though, as even Turner grants, they fought with desperation, a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... hail-storm and the thunder, From the vampire and the condor, From the gust upon the river, From the sudden earthquake shiver, From the trip of mule or donkey, From the midnight howling monkey, From the stroke of knife or dagger, From the puma and the jaguar, From the horrid boa-constrictor That has scared us in the pictur', From the Indians of the Pampas, Who would dine upon their grampas, From every beast and vermin That to think of sets us squirming, From every snake that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... the door hastened the completion of the meal. The boys might have sat there longer and, like boa-constrictors, gorged themselves ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... backed up against the nearest bungalow. A fringe of spears threatened him in front, but for the moment he was safe behind, and the king's body protected him. Whenever one of the savages made a jab at Mr. Gibney, Mr. Gibney gave the king a boa-constrictor squeeze, and ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... blue dress; a hat, encircled by a long pink feather, crowned a face that was beautiful, were it not that it was marred by its many adornments. Gilt earrings glistened in the ears, a dark curly fringe covered forehead and eyebrows, and the chin was embedded in a tawdry feather boa of a muddy hue. An excited flush lay on her cheeks as she looked at the gay crowd within, searching ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... larger palm-trunk was a fernery; every dead bole was an orchidry; and huge fungi, two feet broad, fed upon the remains of their victims. Climbers, chiefly papilionaceous, and llianas, bigger than the biggest boa-constrictor, coiled and writhed round the great gloomy trees which rained their darkness below. In the sunlight were pretty jasmines (J. grande), crotons and lantanas, with marantas, whose broad green leafage was lined with pink and purple. Deep in ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... upon sooner than one who is in the beaten track. Do you know, Richard, my dear boy, I've often thought that if we could by any means appropriate to our use some of the extraordinary digestive power that a boa constrictor has in his gastric juices, there is really no manner of reason why we should not comfortably dispose of as much of an ox as our stomachs will hold, and one might eat French dishes without the wretchedness of thinking what's to follow. And this makes me think that ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... came strutting like turkeys, jumping like rabbits, stalking solemnly like giraffes. They came clamped in one another's arms like bears trying to hug each other to death; they came contorting themselves as if they were boa-constrictors trying to swallow each other. And Peter, watching them and listening to their music, made a curious discovery about himself. Deeply buried in Peter's soul were the ghosts of all sorts of animals; Peter had once been a boa-constrictor, Peter had once been a bear, Peter ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... in dis house dat nobody can use huh chiny or fo'ks or spoons who ain't boa'ding heah, and de odder day when yuh asked me to bring up a knife and fo'k she ketched me coming upstairs, and she says, "Where yuh goin' wid all dose things, Annie?" Ah said, "Ah'm just goin' up to Miss Laura's room with dat knife and fo'k." Ah said, "Ah'm goin' up for nothin' at all, ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... wall of rotten wood as far as possible. The snake stopped and from its mouth came a hiss that sounded like a jet of escaping steam and lasted fully half a minute. Still the eyes came no nearer but motion was discernible in the darkened corner from which the reptile had appeared. The boa constrictor, for such it was, was noiselessly drawing foot after foot of its thick body into the chamber in preparation for a quick lunge at its victim. In a flash the scale-covered coils would be thrown about the cub, ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... I said, sick with rage and disgust. "Let them look out for their own country now. I pity the Empress; I pity the Emperor. I don't know what Mornac means to do, but I know that the Internationale boa-constrictor is big enough to swallow government, dynasty, and Empire, and it is going ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... vegetable world. Monkeys chattered in crowds above their heads, and made grimaces like the fiendish spirits of these solitudes; while hideous reptiles, engendered in the slimy depths of the pools, gathered round the footsteps of the wanderers. Here was seen the gigantic boa, coiling his unwieldy folds about the trees, so as hardly to be distinguished from their trunks, till he was ready to dart upon his prey; and alligators lay basking on the borders of the streams, or, gliding ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... there is no worse lie than a truth misunderstood by those who hear it, so reasonable arguments, challenges to magnanimity, and appeals to sympathy or justice, are folly when we are dealing with human crocodiles and boa-constrictors. The saint may simply give the universe into the hands of the enemy by his trustfulness. He may by non-resistance cut ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... Republic of Cape Verde conventional short form: Cape Verde local long form: Republica de Cabo Verde local short form: Cabo Verde Digraph: CV Type: republic Capital: Praia Administrative divisions: 14 districts (concelhos, singular - concelho); Boa Vista, Brava, Fogo, Maio, Paul, Praia, Porto Novo, Ribeira Grande, Sal, Santa Catarina, Santa Cruz, Sao Nicolau, Sao Vicente, Tarrafal Independence: 5 July 1975 (from Portugal) Constitution: 7 September 1980; amended 12 February ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... girl of about twenty-one or two years of age—tall, but slenderly built, with a sweet oval face, bright brown hair, and the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in my life. She was dressed in some dark green material, wore a fawn jacket, and, because the afternoon was cold, had a boa of marten fur round her neck. I can remember also that her hat was of some flimsy make, with lace and glittering spear points in it, and that the whole structure was surmounted by two bows, one of black ribbon, the ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... fashion that she followed reverently, though always, perhaps, some few paces in the rear. A severe wetting might so alter the shape of that frame as to make it for ever unwearable. Her coat was serge—short, ending at the waist; the feather boa that clung round her neck, they would inevitably suffer without protection. For the moment she felt angry with herself. She hoped almost, since he was there, that he would make his offer again. It is these little things—the saving of a feather boa, the destruction of a flimsy hat frame—that ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... bewildering '"Q?" from that steely-fronted maid the ritual overpowers you and you bow before porridge, kippers, bacon and eggs, stewed fruit, marmalade, toast, more toast, more marmalade, as helpless as the rabbit before the proverbial boa—except that in this case the ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... Bob now hurried to the window and looked out. In the moonlight they could distinctly see a huge reptile, either a python or a boa-constrictor, coiled up in the angle formed by the juncture of the airplane body and the broad base of the left wing. The creature was so long that its tail passed up over the rounded fuselage and out upon the other wing. Bob flashed his electric pocket lamp upon it, and by the yellow and ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser
... it. Then the figure, with an angry guttural sound, began to put forth its full strength. The arms encircled Landless with a slowly tightening iron band; the great dark shoulder came forward with the force of a battering-ram; the limbs twined like boa-constrictors around the limbs of the other. Locked together, the two reeled into a little fairy glade, where the short grass, pearled with dew, lay open to the moon. Here, borne backwards by the overwhelming force of his assailant, Landless fell heavily to the ground. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... the stand of the old flower woman at the corner, had given place to dahlias and purple asters. First glimpses of autumn toilettes flashed from the carriages; wonderful little bonnets nodded at one along the Champs-Elysees; and in the Quarter an occasional feather boa, red or black or white, brushed one's coat sleeve in the gay twilight of the early evening. The crisp, sunny autumn air was all day full of the stir of people and carriages and of the cheer of salutations; greetings of the ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... and blinked at me through the glass, looking quite as dangerous as he was. There were big and little snakes,—black, brown, and speckled, lively and lazy, pretty and plain ones,—but I liked the great boa best. ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag • Louisa M. Alcott
... opened by a buxom maiden with rosy cheeks and a lenient smile, which alights on the youthful mistress. Eleanor bounds into the hall, and waves a feather boa joyfully ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... door burst open, and the boisterous Rosamund Hunt, in her flamboyant white hat, boa, and parasol, stood framed in the doorway. She was in a breathing heat, and on her open face was an expression of ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton
... Rio there are great snakes called the anaconda, a sort of boa-constrictor on a large scale. Once, while walking in the woods with some friends, we found a little Indian boy dead on the ground, one of these big snakes lying within a foot or so of him, also dead; the snake had a poisoned arrow in his brain, ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... enough above the water to be dry, and slightly sloping, so that the head of the bed may be higher than the foot. Above all, it must be free from big stones and serpentine roots of trees. A root that looks no bigger that an inch-worm in the daytime assumes the proportions of a boa-constrictor at midnight—when you find it under your hip-bone. There should also be plenty of evergreens near at hand for the beds. Spruce will answer at a pinch; it has an aromatic smell; but it is too stiff and humpy. Hemlock ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... 1861, when the North, blinded by avarice and hate, rang with the cry of "On to Richmond," our Confederate Army of the Potomac was divided between Manassa and Winchester, watching at both points the glittering coils of the Union boa-constrictor, which writhed in its efforts to crush the last sanctuary of freedom. The stringency evinced along the Federal lines prevented the transmission of dispatches by the Secessionists of Maryland, and for a time Generals Beauregard and Johnston were kept in ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... invention," that phrase! The bodily wants of a reptile are elastic. If an alligator or a boa-constrictor catches a dog he can swallow him whole and enjoy that one meal in unriotous bliss for weeks. Thereafter if he must put up with no more than a minnow or a mouse he can do that for weeks in unriotous patience. In a spring in one of our Northampton gardens ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... molted; result perfectly hideous, but the sugar-bowl, clothing, and sundry fund are out of debt and doing well. Had my faded gray dress dyed black, and trimmed the jacket with pieces of my moth-eaten cock's-feather boa; perfectly elegant, almost too gorgeous for my humble circumstances. Mamma looks at me sadly when I don these ancient garments, and almost wishes I had n't such "a wealthy look." I tell her I expect the girls to say, when I walk into the school-yard on Monday, "Who is this that cometh ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... who first put me up to the idea. I asked him a simple question about the habits of the Sigalion Boa, a certain worm in whose ways I was taking an interest at the time, and he at once replied that he himself was not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... arrondissement of Ville-aux-Fayes. To avoid too many explanations it is necessary to state, once for all, succinctly, the genealogical ramifications by means of which Gaubertin wound himself about the country, as a boa-constrictor winds around a tree,—with such art that a passing traveller thinks he beholds some natural effect of the ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... step in the passage, and the room door opened. A girl entered. She was wearing a large black hat and a black boa round her neck. Between them her face shone unnaturally white. She carried a small cloth bag. She started, on seeing Joan, ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... lamp-black mixed with a little water and oil. They usually sleep on the ground, with the exception of those who are Mahants, and they sometimes have no metal vessels, but use bags made of strong cloth for holding food and water. Men's names have the suffix Boa, as Datto Boa, Kesho Boa, while those of boys end in da, as Manoda, Raojida, and those of women in Bai, as Gopa Bai, Som Bai. The dead are buried, not in the common burial-grounds, but in some waste place. The corpse is laid on its side, facing ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... in the coils of the boa-constrictor is a wonderful picture. A boy must be hard to please if he wishes for ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... into long shreds, which they place in their mouths; then each one, cutting off at his lips what his mouth cannot hold, passes it over to his companion; or else the gluttons, letting the shreds hang down to the ground, swallow them gradually, as a boa-constrictor swallows an animal, and like it stretched out at full ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... wife got me a new silk dress and fur boa, my daughter bestowed a fine pair of No. 6 kid gloves, and each of my sons contributed a pair of skates and a sled. There is nothing like having Santa Claus remember you well, is ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... townswoman is undecided, tucks up her skirts to cross a gutter, dragging a child by the hand, which compels her to look out for the vehicles; she is a mother in public, and talks to her daughter; she carries money in her bag, and has open-work stockings on her feet; in winter, she wears a boa over her fur cloak; in summer, a shawl and a scarf; she is accomplished in the redundancies ...
— Another Study of Woman • Honore de Balzac
... it, Aboo Din?" the mistress would inquire, as visions of Baboo drowned in the great Shanghai jar, or of Baboo lying crushed by a boa among the yellow bamboos beyond the hedge, passed swiftly through ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman
... rather nice," he said stiffly, and then went on: "We shall have to go down now to this fearful lunch, but you had better take your sable boa with you. The great hall is so enormous and all of stone, it may be cold. I will get it for you," and he went back and found it lying by her coat on the chair, and brought it, and wrapped it round her casually, as if she had been a stone, and then held the door ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... stranger's embarrassment; then she went on to find Catherine. The two left behind exchanged a few banal questions and answers. Langham had only allowed himself one look at the dazzling face and eyes framed in fur cap and boa. Afterwards he stood making a study of the ground, and answering her remarks in his usual stumbling fashion. What was it had gone out of her voice—simply the soft callow sounds of first youth? And what a personage she had grown ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for aught he knew to the contrary, or cared, might have been his own son; and his confidence in his capacity being ably supported by his appetite, he undertook a contract to which he was unequal in the matter of expansion. He couldn't disgorge, being in the predicament of the boa-constrictor who swallows a hen head first, and finds her go against the grain when he would fain reconsider the subject. The head of the inside fish was partially digested, but that process had imparted no gratification to either party, and both were defunct, mutually immolated ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... as she sat in George's fast cutter, proved so charming that her escort was stricken to soft words instantly, and failed to control a poetic impulse. Her rich little hat was trimmed with black fur; her hair was almost as dark as the fur; a great boa of black fur was about her shoulders; her hands were vanished into a black muff; and George's laprobe was black. "You look like—" he said. "Your face looks like—it looks like a snowflake on a lump of coal. I mean a—a snowflake that would be ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... however, and when a league from the point, sent off the skiff to look for water, and to sound for an anchorage. She returned on board, having neither found water nor place to anchor in; wherefore we stood into the bay, and presently got sight of a town and fort belonging to the Hollanders, called Boa de Bachian. The pinnace a-head found water in several places, which were all very steep and in the bottom of the bay, near to which is the Dutch fort very artificially built, and warlike, with a town hard by. We came here to anchor, a sacker shot from ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... do exist, and in most cases have no special function in the animal oeconomy, is admitted by the