Essays on Natural History, Chiefly Ornithology

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Longman, Orme [and 3 others], 1839 - Birds - 334 pages
 

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Page 142 - And, sure, he is an honourable man. I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke, But here I am to speak what I do know. You all did love him once, not without cause; What cause withholds you then to mourn for him ? O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts, And men have lost their reason!
Page 143 - Every thing proved to me that the number of birds resorting to this part of the forest must be immense beyond conception. As the period of their arrival approached, their foes anxiously prepared to receive them : some were furnished with iron pots containing sulphur, others with torches of pine-knots, many with poles, and the rest with guns.
Page 322 - Sit Medea ferox invictaque, flebilis Ino, Perfidus Ixion, lo vaga, tristis Orestes.
Page 142 - ... which they made, though yet distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea passing through the rigging of a close-reefed vessel. As the birds arrived and passed over me, I felt a current of air that surprised me.
Page 270 - In all thy humours, whether grave or mellow, Thou'rt such a touchy, testy, pleasant fellow ; Hast so much wit, and mirth, and spleen about thee, There is no living with thee, nor without thee.
Page lxxxii - A milk-white Hind, * immortal and unchanged, Fed on the lawns, and in the forest ranged ; Without unspotted, innocent within, She feared no danger, for she knew no sin. Yet had she oft been chased with horns and hounds, And Scythian shafts; and many winged wounds Aimed at her heart ; was often forced to fly, And doomed to death, though fated not to die.
Page 141 - Towards the approach of day, the noise in some measure subsided, long before objects were distinguishable, the pigeons began to move off in a direction quite different from that in which they had arrived the night before, and at sunset all that were able to fly had disappeared.
Page 112 - GRONGAR HILL Silent Nymph, with curious eye! Who, the purple evening, lie On the mountain's lonely van, Beyond the noise of busy man; Painting fair the form of things, While the yellow linnet sings; Or the tuneful nightingale Charms the forest with her tale...
Page 30 - And, for the epic poem your lordship bid me look at, — upon taking the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon an exact scale of Bossu's — 'tis out, my lord, in every one of its dimensions.
Page 201 - About the 2-tth of May, the breast and back of the Drake exhibit the first appearance of a change of colour. In a few days after this, the curled feathers above the tail drop' out, and grey feathers begin to appear among the lovely green plumage which surrounds the eyes.

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