"Natural history" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... after her death, how much she had given away. Far from blazoning it abroad, she insisted on secrecy. She invited Mr. Henry Fairfield Osborn to call, who was keenly interested in securing money to start a Natural History Museum, he bringing a friend with him. After they had owned that they found it impossible even to gain the first donation, she handed Mr. Osborn, after expressing her interest, a check for ten thousand dollars. At ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... large-crested American king-fisher. There are also some, which, I believe, are not mentioned, or at least vary, very considerably, from the accounts given of them by any writers who have treated professedly on this part of natural history. The two first of these are species of wood-peckers. One less than a thrush, of a black colour above, with white spots on the wings, a crimson head, neck, and breast, and a yellowish olive-coloured ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... way, noted wonderingly the blush that suddenly covered his face and neck at this exclamation of her aunt's. In the primitive simplicity of her mind, she could see nothing embarrassing in the mere statement of any fact of natural history. ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... Natural History; he wants to perfect himself in the MICROS; I learn on the rebound. When I shall have fixed in my head the name and the appearance of two or three thousand imperceptible varieties, I shall be well advanced, don't ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... pertaining to the knowledge of her own duties and powers, which ought to be a part of the instruction of every woman, are rarely placed before her. Much that pertains to the same phenomena among the lower animals may properly constitute a part of her studies in natural history; but with the laws which govern the most momentous of all social effects—the moral and mental constitution of individuals composing society—with the gravest of possible results to herself—the embodiment ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... a crowd, but by a sort of mumble, omitting sibilants and dentals. This, indeed, if your words fail you, answers even in public extempore speech,—but better where other talking is going on. Thus,—"We missed you at the Natural History Society, Ingham." Ingham replies,—"I am very gligloglum, that is, that you were mmmmm." By gradually dropping the voice, the interlocutor is compelled to supply the answer. "Mrs. Ingham, I hope your ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... had made a 'sort of a garden' at St. Simon's. We shall see 'what sort' it turns out to be. While I was standing on the dyke, ruminating above the river, I saw a beautiful white bird of the crane species alight not far from me. I do not think a little knowledge of natural history would diminish the surprise and admiration with which I regard the, to me, unwonted specimens of animal existence that I encounter every day, and of which I do not even know the names. Ignorance is an odious thing. The birds here are ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... of homes, which I have italicised above. And I may note, though it does not affect the poetry, if it does a little affect the natural history, that the pee-weets and the whaups are not the same—the one is the curlew, and the other is the lapwing—the one most frequenting wild, heathery or peaty moorland, and the other pasture or even ploughed land—so that it is a great pity for unity and simplicity alike that Stevenson ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... has never lost his belief in the efficacy of magic, in the widest sense of the term. Only a very few of the most intellectual nations have escaped from its shackles. Nobody else has so clearly expressed the origins and relations of magic as Pliny in his "Natural History."(10) "Now, if a man consider the thing well, no marvaile it is that it hath continued thus in so great request and authoritie; for it is the onely Science which seemeth to comprise in itselfe three possessions besides, which have the command ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... Copenhagen, who has been followed by other antiquaries, has even gone so far as to divide the natural history of civilization into three epochs, according to the character of the tools used in each. The first was the Stone period, in which the implements chiefly used were sticks, bones, stones, and flints. ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... working class Malay is almost as far superior to that, say, of the British country bumpkin as are his manners. Mr. H. O. FORBES says in his "Naturalist in the Eastern Archipelago" that he was struck with the natives' acute observation in natural history and the accuracy with which they could give the names, habits and uses of animals and plants in the jungle, and the traveller cannot but admire the general handiness and adaptability to changed circumstances and customs and quickness of understanding of the Malay coolies whom he engages ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... too remote for concern. The erstwhile New York "shark" was now an eel, wily and elusive, but he was an eel with a shark's teeth and a shark's voraciousness. He had grown old in the study of this particular branch of natural history. Bansemer was fifty-five years old in this year of 1898. He was thinner than in the old New York days, but the bull-like vigour had given way to the wiry strength of the leopard. The once black hair was almost white, and grew ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... him to collate immediately every volume that he acquires. It will also open up a new field of interest for the young collector, for he will be constrained to study books from their material aspect; and with a knowledge of the 'natural history' of the book will come a regard for the well-being of his volumes. So also will he be brought into touch with modern methods of bibliography, and he will certainly find an additional ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... publish the chapters of his work which dealt with the changes going on in the organic world as a volume by itself. This second volume of the Principles he gracefully dedicated to his friend Broderip, who had rendered him such valuable assistance in all questions connected with Natural History. ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... discourse at first turned on politics (for the paper was in his hand,) on which he at once openly avowed himself a warm whig, but clearly without the slightest wish to provoke opposition. I at length succeeded in turning the conversation into the fields of natural history, but not till after he had scattered forth a profusion of the most humorous anecdotes, that would baffle the most retentive memory to enumerate, and defy the most witty to depict. I succeeded by mentioning an error ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 389, September 12, 1829 • Various