first authorities in comparative anatomy. The minute limbs hidden beneath the skin in many of the snake-like lizards, the anal hooks of the boa constrictor, the complete series of jointed finger-bones in the paddle of the Manatus and whale, are a few of the most familiar instances. In botany a similar class of facts has been long recognised. Abortive stamens, rudimentary floral envelopes ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... else to say, proposed—the breakfast being now finished, and the Major gorged, like any Boa Constrictor—that they should start. A barouche being in waiting, according to the orders of that gentleman, the two ladies, the Major and himself, took their seats in it; the Native and the wan page mounted the box, Mr Towlinson being left ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... magical pictures of the coach road, of which the railway robbed us. For miles before reaching it, we used to look out for the wooded park, with its herds of mottled deer, and the great lake, where the sight of the swans always brought up that story of the big pike, choked like a boa, with a swan's neck. A story that seems to belong to ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... de Inglaterra Ruy de Sousa-pessoa principal e de muyto bon saber e credito; de que el Rey muyto confiua: e ho doutor Ioam d'Eluas, e fernam de Pina por secretario. E foram por mar muy honradamente cum muy boa companhia: hos quaes foram en nome del rey confirmar as ligas antiquas com Inglaterra, que polla-condican deltas ho nouo Rey de hum zeyno e do outro era obrigado a mandar confirmar: e tambien pera monstrarem ho titolo que el rey tinha no senhorio de Guinee, pera ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... needed only one and a half hours to run down stream to the Muara Laong, a Malay kampong at the mouth of the river Laong, which we intended to ascend by boats to the kampong Batu Boa, where the overland journey was to begin. As soon as we arrived in the afternoon the kapala was sent for to help in procuring a sufficient number of prahus for the next day. I brought twenty-nine coolies ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... unfortunate young man to vex people with a lighter satire, yet still characterized by somewhat of snake-like virulence. One day he encountered an ambitious statesman, and gravely inquired after the welfare of his boa constrictor; for of that species, Roderick affirmed, this gentleman's serpent must needs be, since its appetite was enormous enough to devour the whole country and constitution. At another time, he stopped a close-fisted old fellow, ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Mr. Chalk, sitting open-mouthed, was regarding him with the fascinated gaze of a rabbit before a boa-constrictor. Captain Bowers was listening with an appearance of interest which in more favourable circumstances would ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... de Monredon was all-glorious, of course. She certainly looked like an old vulture, in a pelisse of gray velvet, with a chinchilla boa round her long, bare neck, and her big beak, with marabouts overshadowing it, of the same color. Monsieur de Talbrun —well! Monsieur de Talbrun was very bald, as bald as he could be. To make up for the want of hair on his head, he has plenty of it on his ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... invitation to Captain Jack's cook. "Ol' Cap'n an' de Lady bofe gone away. No need you stayin' roun' here all de time. Git to de gran'stan' early an' git a front seat. Mebbe you'll meet up wid one ob mah pussonal lady fren's—Cuspidora Lee, whut I boa'ded wid befo' de wah claimed me. Cuspido' said she g'wine to weah a big pink hat wid yaller feathers. 'At's how you knows her. You sees me an' mah mascot when us swings pas' de gran' stan'. Ah'll be follerin' de Supreem Leader. He be ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley
... the switch, flooding the room with light, and as I leapt forward to the bed a word picture of what I had seen formed in my mind; and I found that I was thinking of a grey feather boa. ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... trees resembled an enormous toad crouching ready to spring, holding a spray of leaves in its mouth; another was a great coiled boa with an olive crest upon his head. There were trunks open like ogives, through the orifices of which shone the blue sky; monstrous serpents coiled in groups like the spirals of a solomonic column; gigantic negroes, heads down and hands on the ground, the roots like fingers thrust deep into ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... "Doctor. But what do you suppose was the object Providence had in view in filling the world with beasts of prey? The east has its lions, tigers, and boa-constrictors; the south its panthers and catamounts; the north its bears and wolves; and the west its crocodiles and rattle-snakes. We read that dominion was given over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and the beast of the forest, and ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... it. I was the only one out of it—for several seconds. Our Mr. Morshed failed to recognise me in my fur boa, and my appealin' winks at 'im behind your goggles didn't arrive. But when Eddy darling had told his story, I saluted, which is difficult in furs, and I stated I was bringin' him dispatches from the North. ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... never had! The frightful monster, with its bob-tail and boa-constrictor neck! But ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... midst of an affecting appeal in Court on a slander case delivered himself of the following flight of genius. "Slander, gentlemen, like a boa constrictor of gigantic size and immeasurable proportions, wraps the coil of its unwieldy body about its unfortunate victim, and, heedless of the shrieks of agony that come from the utmost depths of its victim's ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton |
