"Nest" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to which he had not yet resorted and from which, after unlocking it, he extracted a square box, of some twenty inches in height, covered with worn-looking leather. He placed the box on the counter, pushed back a pair of small hooks, lifted the lid and removed from its nest a drinking-vessel larger than a common cup, yet not of exorbitant size, and formed, to appearance, either of old fine gold or of some material once richly gilt. He handled it with tenderness, with ceremony, making a place for it on a small satin mat. "My Golden ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... open, to an immense distance, and the more easily, as the tree upon which it is built is always a "dead wood," and therefore without leaves to conceal it. Some say that the birds select a dead or decaying tree for their nest. It is more probable such is the effect and not the cause, of their building upon a particular tree. It is more likely that the tree is killed partly by the mass of rubbish thus piled upon it, and partly by the nature of the substances, such as sea-weed in the nest, the oil of the fish, the excrement ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... a famous passage in Green's "Short History of the English People" which describes in part that strange outburst of national expansion under Elizabeth, when Raleigh, Drake, and Frobisher scoured the distant seas, and when at home "England became a nest of singing birds," with Shakespeare, Spenser, Fletcher, and Marlow. "The old sober notions of thrift," says the picturesque historian, "melted before the strange revolutions of fortune wrought by the New World. Gallants gambled away a fortune at a sitting, ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... sweets of all kinds, rows of bee-hives standing in the sun, roses and raspberries growing side by side. The breaths of thyme and balm, lavender and myrtle, were always in that parlour. You know the sheep-fold and the paddock, the old tree over the west gable where the owl made his nest—the owl that used to come and sit on our school-room windowsill and hoot at night. You know, the sun-dial where the screaming peacock used to perch and spread his tail; the dove-cote, where the silver-necks and fan-tails used to coo and ruffle their feathers. You know, too, all ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... the knob and pulled at the door. She had fastened it inside with a piece of string, which broke at his pull. There being no bedstead she had flung down some rugs and made a little nest for herself in the very cramped quarters the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... at the Bartholomew Buildings—a rickety five-story edifice, which had been altered from a hotel to a nest of private offices. The basement was a restaurant, the first floor a dry goods store, and thence to the roof there was a small Babel of trades and professions known and unknown. No census taker had ever booked all the businesses and all the names ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... say, that fouls its own nest. I look on the noble family of the Herncastles as being my nest; and I shall take it as a favour if I am not expected to enter into particulars on the subject of the Honourable John. He was, I honestly believe, one of the greatest ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... was at the back; a dreadful nest of dirt and squalor, piled almost to the ceiling with unclassifiable rubbish. The air was so stifling that I was tempted to raise the heavily-curtained window a couple of inches; and thereby got a useful idea when, by peeping over the curtain, I saw the flat leads of a projecting lower ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... A nest in a hollow, "with buds to follow," I think occurred next in his nimble strain; And clay that was "kneaden" of course in Eden— A rhyme most novel ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... to see the return of "Ben Franklin, No. 2," which took me from that nest of unclean birds to those of more congenial and harmless habits. My anxious friends in Cincinnati had not received either of any letters, and had read only these threatening cards in the Cincinnati Commercial, copied from Louisville dailies, that caused great ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... over her, "Oh, you're not one that forgets, my precious, with your golden heart. And there's more than me will find it out." She wiped her spectacles, breathing on the glasses, and Sanchia shook out her plumage, escaped from the nest. Ingram, without ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... hand, and again I felt the brown bird hover Over my heart ... and then The bird came down on my heart, As on a nest the rover Cuckoo comes, and shoves over The brim each careful part Of love, takes possession and settles her down, With her wings and her feathers does drown The nest in ...
— Georgian Poetry 1911-12 • Various
... regarding the origin of the lustrous oriental pearl. Models of the various kinds of boats employed in the country were also shown. The wild animals of the country, its beautiful birds (including the swift, which builds the edible nest), and gorgeous butterflies, were well shown. The exhibit ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... suing for peace. He wrote to Lincoln demanding that he send an agent to confer with certain Confederate officials who were reported to be then in Canada; he also suggested terms of peace.(4) Greeley's terms were entirely acceptable to Lincoln; but he had no faith in the Canadian mare's nest. However, he decided to give Greeley the utmost benefit of the doubt, and also to teach him a lesson. He commissioned Greeley himself to proceed to Canada, there to discover "if there is or is not anything in the affair." He wrote to him, "I not ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... home "Halcyon House," and what a suitable and lovely name for one in his business, and one who had settled here after his service in the Revolution. For the halcyon was a fabled bird, whose nest floated upon the sea. It had the power of charming winds and waves, hence, "halcyon days" are days of tranquillity and peace. He had married Rebecca Loundes, the daughter of Christopher Loundes, of Bladensburg. They had several children. Mrs. Stoddert writes thusly of them on a day when ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... why, she had crept from her room in search of the still, warm, fragrant nest and the whispered reassurance and the caress she had never before endured. Yes, now she craved it, invited it, longed for safe arms around her, the hovering hand on ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... for Sari I stepped into a nest of poisonous vipers before we reached the valley. A little fellow stung me on the ankle, and Dian made me come back to the cave. She said that I mustn't exercise, or it might prove fatal—if it had been a full-grown snake that struck me she said, I wouldn't have moved a ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Ralph, with delight. "Then he knows I've started, and perhaps he'll come on to the Chug or Eagle's Nest ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... o' the same nest; not altogether so great as the first in goodness, but greater a great deal in evil. He excels his brother for a coward, yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is; in a retreat he outruns any lackey: marry, in coming on ...
— All's Well That Ends Well • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... heart is a nest of dreams, The lush grass thickens and springs and sways, The rathe wheat rustles, the landscape gleams - Midsummer days! Midsummer days! In the stilly fields, in the stilly ways, All secret shadows and mystic lights, Late lovers murmur and linger and gaze - ...
— Poems by William Ernest Henley • William Ernest Henley
... world they belonged to. The world beyond the mountains she knew nothing of; but this world, which was the brown earth springing forth into green blades and leaves and little streaked buds, warming into bloom and sun-drenched fragrance, setting the birds singing and nest-building, giving fruits and grain, and yellow and scarlet leaves, and folding itself later in snow and winter sleep—this world she knew as well as she knew herself. The birds were singing and nest-building this morning, ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... their rocky nest, saw a magnificent panorama beneath them. The regiments of the air were at war. Lightning chains encircled the heavens, lighting up the forests below. Winds charged down the mountain-side, sweeping stones and bushes before them. Hail-bullets rattled ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... and they are one flesh, and are no more to be accounted two. Let them tell their grief to them. Thus Rachel asked children of her husband, and went not to a nest of women to make her complaint to them (Gen 30:1). Or let them betake themselves to their closets, with Rebecca (Gen 25:20-23). Or if they be in the assembly of the saints, let them pray in their hearts, with Hannah. And if their petition ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... said Dorothy, anxious to defend her management. "The old hen stole her nest and she left them the day before the rain. She's making herself ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... he was sure her interests "would receive the best possible attention and advice." In this case he determined to accept the responsibility exactly as it was worded, ignoring the circumstances that had forced his hand. He would make her nest egg hatch out what was required. It should be an honest transaction in spite of its questionable inception. Every dollar of that money should work overtime, for ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... "Done got into nest ob snakes," he declared, "reckon I killed fifty of 'em, but more and more kept coming so I had to run. Golly, I 'spect thar was mighty nigh a hundred chased me most to camp. Dat's why ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... of age, when, as the wife of Edward Leslie, she left this warm down-covered nest, and was borne to a new ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... hundred different ones. Take our art for instance, especially as manifested in our architecture. A purely native town in Italy, Arabia, or Africa, or Mexico, has its own atmosphere; no one could mistake one for the other any more than he could mistake a beaver dam for an ant hill or a bird's nest for a ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... the little "Chateau of Sylvie." On the wide lawn before it, half hidden by the shadow of the chateau, half in the broad moonlight, was a strange group: a carriage and what seemed to me many horses and many men. I thought for a moment I had landed upon a nest of bandits such as might easily infest a forest like this, and it would behoove me to steal silently back to the horses and make good my escape; but I caught a glimpse of petticoats: they were not bandits; they must ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... lovely that the party straggled considerably. They could not help putting down the picnic-baskets and leaving the path to explore and gather flowers. There were so many delightful surprises. Phillida and Noreen noticed a moorhen's nest built on an overhanging bough that swept the lake, and saw four tiny downy creatures swimming away very fast to take cover; Ursula found a specimen of the Truelove-knot, and triumphed immensely, partly on botanical grounds and partly because she regarded it as an ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... of the greatest importance to us requires to be made. Wherever amongst the birds the sexes are alike the habits of their lives are also alike. The female as well as the male obtains food, the nest is built together, and the young are cared for by both parents. These beautiful examples of sex equality among the birds cannot be regarded as exceptions that have arisen by chance—a reversal of the ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... the dawnin' an' ut would be betther not to slip your boots. How do I know that? By the light av pure reason. Here are three companies av us ever so far inside av the enemy's flank an' a crowd av roarin', tarin', squealin' cavalry gone on just to turn out the whole hornet's nest av them. Av course the enemy will pursue, by brigades like as not, an' thin we'll have to run for ut. Mark my words. I am av the opinion av Polonius whin he said, 'Don't fight wid ivry scutt for the pure joy av fightin', but if you do, knock the nose av him first an' frequint.'. We ought to ha' ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... command (5) to his troops to take their evening meal, put himself at their head and advanced straight upon Sparta. Had it not been for the arrival (by some providential chance) of a Cretan, who brought the news to Agesilaus of the enemy's advance, he would have captured the city of Sparta like a nest of young birds absolutely bereft of its natural defenders. As it was, Agesilaus, being forewarned, had time to return to the city before the Thebans came, and here the Spartans made distribution of their scanty force and maintained watch and ward, albeit few enough in numbers, since ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... teeth, which one used to get between her dull lips unexpectedly, startlingly, and a little inexplicably, because it was never associated with a smile. She smiled with compressed mouth. It was indeed difficult to conceive of those two birds coming from the same nest. And yet . . . Contrary to what generally happens, it was when one saw those two women together that one lost all belief in the possibility of their relationship near or far. It extended even to their common humanity. One, as it were, doubted it. If one of the two was representative, then ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... been similar to the condition so commonly met with in the birch, and frequently in the hornbeam and the thorn, and which has prompted so many a schoolboy to climb the tree in quest of the apparent nest. It is probable that some of the large "gnaurs" or "burrs," met with in elms, &c., also in certain varieties of apples, are clusters of adventitious buds, some of which might, and sometimes do, ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... cost Mr Sharp and his men many weary hours of waiting and investigation, but their perseverance was at length well rewarded, for the "nest" was thoroughly "harried;" the men were dismissed and variously punished, and that portion of the Grand National Trunk Railway was, for the ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... not the Past is wise alone, For Yesterday knows nothing of the Best, And thou shalt love it only as the nest Whence glory-winged things to Heaven have flown: To the great Soul only are all things known; Present and future are to her as past, While she in glorious madness doth forecast That perfect bud, which seems a flower full-blown To each new Prophet, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... their wholesome exertions. Moreover, the element of fair-play enters into coursing when pursued in the open spaces. Pussy knows every foot of the ground; nightly she steals gently to the fields where her succulent food is found, and in the morning she steals back again to her tiny nest, or form, amid the soft grass. All day she lies chewing the cud in her fashion, and moving her delicate ears hither and thither, lest fox or stoat or dog should come upon her unawares; and at nightfall ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... lecture we see the germ of the ideas, as well as the beginning of the style, of the Oxford Inaugural course, and the "Eagle's Nest"; something quite different in type from the style and teaching of the addresses to working men, or to mixed popular audiences at Edinburgh or Manchester, or even at the Royal Institution. At this latter place, on June 4th, Sir Henry Holland in the chair, he lectured on "The Present ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... of attacking the Orange Free State unawares, whilst all the time professing friendly relations and undertaking to respect the complete integrity of the Republican status of both States. What actually has transpired is that the whole thing was a mare's nest, simply and nothing more than military information under cover marked "secret," giving topographical and other details upon the Orange Free State—a proceeding which is carried out by all military authorities of any pretensions to prudent activity in the information department, and no more ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... should shriek in such a way? Such were our thoughts as we hurried in a tumbling mass after father and mother. We reached the turret stairs, and father commanded every one with lanterns to go first and light the way. Right to the very top we went, into the little round room we called the Watchman's Nest, and here the sounds were loudest; but they were still muffled, and there was not a ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield
... being made enough of. She could not exist without meddling, and what is there for a superannuated woman to meddle with at Genoa? She turned her thoughts, therefore, towards Rome. Then, on sounding, found her course clear, quitted Genoa, and returned to her nest. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... strangely tender, needing a warm, cosy nest to shield their little bodies. They cannot make their nests on the limbs of trees. Oh, no, that wouldn't do, for the first thing they knew the wind would blow, blow, and down would come their home. So they hunt around in the woods or along the rails and posts, for the nests in the wood ...
— Illustrated Science for Boys and Girls • Anonymous
... as high as he could without shifting his purchase and risking a skid—and even his wrestler's muscles wouldn't make the climb again. My stomach quaked: Never see sunlight in the trees any more, just cling till dawn picked you out like a crow's nest in a ...
— A Matter of Proportion • Anne Walker
... streets and filled the saloon of one Jack Woods—who had the cackling laugh of Satan and did not like the Guard, for good reasons, and whose particular pleasure was to persuade some customer to stir up a hornet's nest of trouble. From the saloon the crowd moved up towards the big spring at the foot of Imboden Hill, where, under beautiful trunk-mottled beeches, ...
— Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories • John Fox, Jr.
... poor as a church mouse, I took refuge in the roof of an old house in Minnesaenger Street, Nuremberg, and made my nest in the ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... on another pack-animal. One tin plate apiece and "one to grow on"; the same of tin cups; half a dozen spoons; four knives and forks; a big spoon; two frying-pans; a broiler; a coffee-pot; a Dutch oven; and three light sheet-iron pails to nest in one another was what we carried on this trip. You see, we had horses. Of course in the woods that outfit would ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... was sorely troubled. And she laid aside her mourning garments, and she adorned her head, and put on her bridal attire; and at the ninth hour she went forth into her garden, and sat down under a laurel tree and prayed earnestly. And looking up to heaven, she saw within the laurel bush a sparrow's nest; and mourning within herself she said, 'Alas! and woe is me! who hath begotten me? who hath brought me forth? that I should be accursed in the sight of Israel, and scorned and shamed before my people, and cast out of the temple ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... out that day. I were allus very fond o' thuck wood. My brother be squire's keeper there. Many a toime we childern went moochin' in thuck wood—nutting and bird-nesting. Though I never did hold wi' taking more'n one egg out of a nest, and I allus did wet my vinger avore I touched the moss on a wren's nest. They do say as the little bird 'ull never go ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... health that contains more confusion and contradictory data than diet is vitamins. What a rats nest that is! ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... idle to encumber his edition with such disquisitions, for we shall not find Shakspeare clearer for not reading him in his and our mother-tongue. The field of philology is famous for its mare's-nests; and, if imaginary eggs are worth little, is it worth while brooding on imaginary chalk ones, nest-eggs of delusion? ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... leaves his wat'ry nest, And, climbing, shakes his dewy wings; He takes this window for the east; And to implore your light, he sings: "Awake, awake! the morn will never rise, Till she can dress her beauty ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... admitted that the more immediate and final cause of the cuckoo's instinct is, that {217} she lays her eggs, not daily, but at intervals of two or three days; so that, if she were to make her own nest and sit on her own eggs, those first laid would have to be left for some time unincubated, or there would be eggs and young birds of different ages in the same nest. If this were the case, the process of laying and hatching might be inconveniently long, more especially as she has to migrate at ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... his studies under the learned professors of that University, Drs. Martin Luther, Melancthon, Jerome Schurff, Jonas Armsdorff, Augustin Schurff, and others, he made no objection. Dame Margaret, his wife, however, and Father Nicholas, loudly protested against Eric's going among such a nest of heretics. ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston
... they went, Over upland and through hollow, Giving their impatience vent, Perched upon the Emperor's tent, In her nest, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Only, it is rare to find specific and individual details regarding all the members of the same committee.—Here, however, is one case, where, owing to the lucky accident of an examination given in detail, one can observe in one nest, every variety of the species and of its appetites, the dozen or fifteen types of the Jacobin hornet, each abstracting what suits him from whatever he lights on, each indulging in his favorite sort ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... but the two days necessary to equip ourselves. Jimmy had torn our bedding to pieces on the night of the mishap; it was lashed on the outside of the load, and he had scratched and clawed it to make a nest for himself until fur from the robe and feathers from the quilts were all over the trail. The other dogs, not so warmly coated as he, had been content to sleep in the snow. Jimmy's character was ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... because of Mr. Coventry's prying into them. Thence sent for to Sir G. Carteret's, and there talked with him a good while. I perceive, as he told me, were it not that Mr. Coventry had already feathered his nest in selling of places, he do like him very well, and hopes great good from him. But he complains so of lack of money, that my heart is very sad, under the apprehension of the fall of the office. At my office all ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... of the soft, fine feathers growing on the breast of the eider-duck, great numbers of which frequent the coast and lakes of Iceland. This duck is wild except at the nesting season; then it is as tame as the domestic fowl and makes its nest not only around and on top of the buildings but frequently inside them. A heavy fine is imposed on any one killing a ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... mean the still higher something that is really rudimentary Intellect that we notice in the higher animals. We are speaking now of the unreasoning instinct observed in the lower animals, and to a certain degree in man. This Instinctive plane of mentality causes the bird to build its nest before its eggs are laid, which instructs the animal mother how to care for its young when born, and after birth; which teaches the bee to construct its cell and to store up its honey. These and countless other things in animal life, and in the higher form of plant life, are manifestations ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... noses of all the idols, saying that 'if they had really any of the godhead in them, they would assuredly now show it, and save themselves'. But when they came to the door of Gauri Sankar's apartments, they were attacked by a nest of hornets, that put the whole of the emperor's army to the rout; and his imperial majesty called out: 'Here we have really something like a god, and we shall not suffer him to be molested; if all your gods could give us proof like this of their divinity, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the nest at the age, say, of ten days or so—the most suitable to begin operations—the callow young things are carefully tended by one person solely, who accustoms the birds to himself, the sound of his voice and his cautiously tender touch, before he ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... agony Of burning vision, and kept back her tears Until his pity moved in tune with hers Towards herself. But he from thunderous brows Frowned on. "No more I see thee by this house, Except to slay thee when the hour decree An end to this vile nest of cuckoldry And holy vows made hateful, save thou speak To each my question sooth. Keep dry thy cheek From tears, hide up thy beauty with thy grief— Or let him have his joy of them, thy thief, What time he may. Answer ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett
... indignantly revealed it. But the whole affair is wrapped in darkness and awaits the exploring of Austria's archives. The probability is that Aerenthal was at his work to demonstrate that Belgrade was a nest of vipers, so that Europe would not hearken to their protest when the time came for the House of Habsburg to smother them.[69] ... This same Austrian police-spy Nasti['c] had procured for Nikita a certain "revolutionary statue" which that personage made over to the Imperial authorities, for ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... daintily, as a cat that has stepped by accident in a puddle. "He will give thee food and lodging, which thou wilt share with me—so? Knowest thou his house? Jesus, Lord! Did ever man see the like of the nest of houses? Hey, friend!" He laid a hand on the shoulder of one passing. "Canst tell us where dwells the worthy Tobias, worker in ivory ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... Mansion, or "Witch House," to be sure, with its jutting upper story, and its dark and grimy room where witch-trials are rumored to have been held, is a solid scrap of antique gloom; but an ephemeral druggist's shop has been fastened on to a corner of the old building, and clings there like a wasp's nest,—as subversive, too, of quiet contemplation. The descendants of the first settlers have with pious care preserved the remains of the First Church of Salem, and the plain little temple may still be seen, though hidden away in the rear of the solid, brick-built ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... plenty of cover, for the whole of the steep hill-side was dotted with thick bunches of dense scrub. Barring a chance shot from up above, there was not much risk for the present. That would come later, when they reached the nest of snipers. For the present the great thing was to keep their heads ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... the sweetest little nest in the world," cried he merrily. "It is not so fine as this, but more in ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... getting a butterfly net I clapped it over the hole, caught the bird, took it home and placed it in a wicker cage. Then, returning to the tree with a chisel and mallet, I cut a hole about a foot below the entrance to the nest, only to find young birds instead of the eggs for which I had hoped. I went home to see how my captive was getting on; she was gone, and her method of escape was plain, one or two of the wicker bars being neatly cut through. I had forgotten the power of "stocking" of ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... fresh eggs, too, that were so old you could smell 'em before the shells were broken. I told her 'twas a mercy he hadn't sent her chiny nest eggs, and she laughed! If it had been you, Mrs. Waddler, you'd ...
— At the Little Brown House • Ruth Alberta Brown
... direction, as far as the eye could reach. We had seen many guanicoes at a distance, but we could not get near enough to have a shot at them; we tracked beasts of several kinds in the soil, near a pond of salt water, and among them a very large tyger: We found also a nest of ostrich's eggs, which we eat, and thought very good. It is probable that all the animals which had left marks of their feet near the salt pond, drank the water, and indeed we saw no fresh water for them. The spring that we had found, which was not perfectly fresh, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... help me to steer as far as possible from such a nest of cynics! I would sooner confront an army of Amazons headed by Penthesilea herself, than trust myself among a people unhumanized and uncivilized by the refining influence and companionship of women! St. Elmo, you are the most ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... that the man that hath not restrained his senses is not rescued from his sinful acts by either the Sama or the Rig, or the Yajus Veda. The Vedas never rescue from sin the deceitful person living by deceit. On the other hand, like newfledged birds forsaking their nest, the Vedas forsake such a person at ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... did this he kept looking about and watching what came into his view: at one moment he picked a wild berry and ate it or offered it to Levin, then he flung away a twig with the blade of the scythe, then he looked at a quail's nest, from which the bird flew just under the scythe, or caught a snake that crossed his path, and lifting it on the scythe as though on a fork showed it to Levin and ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... those who knew him closer laughed at the idea of coupling any notion of pecuniary or other like responsibility with his nature. You might as well attack the character of the nightingale, which may have nipped up your five-pound note and torn it to shreds to serve as nest-building material. Only immediate craving necessities could ever extract from him an acknowledgment of the common vulgar agencies by which men subsist in civilised society; and only while the necessity lasted did the acknowledgment exist. Take just one example, which ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... ten pounds assumed a vastly increased value. Supposing that the post was accepted, and mother and daughter started life in London with a capital of between two and three hundred pounds, and a salary of one hundred and ten, as regular income—how long would the nest-egg ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... to have a nest egg at the bank, and by the end of the year there were seven bank books at the farm, all carefully put away under lock and key, in fact there were nine, counting the two that belonged to our hired men, Asa and Jim Doane. Acting ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... these promises by an elaborate and ridiculous defence—not writing to the king, as Cromwell desired him, but vindicating himself as having committed no fault; although he had listened eagerly to language which was only pardonable on the assumption that it was inspired, and had encouraged a nest of fanatics by his childish credulity. The Nun "had showed him not," he said, "that any prince or temporal lord should put the king in danger of his crown." He knew nothing of the intended insurrection. He believed the woman to have been a saint; ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... lined with shining copper. Long they lay within my dwelling Through the chilling winds of winter, In my dwelling-place for ages. Shall I bring these songs together? From the cold and frost collect them? Shall I bring this nest of boxes, Keepers of these golden legends, To the table in my cabin, Underneath the painted rafters, In this house renowned and ancient? Shall I now these boxes open, Boxes filled with wondrous stories? Shall I now the end unfasten Of this ball of ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... down your faces, Oona and Aleel. I gaze upon them as the swallow gazes Upon the nest under the eave before ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... their batteries, Lorenzo de' Medici managed to escape from the city, and took with him his brother Cosimo's children to Venice. Cosimo remained shut up within the little room called Barberia in Arnolfo's tower. From that high eagle's nest the sight can range Valdarno far and wide. Florence with her towers and domes lies below; and the blue peaks of Carrara close a prospect westward than which, with its villa-jewelled slopes and fertile gardens, there is nought more beautiful ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... asylum. We see the seed shoot up into stem and leaf and throw out flowers; we observe it fulfilling processes of chemistry more subtle than were ever executed in Liebig's laboratory, and producing structures more cunning than man can imitate. The bird builds her nest, the spider shapes out its delicate web and stretches it in the path of his prey; directed not by calculating thought, as we conceive ourselves to be, but by some motive influence, our ignorance of the nature of which we disguise ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... made a nest, and there were two eggs in it, and after a time two birds, that grew just like the others. I was thinking about the lady one day, and I thought, as I had refused to sell her the old birds, I had better offer to give her the young ones. So next day William carried them over in a ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... rosy bondage bound, As in the Fields of Bliss above He sits, with flowerets fettered round;— Loose not a tie that round him clings, Nor ever let him use his wings; For even an hour, a minute's flight Will rob the plumes of half their light. Like that celestial bird,—whose nest Is found beneath far Eastern skies,— Whose wings, though radiant when at rest, Lose all ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... in North London last week, when a couple of sparrows built a nest on some foundations just where a bricklayer was due to lay a brick ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... gone walking one night with Lamborn. He had led her into the woods in search of a rabbit's nest he said was there. He had seized her, put his hand over her mouth, threatened her with harm, with being sold down South. He had overcome her. She had returned to Reverdy's afraid to tell him what had happened. ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... delicate chill of the coming dawn stole freshly across the water. A light haze rose and obscured the opposite islands. Something of the tender melancholy of autumn, though it was late June, toned down the aspect of the before brilliant landscape. A lark rose swiftly from its nest in an adjacent meadow, and, soaring higher and higher, poured from its tiny throat a cascade of delicious melody. The midnight sun no longer shone at midnight; his face smiled with a sobered serenity through the faint early mists ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... carriages, but an Eskimo baby rides on its mother's back. The mother wears a coat with a pocket on the back of it. The pocket is lined inside with soft reindeer skin. This makes a nice warm nest ...
— Big People and Little People of Other Lands • Edward R. Shaw
... "It's worth it. Why don't you join in, Simsen? You look as if you were sitting in a hornet's nest." ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... peered down from the edge of an old nest built long ago in a big hemlock-tree in the Green Forest, and if you could have looked into Chatterer's eyes, you would have seen there a great fear. He looked this way; he looked that way. Little by little, the fear left him, and when at last he saw Peter Rabbit coming ...
— Mother West Wind "How" Stories • Thornton W. Burgess
... impressed the parents of M. Raillard. Her father was also pleased with the presence of all our neighbors and friends, and he went through the trying day with entire self-command. But when the birds had flown away the nest seemed empty and silent indeed, and to fill up the time till their return, I thought a little cruise on wheels would be the ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... "do for" him; and as Van Bibber was ravenously hungry, and as he doubted that he could get anything at that hour at the club, they accepted Spielman's invitation and went for a porterhouse steak and onions at the Owl's Nest, Gus McGowan's all-night restaurant on ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... cavalry and had fallen at Yellow Tavern; there was Miss Meason of the glove counter, and there was Mrs. Burwell Smith of the ribbon counter—for, though she had married beneath her, it was impossible to forget that she was a direct descendant of Colonel Micajah Burwell, of Crow's Nest Plantation. ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... me no more if east or west The phoenix builds her spicy nest: For unto you at last she flies, And ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... that Nan Redfurn would mention them in the tent. He would see what ailed them, that they would not give him any music to-day. By incessant cooing, he obtained an answer from one solitary pigeon; which he took advantage of to climb the tree, and look for the nest. He found a nest; but there was nothing in it. He climbed several trees, and found abundance of nests; but all deserted. Except his solitary pigeon (which presently vanished), there appeared to be not a winged creature in ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... you," said Mirah, smiling at Mrs. Meyrick. "And I would rather be with you than with any one else in the world except my mother. I wonder if ever a poor little bird, that was lost and could not fly, was taken and put into a warm nest where was a mother and sisters who took to it so that everything came naturally, as if it had been always there. I hardly thought before that the world could ever be as happy and without fear as it is to me now." She looked ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... walked along, thinking of what I had just witnessed; sensing its time value. To those slight and fragile things which had, for John Flint, outweighed the scales of evil—a gray moth, a butterfly's wing, a bird's nest—I added a child's fair hair, and a rag doll that was going to sleep with ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... hasty and thoughtless, poor fellow, told Clement that he was afraid. 'Fear!' said the French boy, drawing himself up; 'you do not know what you say. If you will be here at six to-morrow morning, when it is only just light, I will take that starling's nest on the top of yonder chimney.' 'But why not now, Clement?' said Urian, putting his arm round Clement's neck. 'Why then, and not now, just when we are in the humour for it?' 'Because we De Crequys ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... and graceful as a woman; at the mast-head an electric star, red and green lights on either side, long rows of tremulous bulbs of light from numerous portholes; the officers on the bridge with night glass in hand, walking to and fro, dark figures of sailors at the bow and in the crow's nest, all eyes and ears. "All's well" lulls to sleep the after-dinner loungers in chairs along the deck, while brave men and fair women keep step ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... schools—"The Conchologist's First Book," it was called. This was unmistakably a mere "pot-boiler" and confessedly a compilation, but it set the little authors whose namby-pamby works the self-appointed Defender of the Purity of Style in American Letters had consigned to an early grave, like a nest of ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... agent had hollowed the mountain, leaving a level plateau of several acres. The earth had fallen away from a great sombre cliff of solid rock, and clinging like a swallow's nest in a cleft of this was the usual rude cabin of a mountaineer. The face of the rock was dark with vines, and the cabin was protected as by a fortress. But one way of approach was possible, and that straight to the porch. From the cliff the vines had crept to roof and chimney, and were waving ...
— A Mountain Europa • John Fox Jr.
... white-haired, inoffensive old man with the keen scrutiny of an eagle guarding its nest. He did not lean upon the tidy, nor rest his elbows upon the crocheted mats which protected the arms of the chair. In short, he conducted himself as a gentleman should when in ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... grievous misnomer surely,—for though the last occupant of that dwelling was doubtless a recluse, its original purpose, which for many ages it served, was that of a strong-hold, or castle. And perhaps nowhere, even in Germany, can a more perfect specimen be pointed out of the sort of nest which used, in the dark ages of feuds and forays, to shelter the robber-knights and barons, to whom forays were at once a ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... time thou hast ever spoken to me of lovers, Janet. Indeed very strange things seem to be happening to-day. I feel like a bird about to fly forth from its cradle-nest, I have forgotten how the world appears. 'Tis broad and vast; it makes me dizzy to think between these cramped walls that never seemed so narrow heretofore!" She lay for a moment in deep thought, then,—"Where didst say ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... Thee welcome; Come and be my Holy Guest; Heavenly Dove within my bosom, Make Thy home and build Thy nest; Lead me on to all Thy fulness, Bring me to Thy Promised Rest, Holy Ghost, I bid Thee welcome, Come and be ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... is a nice way to live?" he asked. "The sea is really wonderful. I have learned more about sea and shore already than you can find in all the books. Do you know where the gulls nest, and how they hatch their young? Did you ever watch a starfish feeding? Do you know what part of the shellfish is the scallop of commerce? Do you know that every seventh wave is almost sure to be larger than its fellows? ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... Louvre, among the blocks of stone and the nettles, close to an old ruinous church, with fallen-in roof which looked most romantic in the moonlight. Luther, with whom I was on a most friendly footing, seeing that I had finally abandoned the paternal nest, made a point of coming to see me every morning. He started from Passy, no matter what the weather was, came down the Quai de Billy, the Cours-la-Reine, and reached my place at about eight o'clock, just as I was waking. He used to scratch at the door, which was opened for him, ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... quietly, "I was not offering to smite him while he was down. But if there be a whole nest of you hatching here by the waterside, cluck out the other chicks and I'll make shift ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... to dance upon nothing in our young days and for our first offences; but as for having our shoulders dusted, or thrashing the water in a galley, we don't mind that a nutshell. For the present, Andrew, my son, keep snug in the nest under the shelter of our wings; in duo time, we will take you out to fly, and that where you will not return without a prey; and the short and the long of it is, that by and by you will lick your fingers after ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... said to me not long ago, at Truro, 'Mr. Slick, this Country is rapidly improving, "the schoolmaster is abroad now,"' and he looked as knowin' as though he had found a mate's nest. 'So I should think,' said I, 'and it would be jist about as well, I guess, if he'd stay to home and mind his business, for your folks are so consoomedly ignorant, I reckon he's abroad e'enamost all his time. I hope ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... pontoon bridge out over an arm of the Hudson. Greg Holmes was one of four young men toiling at the rope by which they were endeavoring to drag a mountain howitzer into position up a steep slope near Crow's Nest, while Anstey, studying field fortification, was digging in a trench with all his ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... a coil indeed. My head was a nest of queer thoughts and suspicions, but I kept to the subject ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... mourned I for the parted gladness, For the vacant nest and silent song— Hope was there, and laughed me out of sadness; Whispering, "Winter will not ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... dry ground; And beneath the bushes' clump—beneath the hazels, Lies void of life the good and gallant stripling; All wounded, pierc'd and mangled is his body. As the little tiny swallow or the chaffinch, Round their warm and cosey nest are seen to hover, So hovers there the mother dear who bore him; And aye she weeps, as flows a river's water; His sister weeps as flows a streamlet's water; His youthful wife, as falls the dew from heaven— The Sun, arising, dries the ...
— The Talisman • George Borrow
... which could be easily drawn longitudinally; though after a time they generally act in a wiser manner, M. Fabre states {33} that a Sphex—an insect belonging to the same highly-endowed order with ants—stocks its nest with paralysed grass-hoppers, which are invariably dragged into the burrow by their antennae. When these were cut off close to the head, the Sphex seized the palpi; but when these were likewise cut off, ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin
... him go, and they watched him, as off from the Islands he ran, Doubting him much, but what would you? You have to be sure of your man Ere you wake up that nest-full of hornets — the little brown ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... The nature of this Bird is: that building her nest vnder the couer of houses (as the Swallow doth with vs) leaue euer behinde her for the owner of the house, one young one, in token of her thankfulnesse: and as I may say, for pawne of ...
— The Art of Iugling or Legerdemaine • Samuel Rid |