... a famous place for societies. I don't know whether the piece I mentioned from the French author was intended simply as Natural History, or whether there was not a little malice in his description. At any rate, when I gave my translation to B.F. to turn back again into French, one reason was that I thought it would sound a little bald in English, and some people might think ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... parliamentary knowledge, I will take care of that when you come home. With regard to foreign affairs, everything you do abroad may and ought to tend that way. Your reading should be chiefly historical; I do not mean of remote, dark, and fabulous history, still less of jimcrack natural history of fossils, minerals, plants, etc., but I mean the useful, political, and constitutional history of Europe, for these last three centuries and a half. The other thing necessary for your foreign object, and not less necessary than either ancient or modern knowledge, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... for fame merely, as others actually raise crops of grain to be distilled into brandy. Books are for the most part wilfully and hastily written, as parts of a system, to supply a want real or imagined. Books of natural history aim commonly to be hasty schedules, or inventories of God's property, by some clerk. They do not in the least teach the divine view of nature, but the popular view, or rather the popular method of studying nature, and make haste to conduct ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... whose numbers—all, alas! which I can recollect—are enclosed. Next, lend me five pounds. Next, send me down, as quick as possible, five pounds' worth of decent drugs, as per list; and—if you can borrow me one—a tolerable microscope, and a few natural history books, to astound the yokels here with: for I was shipwrecked here last night, after all at a dirty little west-country port, and what's worse, robbed of all I had made at the diggings, and start fair, once more, to run against cruel Dame Fortune, as Colston did ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... gold and silver in small quantities, platinum he—believed, tin, aluminium; it was covered with forests and strange plants; in the woods were found the coon, the opossum, the fox, the deer and many other animals who roamed in the domain of natural history; coal existed in enormous quantity and no doubt oil; it was such a place for the practice of agricultural experiments that any student who had been successful there would have an easy task in any other portion of ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... instruction to be derived from looking upon a world then so strange, and for Europeans still so new. He described the manners and customs, the laws, the religions, the social and political institutions, of the ancient races who dwelt in either peninsula of India. He studied the natural history, the botany, the geography of all the regions which he visited. Especially the products which formed the material of a great traffic; the system of culture, the means of transportation, and the course of commerce, were examined by him with ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... condition. A few days of warm muggy weather nearing Europe might render futile the task of many months of hardship. So our interview was of short duration, but I am glad to say that the eminent Professor eventually met with success, and that his priceless addition to the treasury of natural history now occupies a niche of honour in the Imperial Academy ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... not interested in this form of natural history, I see." Then taking up the skull, he placed it in a crevice of the wall, saying, "Here is another proof that there are no ghosts about. Do you think any one would be so careless of his knowledge-box as to leave it to be kicked around in that way? Oh, those old ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... Tributaries. Explored in 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872, under the direction of the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution." The other papers published with it relate to the geography, geology, and natural history of the country. And here again I supposed all account of the exploration ended. But from that time until the present I have received many letters urging that a popular account of the exploration and a description of that wonderful land should be published ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... not, indeed. Now, that is singular," he observed. Then he looked at me as if he were about to say something interesting, but I hastily interposed. I was afraid he was going to speculate about the natural history of the phenomenon which had just struck him as being singular. He knew perfectly well that Evadne had no children, but he was subject, or affected to be subject, to moments of obliviousness, in which he was wont to ask ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... father, and her own to Meta being engrossing, she did not look much more after him till Dr. May came in, and said, 'I want you to sketch off a portrait of her dicky-bird for Meta;' and he put before her a natural history with a figure of that tiny humming-bird which is ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... chapter in natural history. Infinitely more wholesome reading than the average tale of sport, since it gives a glimpse of the hunt from the point of view of the hunted. "True in substance but fascinating as fiction. It will interest old and young, city-bound and free-footed, those who know animals ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... of Devonshire is preparing for publication a Catalogue of the numerous published works which relate to the History, Antiquities, Biography, Natural History, and Local Occurrences of that county, and has already sufficient matter to occupy upwards of seventy octavo pages in print, and would be glad to receive notices of any rare books and tracts on those ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 43, Saturday, August 24, 1850 • Various
... the natural history of the conflict of religions, it will not be a matter of surprise that the leaders of our English Reformation should, in their turn, have attributed the miracles of the Roman Catholic saints to the same infernal source as the early Christians supposed to have ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... all the recondite knowledge that he can command, especially from the fantastic collection of fables which, coming down through the Middle Ages from the Roman writer Pliny, went at that time by the name of natural history and which we have already encountered in the medieval Bestiaries. Preposterous by any reasonable standard, Lyly's style, 'Euphuism,' precisely hit the Court taste of his age and became for a decade its most ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... related, were not on good terms, and never saw each other. There was not the least intercourse between the two families, and Thieriot was the only person who visited both. He was desired to endeavor to bring me again to M. Dupin's. M. de Francueil was then studying natural history and chemistry, and collecting a cabinet. I believe he aspired to become a member of the Academy of Sciences; to this effect he intended to write a book, and judged I might be of use to him in the undertaking. Madam de Dupin, who, on her part, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... exceedingly fine one; enriched with many books of the choicest description, which Mr. Folkes had acquired in his travels in Italy and Germany. The works on natural history, coins, medals, and inscriptions, and on the fine arts in general, formed the most valuable department—those in the Greek, Latin and English classics, were comparatively of inferior importance. It is a great pity the ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... AND LANGUAGE. Entertaining and Instructive Lessons in Natural History and Language for Primary and Grammar Schools, ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... from this "philosophical angler's" delightful little book. The present will serve such as are unacquainted with the mysteries of fly-fishing, and interest all who are fond of inquiries in natural history. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Volume 12, No. 329, Saturday, August 30, 1828 • Various
... being somewhat too fond of mere and sheer fun, after the abstruse papers of the day are read and discussed. And as for harmless amusement, and still more for the free exercise of the fancy and the imagination, I know few studies to compare with Natural History; with the search for the most beautiful and curious productions of Nature amid her loveliest scenery, and in her freshest atmosphere. I have known again and again working men who in the midst of smoky cities have kept their bodies, their minds, and their hearts healthy and ...
— Town Geology • Charles Kingsley
... coffin, the work of the best carpenter in England, would have kept them together; and that which fine cookery does for the cementing of couples needs not to be recounted to those who have read a chapter or two of the natural history ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pressing on after the hound, soon left my companions out of sight. For long afterward, the Colonel, in a doleful way, would allude to my lamentable deficiency in natural history—particularly in such branches as bacon and ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... desire to visit the Museum of Natural History, we may go on the grand canal again. If we had more time it would be pleasant to take Benjamin up ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... since then, on the Newlyn side of Morrab Gardens; and after their cards—at which one would lose and t'other win half a crown, maybe— the doctor would out with a decanter of pineapple rum, and the pair would drink together and have a crack upon Natural History, which was a hobby with both. Being both unmarried, they had no one to call bedtime; but the Collector was always back at his lodgings ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... governed by living and personal powers, an animistic world. The myths which describe the birth and life of the gods, the creation of man, the bestowing of the gift of fire are conceived as the literal and natural history of creation. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... cloth, 12s. 6d. Dr. Carpenter, F.R.S. Principles of General and Comparative Physiology; intended as an Introduction to the Study of Human Physiology, and as a Guide to the Philosophical Pursuit of Natural History. Illustrated with numerous Figures on Copper and Wood. The Second Edition. 8vo. cloth, 18s. By The Same Author. Principles of Human Physiology. numerous Illustrations on Steel and Wood. Third Edition. One ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... archaic as the Code of Manu. One of these days we shall perhaps find men investigating college jurisprudence, college government, and college politics from the comparative point of view, and writing the natural history of the student class" ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... in London, which is the best in Europe, does not approach it in size or importance. One of the best museums of our country was started in Salem in the latter part of the last century, and that collection is now, as is well known, in charge of the Peabody Academy of Science. Its objects of natural history have in recent years been carefully classified and arranged under the direction of Dr. Henry Wheatland, Professors Morse, Putnam, Packard, and Robinson; and its cabinets, together with those of the Essex Institute, now ...
— The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious Advertisements • Henry M. Brooks
... composition. In the same way as Euphuism is founded upon a balance of the sentence obtained by antithetical clauses, and the use of intricate alliteration, together with the abuse of simile and metaphor drawn from what has been aptly termed Lyly's 'un-natural history'; so Sidney's style in the Arcadia is based on a balance usually obtained by a repetition of the same word or a jingle of similar ones, together with the abuse of periphrasis, and, it may be added, of the pathetic fallacy. These last have been dangers in all periods of stylistic experiment; the ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... now!" said Mr. Poyser, impressed at once with the political bearings of the fact and with its striking interest as an anecdote in natural history. ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... afraid. He can't be very dreadful, for the box is not any longer than we are. Natural history is very useful; I've heard mamma say so, and I shall talk with him while we rest here," answered Flo, nodding toward the eye which now took ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... with a fine salmon in his embrace. Now was Jack's opportunity. He raised his piece, but remembering Marteau's remark about the bear's difficulty in eating salt salmon, he postponed the fatal shot until he should have studied this point in natural history. ...
— Fort Desolation - Red Indians and Fur Traders of Rupert's Land • R.M. Ballantyne
... because they are known; in a word, by leaving her at liberty to luxuriate in such feelings and images as will feed her mind in silent pleasure. This nourishment is contained in fairy tales, romances, the best biographies and histories, and such parts of natural history relating to the powers and appearances of the earth and elements, and the habits and structure of animals, as belong to it, not as an art or science, but as a magazine of form and feeling. This kind of knowledge is purely good, a direct antidote to every evil to be ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... eminent teachers, graduated about the same time, and their excellence would be attributed to some one instructor; but that in his time there seemed to be a crop of great men in all departments of life—in natural history, in the pulpit, the bar, in oratory, in literature, and in public life. Mr. Winthrop rose to his feet from this chair and brought his hand down with great emphasis on the table as he answered: "It was the influence of ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... lady took one of the books on natural history, and read some anecdotes to her, with a few of which I will close my book of Minnie's ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... natural history, traditions, and arts of this country may, certainly, furnish subjects on which my communications might, perhaps, be not uninteresting; but to offer anything deserving of attention would require a season of leisure to collect and digest information. Engaged in public and busy ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... the subjects of natural history that have been procured upon the voyage, it is much to be lamented that the small size of the vessel and our constant professional duties prevented my extending them. Of quadrupeds we saw but few. Birds were very numerous but the operation of skinning and preserving them would have ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... Austrian patriotism, purely educational paragraphs were considered as wanting in patriotic feeling; not only literary but also historical paragraphs were 'corrected,' and official advice was issued as to how to write handbooks on patriotic lines on special subjects, as for instance on natural history, physics, geometry, etc. The foundations of all knowledge to be supplied to the pupils in the public schools had to reflect the spirit of the ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... and store of powder and shot, as well as a tent, he again sailed for the island of Trist. He now began to keep a regular journal, which tells us of his adventures while engaged as a logwood-cutter. They are amongst the most interesting of his life, while his notes on the natural history of the country show his accuracy as an observer. The logwood-cutters varied their occupation by hunting the wild cattle, and on one occasion Dampier nearly perished by having lost his way in the woods. During his wanderings he had the ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... infinitely delighted with those speculations of nature which are to be made in a country-life; and as my reading has very much lain among books of natural history, I cannot forbear recollecting upon this occasion the several remarks which I have met with in authors, and comparing them with what falls under my own observation: The argument for providence drawn from the natural history of animals ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... with the care of the Investigator's stores, and Mr. Evans, master's mate, was left sick at the hospital; Messrs. Brown, Bauer, and Allen stayed at Port Jackson to prosecute their researches in natural history, until my arrival with another ship, or until eighteen months should expire without their having received intimation that the voyage was to be continued; nine men were discharged at their own request, and the twenty-two remaining officers and men, including myself, embarked ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... scarcely 3 deg. C., as the sky is continually overhung with thick clouds, which disperse themselves in continual falls of snow. I passed several weeks in Yauli and in the wild country around it, and during that time I made many valuable additions to my natural history collection. ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... is no deterioration in the quality of the books of the Standard Library. This book consists of short chapters upon natural history, written in an easy, fascinating style, giving rare and valuable information concerning trees, plants, flowers, and animals. Such books should have a wide circulation beyond the list of regular subscribers. ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... they had left behind in Sydney; but, on the contrary, they seemed much pleased at having escaped from its unsatisfactory frivolities. Everything in the country delighted them, and they had no fear of no having ample occupation. They proposed to study the natural history of the district—the trees and flowers, the birds and insects, and the wild animals, of which there were not a few; then the farm would of itself afford ample occupation, along with the improvements in the house, into which they were about to move, ...
— The Gilpins and their Fortunes - A Story of Early Days in Australia • William H. G. Kingston
... peach-trees in beautiful pink bloom. Arranged my plans; that merits a word by the way if I can be bothered. I have half arranged to go to Goettingen in summer to a course of lectures. Galitzin is responsible for this. He tells me the professor is to law what Darwin has been to Natural History, and I should like to understand Roman Law and a knowledge of law is so necessary for all I hope ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... seen the animal called the "Macgregor bear," and I do not know what it is. The Fathers assured me it was a bear; but in view of the great unlikelihood of this, I consulted the authorities at the Natural History Museum, and they think it is probably one of the marsupials. It is named after Sir William Macgregor. It is found in the mountains, where the ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... nor did he neglect any opportunity of improving natural knowledge for the benefit of mankind in general. He employed men of ability, at his own expense, to travel into foreign countries, and to collect the most curious productions, for the advancement of natural history: he encouraged the liberal and mechanic arts at home, by munificent rewards and peculiar protection: he invited above a thousand foreigners from Germany to become his subjects, and settle in certain districts ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... sir," said the Resident, "his explanations were quite satisfactory. He is here studying the natives preparatory to writing a book about the manners and customs of these people, and he is collecting various objects of natural history, as ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... a system of demonology, which had for its basis the natural history and habitation of demons. His first class consisted of fiery devils, that wandered in the regions near the moon, but were prevented from entering that luminary. They displayed their power in blazing stars, in counterfeit suns, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... Natural History.—There are some peculiarities about the Peanut plant that make it interesting to the naturalist. Its habit of clinging close to the soil, the closing together of the leaves at sunset, or on the approach of a storm, the beautiful appearance of a field of it ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... of the crow's-nest, and then had luncheon on board. And after luncheon they visited the aquarium and the top of the Singer Building, and took the subway uptown to spend an hour with the birds of America in their habitats. Sandy with great difficulty pried them away from the Natural History Museum in time to catch the 6:15 train. Dinner in the dining-car. They inquired with great particularity how much it was costing, and when they heard that it was the same, no matter how much you ate, they drew deep breaths and settled quietly and steadily to the task of not allowing ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... what little is authentically known of him, this much may be gathered: He was a man of great general accomplishment, well versed in the literature both of Greece and Rome, devoted to literature and the society of men of letters, a lover of the fine arts and of natural history, a connoisseur of gems and precious stones, fond of living in a grand style, and of surrounding himself with people who amused him, without being always very particular as to who or what they were. For the indulgence of all these ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... of the hunters of big game, was greatly excited by the statement that there was a whale in the polar sea. These great creatures being extinct everywhere else, it would be a unique and crowning glory to capture this last survivor of his race; and there were many museums of natural history which were already discussing contracts with intending polar whalers for the purchase of the ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... for oral delivery, and imagine myself speaking to my pupils, if ever I am happily thinking in myself. But it will be also seen that by the help of this very familiarity of style, I am endeavoring, in these and my other writings on Natural History, to compel in the student a clearness of thought and precision of language which have not hitherto been in any wise the virtues, or skills, of scientific persons. Thoughtless readers, who imagine that my own style (such as it is, the one thing which ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... and I have seen so many good and handsome children come of parents who were anything but virtuous and comely, that I can believe in almost any amount of improvement taking place in a tribe of living beings, if time and opportunity favor it. I have read in books of natural history that dogs came originally from wolves. When I remember my little Flora, who, as I used to think, could do everything but talk, it does not seem to me that she was much nearer her savage ancestors than some of the horrid ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... hail-storm all the time; you never heard any thing like the way crows can scold. If one crow is caught stealing, all the rest caw and croak at him, till he very nearly goes into fits, and then they all fly at him till he hasn't a feather left; I read all about it in my Natural History." ...
— The Fairy Nightcaps • Frances Elizabeth Barrow
... lived close by and used to waste part of each day scolding the foxes, from some safe perch. The cubs made many vain attempts to catch him as he ran across their glade from one tree to another, or spluttered and scolded at them a foot or so out of reach. But old Vixen was up in natural history—she knew squirrel nature and took the case in hand when the proper time came. She hid the children and lay down flat in the middle of the open glade. The saucy low-minded squirrel came and scolded as usual. ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... its old habits, though exposed to far greater irregularity and severity of climate. But though the law is obeyed by many plants, it does not determine the periodical changes of the whole, nor do they all submit to it with equal readiness and regularity. It would add, I conceive, to the natural history of vegetation, and improve our knowledge of the geography of plants, were the facts concerning their habits and changes, under different temperatures, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... powder and copper instruments alloyed with tin. They also worked with exquisite taste in gold and silver, and they represented Nature so faithfully and so beautifully that the great naturalist Hernandez took many of these objects thus portrayed for his models when describing the natural history of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 • Various
... Those lovers of Natural History who are familiar with the German language, and who may wish to make themselves extensively acquainted with the animal world, in those parts of Peru visited by Dr. Tschudi, will find abundant information on the subject in his work, with plates, entitled "Untersuchungen ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... readers to his learned and interesting volume entitled The English Language,—a work which affords proof how deeply he has studied that remarkable characteristic of our race, which Goldsmith wittily described as being "given to man to conceal his thoughts." From the language to The Natural History of the Varieties of Man, the transition is an easy one. The same preliminary studies lead to a mastery of both divisions of this one great subject: and having so lately seen how successfully Dr. Latham had pursued his researches into the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 67, February 8, 1851 • Various
... dispatched in haste to see "who the Devil was being killed in that noisy fashion," returned to state deferentially as how Master Damocles was in a sort of heppipletic fit, and foaming at the mouth. They had found him in the General's study where he had been reading a book, apparently; a big Natural History book. ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... however, is by no means the only thing about which every man's leisure furnishes him with the means of reading; besides which, every man has not the same taste. Poetry, geography, moral essays, the divers subjects of philosophy, travels, natural history, books on sciences; and, in short, the whole range of book-knowledge is before you; but there is one thing always to be guarded against; and that is, not to admire and applaud anything you read, merely because it is the fashion to admire and applaud it. Read, consider well what you ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... communistic teachings, the Circular has a general interest, by reason of articles it often contains relating to natural history and natural scenery, which, from different pens, show that there are in the society some close observers of nature, who have also the ability to relate their observations and experiences in excellent English. In general, the style of the paper is uncommonly good, and shows that ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... impress the mind of the poorer students. Less agreeable is the reflection of the taxpayer. This new Imperial quarter represents millions of marks, whilst the defences of Strasburg alone represent many millions more. One of the five facultes is devoted to Natural Science. The Museum of Natural History, the mineralogical collections, and the chemical laboratories have each their separate building, whilst at the extreme end of the University gardens is the handsome new observatory, with covered way leading ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... and encouraging fact of natural history did not lessen the cloud upon Paul's brow, the acute Dummie Dunnaker proceeded at once to the grand panacea for all evils, in his own ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... great pleasure in informing our readers that we are about to publish a volume of "GREAT ROUND WORLD Natural History Stories." ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 19, March 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... it was the business of teachers to strike while the iron was hot, to seize the wave of interest or response at its crest before the ebb had begun. There was supposed to be a "happy moment for fixing in children skill in drawing, for making collections in natural history," for developing the appreciative emotions, for training the social instinct, or the memory or the imagination. Children are supposed to be interested and attracted by novelty, rhythm, and movement,—to be creatures of play and ...
— How to Teach • George Drayton Strayer and Naomi Norsworthy
... Mr. Darwin informs his readers that as early as 1844, he had collected his material and worked out his theory, but had not published it to the world, although it had been communicated to some of his friends. In 1858 he received a memoir from Mr. Wallace, who was then studying the natural history of the Malay Archipelago. From that memoir he learnt that Mr. Wallace had "arrived at almost exactly the same conclusions as I (he himself) have on the origin of species." This led to the publishing his book on that subject contemporaneously with Mr. Wallace's ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... described as an owl, was really such, may be doubted, considering the narrow nomenclature of the Romans for all zoological purposes, and the total indifference of the Roman mind to all distinctions in natural history which are not upon the very largest scale. We should much suspect that the bird was a magpie. Meantime, speaking of ornithoscopy in relation to Jews, we remember another story in that subdivision of the subject which it may be ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... else he would in so far instantly cease to be strong. One living, as Byron emphatically did, in the truly modern atmosphere, was bound by all the conditions of the atmosphere to have mastered what we may call the natural history of his own ideas and convictions; to know something of their position towards fact and outer circumstance and possibility; above all to have some trusty standard for testing their value, and assuring himself that they do really cover the field which he takes them to cover. People with a faith and ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... modes of living and being, curiosities in natural history, and personal adventure in travels and explorations, suggest a rich fund of solid instruction combined with delightful entertainment. The editorship by one of the most observant and well-travelled men of modern ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... have rendered some assistance to a young nobleman in sowing his wild oats, a sequel to his university course which may possibly help to explain his subsequent aberrations. The connection cannot have lasted long, as in 1762, having already obtained reputation as a student of natural history and antiquities, he obtained a post as one of the clerks in ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... the practice as well as the theories of harmony; but few passages of his works display more agreeably his personal delight and satisfaction in musical exercise and investigation than that section of the 'Natural History,' wherein he says, "And besides I practice as I do advise; which is, after long inquiry of things immersed in matter, to interpose some subject which is immateriate or less materiate; such as this of sounds: to the end that the intellect may be rectified ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... "I'm connected with the natural history museum of the planet I live on. I go to various places and take pictures, and they go into exhibits for the people ...
— The Gallery • Roger Phillips Graham
... maggots may be created by a blow. The most detestable of all the vermicular tribe is the Worm of the Still, which is a sort of caterer for the worm which never dieth—a reptile of another sphere, that has never been described in Natural History. The only worm recognized as edible by civilized man is produced in Italy and vulgarly known as wormy-chilly. The subject is susceptible of further expansion, but having run it into the ground, we here ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 16, July 16, 1870 • Various
... History," as applied to the different plants and animals around us. For surely the study of natural history means only the study of plants and animals themselves, which, at the moment of using the words "Natural History," we assume to be the most ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... a fact in natural history accounted for, but accounted for in such a peculiar way as shows that the races among which they are current must have derived them from some common tradition. The mode by which the tail is lost is different indeed; but the manner in which the common ground-work ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... have bought them at auction and then have carried them to college with him, rattling about on the bottom of his trunk? For it was not an over-packed trunk. There were the tongs on the bottom and a thirty-cent edition of "The Natural History of Selborne" on the top—that is all. That is all the boy remembers. These two things, at least, are all that now remain out of the trunkful he started with from home—the tongs for sentiment, and ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... it, and for his continued patience throughout my investigation. Financial assistance was furnished by his National Science Foundation Grant (NSF-G8624) for which I am also appreciative. I thank Dr. Rainer Zangerl, Chief Curator of Geology, Chicago Museum of Natural History, for permission to examine the specimens of Captorhinus and Dimetrodon in that institution. I am grateful to Mr. Robert F. Clarke, Assistant Professor of Biology, The Kansas State Teachers College, ...
— The Adductor Muscles of the Jaw In Some Primitive Reptiles • Richard C. Fox
... in exhausting the usual pleasures of the world early in life. The agreeable cares of a matrimonial life. The cultivation of science, as of chemistry, natural philosophy, natural history, which supplies an inexhaustible source of pleasurable novelty, and relieves ennui by the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... whether Mr. S. is aware that there is the head of a Dodo in the Royal Museum of Natural History at Copenhagen, which came from the collection of Paludanus? M. Domeny de Rienzi, the compiler of Oceanie, ou cinquieme Partie du Globe (1838, t. iii. p. 384.), tells us, that a Javanese captain gave him ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... to what I could tell them of the sights. One of the wonders of my youth was the seeing the great elephant Columbus perform in a play called "The Englishman in Siam." It was indeed very curious, and it is described as such in works on natural history. And I saw Edwin Forrest (whom I learned to know in later years) in "Metamora," and Fanny Kemble in "Beatrice," and so on. As for George Boker, he went, I believe, to every place of amusement whenever he pleased, and ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... this beautiful and suggestive letter, an ornithologist remarked that Burns had made a mistake in a fact of natural history. It is not the 'gray plover,' but the golden, whose music is heard on the moors in autumn. The gray plover, our accurate observer remarks, is a winter shore bird, found only at that season and in ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... favourable promise in the compositions of a young man. The man that hath not music in his soul can indeed never be a genuine poet. Imagery,—(even taken from nature, much more when transplanted from books, as travels, voyages, and works of natural history),—affecting incidents, just thoughts, interesting personal or domestic feelings, and with these the art of their combination or intertexture in the form of a poem,—may all by incessant effort be acquired as a trade, by a man of talent ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... daybreak into the forest—the one bent on slaughtering game, the other on collecting objects of natural history. A clever fellow is that Frenchman, and I have begged him to remain here as long as he can find subjects for ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... of this roving swallow another bird called a secretary. I suppose you've read some natural history, and know there's such ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... G.)—Popular Natural History. The most popular book on Birds, Beasts and Reptiles ever written. Fully ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... concluding section of Volume XIV gives the greater part of the results of an investigation carried on by me with the assistance of Mrs. Cole among the Tinguian, from January, 1907, to June, 1908; the funds for which were furnished Field Museum of Natural History by the late Robert F. Cummings. The further generosity of Mrs. Cummings, in contributing a fund toward the printing of this publication is also ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... wrote, in the possession of Major Bacon, of Seafield House. Mrs. Russell, of Oxford, kindly made inquiries for me in the Isle of Man as to its present whereabouts, and that of the cup of Kirk Malew, and inserted a query in Yn Livar Manninagh, the organ of the Isle of Man Natural History and Antiquarian Society, but without ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... exercised an influence on his political decisions. Yet that somewhat eccentric prince could not resist his inclination to make cheap jokes at Strauss's expense. After creating him court-chaplain, he said to Alexander von Humboldt: "A trick in natural history which you cannot copy! I have turned an ostrich (Strauss) into a bullfinch (Dompfaffer)"—in allusion to Strauss's being a preacher at the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... importance how women's hearts are disposed of; they have nature's privilege to distribute them as absurdly as possible. But there are also some men with hearts so thoroughly bad, as to remind us of those phenomena often mentioned in natural history; viz. a mass of solid stone—only to be opened by force—and when divided, you discover a toad in the centre, lively, and with the reputation ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... directions between 1860 and 1875 by Gerhard Rohlfs, Georg Schweinfurth and Gustav Nachtigal. These travellers not only added considerably to geographical knowledge, but obtained invaluable information concerning the people, languages and natural history of the countries in which they sojourned.9 Among the discoveries of Schweinfurth was one that confirmed the Greek legends of the existence beyond Egypt of a pygmy race. But the first discoverer of the dwarf races of Central Africa was Paul du Chaillu, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... reading about them in a natural history, and the cougar, mountain lion, puma, panther, and painter are all the same beast. Years ago they were common all over the United States, but now they are to be found only in the Far West and in the South. I think we can count it a big feather ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... as a Naturalist compared with those of Robert Brown.—His Illustration of the Principle that "Nature abhors Close Fertilization. "—His Impression upon Natural History exceeded only by Linnaeus.—His Service in restoring Teleology to ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... citizens on two days of the week, and that such advantages have been appreciated, is evinced by the large number of visitors, chiefly of the working classes, every Monday and Saturday, to inspect the splendid collection of specimens in Natural History." ...
— Three Centuries of a City Library • George A. Stephen
... departments, may be found an intellectual class one cannot encounter in our commercial and manufacturing cities. The student may, without tax and without price, have access, in the libraries of Congress and of the several departments, to books of every nature and kind; and the museums of natural history are rapidly approaching a standard of comparison with the best of the world. Yet it is the usual and proper center of political intrigue, from which the army especially should keep aloof, because the army must be true and faithful to the powers that be, and not be subjected to a temptation ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Rosebery founded, in the University of Edinburgh, a lectureship on "The Philosophy of Natural History," and I was invited by the Senatus to deliver the lectures. This invitation I accepted, and subsequently constituted the material of my lectures the foundation of another course, which was given in the Royal Institution, under the title "Before and after Darwin." ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... the cry of the hyaena was a recent invention of our own!" said Lousteau, "and here it was already known to the literature of the Empire. It is even introduced with a certain skill in natural history, as we see in ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... from each other—just as the European badger does from his American cousins. It was the writer Olaus Magnus who gave such celebrity to this animal, by telling a very great "story" about the creature—which, at a time when people were little studied in natural history, was readily believed. Olaus's report was, that whenever the glutton killed an animal, he was in the habit of feeding on the carcass till his belly became swelled out and tight as a drum; that then he would pass between two trees growing close together—to ...
— Quadrupeds, What They Are and Where Found - A Book of Zoology for Boys • Mayne Reid
... indispensable when that entrance should be secured. Among those most needed now, were a Hebrew and Hebrew-Spanish vocabulary of the Old Testament (then in preparation); a Spelling Book for schools; a short Hebrew Grammar; a brief Arithmetic; a Geography of the Bible, and a Natural History of the same; various religious tracts and essays on prophecies, especially those concerning the Messiah; and a translation of McCaul's ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... 1. Natural history stories for entertainment. Many curious and entertaining facts in connection with animal life were searched out, more especially unusual and spicy anecdotes of shrewdness and intelligence. Some of the old readers, and even of the recent ones, ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... of the cloister garden he carried out with the common pea the series of experiments which has since become so famous. In 1865 after eight years' work he published the results of his experiments in the Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Bruenn, in a brief paper of some forty pages. But brief as it is the importance of the results and the lucidity of the exposition will always give it high rank among the classics of biological literature. For thirty-five ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... of Labrador, 1907, Boston Society of Natural History, by Mr. Glover, Mr. Allen and myself, we called especial attention to the great destruction of life that has gone on and is still going on there, and we suggested the protection of the eiders for their down, as is done in Norway, instead of ...
— Supplement to Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... As neither his duties nor mine were onerous, we had a great deal of time on our hands, which we employed walking and riding, or sitting in our common room reading and talking. Of course, as with most young men, that very attractive branch of natural history, woman, was a favorite topic, and we accordingly discussed it a great deal; that is, to tell the exact truth, I did. Although Brandon had seen many an adventure during his life on the continent, which would not do to write down ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... mind is observant, sharp, ready, retentive; he is almost passive in the acquisition of knowledge. I say this is no disparagement of the idea of a clever boy. Geography, chronology, history, language, natural history, he heaps up the matter of these studies as treasures for a future day. It is the seven years of plenty with him; he gathers in by handfuls, like the Egyptians, without counting; and though, as time goes on, there is exercise for his argumentative powers in the elements of mathematics, and for his ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... sometimes with real regret and even at personal sacrifice he takes up his position, and to his parent's sorrow and his church's dishonor forsakes forever the faith and religion of his fathers. Who will deny that this is a true account of the natural history of much modern scepticism? A formal religion can never hold its own in the nineteenth century. It is better that it should not. We must either be real or cease to be. We must either give up our ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... author, who had laid the community under large obligations by the enterprise and tact with which he has so frequently catered to the popular taste for descriptions of rural life. Its contents are of a very miscellaneous character, embracing sketches of natural history, accounts of successful farming operations, anecdotes of distinguished characters, singular personal reminiscences, pithy moral reflections, and numerous pictures of household life in the country. No family can add this volume to their collection ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... New Haven Herald sets it down as a fact in natural history, proved by his experience for years, that when a traveller rides up to a toll gate, the keeper—if a man, invariably brings out a box, or a handful of change; but if a woman, she comes out and takes the traveller's coin, and then ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... illustrations, from drawings made in 1724 by Mr. Samuel Molyneux, a Dublin student, may be seen in Part II. of "A Natural History of Ireland," Dublin, 1726. Other eighteenth-century representations of the same place occur in a volume of old plates, belonging to the Society of Antiquaries (London). This volume is endorsed "Celtic Remains; I," and its contents ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... elders in such a pass will do, Chawner took careful stock of Sam, and the more he gleaned of the young man's opinions the better he liked him. Old Green was tolerable shrewd, and along with a passion for natural history and its wonders, he didn't leave human nature out of account. He was going on with his own life very clever, unknown to all but one person, and among his varied interests was a boy-like love of practical joking. But among his occupations the story of Samuel Borlase came ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... sight of St. Matthias' Church. The road to the right leads down to Anstis Cove. He will notice among the ferns and trees a door in the mossy bank, like the entrance to a hermitage in the wilderness. It is the door of the venerable Kent's Cavern. Persons who are now employed by the Torquay Natural History Society will guide the visitor and supply candles. The vast cavern is six hundred and fifty feet in length, with small caverns and corridors, which are most dangerous without a guide, rugged, wet, and slippery. Some years ago the skeleton ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... sociology has, on the one hand, discovered the natural history of man and, on the other, shown his normal social relations. Both of these studies have co-operated with biology to show that man has come out of the past through a process of evolution; that all that he is individually and socially has been attained through long ages of development. ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... it, but the workers had all gone. The queens were evidently weathering the first frosts and storms here, and waiting for the Indian summer to go forth and seek a permanent winter abode. If the covers could be taken off the fields and woods at this season, how many interesting facts of natural history would be revealed!—the crickets, ants, bees, reptiles, animals, and, for aught I know, the spiders and flies asleep or getting ready to sleep in their winter dormitories; the fires of life banked up, and burning just enough to keep ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... had ever been up the river as far as Tangkulap, it being a very lonely spot in the midst of dense forests, with no other white man living anywhere near. I had stayed with him for two months, making large natural history collections and seeing a great deal of both native and animal life. We had then returned down the river in Richardson's "gobang" (canoe) to Batu Puteh, a large tobacco estate, and the only one on this river. Here we were the guests of Paul Brietag, the manager, ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... could escape with the ransom of some molasses from the jug he carries hidden, no one knows where. You never knew a grasshopper was provisioned with a molasses jug? Well then you have never studied the boy's traditional natural history. Therein are recorded things unknown to science; discoveries never divulged, secrets more deep than the Elusinian, passed on from initiate to initiate for countless generations. Nature has told them only to children, and when grown ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... truthful narrative—despite his lively and credulous imagination—and the drawings and maps which he made rudely of the places he saw. His accounts of the Indians of Canada are among the most valuable that have come to us from the early days of American history. He had a fair knowledge of natural history for those times, though he believed in Mexican griffins, and was ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot |
