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More "Perch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then be shut off from a landscape in which all life appeared to be suspended, while the little village of Roussainville carved in relief upon the sky the white mass of its gables, with a startling precision of detail. A gust of wind blew from its perch a rook, which floated away and settled in the distance, while beneath a paling sky the woods on the horizon assumed a deeper tone of blue, as though they were painted in one of those cameos which you still find decorating the ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... was a sheet-iron contraption in the shape of a pocket inkstand, and it stood on a perch in the corner, like a Russian icon, with a small blue flame flickering beneath it. It looked as though its sire might have been a snare-drum and its dam a dark lantern, and that it got its looks from its father ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... was there in my dreams, lad. I was fishing for those yellow perch by the poplars, and ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... curious, as being within ten yards of my house, Cromwell Cottage, and in a narrow and much frequented lane, leading from near Gloucester Lodge to Kensington. This bird I reared and kept alive till late in January; when it fell suddenly from its perch, while feeding on a rather large dew worm. It was buried: but I had, long afterwards, strange misgivings, that my poor feathered favourite was only choked by his food, or in a fit of some kind—his apparent ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... trees (6/4. In works written on the pigeon by fanciers I have sometimes observed the mistaken belief expressed that the species which naturalists called ground-pigeons (in contradistinction to arboreal pigeons) do not perch and build on trees. In these same works by fanciers wild species resembling the chief domestic races are often said to exist in various parts of the world; but such species are quite unknown to naturalists.) the sharp eyes of fanciers would assuredly have detected ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... that emptied into the Mississippi from the east. Their object was to fish, the greater river itself being too muddy for the succulent kind that they wished. The incomparable "Galleon" had also been supplied with fishing tackle, and in a short time they caught a splendid supply of black bass and perch, which proved to be very fine and toothsome. As their boat floated back from the smaller stream into the Mississippi, Shif'less Sol heaved ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... caught in it, as well as tufted seeds which have blown from the capitula of the Cichoriaceae. A Gad-fly, as big as a Blue bottle, falls into the trap before my eyes. She has barely alighted on the perilous perch when lo, she is held by the hinder tarsi! The Fly makes violent efforts to take wing; she shakes the slender plant from top to bottom. If she frees her hinder tarsi she remains snared by the front tarsi and has to begin all over again. I was doubting the possibility of her escape when, after a good ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... baulks of timber that cumbered the deck of the brig on either side of the caboose. An ideal perch. The sun was setting over Australia way, in a sea that seemed like a sea of boiling gold. Some mystery of mirage caused the water to heave and tremble as if troubled ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... fangs of the king of the pack fasten in her skirt, and she knew that she was being pulled out of her perch when, through the woods came Ted and Bud and Ben, and the rest of her friends, yelling like mad and amid a perfect fusillade of ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... twinkling of an eye they had made a complete volte-face, the waggon was lying on its side across the fairway, and its burden of logs had been distributed with a dull crash upon about a square perch of cobbles. ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... uncouth, stretching away on either side of the veranda-fronted store and "gambling hell" which formed a sort of center-piece around which revolved the whole life of the village. It was a poor, mean place, shapeless, evil-smelling in that pure mountain air. It was a mere shelter, a rough perch for the human carrion lusting for the orgy of gold which the time-worn carcass of earth should yield. What had these people to do with comfort or refinement? What had they to do with those things calculated to raise the human mind to a higher spiritual ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... Wellamo, at the bottom of the sea, in the chasms of the Salmon-rocks, where his palace, Ahtola, is constructed. Besides the fish that swim in his dominions, particularly the salmon, the trout, the whiting, the perch, the herring, and the white-fish, he possesses a priceless treasure in the Sampo, the talisman of success, which Louhi, the hostess of Pohyola, dragged into the sea in her efforts to regain it from the heroes of Kalevala. Ever eager for the treasures of others, and generally ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... back, averring that the poor bird would be lonesome; and Anne, feeling that she could forgive everybody and everything, offered him a walnut. But Ginger's feelings had been grievously hurt and he rejected all overtures of friendship. He sat moodily on his perch and ruffled his feathers up until he looked like a mere ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... in pyjamas accosted me, and the thread of the other's talk was lost. When I moved off to dress he had already left his perch among the sand bags. I climbed the ladder, and had my coffee. Soon after came the scurry to stations. We were coming into the bay in the glory of that morning under hangings of amber and rose and feathery grey. The four-inch gun's crew were in their places. I stood trying to read ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable non-descript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter's Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... narrow. The He imp would alight on the rail, about ten feet in front of her, and pretend to be very sick, squawking feebly and drooping his black wings with a struggling flutter, as if it was all he could do to keep his perch. The cat, her narrow eyes opening very wide, would start to creep up to him. The She imp would then alight on the rail behind her and nip her sharply by the tail, and go hopping clumsily off down the rail. The cat would ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... one once who was versed in book-lore, but, worse luck to him, he could not bind a wheat-sheaf or weed a perch of parsnips, and the result—bankruptcy; failure. ...
— The Silver Lining - A Guernsey Story • John Roussel
... that this was perhaps one of the chiefs or leaders, or perhaps the great High Cock O'lorum himself, taking an airing in the fields. I have never yet been able to settle the question, as every fall I start up a few of these gigantic specimens, which perch on the trees. They are about three inches long, of a gray striped or spotted color, and have quite a ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... turn into the valley, Harding took a bugle, in lieu of a stage-horn, and played in a skilful manner the ringing notes of "Annie Laurie," intending the sentiment to apply to Celeste, Doctor Dick from his perch ...
— Buffalo Bill's Spy Trailer - The Stranger in Camp • Colonel Prentiss Ingraham
... her bosom, I returned her embrace with an intense emotion, that seemed to resume in itself the history of my past life; but still with the eager impatience of the bird who wildly takes his flight from the perch to which he is still confined, and hopes, by the keen impetuosity with which he soars, to shake off the dead weight which chains him down to earth. The day was beautiful: white fleecy clouds were flitting rapidly across the sky; and the mild breeze ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... and his eyebrows fixed at the perch of Colney's famous 'national interrogation' over vacancy of understanding, as if from the pull of a string. He had his audience with him; and the satirist had nothing but his inner gush of acids at sight ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a wink and a sly normal lurch, The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic, And then fairly hooted, as if he should say: "Your learning's at fault this time, anyway; Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray. I'm an owl; you're another. Sir Critic, good day!" ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... "I shall perch myself there like a sacred hawk and filch her likeness. Nay, now that I come to ponder on it, it is doubtless better that she know naught about it. She might drop certain things to the Egyptians hereabout that ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... draggle through the dirt; and he can lick himsel' clean at his leisure, far ben in the cranny o' the rock, and come out a' tosh and tidy by the first dawn o' licht, to snuff the mornin' air, and visit the distant farm-house before Partlet has left her perch, or Count Crow lifted his head from beneath his ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... HENRY was in the House, off and on, for thirty-four years before discovering that he was on the wrong side, Mr. MOSLEY has made the same discovery after an experience of barely as many weeks. From his new perch he inquired this afternoon if Government cement was being sent abroad, to the detriment of British builders. Dr. ADDISON contented himself with professing ignorance of any such transaction. A less serious Minister might have replied that the Government needed all their cement to mend the cracks ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... climbed to the tower of the church, Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, To the belfry-chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Masses and moving shapes of shade,— Up the trembling ladder, steep and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the town, And ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... dropped from his perch and joined his fellow-prisoner on terra firma, and together they poured over these ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... chilling you; and every creak of this old house at night brings me up broad awake, because I hear in it the crash of those cruel great timbers. Oh, oh, OH! I'm so glad to get you! You're the light of my life; you're my whole life itself!"—she smiled at him from her perch on his knee—"I'm silly, am I not?" she said. "Dear heart, don't leave ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... there. It is especially when the flesh has quite mouldered away from his bones that the ghost packs up his little traps and sets out for the better land. The entrance to the abode of bliss is a cave to the west of Saddle Mountain. Here in the gully there is a projecting tree-stump on which the ghosts perch waiting for a favourable moment to jump into the mouth of the cavern. When a slight earthquake is felt, a Kai man will often say, "A ghost has just leaped from the tree into the cave; that is why the earth is shaking." Down below the ghosts are received ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... within Thy grace an eyeless mole? Make me the least of thy Dodona-grove,[19] 45 Cause me some message of thy truth to bring, Speak but a word to me, nor let thy love Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing. ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... intended to have remained much longer, when I perceived, all of a sudden, the bear's head within a foot of me; he had climbed up after me, and I saw that he was very angry, so in a moment I threw myself off my perch, and down I went to the ground at the foot of the tree, a matter of near twenty feet, even faster than I went down inside of it. I was severely shaken with the fall, but no bones were broken; in fact, I was more frightened than ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... arranged the line, put on a fresh bait, and in a few minutes a fine perch was landed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... my dear," said I, "that you have discovered a tree sixty feet high, where you wish we should perch like fowls. But how are we to ...
— The Swiss Family Robinson; or Adventures in a Desert Island • Johann David Wyss
... midst of the great hall, where the Emperor sat, a golden perch had been placed, on which the Nightingale was to sit. The whole court was there, and the little Cook-maid had leave to stand behind the door, as she had now received the title of a real cook-maid. All were in full dress, and all looked ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... him, while she, the fettered, European woman, would ride back in the night to Kurun. Yet could this be Baroudi's woman, this painted, jewelled, bedizened creature, almost macawlike in her bright-coloured finery, who remained quite still upon her rugs—like the macaw upon its perch—indifferent, somnolent surely, or perhaps steadily, enigmatically watchful, with a cigarette between her painted lips, above the chin, on which was tattooed a pattern resembling a little, indigo-coloured beard or "imperial"? Could he be attracted ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... served whole; if large, they may be divided through the back-bone and served in halves. The same applies to perch and ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... got up early that morning to go fishing. I knew where the white perch were thick as sprats. I got Mr. Norman's boat; but I knew he wouldn't mind. And I went over to Boulder Head. As I was starting to fish I heard two men talking just in the mouth of the old cavern. They were ...
— The Girls of Central High on Lake Luna - or, The Crew That Won • Gertrude W. Morrison
... 1 perch. 4 trabochi make 1 tavola. 4 braccia and a half make a trabocco. A perch contains ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... my lord, not worth the telling. K. Edw. Pray thee, let me know it. Y. Mor. But, seeing you are so desirous, thus it is; A lofty cedar tree, fair flourishing, On whose top branches kingly eagles perch, And by the bark a canker creeps me up, And gets unto the highest bough of all; The motto, AEque tandem. K. Edw. And what is yours, my Lord of Lancaster? Lan. My lord, mine's more obscure than Mortimer's. Pliny reports, there is a flying-fish Which all the other fishes ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... he must soon have died if some one had not noticed the empty cage. The alarm was given at once, but it was some time before the bird was seen on his lofty perch. ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... Him perch'd up there? I wish some thunderbolt Would make this Cole a cinder, pulpit ...
— Queen Mary and Harold • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... lumbering vehicles, laden with heavy merchandise, tear up the soil into ruts. No cab-drivers cast sarcastic remarks at you from their high perch. The only annoyance comes from the cast-off nail of a horse-shoe or the sharp splinter of a macadamised stone. The air is as fresh as on Creation's morn. Up hill and down again one can hurry on without ever touching the brake. For the first ten ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... all the dear little safe things that have made up your life in the past. She glanced from the helmet which the airman held toward her to the monoplane spread-eagling on the ground. I saw her big eyes dilate as they fixed themselves anxiously on the passenger's perch, to which the honoured guest must climb, above the conductor's seat, crawling through the wire stays, or whatever you call them, which were like a spider's web inviting a fly. Diana turned pale. Even her lips were white. The shadows under her eyes ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... you suppose?" said the scout leader, nodding his head approvingly. "Making a little fireplace where he can perch his kettle, and have the hottest part of his fire under it. Note also that the opening is in the direction of the breeze. That allows the flame to be fanned. Wallace will never have to blow out his cheeks and puff to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... daughters marry," he would say, "instead of spending the summer in Sarrio, where the etiquette is as strict as in Lancia, I shall go to Rodillero to breathe the fresh air and fish for perch. Listen to me, Micaela; don't be so sharp, woman. You will find a husband won't put up with those frivolous ways; he will expect to be answered in a ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... feathery foliage. To the east of Atures other mountains appear, the ridge of which is composed of pointed cliffs, rising like huge pillars above the trees. When those columnar masses are situated near the Orinoco, flamingoes, herons, and other wading birds perch on their summits, and look like sentinels. In the vicinity of the cataracts, the moisture which is diffused in the air produces a perpetual verdure, and wherever soil has accumulated on the plains, it is adorned by the beautiful shrubs ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... is sitting on his horse, are engaged in hewing it away with axes. Two others have climbed to the summit of the neighboring rocky crag, on which they have planted the banner of the Republic, which is seen flapping proudly from its lofty perch. In the foreground stands a manly youth, clasping his father's long rifle firmly, and gazing toward the promised land with a countenance glowing with hope and energy. His sister, as hopeful as himself, is seated by her mother's side, on a buffalo-robe which has been thrown ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... From scenes of art which chase That thought away, turn, and with watchful eyes Feed it 'mid Nature's old felicities, Rocks, rivers, and smooth lakes more clear than glass Untouched, unbreathed upon. Thrice happy quest, If from a golden perch of aspen spray (October's workmanship to rival May) The pensive warbler of the ruddy breast That moral sweeten by a heaven-taught lay, Lulling the year, with ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... the centre, and you can curl yourself up in it and, if you please, have a mat hung across the opening. But we had not got so far as that yet on our vessel, only just got the staging fixed in fact; and I assure you a bamboo staging is but a precarious perch when in this stage of formation. I made myself a reclining couch on it in the Roman manner with my various belongings, and was exceeding comfortable until we got nearly out of the Rembwe into the Gaboon. Then came grand times. Our noble craft ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... the sky was overcast; the sleepy cocks at Dubechnia were crowing, and the corncrakes were trilling in the meadow; it was very, very early.... My wife and I walked down to the pool and drew up the bow-net that Stiepan had put out in our presence the day before. There was one large perch in it and a crayfish angrily stretched ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... hereof has caught many a trout and perch off the banks opposite to the island, and has passed many a contemplative hour on the events of former ages, which have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 472 - Vol. XVII. No. 472., Saturday, January 22, 1831 • Various
... territory, so to speak, then settled by our forefathers, they were driven again and again. Now and then they would meet the English with something like equal numbers, and then the eagle of victory would proudly perch upon the stripes and stars. And so they went on as best they could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dark and ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... perch on these Your most unworthy Father's knees, And try and tell him—Can you? Are Punch and Judy bits of wood? Does Dolly boast of ancient blood, Or is it only ...
— London Lyrics • Frederick Locker
... am 'very idle.' I have read the few books I had with me, and been forced to fish, for lack of argument. I have caught a great many perch and some carp, which is a comfort, as one would ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... dingy three-balled tomb of so many hopes and keepsakes. He sketched her in charcoal, dressed (he would have it) in black, with a Spanish comb in her hair and the guitar on a broad ribbon of strange deep Chinese blue; behind her, on an aerially slender perch, stands a gaudy Mexican parrot. It does not look like her to us who know her well (though, curiously enough, all strangers consider it an extremely fine likeness) but as a tour de force it is remarkable, and amongst the plain, Saxon furnishings ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... is sometimes supposed to enter the body of a bird, in which case the relatives carefully build a semi-circular stone railing round the mound, so that the winged successor of the deceased may have whereon to perch. ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... wayfarer for the cries of hawks and crows, or the bleating of the mountain flocks. After they had reconnoitred the neighborhood, and finished their singular discourse, they descended from their airy perch, and returned to their prisoners. The captain posted three of them at three naked sides of the mountain, while he remained to guard us with what ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... the phrase. It does not necessarily follow that the widest lands breed the finest people; and there is worthless territory enough in the United States to cut up into two or three Englands. Yet no patriotic American would wish one rod, pole, or perch of it away, whether of the Bad Lands, the Florida Swamps, the Alkali Plains of the Southwest, or the most sterile and inaccessible regions of the Rockies. If of no other use, each, merely as an instrument ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... accident. Paddy O'Hallaghan and his family had been stationed for some time on the bank, watching the success of the plan; and as it appeared not to be attended with any particular danger, they also determined to make the attempt. About a perch below the planks stood John O'Callaghan, watching the progress of those who were crossing them, but taking no part in what was going forward. The river, under the planks, and for some perches above and below them, might ...
— The Ned M'Keown Stories - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... meat people, many of whom are my friends. Even the beasts are happier than they, for they require less to make them content. And the birds are the luckiest creatures of all, for they can fly swiftly where they will and find a home at any place they care to perch; their food consists of seeds and grains they gather from the fields and their drink is a sip of water from some running brook. If I could not be a Scarecrow—or a Tin Woodman—my next choice would be to live as a ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... this time a beautiful white bird, Webfooted, not unlike a dove in size And plumage (probably it might have erred Upon its course), passed oft before their eyes, And tried to perch, although it saw and heard The men within the boat, and in this guise It came and went, and fluttered round them till Night fell:—this seemed a better ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... undertook to prove the possibility of draining the lake, and "giving to plough and harrow many hundred, ay, many a thousand acres, from whilk no man could get earthly gude e'enow, unless it were a gedd,* or a dish of perch now and then." ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... too intelligent to be caught in any such trap, and so the report of his shot had scarcely died away before the ape-man was on the ground and racing for another tree a hundred yards away. Here he again found a suitable perch from which he could watch the preparations of the raiders. It occurred to him that he might have considerable more fun with them, so again he called to them through his ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... to Forest and Stream a few years ago, in which he stated that in the salmon no less than sixteen kinds of parasitic worms have been discovered, and undoubtedly many others remain unknown; four species were tapeworms, and four, roundworms. The yellow perch is known to be infested with ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... a variety of other feats, and then descending from his elevated perch, was about to resume his coat and vest, when the circus performer asked ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... sought an officer's permission and later a precarious perch on the broken roof of the barn, while Private Robinson extended himself in the manufacture of ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... are alluded to by Arthur Wilson as "monstrous satires against the king's own person, that haunted both court and country," when, in the wantonness of the times, "every little miscarriage, exuberantly branched, so that evil report did often perch on them." Fuller has designated these suspicious scribes as "a generation of the people who, like moths, have lurked under the carpets of the council-table, and even like fleas, have leaped into pillows ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... house was a solid pillar of flame, and the fire was eating its way on either side into the wings. The wing where the child slept rose from the canon like a walled castle, impregnable—Adelle might remember that "Boy" had chosen these rooms in the remote corner of the house, fascinated by their lofty perch over the deep canon. And there, at the bottom of the wall that she had built, the mother clung, helpless, beyond reach of ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... man bowed in a somewhat absurd fashion and felt for his matches. He discovered to his no small mortification that he had none. He was so used to his pipe after a meal that he really could not forgo it. He came off his perch by at least three steps and asked the old man very gently whether ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... with the words with the suddenness of a monkey swinging off a bough, leaving behind him a silence so marked that the fall of an unripe apple from the tree immediately above them caused Columbus to start and jump from his perch to investigate. ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... goes to show her light say 'All is well,' thou can'st come back and be ready for the bird with his bright plumage. Ha! he would go elsewhere and pipe his song, did he know the manner in which we are preparing his perch!" ...
— Legend of Moulin Huet • Lizzie A. Freeth
... drops his vengeful ire; Perch'd on the sceptre of the Olympian King, The thrilling darts of harmony he feels, And indolently hangs his rapid wing, While gentle sleep his closing eye-lids seals; And o'er his heaving limbs, in loose array To every balmy gale the ruffling ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... golden apples, and toys. I shall sit by the fireplace, and bring a story-book out of my pocket, and read aloud to all the little children. Then the toys on the tree will become alive, and the little waxen Angel at the top will spread out his wings of gold leaf, and fly down from his green perch. He will kiss every child in the room, yes, and all the little children who stand out in the street singing a carol about ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... fish caught in the lake is the ombre-chevalier. The lavaret is peculiar to it. There are also trout, perch, pike, shad, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... possible; but within an hour of striking the scent, the pack came to bay in the encinal. On coming up with the hounds, we found the animal was a large catamount. A single shot brought him from his perch in a scraggy oak, and the first chase of the day was over. The pelt was worthless and ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... the giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah, sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and grey)—a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being strapped ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... grief he felt at his master's absence. The grieved owner went hastily into the room where the cage was, and spoke gently to the ailing bird, which stood huddled up into what looked like a ball of feathers on his perch. Instantly, at the sound of the loved master's voice, the dim, closed eyes were opened wide. There was a feeble flutter of the faded plumage; the drooping head was raised. Half creeping, half staggering, the little creature attained the outstretched finger, on which he had ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... saw the waggon an idea popped into his mind, and he hurried forward to meet the great vehicle. He kept among the bushes so that the driver did not see him. The latter, indeed, from his high perch, was too busy cracking his whip over his team to urge them to the ascent to see that small, gliding figure slipping through the gorse. So Chippy dodged behind the waggon, swung himself up by the tail-board, and climbed in as nimbly as a cat. The ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... come out of his house without wishing to be in his heart, so much was he beloved. It was he who first said in a sermon that the devil was not so black as he was painted, and who for Madame de Cande transformed partridges into fish saying that the perch of the Indre were partridges of the river, and, on the other hand, partridges perch in the air. He never played artful tricks under the cloak of morality, and often said, jokingly, he would rather be in a good bed ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... for man. The more striking scenes of animal life, hitherto confined chiefly to the ocean, are now on land; the extensive sheets of fresh water are filled with fishes of a comparatively modern character,—with Whitefish, Pickerel, Perch, Eels, etc.,—while the larger quadrupeds are introduced upon the continents so gradually prepared to receive them. The connection of events throughout the Tertiaries, considered as leading up to the coming of man, may be traced not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... towards the lane and highway. Some, with keen eyes, fancied they could detect a horseman through the wood. Presently Giles, from his perch at the door of the corn-crib, ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... dead long before she died," said the Duchess as she came to perch on the arm of Julie's chair, and threw her arm round her friend's neck. "After her little sister departed this life she became a very silent, shrivelled thing—except for her religion—and very few people saw her. She took a fancy to me—which was odd, wasn't ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... turned black," said the cartoonist, almost falling off his perch in a frantic effort to see more clearly through the olive haze that ...
— In the Sweet Dry and Dry • Christopher Morley
... Redman's Farm, he found her chamber small, neat, simplex munditiis. Bright and natty were the chintz curtains, and the little toilet set out, not inelegantly, and her pet piping-goldfinch asleep on his perch, with his bit of sugar between the wires of his cage; her pillow so white and unpressed, with its little edging of lace. Were slumbers sweet as of old ever to know it more? What dreams were henceforward to haunt it? Shadows were standing about that lonely bed already. ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... splintered mast a sail rent to tatters was waving; suddenly the ropes that still held it gave way, and it disappeared in the darkness of the night like a vast sea-bird. At the same moment a violent crash was heard, and cries of distress. Dantes from his rocky perch saw the shattered vessel, and among the fragments the floating forms of the hapless sailors. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... many who have seen a prisoned lark sitting on its perch, looking listlessly through the bars, from some brick wall against which its cage was hung; but at times, when the spring comes round, and a bit of grassy earth is put into the narrow cage, and, in spite of smoke and mist, the blue sky looks a moment on the foul face of the city, the little prisoner ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... animal swung herself from a perch, across a passage at least twelve feet wide, against a window which it was thought would be immediately broken: but not so; to the surprise of all, she caught the narrow framework between the panes with her hand, in an instant attained the proper impetus, and sprang back ...
— Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... never man's prospects were brighter,' I said, as I jumped from my perch; 'So quickly arrived at the Mitre, Oh, I'm sure, to get on in the Church!' Whack fol lol, lol ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... after the swart raven, Over the deep water, To quest whether the foaming sea Had of the green earth Yet any part laid bare. Wide she flew seeking her own will, Far she flew yet found no rest. Because of the flood With her feet she might not perch on land, Nor on the tree leaves light. For the steep mountain tops Were whelmed in waters. Then the wild bird went At eventide the ark to seek. Over the darling wave she flew Weary, to sink hungry To the hands of the ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... his perch and went straight up to Arthur. "Arthur, I beg your pardon heartily for the harsh words and thoughts I may have given you. I was just a fool, or I should have known you could not be guilty. Were ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... scramble to punish the Chinese by carving out more territory. "The moment we acted," said Mr. Hay, "the rest of the world paused and finally came over to our ground; and the German government, which is generally brutal but seldom silly, recovered its senses, and climbed down off its perch." ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... of Holyrood There never squatted a more sordid brood Than that which now, across the clotted perch, Crookens the claw and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... passer-by, they fancy they are in the upper-ten of womanhood. Vain! The peacock, whose little heart is one beating pulse of vanity, is not half so vain as they. Giddy, trifling, empty, vapid, cold, moonshine women, whose souls can perch on a plume, and whose only ambition is to be a traveling advertisement for the men and women who traffic in what they wear, are many who flaunt in satins and glitter in diamonds. How many such there are we ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... peaks were disclosed as they climbed. In that direction there lay an undiscovered country, and they might well reflect that few even had looked out across it as they themselves now were doing from their lofty perch. They knew well enough that the old traders who passed through here rarely left the trail except for necessary hunting, but passed on through as rapidly as they might, this being merely their ...
— The Young Alaskans in the Rockies • Emerson Hough
... this heavenly coat has kept me as warm as pie—Nina Atherton taught me that. That nice family considerably enlarged my vocabulary," she added with enjoyment, slipping out of a heavy fur coat and coming back to perch on the arm ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... They tell us that whenever the holy saint David, of Wales, stood up to preach, there came a milk-white dove, and sat upon his shoulder. It is a serious question for you and me, for preacher and people, does the White Dove perch on my shoulder as I preach? Does the Holy Ghost descend like a dove on you who hear? Men of business, anxious workers, is the White Dove with you in your factory, your farm, your office? Mothers and fathers, young men and maidens, is there a place in your home where the ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... cane-colored beard." His lady is seated on the opposite side of the picture in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the children have a most venerable stiffness and formality of dress. Hounds and spaniels are mingled in the family group; a hawk is seated on his perch in the foreground, and one of the children holds a bow, all intimating the knight's skill in hunting, hawking, and archery, so indispensable to an accomplished ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... armour upon back and neck, and pawing impatiently, while he waited opposite a sort of portable platform higher than the horse's back, and gaily cushioned and decorated. A great tawny male lion was in the act of leaping from the ground to this high perch. I had seen many exhibitions of animal intelligence and training, but when this king of lions, uttering a second mighty roar, leaped to the back of the waiting horse and rode about the ring like a trained rider, leaped through a hoop held in the mouth of a big spotted ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... said Mr. Sewell, "your hens will all go to roost on the wrong perch if you are not at home to see to them; so, if the Captain will set us across to Harpswell, I think we may as well ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... away to wait on the great man, Clarinda; but I have more respect on my own peace and happiness than to set out without waiting on you; for my imagination, like a child's favourite bird, will fondly flutter along with this scrawl till it perch on your bosom I thank you for all the happiness of yesterday—the walk delightful, the evening rapture. Do not be uneasy today, Clarinda. I am in rather better spirits today, though I had but an indifferent night. Care, anxiety, sat on my spirits. ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... creek, that ran through the meadow behind the barn, was one of their haunts. They fished in it for minnows and little perch; they made dams and bathed in it; and sometimes they played pirates upon ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... have elapsed since the creation of the Dukedom. If you came into it, there would be"—and the youth, closing his eyes, made a rapid calculation—"exactly three hundred and eighty-eight candles. On the eve of the death of a Duke of Dorset, two black owls come and perch on the battlements. They remain there through the night, hooting. At dawn they fly away, none knows whither. On the eve of the death of any other Tanville-Tankerton, comes (no matter what be the time of year) a cuckoo. It stays for an hour, cooing, then flies away, none knows whither. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... all the other ships of the expedition, which quieted me much. Towards ten in the morning the wind changed; immediately an appalling cry was heard, concerning which the passengers, as well as myself, were equally ignorant. The whole crew were in motion. Some climbed the rope ladders, and seemed to perch on the extremities of the yards; others mounted to the highest parts of the mast; these bellowing and pulling certain cordages in cadence; those crying, swearing, whistling, and filling the air with barbarous and unknown sounds. The officer on duty, in his turn, roaring out ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... creatures indeed," said the bird. "I used to know one, and I used to perch on his horns. But what I stopped to ask you about was whether you know of a nice nest which I could rent for this spring. You see, I have come up from the South a little earlier than usual, and I can't find the nest I had last year. ...
— Sammie and Susie Littletail • Howard R. Garis
... who lived in a small house between the Ferry-house and Wallasey Pool, and which, by the way, was the only house then standing thereabout. The tide was running very strong and the wind blowing hard, and, after nearly four hours hard work, we managed to land near the Rock Perch, thankful for our lives being spared. The Rock Perch was a pole with a sort of beacon or basket at the top of it, implanted in the rocks on which the lighthouse now stands. There were no houses then anywhere about what is now called New Brighton. ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... Another perch for Noah's duck! Where will I be in a week or two from this? I shall make a mark, twenty pages from here, and see where I shall be when I reach it. Here, most probably; but oh, if I could then be at home! General Carter, who spent the evening with us day before yesterday, ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... green interior, at all my books, looking so ornamental against the walls of my study, at all the portraits of the friends of my life of active service above the shelves, and the old sixteenth-century Buddha, which Oda Neilson sent me on my last birthday, looking so stoically down from his perch to remind me how little all these things counted. I could not help remembering at the end that my friends at Voulangis had gone—that they were at that very moment on their way to Marseilles, that almost every one else I knew on this side of the water was either at Havre ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... and I intended to have remained much longer, when I perceived, all of a sudden, the bear's head within a foot of me; he had climbed up after me, and I saw that he was very angry, so in a moment I threw myself off my perch, and down I went to the ground at the foot of the tree, a matter of near twenty feet, even faster than I went down inside of it. I was severely shaken with the fall, but no bones were broken; in fact, I was more frightened ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... down quilt that the freaks of live had thrown to the ground. The outlines of Pauline's dress, hanging from a cheval glass, appeared like a shadowy ghost. Her dainty shoes had been left at a distance from the bed. A nightingale came to perch upon the sill; its trills repeated over again, and the sounds of its wings suddenly shaken ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... went that unmerciful clock from its perch on the wall, all through the long days and nights, and poor Pet was in despair at the thought of living locked up in the old woman all her life. Now, indeed, she could groan most heartily when the old woman ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... her lips tight, for she was afraid. However, his long, supple fingers closed over her wrist like steel and she got quickly and easily to her perch and ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... returned the fear of catching cold; and the Duke of Cumberland, who was sinking with heat, felt himself weighed down, and turning round found it was the Duke of Newcastle standing upon his train to avoid the chill of the marble.' What a perch to select! Imagine the contrast of the two men, and remember that the Duke of Newcastle was for an unprecedented time the great dispenser of patronage, and so far the most important personage in the government. Walpole had reason for some of ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... days later. With a merry, jingling chorus they perch in the leafless trees. We know now that soon there will be leaves and blossoms, and ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... vaguely, then went across the track and secured the plump perch. At intervals during their conversation he caught ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... further than this. Sometimes he came to a stand-still in his writing, murmured to himself, frowned, walked heavily up and down the room, but found no way out of the difficulty. Then, as a last resource, he would open the door of Jack's cage and invite him to perch on his finger. Jack would step jauntily down, raising all the grey feathers on his head till it was twice its usual size. Absently, but with great tenderness, the doctor would scratch it with one large forefinger; ...
— Penelope and the Others - Story of Five Country Children • Amy Walton
... forgetting their manners and gliding off into Gaelic, but as often recollecting themselves, apologizing, and starting afresh upon the path of English. Long before they reached the end of their journey, Valentine, able from his perch to listen in some measure of ease, came to understand that he had to do, not with rustics, but, whatever their peculiarities, with gentlemen of a ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Dan as she slid down from her perch and darted into the saloon next door. She had wasted no time in conjecture or sympathy; she had plunged at once into action. When she returned, the fat saloonkeeper lumbered in ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... went up to Robber Mother and scratched at her skirt, and Robber Mother bent down to her and praised her young. The horned owl, who had just begun his night chase, was astonished at the light and went back to his ravine to perch for the night. The male cuckoo crowed, and his mate stole up to the nests of the little birds with her ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... the opposite face of the island, and found myself on a shelf of rock about three feet wide, with one hundred and fifty feet, more or less, of vertical cliff beneath, and about the same height of half-cliff behind and above. It was a pretty perch, and gave one a feeling of consequence; for what pigmy perched on Alps ever failed to consider his elevation one of stature strictly, and not at all of position? The outer edge of the shelf rose, inclosing me as in a box, so that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... get speech of my comrades. But so obstreperous was the crowd, that it was next to impossible. Jarl was still in his perch in the air; his enthusiastic bearers not yet suffering him to alight. Samoa, however, who had managed to keep out of the saddle, by-and-by contrived to draw nearer ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the muse to roam? 'Tis time to call the wanderer home. Who could have thought the nymph would perch her Up in the clouds with Father Kircher? So, health and love to all your mansion! Long may the bowl that pleasures bloom in, The flow of heart, the soul's expansion, Mirth and song, your board illumine. At all your feasts, remember too, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... their own property still she proceeded, greatly rejoicing At their own crops, and at the corn which nodded so bravely, Over the whole field in golden majesty waving. Then on the border between the fields she follow'd the footpath, Keeping her eye on the pear-tree fix'd, the big one, which standing Perch'd by itself on the top of the hill, their property bounded. Who had planted it, no one knew; throughout the whole country Far and wide was it visible; noted also its fruit was. Under its shadow the reaper ate his dinner at noonday, And the herdsman was wont to lie, when tending his cattle. ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... misguided, joined him during the period of his success. Many of them blindly seemed to entertain the opinion that no reverse could befall him, and all he had to do was to march along, and victory after victory would perch upon his banner. They couldn't even dream of a disaster or an end to his triumphs. Many of them have already sadly and dearly paid for their infatuation, while others are doomed to a similar fate. This remarkable raid, certainly the most daring of the war, is about at an end. Morgan is ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... and neck, and pawing impatiently, while he waited opposite a sort of portable platform higher than the horse's back, and gaily cushioned and decorated. A great tawny male lion was in the act of leaping from the ground to this high perch. I had seen many exhibitions of animal intelligence and training, but when this king of lions, uttering a second mighty roar, leaped to the back of the waiting horse and rode about the ring like a trained rider, leaped through a hoop held in the ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... was richer by several hundreds a year, he began to dream of a more resplendent residence for Emmy and the boy than the little flat in Chelsea. He had observed that there were very nice houses in Berkeley Square. He wondered how much a year they were, with rates and taxes. For himself, he could perch in any attic close by. He resolved to discuss Berkeley Square with Emmy as soon as she arrived. William Octavius Oldrieve Dix, Member of Parliament, ought to start life in ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... him; he rose and bowed quite gravely. She deliberately put down thimble, scissors, work; descended with precaution from her perch, and curtsying with unspeakable seriousness, said, ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... looked truly to a man who had paddled two days in a hot sticky fog, as, clad in white, she sat still and placid on her airy perch. Her hair, of the very light fleecy gold seldom seen after babyhood, hung over her shoulders unconfined by comb or ribbon, felling around her like a veil and glittering in the horizontal sunbeams; her face, throat and ...
— Castle Nowhere • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... chased all over the ship by one or two juveniles until caught, panting and trembling with the unwonted exertion. Presently it was given its liberty, partook freely of bread crumbs and drank of fresh water, then assumed a perch aloft, where it carefully dressed its feathers, and after thanking its entertainers with a few cheerful notes it extended its wings and launched out into space, no land being in sight. The broken mainmast of a ship, floating, with considerable top ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... the Quadrant, or Opera Colonnade; and Sir Walter Scott celebrating the Field of Waterloo, not in the broad-margined octavos of Paternoster-row, but about the purlieus of the Horse Guards. Wordsworth would be his own Skylark. The laureate, Southey, would perch himself on the dome of the New Palace. Campbell would step out of New Burlingtonstreet into the Park; Miss Mitford would keep a Covent-Garden audience awake with her own tragedies, and Planche would no longer entrust his rhymes to Paton or Vestris. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... money. He was sent home, and hung upon a nail over against my table. He lived outside a counterfeit dwelling- house, supposed (as I argued) to be a dyer's; otherwise it would have been impossible to account for his perch sticking out of the garret window. From the time of his appearance in my room, either he left off being thirsty—which was not in the bond—or he could not make up his mind to hear his little bucket drop back into his well when he let it go: a shock which ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... her equanimity, and a listening look gradually displaced the emotion on her countenance. Over the half-door of the shop appeared two men, each bearing on his shoulder the socks (shares) of two ploughs, to be sharpened, or set. The instant she saw them she tumbled off her perch, and before they had got the door opened was half way to it, crying, "Dooie! Dooie!" Another instant and she was lifted high in ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... rigorous exercise of all our lawful and proper powers, contending against Treason, Rebellion, and the public Enemies, and, whether in public life or in private station, supporting the arms of the Union, until its Cause shall conquer, until final victory shall perch upon its standard, or the Rebel foe will yield a dutiful, rightful, and unconditional submission. And, impressed with the conviction that an Army of reserve ought, until the War shall end, to be constantly kept on foot, to be raised, armed, equipped, and trained at home, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... suppose?" said the scout leader, nodding his head approvingly. "Making a little fireplace where he can perch his kettle, and have the hottest part of his fire under it. Note also that the opening is in the direction of the breeze. That allows the flame to be fanned. Wallace will never have to blow out his cheeks and puff ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... than she realized. The throng hung breathless upon each move of the players, while there was no sound but the noise of shifting chips and the distant jangle of the orchestra. The lookout sat far forward upon his perch, his hands upon his knees, his eyes frozen to the board, a dead cigar clenched between his teeth. Crowded upon his platform were miners tense and motionless as statues. When a man spoke or ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... that the leading horse could barely stagger another fifty yards, notwithstanding the inhuman efforts of the cocchiere to make the most of the poor brute's failing energies. At last the animal stumbled and fell, nearly pulling the driver off his perch. It was sad, but he had more than earned his price, for Palermo lay ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... provisions the peasant wanders about in the trackless forests, and too often returns after many days with a very light bag; or he starts in autumn for some distant lake, and comes back after five or six weeks with nothing better than perch and pike. Sometimes he tries his luck at deep-sea fishing. In this case he starts in February—probably on foot—for Kem, on the shore of the White Sea, or perhaps for the more distant Kola, situated on a small river which ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... old Laird's dog-kennel, now deserted, unless when occupied, as one or two tubs seemed to testify, as a washing-house. She tried another—it was the rootless shed where the hawks had been once kept, as appeared from a perch or two not yet completely rotten, and a lure and jesses which were mouldering on the wall. A third door led to the coal-house, which was well stocked. To keep a very good fire was one of the few points of domestic management in which Dumbiedikes was positively active; in all other matters ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... she sat quietly on her perch, looked with stony composure over the heads of the multitude, indifferent alike to admiration and the uncharitable esteem of her own sex, and waited ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... gathered up his reins and shouted a good-natured farewell to the crowd. A quick and vigorous application of the whip awakened the dozing horses so suddenly that they started up with a spasmodic jerk which nearly threw the old fellow from his perch. By a desperate effort, however, he maintained his seat, but his broad-brimmed hat went flying from his bald head and rolled to the ground, scattering in its fall his snuff-box, spectacles and a monstrous red bandanna handkerchief. This little episode called forth a peal of laughter from ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... these three vulgar sorts; one of little worth, being brittle, and very much resembling the fore-mentioned sallow, with reddish twigs, and more greenish and rounder leaves: Another kind there is, call'd perch, of limber and green twigs having a very slender leaf; the third sort is totally like the second, only the twigs are not altogether so green, but yellowish, and near the popinjay: This is the very best for use, tough and hardy. ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... piscatorum, a sand-worm much used for bait. Also, of old, the term for a perch or rod used in land-measuring, containing 16-1/2 feet, and which may have ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... at that moment Nelson opened furiously on the quarter-master at the conn. 'I'll knock you off your perch, you rascal, if you are so inattentive.—Sir Ed'ard, send your best ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... the suddenness of his coming; she half started to rise before she remembered the instability of her perch, and then crouched even lower than before when she saw that he was not yet aware of her nearness. It was not at all like the encounter which she had so ably managed in her imagination an instant before, and somehow that ...
— Then I'll Come Back to You • Larry Evans
... was dressed I hastened downstairs, for I longed to revisit my old haunts,—the little plot of garden I had sown with anemones and tresses; the walk by the peach wall; the pond wherein I had angled for roach and perch. ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of things were the cunners, known along Massachusetts Bay mainly as perch. Names are good only in certain localities. If you ask a Hingham boy how the cunners are biting he will be likely to throw rounded beach stones at you, thinking he is being made game of. Down at Newport, ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... the fireplace, and bring a story-book out of my pocket, and read aloud to all the little children. Then the toys on the tree will become alive, and the little waxen Angel at the top will spread out his wings of gold leaf, and fly down from his green perch. He will kiss every child in the room, yes, and all the little children who stand out in the street singing a carol about the ...
— Good Stories For Great Holidays - Arranged for Story-Telling and Reading Aloud and for the - Children's Own Reading • Frances Jenkins Olcott
... channel from the seaward, red buoys are on the starboard, or right hand; white buoys are kept on the port, or left side. Buoys at the end of a channel are usually surmounted each by some device or other fastened at the upper end of a perch. Thus, at the outer entrance of Gedney Channel in New York Harbor, a ball surmounts the perch; at the inner entrance the buoy carries a double square. Sharp angles in a channel are similarly marked. In many instances the buoy carries, as a warning signal, a bell that rings as ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... back, they had fifty dollars that Mr. Temple had sent, but we decided we wouldn't use a single cent of it, just so as to show him that we could look after ourselves. Anyway, we should bother about fifty dollars, because we had a big string of perch and some catfish. ...
— Roy Blakeley's Camp on Wheels • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... plunge of the breakers with the silent, unreasoned enjoyment of a child. All at once he developed a passion for fishing. He would sit all day nearly motionless upon a point of rocks, his fish-line between his fingers, happy if he caught three perch in twelve hours. At noon he would retire to a bit of level turf around an angle of the shore and cook his fish, eating them without salt or knife or fork. He thrust a pointed stick down the mouth of the perch, and turned it slowly over the blaze. When the grease stopped dripping, ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... swept him off the narrow shelf? Harlan was unutterably weary now. He longed to let go his hold on the rocky wall, to cease fighting, and let himself be taken out into obliteration; but he drove himself on . . . and on. . . . After a long while he gained the perilous perch where Loll bravely awaited him above ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... friends went down—"Big Jack" David, and Wresmak, the Bohemian, Klowoski, the Pole, and finally Jerry Minetti. Little Jerry waved his hand from his perch on Hal's shoulder; while Rosa, who had come out and joined them, was clinging to Hal's arm, silent, as if her soul were going down in the cage. There went blue-eyed Tim Rafferty to look for his father, and black-eyed "Andy," the Greek boy, whose father had perished in a similar disaster ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... taking Richmond. That, no doubt, would be a great advantage, but the loss of a recognized seat of government, with its diplomatic and other traditions, would have been of vastly more fatal consequence to us than the capture of their provisional perch in Virginia would have been to the Rebel authorities. It would have brought foreign recognition to the Rebels, and thrown Maryland certainly, and probably Kentucky, into the scale against us. So long as we held Washington, we had ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... approach of a hansom. He gave no sign; but when the low step gliding along the curbstone came to his feet he dodged in skilfully in front of the big turning wheel, and spoke up through the little trap door almost before the man gazing supinely ahead from his perch was aware of having been boarded by ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... grinning. "You see," he continued, turning to the girls, "the Captain and I were practising shooting at a target once, out in the country, and the Captain came so near the bull's eye that he shot the perch out from under a parrot in a cage fifty feet away. O Mother dear, Jerusalem! You never saw such a surprised bird in all your life!" Slim was overcome by the remembrance, and the Captain grinned feebly at the laughter which the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... and all my respect for it is gone. I used to think the Creevy the best river in England for fish; but I wouldn't give a sixpence now for all the perch I ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... all and over all. Like White, too, though by nature solitary, Burroughs is on cordial terms with his kind. He is an accurate observer, and he takes Bryant to task for giving an odor to the yellow violet, and Coleridge for making a lark perch on the stalk of a foxglove. He gloats over a felicitous expression, like Arnold's "blond meadow-sweet" and Tennyson's "little speedwell's darling blue"; though in commenting on another poet he waives the question of accuracy, and says "his happy literary talent makes ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... hurried, peeping exploration, and soon, for the rooms were quickly counted in Redman's Farm, he found her chamber small, neat, simplex munditiis. Bright and natty were the chintz curtains, and the little toilet set out, not inelegantly, and her pet piping-goldfinch asleep on his perch, with his bit of sugar between the wires of his cage; her pillow so white and unpressed, with its little edging of lace. Were slumbers sweet as of old ever to know it more? What dreams were henceforward to haunt it? Shadows were standing about that lonely bed already. I ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... the lady. "I expected as much. Well Daisy—I will take you. I might perch you up on a foot-cushion to give you a little more altitude. However—I don't know but it will do. Theresa will be letting down her ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... took the trap from the fox's leg, and stretched him out on the doorstep to gloat over the treasure and stroke the glossy fur to his heart's content. His attention was taken away for a moment; then he had a dazed vision of a flying black animal that seemed to perch an instant on the log fence and vanish ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... warn him, or do anything except let out a horrified "Oh-h!" he had leaped lightly from his high perch and was standing in front ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... me perch upon a tree, Rewarding me with 'Sweety—nice!' And threatens to exhibit me With four or five ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... like Christmas, once a year, and we are taking a little tour in Scotland to see the curiosities, and to breathe the sea air, and to get some fishing whenever we can. I'm the fat cashier who digs holes in a drawerful of gold with a copper shovel, and you're the arithmetical young man who sits on a perch behind me and keeps the books. Scotland's a beautiful country, William. Can you make whisky-toddy? I can; and, what's more, unlikely as the thing may seem to you, I can actually ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... the freeborn nations of the air, Never did bird a spirit so mean and sordid bear As to exchange his native liberty Of soaring boldly up into the sky, His liberty to sing, to perch, or fly When, and wherever he thought good, And all his innocent pleasures of the wood, For a more plentiful or constant food. Nor ever did ambitious rage Make him into a painted cage Or the false forest of a well-hung room For honour and preferment ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... may readily pick up food and other objects from the ground. The muscles of their toes are so arranged that the simple weight of the body closes them, and they are able, in consequence, to sit on a perch a long time without fatigue. Even in a violent wind a bird easily retains its hold of the branch or twig on which it is sitting. Their bills are of almost all forms: in some kinds they are straight; in others curved, sometimes upwards and sometimes downwards; in others they are ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... curtains had been drawn, and the lighted lamp, with its frosted glass globe, shone serene and silvery, like a minor and domestic moon. Mona Macdonald sat sewing near a table, whilst Amanda read aloud. On a sofa a lazy lapdog dreamed, the parrot slept on its swing, and the bullfinch on the perch in its cage, and in the pauses of Amanda's voice, the drowsy cat was heard purring in its evening doze. Nothing was heard without, except the fitful bark of the Newfoundland dog at some stray passer by; and, at length, even that ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... can't!" cried Clifford, laughing. "And yet, my dear sir, I am as transparent as the water of Maule's well! But come, Hepzibah! We have flown far enough for once. Let us alight, as the birds do, and perch ourselves on the nearest twig, and consult wither ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pike was born he did not grow up by months or by days, but by hours. Every day it was two inches longer than the day before. In a month it was two yards long; in two months it was twelve feet long; in three months it was raging up and down the river like a tempest, eating the bream and the perch, and all the small fish that came in its way. There was a bream or a perch swimming lazily in the stream. The pike saw it as it raged by, caught it in its great white mouth, and instantly the bream or the perch was gone, ...
— Old Peter's Russian Tales • Arthur Ransome
... world—" began Mrs. Penniman, for Wilbur in the hollow of his arm bore a forked branch upon which seemed to perch in all confidence a free bird ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... seven bells, he thought he discovered some object in the water three or four points off the lee bow. Hailing the deck to keep off for it, he very soon made out fragments of a vessel—spars, water casks, pieces of deck and, as they came still nearer, a boat; but the captain, even from his lofty perch, could see no sign of any one ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... the chapel, holding their breath as one pointed to the figure of a tiny child in the organ loft. Was it possible, they asked themselves, that a child could produce such beautiful music? They remained rooted to the spot, till Wolfgang happened to see them and crept meekly down from his perch. ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... astonishing? Miss Livingstone has been most practical in her kindness. I have gone back, of course, to my perch at the club, and Laura is to stay with ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... slow-rising smoke O'ertop the lofty wood that skirts the wild. A vagabond and useless tribe there eat Their miserable meal. A kettle slung Between two poles upon a stick transverse, Receives the morsel; flesh obscene of dog, Or vermin, or, at best, of cock purloined From his accustomed perch. Hard-faring race! They pick their fuel out of every hedge, Which, kindled with dry leaves, just saves unquenched The spark of life. The sportive wind blows wide Their fluttering rags, and shows a tawny skin, The vellum of the pedigree ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... possible. The front of the fowl-house should be latticed, taking care that the interstices be not wide enough even to tempt a chick to crawl through. Nesting-boxes, containing soft hay, and fitted against the walls, so as to be easily reached by the perch-ladder, should be supplied. It will be as well to keep by you a few portable doors, so that you may hang one before the entrance to a nesting-box, when the hen goes in to sit. This will prevent other hens from intruding, a habit to which ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... here," said Tom. "There are too many boats around. I can take you to a place where there are some good perch and sunnies." ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Big Woods • Laura Lee Hope
... of my own friends—of pious bards and genial companions, lovers of natural and lovely things! Nor for these do I desire a seat at Florian's marble tables, or a perch in Quadri's window, though the former supply dainty food, and the latter command a bird's-eye view of the Piazza. Rather would I lead them to a certain humble tavern on the Zattere. It is a quaint, low-built, unpretending little place, near ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... way wouldn't suit me. I've laid in a heap of books, and I'm going to improve my shining hours reading on my perch in the old apple tree, when I'm ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... "father" used to come home at eventide to the small but cosy cottage in that green lane, far, far away in the pleasant country; and she used to stand at the gate to watch for his coming, sometimes running half-way up the lane to meet him, and he would perch her on his shoulder, where she felt, oh! so safe, and bring her home to mother. Or she would climb his knee as he sat by the fire, and watch dear mother get the nice supper; but father was dead now. She had seen the pretty daisies growing above his grassy grave in that distant churchyard; and ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... not to compare with our fish! Or would you seriously set your perch and carp against our mackerel, herrings, haddocks, flounders, and all our unparalleled ...
— Strife and Peace • Fredrika Bremer
... upside-down bucket for a seat. Nothing more uncomfortable for a fat man can be imagined, yet Cheon sat on his rickety perch, for the most part chuckling and happy. Perhaps, like Mark Tapley, he felt it a "credit being jolly" ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... inspiration came to him—he would try the pump! So he rose softly and fixed the handle of the pump high in the air, so that it stuck out like a gallows, and tied a rope with a noose to the end of it. Then he got Tricky to perch on the top of the pump, tied the rope round his neck, and all was ready. The shepherd had heard that the object of hanging was to break the neck of the criminal by a sudden 'drop,' but as he could not give Tricky ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... must be experienced by the driver, who sat all day long on the box, and controlled his four horses with his whip. Now he saw this happy creature nearer; for the post-wagon stopped, and the lad never once removed his eyes from the wonderful man, as he came down from his perch, stepped into the inn, and came out again with an enormous piece of black bread in his hand, upon which lay a ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... stealthily that it seizes birds before they can be alarmed by its presence. The natives assert that it has been known to strangle the pea-fowl at night, and feast on the brain. During the day the one which I kept was usually asleep in the strange position represented below; its perch firmly grasped with all hands, its back curved into a ball of soft fur, and its head hidden deep between its legs. The singularly-large and intense eyes of the loris have attracted the attention of the Singhalese, who capture the creature for the purpose of extracting them as charms ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... cold, that they no longer looked upon exposure as the worst thing that could happen to them. They had made up their minds that it could not be avoided, and told themselves that the sooner it was over and they were allowed to leave their airy perch the sooner they would breathe easily again. They could not talk now. They could only sit and gaze in the direction in which the hostler had disappeared, and wait for somebody to come and call off the dogs. Bob hoped that somebody would be Bert. He ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... in front of him and frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose you're right," he said, slowly; "but if we ever get off this chicken-perch, and I run across him, let him look out, ...
— Dialstone Lane, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... possession of my estate. Old rentals in my possession show that for many years previous to that date there had been allowances made to tenants at the rate of about 1,000l. per annum. Yet when I took up the estate there was not one drain made by a tenant, not one slated house, not a perch of road, not a yard of sub-soiled land. I then adopted the system of making all improvements myself, charging interest of the outlay upon the occupier according to the circumstances and increased value of the ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... wildwood warblers, which I am credibly informed are many and varied in character; and by imitating those calls we charm the feathered minstrels to leave their accustomed haunts on the sheltering bough and to come and perch on our ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... mounting the sofa, and applying her eye to the crack. "I'm afraid the Revolution has demoralized me, but I must see the thing through. Andy, they look—they look magnificent!" Ruth was quivering on her perch. Janie flung prudence and dignity to the winds, and climbed to Ruth's side, and, being taller, gained a portion of the crack above ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... but to pass the night well above the jungle perils in the suapattah hut, like a cockatoo screeching defiance at a cat from the safety of its perch; and to which safety you climb almost flat on your face by means of a rocking, slender bamboo ladder, and with about as much grace as a monkey manipulating ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... me; while he hauled and hauled away, and soon brought to the surface a fish shaped something like a perch, but apparently of sixty or seventy pounds weight. It was indeed, I saw, a species of sea-perch, from the large ...
— Twice Lost • W.H.G. Kingston
... has been lovely, and from my perch among the clouds here I am looking down upon a lovely view. Following the irregular line of buildings of the street, the eye suddenly becomes embowered in a thick rich valley of foliage, beyond which a hill rises, whose sides are covered ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... not, Cecilia Jupe," Thomas Gradgrind solemnly repeated, "to do anything of that kind. You don't walk upon flowers in fact; you cannot be allowed to walk upon flowers in carpets. You don't find that foreign birds and butterflies come and perch upon your crockery; you cannot be permitted to paint foreign birds and butterflies upon your crockery. You never meet with quadrupeds going up and down walls; you must not have quadrupeds represented upon walls. You must use," said the gentleman, "for all these ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... straight to the tree; but Jim, in his impatience to help his friends, fell a victim to his good intentions. Making a frantic grab at a branch, he raised himself off the log, and it was swept from under him by the raging water, and he soon joined the other two victims upon their forlorn perch. The excitement on shore increased, and almost the whole population of the village gathered on the river bank. Lincoln had the log pulled up the stream, and securing another piece of rope, called to the men in the tree to catch it if they could ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... hey?" said the lady. "I expected as much. Well, Daisy I will take you. I might perch you up on a foot- cushion to give you a little more altitude. However I don't know but it will do. Theresa will be letting ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... three-quarters of the population are villagers whose life is bound up with the welfare of plants and animals and lies at the mercy of rivers that overflow or skies that withhold the rain. To such people nature-myths and sacred animals appeal with a force that Europeans rarely understand. The parrots that perch on the pinnacles of the temple and the oxen that rest in the shade of its courts are not intruders but humble brothers of mankind, who may also be the messengers ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... dragon-flies darted to and fro, or sat on water-plants as if they were flowers. Snakes swam across the channels, vibrating their heads from side to side. Swallows swept over his head. Pike "struck" from the verge of the thick weeds as he came near. Perch rose for insects as they fell helpless into ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... mentor and child. Nothing, however, must be so individual as punishment. For some, a threat at rare intervals is enough; while for others, however ominous threats may be, they become at once "like scarecrows, on which the foulest birds soonest learn to perch." To scold well and wisely is an art by itself. For some children, pardon is the worst punishment; for others, ignoring or neglect; for others, isolation from friends, suspension from duties; for others, seclusion—which last, however, ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... queenly one was giving a toast at a banquet, and the revelers were leaning toward her, drinking in every word of her rich musical voice, marveling at her brilliancy, when suddenly she saw a tiny figure perch on the table in front of her fiance,—yes, he was fianceing them both. The little figure on the table had a sweet, round, dimply face, and wooing lips, and loving eyes. The fiance took her in his arms, and stroked ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... understand how it was that Doa Maria, notwithstanding the difficulties of the ascent, often came up here to escape the debilitating heats of the port, and enjoy the magnificent prospect. The dwellers on this mountain-perch consisted of an old man with his two sons and their wives, and a consequent round dozen of children, all of whom gave Dolores the cordial welcome of an old friend, which was reflected on his companions with equal warmth. Our mules were quickly unsaddled and cared for, and our instruments ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... gentlemen, and when the tables were removed, the lady, robed in green samite, and richly adorned, came forth of her chamber into the hall wherein they sate, and before the eyes of Pyrrhus and all the rest of the company hied her to the perch, on which stood the sparrow-hawk that Nicostratus so much prized, and loosed him, and, as if she were minded to carry him on her hand, took him by the jesses and dashed him against the wall so that he died. Whereupon:—"Alas! ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... enough in shape to be credited with strange actions: but ichthyologists say positively no: that the noise (at least along the coast of the United States) is made by a Pogonias, a fish somewhat like a great bearded perch, and cousin of the Maigre of the Mediterranean, which is accused of making a similar purring or grunting noise, which can be heard from a depth of one hundred and twenty feet, and guides the ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... Rodwell, and his eyebrows fixed at the perch of Colney's famous 'national interrogation' over vacancy of understanding, as if from the pull of a string. He had his audience with him; and the satirist had nothing but his inner gush of acids at sight of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... When its beard just sprouting is; Whence a young stream, that trod on moss, Prettily rimpled the court across. And in the pool's clear idleness, Moving like dreams through happiness, Shoals of small bright fishes were; In and out weed-thickets bent Perch and carp, and sauntering went With mounching jaws and eyes a-stare; Or on a lotus leaf would crawl A brindled loach to bask and sprawl, Tasting the warm sun ere it dipped Into the water; but quick as fear Back ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... feathers was sticking out from one end of one of these baskets; and as we approached to examine it, out came the live head of a white peacock—a Japan peacock and peahen. The gentleman to whom the carriage belonged appeared next, carrying on a perch a fine large macaw. This perch was made to fasten behind the carriage. The servant who was harnessing the horses would not tell to whom the carriage belonged. He replied to all inquiries, "It belongs to ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... you tackle these abstruse subjects. I will come down from my lofty perch, Molly. What more can your ...
— Three Little Cousins • Amy E. Blanchard
... the House, off and on, for thirty-four years before discovering that he was on the wrong side, Mr. MOSLEY has made the same discovery after an experience of barely as many weeks. From his new perch he inquired this afternoon if Government cement was being sent abroad, to the detriment of British builders. Dr. ADDISON contented himself with professing ignorance of any such transaction. A less serious Minister might have replied that the Government needed all their cement to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... permitted, I should have retained my perch till daylight, but with the consciousness of escape from the jaws of the ferocious brute came a sense of overpowering weakness which almost palsied me, and made my descent from the tree both difficult and dangerous. Incredible as it may seem, I lay down in my old bed, and was soon lost in a ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... chair at the desk as he urged, climbing instead to the only other seat which the office afforded. It was a high stool beside the shelf where pens, ink and money-order blanks awaited the needs of the public. Mary had often occupied it, and from this perch had given the Captain some of the most amusing hours of ...
— Mary Ware's Promised Land • Annie Fellows Johnston
... had drifted out over the Hudson at an altitude of 2,500 feet. Here Donaldson descended from the airy perch which he had been occupying since our start on the concentrating ring, when one of us asked how long he expected the cruise to last. He replied that he hoped to be able to sail the Barnum at least three or ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... a map of Timber Run. This stream is the Perch River, and this is Bear Pond. The naming is in French, but that is the English ...
— The Rover Boys In The Mountains • Arthur M. Winfield
... Bluebottle and the Flesh-fly perch on the trellis-work, make a short investigation and then decamp. Throughout the summer season, for three whole months, the apparatus remains where it is, without result: never a worm. What is the reason? Does the stench of the meat not spread, coming ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... This perch of Ann Gossaway's was the eyrie from which she swept the village street, bordered with a double row of wide-spreading elms and fringed with sloping grassy banks spaced at short intervals by hitching-posts ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... broad leaves of Villarsia and Nymphaea, and well stocked with numerous large fish, which betrayed their presence by an incessant splashing during the early part of the night. John Murphy caught the small striped perch of the Lynd; and another small perch-like fish, with a broad anal fin, which had already excited our admiration at the Lynd, by the beauty of its colours, and by the singularity of its movements. Charley saw the Silurus and the guardfish, ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... HIM (indicating the corpse by a jerk of his head) tell about that job. G-d, how he used to laugh when he showed us how he fetched him off the perch!' ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the window. What youthful, yet manly figure, was that actively descending from his perch ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... FROM my perch over the bay window of the library, I had heard Tom Thornton express his savage determination to crush out of me the information he wanted. Being forewarned, I was in a measure forearmed, and I did not intend ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... your perch!" says I. "Ain't you makin' extra money on this? And when you fetch up at the club, do it like you was used to ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... tell!' Says t'other, perch'd upon the wheel, 'Did ever any mortal fly Raise such a cloud ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... swung herself from a perch, across a passage at least twelve feet wide, against a window which it was thought would be immediately broken: but not so; to the surprise of all, she caught the narrow framework between the panes with her hand, in an instant attained the proper impetus, and sprang back again ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... otherwise. What I required was the dominion over the mind; I cared little about the sultan's attentions to other women. Like the tamed bird which flies from its cage, and after wandering a short time, is glad to return to its home and reassume its perch, so did I consider it would be the case with the sultan. I never, therefore, wearied him with tears or reproaches, but won him back with smiles and good humour. I expected that this new face would detach ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... is not, allowed to carry fire-arms, and for this reason the squirrel may perch upon a high limb, jerk its tail about and defy him; the hare may run swiftly away, and the wild turkey may tantalise him with its incessant "gobbling." But the 'coon can be killed without fire-arms. The 'coon can be overtaken and "treed." The negro is not denied the use of an ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... called softly. But he was a sound sleeper, she remembered; she would have to find him and wake him. In the darkness she felt about on Thomas Jefferson's perch for Thomas Jefferson. When the little groping hand came upon something very soft and warm, the other hand went up to join it, and together they lifted Thomas Jefferson down. He gave a protesting croak, and then, because he was acquainted with the clasp of the two small ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... with no assurance, my friend. Let us understand each other now. I am not now supposing that you can fly back again. You have found your perch, and you must settle on it like a good domestic barn-door fowl." Again he scowled. If she were too hard upon him he would certainly turn upon her. "No; you will not fly back again now;—but was I, or was I not, justified when ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... four flounders, or half a dozen perch, two onions, and a bunch of parsley. Put them into three quarts of water, and boil them till the fish go entirely to pieces, and dissolve in the water. Then strain the liquor through a sieve, and put it into a kettle or stew-pan. Have ready a few more fish with ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie
... great unconquered heroes famed on earth from west to east, Kankas perch upon their foreheads, hungry wolves upon ...
— Maha-bharata - The Epic of Ancient India Condensed into English Verse • Anonymous
... this advantage Washington wrote, "This river,... is well supplied with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year; and, in the spring, with the greatest profusion of shad, herrings, bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, &c. Several valuable fisheries appertain to the estate; the whole shore, in short, is one entire fishery." Whenever there was a run of fish, the seine was drawn, chiefly for herring and shad, and in good years this not merely amply supplied the home requirements, ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... he cried, desponding, "Must our lives depend on these things?" On the third day of his fasting By the lake he sat and pondered, By the still, transparent water; Saw the sturgeon, Nahma, leaping, Scattering drops like beads of wampum, Saw the yellow perch, the Sahwa, Like a sunbeam in the water, Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, And the herring, Okahahwis, And the Shawgashee, the crawfish! "Master of Life!" he cried, desponding, "Must our lives depend on these things?" ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Nonsuch arrived immediately opposite the opening that Dyer was able, with the assistance of the perspective glass, to pick up the little narrow streak of unbroken water in the midst of the flashing surf which marked the channel through the reef, and from his lofty perch he immediately shouted down the necessary orders to George, who stood aft upon the poop, and who in his turn repeated them to the mariners, whereupon the ship was brought to the wind and, under the pilot's directions, headed straight for ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... startled by her sister's sudden appearance at her door, fell promptly from her perch on the ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... freak of the demons of chance to perch on my unsusceptible thirty-year-old chest, tie me up with a crime, ticket me with a love affair, and start me on that sensational and not always respectable journey that ended so surprisingly less than three weeks later in the firm's private office. It had ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of branch in one hand, the bird in the other. He glanced at us to see if we were watching him, and then smoothing the feathers quickly, he began to buzz and whirr like a beetle, as cleverly as a ventriloquist. Next he made the dead bird he held dart from its perch, and imitated the quick flight of one chasing a large beetle through the air, catching it, and returning to its perch, where with wonderful accuracy he went through the movements of it swallowing its prey, and then ruffling itself up again ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... me for a time, and I felt a certain joy when I saw the bird slowly descend, and having spied my uncomfortable boat, perch heavily on the other end of it. He did not do so until he had looked at me with evident alarm; and, worn out as he was, and his heart beating as though it would burst through his yellow coat, he still kept his eyes fixed ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... lacked animal food, for we could always snare rabbits or, except in the depths of winter, catch fish. The lake was full of perch, roach, and eels; every mountain stream contained trout. On rare occasions we would find Lord Powerscourt's pheasants in our snares. I am sorry to say that in winter we would eat blackbirds, which we caught in a crib made of elder-rods. This I always knew to be a disgraceful thing ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... answered, "Very good!" He read Cream's note. Cream had suddenly to produce a new sketch, and he had overhauled John's piece and put it on at the Wolverhampton Coliseum. "It went with a bang, my boy! Absolutely knocked 'em clean off their perch! ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... noise and bustle came Miss Easton and Jack. The groom scrambled down from his perch, and the two got out. In an instant she was surrounded by three or four men, all talking at the same time and upon the same subject: "Was not the day superb?" "Did she know which way the hounds were to run?" "Was she going ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... unlike aught she had ever seen. His stature was gigantic, and a pale phosphoric light enshrouded him. As he advanced, forked lightnings shot into the room, and the thunder split overhead. The owl hooted fearfully, quitted its perch, and flew off by the way it had ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... eleventh day, ere the sun had dried the dew from the springing grass, the keen-eyed watchman, in his perch on the topmost tower, cried out in happy accents to the ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... so angry, it was very difficult to keep him on his perch for the last scene of all. He submitted, however, rather than spoil the grand finale, hoping that its beauty would efface that ill-timed pleasantry from the public mind. So, when the agreeable clamor of hands and voices ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... as common as the schoolboy's familiar friend, the minnow. Others, like the cat-fish and sea-horse, are rare—in England, at any rate. Then there are kinds known to every lover of angling, such as the perch and pike. Seldom has a popular name been so aptly bestowed as in the case of the pretty little sea-horses. In the upper half of their wee bodies they have all the equine look and bearing, but in the lower half there is ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... that ran through the meadow behind the barn, was one of their haunts. They fished in it for minnows and little perch; they made dams and bathed in it; and sometimes they played pirates upon ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... undone," said Varney. "She has of late been casting many a backward look to her father's halls, whenever her lordly lover leaves her alone. Should this preaching fool whistle her back to her old perch, we were ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... other black. They had very large bills much like a ram's horn; their legs were strong and short, and their claws like a pigeon's; their wings of an ordinary length: yet they make a great noise when they fly, which they do very heavily. They feed on berries, and perch on the highest trees. Their flesh is sweet; I saw some of the same species at New Guinea, ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... which the Jordan runs would scarcely be perceptible if you were standing on the sun. Thus, 'without respect of persons,' great men and little, rich men and poor, educated men and illiterate, people that perch themselves on their little stools and think themselves high above their fellows: they are all on one dead level in the eye of the Judge. And this question is as to the quality of the work and not as to the dignity of the doer. 'Without respect ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... scrambled down from his high perch and raced across the garden to the stables where he had settled to meet Dudley; whilst Rob descended more slowly, muttering to himself, "'Tis a good thing not to be afraid of God like Master Roy, but I doubt if I should ever get ...
— His Big Opportunity • Amy Le Feuvre
... blue mould on their old backs; and they could tell all sorts of queer stories, if they chose to speak — but they are very silent, carps are — of their nature peu communicatives. Oh! what has been thy long life, old goody, but a dole of bread and water and a perch on a cage; a dreary swim round and round a Lethe of a pond? What are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldy ones, and do they know it is a grandchild of England who brings ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... dozen feathers, six of which are stout, short, and tapering, while the rest are fourteen inches in length. He passes his time in screaming, and scrambling about with the aid of his claws and hooked beak combined, going as far as the tiny chain which is attached to one foot and fastened to the perch will permit. His favorite attitude seems to be hanging head downward from his perch like an acrobat, often remaining thus a distressingly long time, until one would fain coax him into a normal position with some favorite tidbit ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... moment, when but a touch is necessary to destroy the unconscious traveller—a sudden rush is heard above the robber. Great wings sweep away, with sudden clatter, and the dismal hootings of an owl, scared from his perch on a low shrub-tree, startles the cold-blooded murderer from his propriety. With the nervous excitement of his mind, and his whole nature keenly interested in the deed, to break suddenly the awful silence, the brooding ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... thin, and covered with one of those thick, bristly skins through which the teeth cannot penetrate with all their efforts. The fowl must have been sought for a long time on the perch, to which it had retired to die of ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... marry! many a time and oft I've seen the man's great heart stare from his eyes, Just like a girl's, out at the crowing boy: And yesterday it was he perch'd him fair Upon his broad rough shoulder, like a lamb Laid on the topmost reaches of a hill, And so he bore him, all his face a-glow, When heralds came with war-notes from the king; At which he turn'd him soft—the startled ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels
... cigars and keeping the porter busy standing by with a cork-screw. Thorn took his story and the ten thousand back to his uncle in the East, and after a pretty solemn interview with the old man, he went around and paid Castle in full and resumed his perch on top of the high stool he'd left a few years before. He never got as far as explaining to the girl in person, because Castle told him that while he didn't doubt his honesty, he was afraid he was too easy a mark to succeed in Wall Street. Yet Thorn did work up slowly in his uncle's office, ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... to bob up and down in the water. Joyce felt a strong pull on her line, too. Almost at the same instant each of them lifted a fish from the water. Grandpa took the little perch from Don's hook, and a catfish from Joyce's; and with his big, hearty laugh he ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... to ask you to take it back to your mistress; and then no doubt you'll be reading it on the sly. Here, I must sit down: suppose you let me perch myself on the top bar of the gate. Also, it would be kind of you to put up an arm and ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... makes the Sraddha he performs an occasion for only gathering his friends, never succeeds in ascending to heaven. Verily, the man who converts the Sraddha into an occasion for treating his friends, becomes dissociated from heaven even like a bird dissociated from the perch when the chain tying it breaks.[408] Therefore, he that performs a Sraddha should not honour (on such occasions) his friends. He may make gifts of wealth unto them on other occasions by collecting them together. The Havi and the Kavi offered at Sraddhas should be served unto them that are neither ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... past, appearing scarcely more than a dim shadow, yet I thought he held his hat in his hand. Billie laid on the gad, however, as if to make up for lost time, and the pony trotted off at such a burst of speed as to keep me busy clinging to my perch. It was an exceedingly rough road, rutty and stony, up hill and down, while the pony condescended to walk on the steepest grades only, and occasionally took the declines at a gallop, the carryall ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... girl, mounting the sofa, and applying her eye to the crack. "I'm afraid the Revolution has demoralized me, but I must see the thing through. Andy, they look—they look magnificent!" Ruth was quivering on her perch. Janie flung prudence and dignity to the winds, and climbed to Ruth's side, and, being taller, gained a portion of the crack above ...
— Then Marched the Brave • Harriet T. Comstock
... the opinion of the Japanologue Satow, have stated that the torii was originally a bird-perch for fowls offered up to the gods at Shinto shrines—'not as food, but to give warning of daybreak.' The etymology of the word is said to be 'bird-rest' by some authorities; but Aston, not less of an authority, derives it from words which would ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan - First Series • Lafcadio Hearn
... expected no otherwise. What I required was the dominion over the mind; I cared little about the sultan's attentions to other women. Like the tamed bird which flies from its cage, and after wandering a short time, is glad to return to its home and reassume its perch, so did I consider it would be the case with the sultan. I never, therefore, wearied him with tears or reproaches, but won him back with smiles and good humour. I expected that this new face would detach him for a short ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... according to its different significations, often has a different origin; as, to bear a burden, from fero; but to bear, whence birth, born, bairn, comes from pario; and a bear, at least if it be of Latin original, from fera. Thus perch, a fish, from perca; but perch, a measure, from pertica, and likewise to perch. To spell is from syllaba; but spell, an inchantment, by which it is believed that the boundaries are so fixed in lands that none can pass them against the master's will, from ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... two boys climbing up and down the combe. He watched them. Presently he saw one boy creep along a shelf of rock where the combe broke into a quarry, let himself drop upon another shelf below, and then perch upon an overhanging ledge. He presently saw that the lad was now afraid to return. He heard the other lad cry out, saw the girl start up, and run forward, look over the edge of the combe, and then make as if to go down. He set his horse to the gallop, and called out. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... woods, listening to the notes of the wild birds, and imitating them patiently, till you could scarcely tell which was boy and which was bird; and if you could, the birds couldn't, for many a time he coaxed the bobolinks and thrushes to perch on the low boughs above his head, where they chirped to him as if he were a feathered brother. There was nothing about the building of nests with which he was not familiar. He could have helped in the task, if the birds had not been so shy, and if he had ...
— A Village Stradivarius • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... was a sudden sound of young voices, and a pair of young figures came out from the shadow of the woods into the moonlighted open space. An old cock crowed loudly from his perch in the shed, as if he were a herald of royalty. The little girls were hand in hand, and a brisk young dog capered about them as ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... the last syllable, which is sounded like a long French "eu" and a French "i." These words I am told mean, "Drunk again to-day also?" the "anc'uei" being a Piedmontese patois for "ancora oggi." The bird repeated these words three or four times over, and then turned round on its perch, to all appearance terra cotta again. The effect produced upon the drunkard was such that he could never again be prevailed upon to touch wine, and ever since this chapel has been the one most resorted to by people who wish to give up drinking ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... know 'tis holiday time, and volunteer work; besides, she was waiting for you, and I could not help doing this.' She held out a hand, which was scarcely needed, and Mary sprang lightly to share her perch upon the ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... entire territory, so to speak, then settled by our forefathers, they were driven again and again. Now and then they would meet the English with something like equal numbers, and then the eagle of victory would proudly perch upon the stripes and stars. And so they went on as best they could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dark and ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll
... to such attacks three hundred years, The donjon yields, and ruin now appears, E'en as by leprosy the wild boars die, In moat the crumbled battlements now lie; Around the snake-like bramble twists its rings; Freebooter sparrows come on daring wings To perch upon the swivel-gun, nor heed Its murmuring growl when pecking in their greed The mulberries ripe. With insolence the thorn Thrives on the desolation so forlorn. But winter brings revenges; then the Keep Wakes ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... From a distinctly precarious perch—one foot on the back of a chair, the other on an oak chest—Blake surveyed the unfurnished salon of the fifth-floor appartement. His coat was off, in one dusty hand he held a hammer, in the other a picture, while from between his lips protruded ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... compell'd to set Upon one battle all our liberties. You know that I held Epicurus strong, And his opinion: now I change my mind, And partly credit things that do presage. Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign Two mighty eagles fell; and there they perch'd, Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands; Who to Philippi here consorted us: This morning are they fled away and gone; And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites Fly o'er our heads and downward look on us, As we were sickly prey: their shadows seem A canopy most ...
— Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... pensive invalid as he lay there, and she nodded to herself in girlish approval, as she took in every detail of his appearance. Unfortunately that nod cost her her hiding-place. Without in the least realizing it, she had leaned too far forward, and she slipped from her perch. She saved herself by catching at a branch before her; but the sudden jar sent a ripe apple crashing down through the leaves, and it landed plump in one of the cushions, not two inches from ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... considerable degree a leading quality of his race—somnolency. Many an hour could the family of Washington see the canoe fastened to a stake, with the old fisherman bent nearly double enjoying a nap, which was only disturbed by the jerking of the white perch caught on his hook. But, as we just said, the domestic duties of Mount Vernon were governed by clock time, and the slumbers of fisher Jack might occasion inconvenience, for the cook required the fish at a certain hour, so that they might be served smoking hot precisely at three. ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... the bluff, forty feet above the heads of the Indians, stood a little girl, dressed in white. She had golden hair and blue eyes, and, on her lofty perch, she looked like a ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... laughed and, rising from his perch on the chair arm, put his notebook in his pocket. "And I'm awfully grateful. If ever I can be of service to you, I hope you'll let me know." He started up the car, then paused to say over his shoulder: ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... bed, and we all got upon this and sat while our hostess prepared our supper. If one of us had stirred we would have been in her way; so there we sat as thick as thieves. When supper was ready six got off their perch and ate; when they were through, six ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... Could she reach the blowing curtain? A few moments ago it had seemed to beckon. Now she depended on it the white folds eluded her hand. If the wind dropped, she was lost. She couldn't help thinking of all the things she wished not to think of. She thought of that immense depth below her narrow perch. She didn't believe the man or woman lived strong-minded enough to ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... had thrown to the ground. The outlines of Pauline's dress, hanging from a cheval glass, appeared like a shadowy ghost. Her dainty shoes had been left at a distance from the bed. A nightingale came to perch upon the sill; its trills repeated over again, and the sounds of its wings suddenly shaken out for ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... sitting quietly by my side or on the table for hours, watching the pen run over the paper, occasionally swinging his tail round for a blotter, and then going to sleep among the papers by the inkstand. Or, more rarely, he would watch the writing from a perch on my shoulder. Writing always interested him, and, until he understood it, he wanted ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... came when I was no longer to rest on my lonely perch at the top of Elm Court. I had kept my terms, and was duly called to the Bar of the Middle Temple on May ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... considering its length, was unremarkable. One, indeed, whom I found plying his spade in the red evening, high above Allan Water and in the shadow of Dunblane Cathedral, told me of his acquaintance with the birds that still attended on his labours; how some would even perch about him, waiting for their prey; and, in a true Sexton's Calendar, how the species varied with the season of the year. But this was the very poetry of the profession. The others whom I knew were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by Mr. Bertram Dobell, from Lamb to Manning, written probably at Margate, where this year's holidays were spent. It is deeply interesting and I wish 1 could print it even with its imperfections. There are references to White, Dyer, Coleridge ("Pity that such human frailties should perch upon the margin of Ulswater Lake") and the Lloyds. Also to politics and the riddle of life. "What we came here for I know ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... swimmers was not so far beyond the kit; and it was scarce possible at that time, that they could have failed to discover it. Without staying to consider whether they had done so or not, William had come down from his perch; and now that he had reapplied himself to the oar, and saw that he was gaining ground in the right direction, he did not like to desist. Every fathom he made to windward was a fathom nearer to the saving of the lives of his companions,—a stroke less for the swimmers to make,—to whom, ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... into the sea. The crash, though feeble, and the fall, though hollow, of the rotten fragments, must have been overheard. He glanced up. With sober curiosity peering down upon him was one of the old oakum-pickers, slipped from his perch to an outside boom; while below the old negro, and, invisible to him, reconnoitering from a port-hole like a fox from the mouth of its den, crouched the Spanish sailor again. From something suddenly suggested by the man's air, the mad ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... a Wiltshire man, however (if all tales be true), who determined to cure the filthy habits of his hogs by making them roost upon the branches of a tree, like birds. Night after night the pigs were hoisted up to their perch, and every morning one of them was found with its neck broken, until at last there were none left.—And quite as witless, surely, was the device of the men of Belmont, who once desired to move their church three yards farther westward, so they carefully marked the exact distance by leaving their ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... he muttered, 'but 'twere pity thou wert knocked off the perch before seeing a little more of the sweet and sour of this world—though, faith, if thou hast the usual luck of it, the best way were to leave thee to the chance ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... S'io non posso proteggerti, ospitarti, potr salvarti. Ascoltami. No, non andar da Silvia! Pagare il pane, il letto colla canzon gioconda che ti fiorisce sulle labbra bello ma bisogna conoscere che pan che letto quello. O Zanetto, se mi commovo perch t'amo come un bambinello che si vuoi salvare. Oh seguita a cantare del bosco fra le chiome. E se poi, quando la soglia d'un umil casetta vedrai sovra il lavoro china, una giovinetta da gli occhi neri e dai capelli d'oro, oh fermati cantore ...
— Zanetto and Cavalleria Rusticana • Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci, and Pietro Mascagni
... love exceeding a simple love of the things That glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck; Or change their perch on a beat of quivering wings From branch to branch, only restful to pipe and peck; Or, bristled, curl at a touch their snouts in a ball; Or cast their web between bramble and thorny hook; The good physician Melampus, loving ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... individuals on that stage was "Ole Abe," the historic war eagle. He stood on his perch—the old savage-eyed rascal —three or four feet behind Gen. Sherman, and as he had been in nearly every battle that was mentioned by the orators his soul was probably stirred pretty often, though he was too ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... country are turkeys like ours, swans, geese of three sorts, ducks, teals, cranes, herons, bitterns, two sorts of partridges, four sorts of heath fowls, grouse or pheasants. The river fish is like that of Europe, viz., carp, sturgeon, salmon, pike, perch, roach, eel, etc. In the salt waters are found codfish, haddock, herring and so forth, also abundance of oysters ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... have a beautiful tuft of the most {261} lively colours, and their red eyes appear like flames. The natives ornament their calumets or pipes with the skin of their neck. Their flesh is very good, but when it is too fat it tastes oily. These ducks are to be met with the whole year round; they perch upon the branches of trees, which the others do not, and it is from ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... took us to his crow-hut, which was a hole in the ground covered with boughs and pieces of turf, where the hunters lay concealed. The owl, which lured the crows and other birds of prey, was fastened on a perch, and when they flew up, often in large flocks, to tease the old cross-patch which sat blinking angrily, they were shot down from loop-holes which had been left in the hut. The hawks which prey upon doves and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wing, to perch Once more, and air abandon, Quite apropos he swooped in search Of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... wherever they go, to catch every eye and bewilder every passer-by, they fancy they are in the upper-ten of womanhood. Vain! The peacock, whose little heart is one beating pulse of vanity, is not half so vain as they. Giddy, trifling, empty, vapid, cold, moonshine women, whose souls can perch on a plume, and whose only ambition is to be a traveling advertisement for the men and women who traffic in what they wear, are many who flaunt in satins and glitter in diamonds. How many such there are we would not say. But I doubt not, that ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... at 16,000 feet on Antisana. De Saussure says that a draught of liquor which would inebriate in the lowlands no longer has that effect on Mont Blanc. This appears to be true on the Andes; indeed, there is very little drunkenness in Quito. So the higher we perch our inebriate asylums, ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... place weren't here—no, don't think I doubt you, for I know you all! But consider the nest of murderers that'll be let loose here when the Dakoon dies. Better a strong robber with a strong robber's honour to perch there in the Palace, than Boonda ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... at the curbstone in front of a fruit store to think things over. It was a comfortable seat, except that every time a trolley passed he had to lift his feet high so he wouldn't be swept off his perch. ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... me and Pewt and Beany went up river fishing. we dident xpect to get ennything it was so lait in the fall but Hork and Spitt hadent been fed for 2 days. we got a lot of shiners and perch and jest befoar we come back we got the bigest snaping tirtle i ever see in my life. it was a ripper and the madest one i ever see. it snaped rite and left and wood throw his head rite back on his shell trying to grab us. we had hard wirk to get ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... floor was increased so that three boxes were necessary. Figure 25 of plate V shows him standing on three boxes and reaching upward, and figures 22, 27 and 28 show various modes of handling the boxes and of reaching from them. He was not at all particular as to the stability of his perch, and often mounted the boxes when it seemed to the experimenter inevitable that they should topple over and precipitate him to the floor. Only once, however, during the several days of experimentation ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... with the air of one who had never even dreamed of building a nest. Even when unsuspicious it will not always go directly to the nest. From an outhouse I once watched a Blue Jay, with a twig, change its perch more than thirty times before going to the fork where its nest ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... back to his office. In the outer office he stopped to speak to Joe, who, perched on an office-footstool, was tapping quickly on the office-table with his pen-knife, swaying backwards and forwards dangerously on his perch in the intensity of his emotions as he played the hero's part in the drama of saving the runaway engine from dashing into the 4.40 express by calling up the Red Gulch ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... attempt to entice a star To perch upon my finger; or the wind To follow me like a dog—as try to make Some people do what ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... you would very likely be willing to lend your helpful assistance to the Dear Old Team. And he said: 'Bless you, Amy, for them glad tidings. All is not lost, With Clint Thayer to help us, victory may once more perch upon our pennant!' Or maybe it ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... now growing late and he having a great desire to entertain the gentle lady with somewhat, yet choosing not to have recourse to his own labourer, much less any one else, his eye fell on his good falcon, which he saw on his perch in his little saloon; whereupon, having no other resource, he took the bird and finding him fat, deemed him a dish worthy of such a lady. Accordingly, without more ado, he wrung the hawk's neck and hastily caused a little maid of his pluck it and truss it and ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Little Wooden Midshipman did actually (perhaps does still) occupy his post of observation in Leadenhall-street. The names that have been connected, I doubt not in perfect good faith, with Sol Gills, Perch the messenger, and Captain Cuttle, have certainly not more foundation than the fancy a courteous correspondent favours me with, that the redoubtable Captain must have sat for his portrait to Charles Lamb's blustering, loud-talking, hook-handed ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... round honey-dropping flowers, Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise, Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on ...
— Poems of Coleridge • Coleridge, ed Arthur Symons
... broad laugh as Ellis put the net under the fish—for fish there undoubtedly was. "Why, Tommy, your big pike has turned into a perch after all," cried Ernest; "a good-sized one though. But how did you come to fancy ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... could carry two passengers. The machines were so designed that their wings could be folded back along their bodies, and their wires, struts, and so on packed into the main parts of the craft, so that they were almost as compact as the body of a bird at rest on its perch, and they took up comparatively little ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... remain for hours watching the roll and plunge of the breakers with the silent, unreasoned enjoyment of a child. All at once he developed a passion for fishing. He would sit all day nearly motionless upon a point of rocks, his fish-line between his fingers, happy if he caught three perch in twelve hours. At noon he would retire to a bit of level turf around an angle of the shore and cook his fish, eating them without salt or knife or fork. He thrust a pointed stick down the mouth of the perch, and turned it slowly over ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... noose that came shooting straight toward him, placed it under his arms, made sure that his gun was still fast to his back, and then fearlessly dropped off his perch. ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... and a lively listener. The bird in sable plumage flaps heavily along his straightforward course, while the other sails round him, over him, under him, leaves him, comes back again, tweaks out a black feather, shoots away once more, never losing sight of him, and finally reaches the crow's perch at the same time the crow does;' but the comparison goes on after this at needless length, with explanations. Again: 'That blessed clairvoyance which sees into things without opening them: that glorious licence which, having shut the door and driven the reporter from the keyhole, calls ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... at last we find ourselves standing under a rook which flies with great difficulty. The poor rascal looks most disreputable, for his tail has evidently been shot away, and he is wounded. He drops on to a perch, but not before he has run the gauntlet of several lines of sharp eyes. The poor bird sits on his branch swinging weakly to and fro, humping up his shoulders in woebegone style. There is a rustle among the flock, a sharp exchange of caws, and ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... he climbed to the tower of the church, Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread, To the belfry-chamber overhead, And startled the pigeons from their perch On the sombre rafters, that round him made Masses and moving shapes of shade,— Up the trembling ladder, steep and tall, To the highest window in the wall, Where he paused to listen and look down A moment on the roofs of the town, And the moonlight ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... their duty, which, on that first night of the "brown angels' visit," consisted of silent slumber, when all at once the hens and the new hands were aroused by a clamorous cackling, which speedily stopped. It sounded like a hen falling in a bad dream, then regaining her perch to go to sleep again. But next morning the body of one of these highly esteemed branches of the egg-plant was found in the corner, partly devoured. Quonab examined the headless hen, the dust around, and uttered ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... example of the eagle, mentioned at the commencement of this paper. It is stated that the Arabs, on horseback, can approach near enough to spear these birds, when on the plain, before they are able to rise; their habit is to perch ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... with most Italian landscapes.' The district is densely peopled—at least twelve large villages are situated on the road itself between Belgodere and Lumio, a distance of 21 miles—and picturesque hamlets with lofty campanili perch high up on the mountain slopes or crown the summits of the lower hills, whilst everywhere there is the richest culture and most varied produce, and the charm of the picture is completed by continually varying views over 'bowery hollows crowned with summer sea.'"—F. ...
— Itinerary through Corsica - by its Rail, Carriage & Forest Roads • Charles Bertram Black
... tapering to a point. The parents are affectionate, attend to their young as long as they are helpless and unfledged, and will not forsake them even though the tree on which they rest be enveloped in flames. When the Eaglets are ready to fly, however, the parents push them from the perch and trust them to the high atmospheric currents. They turn them out, so to speak, to ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... hand, the bird in the other. He glanced at us to see if we were watching him, and then smoothing the feathers quickly, he began to buzz and whirr like a beetle, as cleverly as a ventriloquist. Next he made the dead bird he held dart from its perch, and imitated the quick flight of one chasing a large beetle through the air, catching it, and returning to its perch, where with wonderful accuracy he went through the movements of it swallowing its prey, and then ruffling itself up again into a ...
— Through Forest and Stream - The Quest of the Quetzal • George Manville Fenn
... whose manners and education obviously entitled him to meet her on an equal plane. Even at meals, he was often absent, for the captain and chief officer of a tramp steamer are not altruists where eating is concerned. She often visited the bridge, her favorite perch being the shady side of the wheel-house, but talking to the officer of the watch was strictly forbidden. In everything appertaining to the vessel's navigation the discipline of a man-of-war was observed on board the Andromeda. So Coke's complacency came now quite unexpectedly, ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... exposure as the worst thing that could happen to them. They had made up their minds that it could not be avoided, and told themselves that the sooner it was over and they were allowed to leave their airy perch the sooner they would breathe easily again. They could not talk now. They could only sit and gaze in the direction in which the hostler had disappeared, and wait for somebody to come and call off the dogs. Bob hoped that somebody would be Bert. He was a simple-minded little ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon
... eye they had made a complete volte-face, the waggon was lying on its side across the fairway, and its burden of logs had been distributed with a dull crash upon about a square perch of cobbles. ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... summoned Harry Corwin down from his perch, much to the relief of Ossie, whose preparations for dinner had not been made easier by having to dive under the table every time he sought the ice-chest, and posted him at a port in the forward cabin. "If ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour
... to fall on the bundle of dried meat. Appetite immediately supervened. Falling-to, she made a hearty breakfast, and then, looking cautiously round to see that no danger was near, she slipped down from her perch, took up the bow and quiver and bundle of food, threw her blanket, or striped piece of Phoenician cloth, over her ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... this; that he is at large, and hath a lure for your young Charlie there that will bring him from his perch on the rock yonder, and mew the tercel in London town. What think ye the Parliament will deem a meet reward for the men who bring them such a prize ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... will begin at the beginning; and that took place in a poultry-yard in another part of the town. The sun went down, and the fowls jumped up on their perch to roost. There was a Hen, with white feathers and short legs, who laid eggs regularly and was a respectable hen in every way; as she flew up on to the roost she pecked herself with her beak, and a little feather fell ...
— Stories to Read or Tell from Fairy Tales and Folklore • Laure Claire Foucher
... gatherings, its fields and markets, its life as a whole as I saw it in imagination, greatly attracted me. Just such a village was right on the other side of our garden wall, but it was forbidden to us. We had come out, but not into freedom. We had been in a cage, and were now on a perch, but ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... active spirits comes the irresistible impulse to a somewhat partisan warfare. The critic, if he could view himself from some empyraean perch, remote in time and place, might smile at his own vehemence. In the clash of aims he must, after all, take sides, for it is the tendency that is momentous; and he will be excited to greater heat the stronger ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... save us! here's a flock of people coming; my hair is in a toss, and Nan's without her shoe; run! fly, girls! or the Philistines will be upon us!" cried Di, tumbling off her perch in sudden alarm. ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... frogs, particularly during summer, croak loudly and discordantly until midnight, and then retire, and become silent. Birds also dream; and will sometimes, when frightened, fall from their roosting-perch, or flutter about their cage, in evident alarm. A bullfinch, says Bechstein, belonging to a lady, was subject to very frightful dreams, which made it drop off its perch; but no sooner did it hear the voice of its affectionate mistress than it became immediately ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Ray: The careful Hind a monst'rous Figure frames; From various Rags unwonted Terror streams. The feather'd Choristers in Flocks retreat, And at a Distance view the tempting Bait. At length grown bold, they perch upon his Head, And with their Meute bedawb what late ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... discreet distance, and Dr. Lavendar sat still. There was a breathless moment of awaiting the pleasure of the green cock, who, balancing on the edge of his tub, his head on one side, looked with inquisitive eyes at the two old men before deciding to return to his perch and attack the cuttle-fish stuck between the bars of his cage. Upon which Mr. Wright swore at him with proud affection, and waved his ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... compell'd to set 75 Upon one battle all our liberties. You know that I held Epicurus strong, And his opinion: now I change my mind, And partly credit things that do presage. Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign 80 Two mighty eagles fell, and there they perch'd, Gorging and feeding from our soldiers' hands; Who to Philippi here consorted us: This morning are they fled away and gone; And in their steads do ravens, crows, and kites, 85 Fly o'er our heads and downward look on us, As we were sickly prey: their shadows seem A canopy most fatal, under ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... told, and would hold fourscore thousand spectators. After all the depredations of all the Goths, and afterwards of the Farnese family, the ruin is gloriously beautiful; possibly more beautiful than when it was quite whole; there is enough left now for Truth to repose upon, and a perch for Fancy beside, to fly out from, and ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Migwan, who was standing on the rock where she came up. Migwan leaned over and put a streak of soap on her face, Sahwah promptly caught Migwan by the feet and pulled her off the rock into the water. Struggling, they both went under and came up choking and giggling. Hinpoha, from her airy perch in the tree, cheered the combatants on. "Good work, Migwan, hang on to the rock! That's the ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Maine Woods - Or, The Winnebagos Go Camping • Hildegard G. Frey
... income she must endeavor as far as was possible to her to live in a manner worthy of it; but one thing she was determined upon—she would not alienate her friends by climbing to the top of her money and looking down upon them. None of them knew how high she would be if she were to perch herself on the very top of that money, but even if she climbed up a little way, they might still feel that they were very small in ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... it be no test of wit, we must allow, perhaps, that it wears the appearance of valour. Alas! what is the appearance of anything? The little birds perch upon the image of ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... being out in a cat boat off Hyannis, or Dennisport, or North Dennis. Say! if the bluefish haven't been all caught by the time I get there I will certainly try my luck. I would rather catch rock cod, or perch, or tautog, than fill a creel with brook trout, under any conditions, any day in the year; but then you don't care, and I don't care if you don't—but ...
— Cape Cod and All the Pilgrim Land, June 1922, Volume 6, Number 4 • Various
... his hole, within range, but certain to escape even if hit, and therefore safe. On the turf below is a round black spot, still showing, though a twelvemonth has gone by since we landed with half a dozen perch, lit a fire and cooked the fishes. For Molly never could 'a-bear' perch, because of the hardness of the scales, saying she would as soon 'scrape a vlint;' and they laughed to scorn our idea of skinning ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... and a ceiling fifty feet high. A drift of the fetid, Lowland air went through it—into a rift at this upper end, and out through the lower passage entrance which sloped downward thirty feet and debouched upon a rippled ramp of ooze outside. It was daylight out there now. From my perch I could see the sullen heavy walls of a ridge. Mist hung against them, but the early morning sunlight came down in shafts penetrating the mist and striking the oily surface of a spread of water left here in the depths ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... and the classics appears to be drawing to a close, with victory about to perch on the banner of science, as a perusal of almost any university or college catalogue shows. While a limited knowledge of both Greek and Latin is important for the correct use of our own language, the amount till recently required, in my ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... dozen different farm-houses to picnic at a way-side pool, splashing and fluttering, with their long wings expanded like butterflies, keeping poised by a constant hovering motion, just tilting upon their feet, which scarcely touch the moist ground. You will seldom see them actually perch on anything less airy than some telegraphic wire; but, when they do alight, each will make chatter enough for a dozen, as if all the rushing hurry of the wings had passed into ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... in the middle of this "Thesaurus"—the only unoccupied place except the ceiling—was the throne of our friend, Dan Hardseg, when dispensing out his treasures with stately munificence;—on this scanty perch was the stranger duly installed, and favoured with a benignant and knowing wink from Dan ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... child in the organ loft. Was it possible, they asked themselves, that a child could produce such beautiful music? They remained rooted to the spot, till Wolfgang happened to see them and crept meekly down from his perch. ...
— The World's Great Men of Music - Story-Lives of Master Musicians • Harriette Brower
... you," cried the rider on the springs, slipping from her perch and stepping out beside the buggy. So we journeyed for half a mile. The horse, under constant urging, jogged along, while the spring rider and I trotted side by side over the well-made pike. Then Miss Belle drew rein in front of ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... feet in front, and having four roosting poles, all on a level and only a foot from the floor, will hold 60 to 80 fowls. This manner of arranging the roosts prevents a good deal of quarreling to get on the top perch. ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... his heart was continually clamoring at what he considered the intolerable slowness of the generals. They seemed content to perch tranquilly on the river bank, and leave him bowed down by the weight of a great problem. He wanted it settled forthwith. He could not long bear such a load, he said. Sometimes his anger at the commanders reached an acute stage, and he grumbled about ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... tapping the parrot on the back with the perch which he used as a baton. Blinking and muttering, the bird performed his tricks, and was duly rewarded and returned to his home of iron. "She'll be wanting to take you home with her, but you're ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... the trumpet-fish, or Fistularia—a beast strange enough in shape to be credited with strange actions: but ichthyologists say positively no: that the noise (at least along the coast of the United States) is made by a Pogonias, a fish somewhat like a great bearded perch, and cousin of the Maigre of the Mediterranean, which is accused of making a similar purring or grunting noise, which can be heard from a depth of one hundred and twenty feet, and guides ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... 110. Perch Willow (Salix amygdaloides) (Almond-leaf Willow). Small to medium-sized tree. Heartwood light brown, sapwood lighter color. Wood light, soft, flexible, not strong, close-grained. Uses similiar to the preceding. Follows the water courses ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... Sundays, when he should have gone To Sunday school or church, He'd take his fishing rod and go To fish for trout and perch. ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... emotion on her countenance. Over the half-door of the shop appeared two men, each bearing on his shoulder the socks (shares) of two ploughs, to be sharpened, or set. The instant she saw them she tumbled off her perch, and before they had got the door opened was half way to it, crying, "Dooie! Dooie!" Another instant and she was ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... Fox required her; and threw him down now one of her eggs, and then one of her young ones. Having done so, for some time, with a great deal of grief and sorrow, and the Fox continuing still to demand it of her, she, at last, made her complaint to the Raven, who chanced to come and perch herself on the same tree; grievously bemoaning her fate, that she, like a good mother, to provide for her children, was at last obliged to make them a sacrifice to such a villain. But the Raven, who was not so timorous as she, advised her, whenever the Fox ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... from her lofty perch until her cheek lay along his hair, and they passed into the kitchen, where he set ...
— The Return of Blue Pete • Luke Allan
... more, he leading with the huge brass "Dr. Munro" under his arm; then the little woman, and then this rather perturbed and bemuddled young man. He and his wife sat on the deal table in the consulting room, like a hawk and a turtle-dove on the same perch, while I leaned against the mantelpiece with my hands in my pockets. Nothing could be more prosaic and informal; but I knew very well that I was at a crisis of my life. Before, it was only a choosing between two roads. Now my main ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... lured off her perch of reticence. She set before him the dish she was carrying. "I'm sure wherever your Lordship goes there's ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... we saw! A genuine novelty. Some mischievous sailor had given an overgrown ape a mirror, and the poor wretch spent its time staring at its image, neglecting its food and snarling at its companions. The beast would catch the reflection of another ape in the glass and quickly bound to a more remote perch. The keeper told me that for a week his charge had barely eaten. It slept with the mirror held tightly in its paws. Now, what did the mirror mean to the animal! I believe"—here she became very vivacious—"I really believe that it was developing self-consciousness, and in ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... again. Do you remember the summer that I was twelve—that summer up by the lake? I wish you and I could paddle around in one of the old flat-bottomed tubs once more, don't you, Eric? We'd go for lilies and fish for minnows—that is, we'd fish for perch and catch the minnows—and talk about when you should go to college and pull in the race, and I should wear a long dress and learn all the college tunes to sing with you and your Yale friends. Do you remember, Eric? And now, O dear me, you lost your race, and I hate my long ...
— Mae Madden • Mary Murdoch Mason
... among alder roots, but not near any other tree. Birds have their partialities among trees and shrubs. The Silvioe prefer the Pinus Larix to other trees. In my garden this Pinus is never without them, but I never saw a bird perch on Thuja occidentalis or Juniperus sabina, although the thick foliage of these latter trees affords birds a better shelter than the loose leafage of other trees. Not even a wren ever finds its way to one of them. Perhaps the scent of the Thuja and the Juniperus ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... sighing of the autumn leaves, and the cooing of the sleepy doves; while the ice-bird, as the Germans call the water-ouzel, sat on a rock in the river below, and warbled his low sweet song, and then flitted up the grassy reach to perch and sing again ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... leading, return East, and find another calling. This was precisely what Will himself had in mind, and persuasion was not needed. In his reply he asked that the wedding-day be set, and then he handed Trotter his resignation from the lofty perch ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... summit without difficulty, I found, as I had expected, that my lofty perch afforded a magnificent outlook over the plain in every direction. The ostriches whose movements I particularly desired to watch were now in plain view, and with the aid of my telescope I could not only distinguish the cocks from the hens, but could ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... away, and don't miss!" cried Seth, hastily following Sol, who had climbed to the top of the dresser as a good perch from which to view ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... threw a few nuts to the chipmunk. But the little fellow was not as tame as some squirrels to be seen in the city parks, for they will perch on your shoulder and eat nuts from your hand. The chipmunk, however, made a loud, chattering noise, with a sort of whistle in between and scampered up a tree ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Home • Laura Lee Hope
... I sat there, filled with these despairing thoughts, she came down from her perch, and, dropping on her knees before me, put her arms about my neck and gazed steadily into my face. "Why are you troubled, Smith-have I said anything to hurt you?" said she. "And do you not know that ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... have no servants; We must see to things ourselves. We can't all perch like eagles, therefore, I beg you to be more careful. ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... upon the isolation of his perch for safety, he wrapped himself in the invaluable serape and lay down. The night was cold as usual, and a sharp wind blew down from northern peaks and ranges, but Ned, protected by vegetation and the heavy serape, had an extraordinary feeling of warmth and snugness as ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the light of the present frightful ravage in Europe, no country has ever been completely ravaged by war. When I returned from Europe more than a year ago, I was convinced that economic exhaustion would be the determining factor: that victory would perch on the side of the biggest bank roll. After a second trip to the warring lands I am convinced that I was wrong in my first impression. Observation again in England and France leads me to believe that man power—beef, not gold—will win. The extents ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... Grabantak in open-mouthed amazement, when he beheld the shot gull tumbling from its lofty perch, "Do it again." ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... in its course. Awhile the flaring disk seemed to perch itself on the far summit of the mountains in the west, brazening all the sky above the city, and rimming the walls and towers with the brightness of gold. Then it disappeared as with a plunge. The quiet ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... was determined to wait no longer. He would go to the Abbey at once, and ascertain the cause of Margaret's delay. He rang the bell, went into the park, and ran along the avenue to the perch. Lights were shining in Mr. Dunbar's windows, but the great hall-door was ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... join in a scramble to punish the Chinese by carving out more territory. "The moment we acted," said Mr. Hay, "the rest of the world paused and finally came over to our ground; and the German government, which is generally brutal but seldom silly, recovered its senses, and climbed down off its perch." ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... "call back those comic opera maids you sent away, and let's get dressed. We mustn't keep Ma'amselle waiting, though I'd ever so much rather perch up here and talk by ourselves. But she's a dear old lady, and we must do our part as well as ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... to roam? 'Tis time to call the wanderer home. Who could have thought the nymph would perch her Up in the clouds with Father Kircher? So, health and love to all your mansion! Long may the bowl that pleasures bloom in, The flow of heart, the soul's expansion, Mirth and song, your board illumine. At all your feasts, remember too, When cups are sparkling to the brim, That here is ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... stuff. Mamma would have been the wife for you, had you been a little older, though you look ten years older than she does—you do, you glum-faced, blue-bearded little old man! You might have sat, like Darby and Joan, and flattered each other; and billed and cooed like a pair of old pigeons on a perch. I want my wings and to use them, sir." And she spread out her beautiful arms, as if indeed she could fly off like the pretty "Gawrie," whom the man in the story ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... himself in one of those meditative moods which ravish and elevate the soul, soothe it, and comfort it. His reverie had no doubt lasted a long time. Night fell. Whether he meant to come down from his perch, or whether he made some ill-judged movement, believing himself to be on the floor—the event did not allow of his remembering exactly the cause of his accident—he fell, his head struck a footstool, he lost consciousness and lay ...
— The Purse • Honore de Balzac
... tinge Of sanctuary splendour, not a sight Able to face an owl's, they still are dight By the blue-eyed nations in empurpled vests, And crowns, and turbans. With unladen breasts, Save of blown self-applause, they proudly mount To their spirit's perch, their being's high account, Their tiptop nothings, their dull skies, their thrones— Amid the fierce intoxicating tones. Of trumpets, shoutings, and belaboured drums, And sudden cannon. Ah! how all ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... the trees, varying his lunches with a rich and graceful song. Arrived this morning in the kingbird tree, he began his usual hunt over the top branch, when suddenly his eye fell upon the kingbird cradle. He paused, cast a wary glance about, then dropped to a lower perch, his singing ended, his manner guilty. Nearer and nearer he drew, looking cautiously about and moving in perfect silence. Still the owner did not come, and at last the stranger stood upon the edge. What joy! ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... eye on the rocks all this time. On the highest of them was a tall iron perch, painted scarlet—a warning to sailors; but from that point long shelves and spurs ran out, the yellow surface of barnacles growing greener and greener as they went deeper into the sea. Already Rob ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... goat, had leaped down from her high perch, and was now taking a drink from a little sparkling mountain rill ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... Black, and Rock Bass, the Pike-Perch, the Catfish, the Pike and Muskalonge, the Whitefish, the Lake Trout, and the Sturgeon are ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... queer freak of the demons of chance to perch on my unsusceptible thirty-year-old chest, tie me up with a crime, ticket me with a love affair, and start me on that sensational and not always respectable journey that ended so surprisingly less ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... that she was heading straight for his lofty perch, and was perhaps bent on questioning his right to be there at all. But he was promptly undeceived. Her mind was set on one object, and her eyes did not travel beyond it. She no more suspected that an artist was lurking in the shade of the cedars than she did ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... think of it as chilling you; and every creak of this old house at night brings me up broad awake, because I hear in it the crash of those cruel great timbers. Oh, oh, OH! I'm so glad to get you! You're the light of my life; you're my whole life itself!"—she smiled at him from her perch on his knee—"I'm silly, am I not?" she said. "Dear heart, don't ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... quickly to prove to him that she was not interested. At other times, however, her eyes seemed filled with a tender fear lest he should fall from that exceedingly dangerous platform. As for the young man, it was plain that these glances filled him with valor, and he stood carelessly upon his perch, as if he deemed it of no consequence that he might fall from it. In all the complexities of his daily life and duties he found opportunity to gaze ardently at the ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... little life to be seen. But occasionally, with a whirring sound of rushing wings, a bright-plumaged jungle cock with his attendant bevy of sober-clad hens swept up with startled squawks from under the huge feet and flew to perch high up on neighbouring trees, chattering and clucking indignantly in their fright. The pretty black and white Giant Squirrel ran along the upper branches; or a troop of little brown monkeys leapt ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... gentry—there is nothing of the kind whatever.' (He paused a moment, probably to allow me to observe the choiceness of his diction.) 'They positively visit each other but seldom. Every one sits like a pigeon on its perch. And so it comes to pass that visitors ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the treetop come the sweet songs of the oriole and robin. Upon a low bush sits a black-headed grosbeak that never seems to weary of his refrain. From various hidden places in the dense foliage come the notes of the song sparrow and the lazuli bunting. From its perch upon some fence post the meadow lark adds to the cheerfulness of the morning. If your home is far enough south, you may hear the mocking bird pouring forth ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... the scout leader, nodding his head approvingly. "Making a little fireplace where he can perch his kettle, and have the hottest part of his fire under it. Note also that the opening is in the direction of the breeze. That allows the flame to be fanned. Wallace will never have to blow out his cheeks and puff to ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... said I, 'those great flights of birds that are perpetually hovering about the bridge, and settling upon it from time to time? I see vultures, harpies, ravens, cormorants, and among many other feathered creatures, several little winged boys, that perch in great numbers upon the middle arches.' 'These,' said the genius, 'are Envy, Avarice, Superstition, Despair, Love, with the like cares and ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... amongst you which has soared into the sky, is evidently yielding'. Hearing these words, the (soaring) swan flew westwards with great velocity to the ocean, that abode of Makaras. Then fear entered the heart of the crow who became almost senseless at not seeing any island or trees whereon to perch when tired. And the crow thought within his heart as to where he should alight when tired, upon that vast expanse of water. The ocean, being as it is the abode of countless creatures, is irresistible. Dwelt in by hundreds of monsters, it is grander than space. Nothing can exceed it in depth, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... whom I would save had an honourable father, for whose sake I pray you pardon the young man's transgression.' But Angelo replied: 'We must not make a scare-crow of the law, setting it up to frighten birds of prey, till custom, finding it harmless, makes it their perch, and not their ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... is a warnin' to fellers. Why, Kidd had pious parents and Bible and sanctuary privileges when he was a boy, and yet come to be hanged. It's all in this 'ere song I'm a goin' to sing ye. Lordy massy! I wish I had my bass-viol now.—Caesar," he said, calling down from his perch, "can't you strike the pitch o' 'Cap'n ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... other systems rise. These front the scene conspicuous; overhead Albion's proud oak his filial branches spread: 830 While on the sea-beat shore obsequious stood, Beneath their feet, the father of the flood: Here the bold native of her cliffs above, Perch'd by the martial maid the bird of Jove; There on the watch, sagacious of his prey, With eyes of fire, an English mastiff lay: Yonder fair Commerce stretch'd her winged sail, Here frown'd the God that wakes the living gale. High o'er the ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... picked up a young sparrow, which he brought home. His father put it in a big cage, and in course of time it became thoroughly domesticated. It used to fly about the garden and perch upon the heads and hands of the family. After a while it would venture upon an oak and carry on a very voluble conversation with its fellows who also patronised the tree. It soon grew as impudent and pugnacious and ravenous as most sparrows. It was always ...
— Little Folks (November 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... the Bluebottle and the Flesh-fly perch on the trellis-work, make a short investigation and then decamp. Throughout the summer season, for three whole months, the apparatus remains where it is, without result: never a worm. What is the reason? Does the stench of the meat not spread, coming from that depth? Certainly it spreads: it ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... the Captain in a fatherly tone, "lemme tell you something. While I've been a-roostin' up here in my perch, I've been a-watchin' you boys; a-watchin' an' a-worryin'. What have you been a-doin'? You've been a-raisin' hell, you have. Son, you ain't a rote a word, have yer? An' you, Whinney—boy, you ain't ketched a bug nor a beetle, have yer? And you, ole Swanko-panko, you ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... make a scare-crow of the law, Setting it up to frighten birds of prey; And let it keep one shape till custom makes it, Their perch ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... somehow, he never just knew how it happened, Gray found himself a moment later straddling an old field gun in a whirl of dust and dirt and smoke and cheers, was conscious of something wet and warm streaming down his side, and of being tenderly lifted from his perch by brawny, blue-sleeved arms, given a sip from a canteen, and then, half-led, half-supported back to where the surgeon was already kneeling by the tall young soldier on whose brow the last dew was settling, on whose fine, clear-cut face the shadow of the death angel's wings ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... by fortune came to a fair castle, and as he passed by he was ware of a falcon that came flying over his head toward a high elm. As the bird flew into the tree to take her perch, the long lines about her feet caught on a bough, and when she would take flight again she hung fast by the legs. Sir Launcelot saw how the fair falcon hung there, and ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... sloping roof and were confronted by the blank wall of a building which rose a story higher than that adjoining it. It was crowned by an iron railing, showing blackly against the sky. I paused, breathing heavily, and seated astride that dizzy perch. Weymouth was immediately behind ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... the goddess who glitters With gold on the perch of the falcon, The bride that I trusted, by beauty, From the bield of my hand has been taken. On the boat she makes glad in its gliding She is gone from me, reft from me, ravished! O shame, that we linger to save her, Too sweet for the prey of ...
— The Life and Death of Cormac the Skald • Unknown
... to plant two stakes in the shallow water, near the rice beds, and to these I attached a slender rope made by braiding long strips of the inner bark of the basswood together; to these again I fastened, at regular intervals, about a quarter of a yard of whipcord, headed by a strong perch-hook. These hooks I baited with fish offal, leaving them to float just under the water. Early next morning, I saw a fine black duck fluttering upon the line. The boy ran down with the paddles, but before he could reach the spot, the captive got away by ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... guards and the butchers, everybody, embraces him with enthusiasm; Weber is greeted again and again for more than a hundred yards; they cheer to excess. Each wants to escort the prisoner; the cab of Mathon de la Varenne is invaded; "they perch themselves on the driver's seat, at the doors, on top, and behind."[3196]—A few even display strange fits of tact. Two of the butchers, still covered with blood, who lead the chevalier de Bertrand home, insist on going up stairs with him ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... much as a move to leave his perch, Chick would have been after him like a terrier ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... little Ebenezer up, and the Ahkound of Swat, the Nizan of Nowhere and the grand gyasticutus of Jimple- cute intimate that they may send a yaller-legged policeman across the Pacific in a soap-box to pull the tail- feathers out of the bird o' freedom if it doesn't crawl humbly back upon its perch. If a fourth-class power insults our flag we accept a flippant apology. If our citizens are wrongfully imprisoned we wait until they are starved, shot, or perish of blank despair in dungeons so foul that a hog would die therein ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... where shall I put my bast shoes?" The farmer showed him the place, but he added, "No, my shoes must spend the night among the feathered people, for that is what they are used to. So I would rather hang them on the perch in the hen-house." The farmer laughed at the joke, and permitted him to ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... bare heels together and thinking idly of Major Dabney and certain disquieting rumors lately come to Paradise, when the tinkling drip of the spring into the pool at the foot of his perch was interrupted ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... pyjamas accosted me, and the thread of the other's talk was lost. When I moved off to dress he had already left his perch among the sand bags. I climbed the ladder, and had my coffee. Soon after came the scurry to stations. We were coming into the bay in the glory of that morning under hangings of amber and rose and feathery grey. The four-inch gun's crew were in their places. I stood trying to read the Prayer ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... feeling that he required air after his literary labours, fetched his peregrine from its perch—for he was fond of hawking—and, setting it on his wrist, started out to find a quarry on the marshes ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... degrees. Love was something that hovered with the calcium light about beauty in distress, something that brought the hero from the uttermost parts of the earth to hurl defiance at the villain and clasp the swooning maiden in his arms; it was something that sent a fellow down from his perch in the peanut gallery with his head hot and his hands cold, and a sort of blissful ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... in monumental majesty on a weatherbeaten pile of lumber on the wharf was the only human being in sight on the water side of the town. Just as the train pulled out he jerked up his pole, flinging a perch high in air and catching it with a yell of delight. Archie sighed with relief as the fisherman, now standing erect to unhook the perch, turned toward them. It was the Governor, rakishly trigged out in knickerbockers, with a cap smartly tilted ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... drifted out over the Hudson at an altitude of 2,500 feet. Here Donaldson descended from the airy perch which he had been occupying since our start on the concentrating ring, when one of us asked how long he expected the cruise to last. He replied that he hoped to be able to sail the Barnum at least ...
— The Red-Blooded Heroes of the Frontier • Edgar Beecher Bronson
... was over Jerrie made her grandmother sit still while she washed up and put away the dishes, singing as she worked, and whistling, too—loud, dear, ringing strains, which made a robin in the grass fly up to the perch, where, with his head turned on one side he listened, as if in wonder, to this new songster, whose notes were ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... ground for this belief, however, for, as we sit on our perch, overlooking the valley, we see this Pedro, this Conrad of the Mountains, seated in the bower on the mound behind his dwelling, resting contemplatively at the well-loved spot, after one of his periodical returns. Mariquita ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... do you stand on the air And no sun shining? How can you hold yourself so still On raindrops sliding? They change and fall, they are not steady, But you do not know they are gone. Is there a silver wire I cannot see? Is the wind your perch? Raindrops slide down your little shoulders . . . They do not wet you: I think you are not real In your green feathers! You are not a humming-bird at all Standing on air above the garden! I dreamed you the way I dream fairies, Or the flower I ...
— Poems By a Little Girl • Hilda Conkling
... turned towards the lane and highway. Some, with keen eyes, fancied they could detect a horseman through the wood. Presently Giles, from his perch at the door of the ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... fly alighted on Emma McChesney's left eyebrow. She swatted it with a hand that was not quite quick enough, spoiled the picture, and slowly rose from her perch at the bedside. ...
— Roast Beef, Medium • Edna Ferber
... Perch and the Sturgeon feign death; according to Couch,[42] the Landrail, the Skylark, the Corncrake adopt the same device. Among mammals, the best-known example is ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... can get just as mad as any other kind," declared the other boy, sliding from his perch on the fence and running across his lawn to disappear behind his own ...
— Miss Minerva and William Green Hill • Frances Boyd Calhoun
... have spent upon their books, do therefore literally sit upon a pile of them, as on a stool, while they engage in pleasanter and more secular reading. I do not examine this story closely, which rises, doubtless, from the jealousy of a rival college. Rather, I think that these students perch upon the books which presently they must read, on a wise instinct that this preliminary contact starts their knowledge. And therefore a favorite volume, even if unopened in the pocket, does nevertheless by its proximity color and enhance the enjoyment of the day. I have carried ...
— Chimney-Pot Papers • Charles S. Brooks
... what-not, confounded simplicity of line, but all the drapery was pulled in a backwards direction and puffed to a sudden bulkiness behind, so that women looked as though they were walking in the face of a perpetual wind. On their heads they were wont to perch delicious little hats, poked forward, in contradistinction to the trend of the draperies, slanting nosewards and tilted up in the ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse
... long gloves, and their caps plumed with herons' feathers—some with the birds on their wrists—one with the frame over his shoulder upon which to set the hawk. Set, did we say?—no: "cast your hawk on the perch" is, Beauclerc observed, the correct term; for, as Horace sarcastically remarked, Mr. Beauclerc might be detected as a novice in the art by his over-exactness; his too correct, too attic, pronunciation ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... portraying Audubon in the garb he wore when he was proud and happy to be called the "American Woodman," and at his feet should stand the Eagle which he named the "Bird of Washington," and near should perch the Mocking Bird, as once, in his description, it flew and fluttered and sang to the mind's eye and ear from the pages of ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... they finally sat down to the fish-fry—and if there is anything more toothsome than perch, fresh from the water, and fried crisply in a pan with salt pork over the hot coals of a campfire, "the deponent knoweth not," ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... said a perch from the water under the bank. Bevis leaned over a little, and could see the bars across his ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... petrified to a perfect stone solidity, which was found near Cardiff, and the color of this petrified fish is very similar to the Cardiff giant stone. Mr. W.B. Kirk, of this city, when living at Cardiff many years ago, found near there a good sized Perch, that was perfectly petrified. Third—Five miles further down the valley, at what is known as the Onondaga Valley Cemetery, in taking up a human body for removal some years ago, it was found to be solid stone; still further north, but ...
— The American Goliah • Anon.
... disse, il nato di Eclaf, che a' piedi sedea del prence de' Schildinghi, 500 sbrigli accenti di contesta—eragli la gita di Bevulf, del coraggioso navigatore, molto a fastidio, perch non amava, che un altro uomo vieppi di gloria nell' orbe di mezzo avesse sotto il cielo che lui stesso—: 505 'Sei tu quel Bevulf, che con Breca nuot nel vasto pelago per gara marina, quando voi per baldanza l'acque provaste, e per pazzo vanto nel profondo ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... great humps of blue mould on their old backs; and they could tell all sorts of queer stories, if they chose to speak — but they are very silent, carps are — of their nature peu communicatives. Oh! what has been thy long life, old goody, but a dole of bread and water and a perch on a cage; a dreary swim round and round a Lethe of a pond? What are Rossbach or Jena to those mouldy ones, and do they know it is a grandchild of England who brings ...
— Some Roundabout Papers • W. M. Thackeray
... been "hung" to fly. In some modern theatres the switchboard and its operator are raised some ten feet above the stage. In such a case a buzzer signal from the stage manager's prompt desk directs the manipulation of the lights for the guidance of the chief electrician in his elevated perch, these signals being given at a certain "cue" in the performance, and he knows from his cue sheet, always before him, just what lights are ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... glistening on his shoon. The sun was up, and his outbursting beam Touched tower and tree and pasture hills aboon; The stars were quenched, and vanished was the moon; Loud lowed the herds and the glad partridge' cry Made corn-fields musical as groves at noon; Birds left the perch, bee following bee hummed by, And gladness reigned on earth and brightness ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... loved his nest, but, with the appearance of two eggs under Pepita's breast, he found it difficult to leave, even on necessary flights. He was a devoted husband and was content to perch by her side the whole day long, softly cooing in his efforts to entertain her, and always ready to relieve her in keeping the eggs warm when she wished to take a turn around the Square for exercise ...
— Chico: the Story of a Homing Pigeon • Lucy M. Blanchard
... snow from the horses' hoofs. The driver, stupid or dazed, sat on the box, helpless as a parrot on a swinging perch. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Following the finger with his eye David caught a fantastic sign swinging above him: a thin iron crescent, and sitting up between its two tips a lean black rat, its sharp nose in the air, its tail curled round its iron perch, while two other creatures of the same kind crept about him, the one clinging to the lower tip of the crescent, the other peering down from the top on the king-rat in the middle. Below the sign, and heavily framed by the dark overhanging eave, the room ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to be about the doctor's age, things promised slowly for Parson and Telson, whose interest in Brown's party decidedly languished when finally they found themselves swept off their perch and helplessly wedged into a corner by ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... reached my grandmother's I felt very reluctant to descend from my perch, and I said to my father that I wished he would take me about the town with him instead of ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... cat!" In another instant she had slipped from the table, extracted poor Puss from a clutter of pans in the back of a cupboard, stripped the last shred of masquerade from her outraged form, and brought her back growling and bristling to perch on one arm of the high-backed ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... get down?" inquired my uncle. The lady made no answer, but she smiled again. Such a smile, gentlemen! It beat the other one, all to nothing. My uncle descended from his perch ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... room, closed the shutters, lighted the candles, and ate and drank till hunger and thirst were gone. Then they lay down to rest;—Jack in the bed, the ass in the stable, the dog on the door-mat, the cat by the fire, and the cock on the perch. ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... our only fellow-passenger of note was a woman of rank, celebrated for her beauty; and not undeservedly, for a lovely creature she was. The body of her travelling coach had been, as usual, unslung from the "carriage," (by which is technically meant the wheels and the perch,) and placed upon deck. This she used as a place of retreat from the sun during the day, and as a resting-place at night. For want of more interesting companions, she invited us, during the day, into her coach; and ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... good fortune to spy a perch. He grabbed it quickly, swam ashore with it, and laid it down in front of the boy. "Here's a thank you for helping me into the water," ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... half-past eleven we rattled into Farnham, and stopped to lunch at "The Bush." I was delighted to get down from my perch, and to stretch my cramped legs by running about in the charming garden behind that celebrated inn. Dim bright memories are with me still of the long-windowed parlour opening into a garden verdant with grass, and stately yew ...
— A Flat Iron for a Farthing - or Some Passages in the Life of an only Son • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... There are Two species, the Common & the Salmon Trout. Some Chubs were likewise taken, above a Foot in length. The other Fish common in the Lake & other Waters, according to Information, are Pickerel, large and shaped like a Pike, Red Perch, Catfish reported to be upwards of Two feet long, Eels, Suckers, Pike, a few shad and some other Sorts not as yet perfectly known. The Bait now used is Pidgeon's Flesh or Guts, for Worms are scarce. The Land Frogs or Toads are very large, spotted with green and ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... and terns were quite extraordinary, like all the living things there. If you stay still enough the terns perch on your head. In any case they will not fly off the rocks till you are two or three feet away. Several gannets were caught in the men's hands. All the fish which the biologist collected to-day can travel quite fast on land. When the Discovery was here Wilson saw a fish come out of the sea, ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... turn round and round like a dense cloud over their abandoned home, imitating, in a most perfect way, those furies we see in certain engravings representing the infernal regions, and then, flying off a short distance, would perch upon the trees in a neighbouring isle. If the sportsmen were not over-fatigued by the slaughter they might then follow them, and set-to again; but they generally found they had made victims enough, and diversified their pleasure by picking up the slain from under ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... parrot belonging to King Henry VIII. having been kept in a room next the Thames, in his palace at Westminster, had learned to repeat many sentences from the boatmen and passengers. One day sporting on its perch, it unluckily fell into the water. The bird had no sooner discovered its situation, than it called out aloud, 'A boat, twenty pounds for a boat.' A waterman happening to be near the place where the parrot was floating, immediately took it up, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... free from economic responsibilities, free from social cares and intrusion. Bores with sad stories of unappreciated lives and fond hopes unrealized, never broke in upon his peace. He was not pressed for time. No frivolous dame of tarnished fame sought to share with him his perilous perch. The people on a slow schedule, ten minutes late, never irritated his temper. His correspondence never got in ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... cure herrings To bake sturgeon To make sturgeon cutlets Sturgeon steaks To boil sturgeon To bake a shad To boil a shad To roast a shad To broil a shad To boil rock fish To fry perch To pickle oysters To make a curry of catfish To dress a cod's head and shoulders To make sauce for the cod's head To dress a salt cod Matelote of any kind of firm fish Chowder, a sea dish To pickle sturgeon To caveach fish ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... home or a camp, the Grand Canon for a spectacle. I have spoken of the robin I saw in Yosemite Valley. Think how forlorn and out of place a robin would seem in the Grand Canon! What would he do there? There is no turf for him to inspect, and there are no trees for him to perch on. I should as soon expect to find him amid the pyramids of Egypt, or amid the ruins of Karnak. The bluebird was in the Yosemite also, and the water-ouzel haunted ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... as he spoke, beside a long, heavy wagon, such as is used in the Eastern States for drawing wood, springless, with boards laid across for seats, and with no means of access save the clumsy wheels. Upon an elevated perch in front sat the driver, grinning over his shoulder at the scrambling crowd of passengers, most of whom were now loaded upon the wagon, while a circle of disappointed aspirants danced wildly around it, looking for a yet possible ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... of a contented spirit. I mind her, when she was a tiny child; if no one would play with her, she would sit by the hour talking with her dolls, till someone could spare time to perch her on his shoulder, ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... take in. And then I think suddenly of the observation towers like on the Masonic Temple and the Wrigley Building. I headed for them right away, figuring to take a sandwich or so along and spend the day leisurely giving the city the once over from my eerie perch. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... battlements of Holyrood There never squatted a more sordid brood Than that which now, across the clotted perch, Crookens the claw and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... erased, on the blackboard; and one of the troopers took a scrap of chalk and wrote "On to Paris!" in big letters here and there. A sleepy parrot, looking like a bundle of rumpled green feathers, squatted on its perch in a cage behind the master's desk, occasionally emitting a loud squawk as though protesting against this ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... Pewt and Beany went up river fishing. we dident xpect to get ennything it was so lait in the fall but Hork and Spitt hadent been fed for 2 days. we got a lot of shiners and perch and jest befoar we come back we got the bigest snaping tirtle i ever see in my life. it was a ripper and the madest one i ever see. it snaped rite and left and wood throw his head rite back on his shell trying to grab us. we had hard wirk to get a peace of closeline round his ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute
... be dislodged from my precarious perch on this bench," I pursued, "through the trembling imparted to it by your clinging to the back to restrain yourself from going to see what is up, I should almost prefer ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... She stooped and lifted Miserrimus Dexter from the floor, like a child. Before she could put him into the chair, he sprang out of her arms with a little gleeful cry, and alighted on his seat, like a bird alighting on its perch! ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... grouse comes out and bobbles her head at the passing packtrain. A whistling marmot pops up from the rocks and pierces the stillness. Redwings and waxbills pick crumbs from every camp meal; and occasionally a bald-headed eagle utters a lonely raucous cry from solitary perch of dead ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... tick!" went that unmerciful clock from its perch on the wall, all through the long days and nights, and poor Pet was in despair at the thought of living locked up in the old woman all her life. Now, indeed, she could groan most heartily when the old woman groaned, and shed bitter tears which rolled plentifully ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... in Lunda of a pungent bitter taste, probably arising from the food on which the fish feeds. Men say that they have seen the eggs kept in the sides of the mouth till ready to go off as independent fishes. The nghede-dege, a species of perch, and another, the ndusi, are said to do the same. The Arabs imagine that fish in general fall from the skies, but they except the shark, because they can see the young ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... No war-field to find; The speech she knew well Of the wild feather'd kind, And thus she bespake him Who bears the brown bill, So proud as he perch'd on The ...
— The Nightingale, the Valkyrie and Raven - and other ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... Provence, where (still according to my information) it is the usual pastime of a Sunday afternoon. At Arles and Nimes it has a characteristic setting, but in the villages the patrons of the game make a circle of carts and barrels, on which the spectators perch themselves. I was surprised at the prevalence, in mild Provence, of the Iberian vice, and hardly know whether it makes the custom more respectable that at Nimes and Arles the thing is shabbily and imperfectly done. The bulls are rarely killed, and indeed often ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... days, intrusted his parrot to me with the request that I would take care of it during his absence. The bird, feeling strange in my house, had climbed, helping himself with his beak, to the very top of his perch, and looking pretty well bewildered, rolled round his eyes, that resembled the gilt nails on arm-chairs, and wrinkled the whitish membrane that served him for eyelids. Madame-Theophile had never seen a parrot, and she was evidently much puzzled ...
— My Private Menagerie - from The Works of Theophile Gautier Volume 19 • Theophile Gautier
... had a passion for fishing, which he usually indulged whenever the season and business permitted. One day, when reports had been coming in relating to the bass and perch, he announced his intention of making a two or three days' visit to the lakes. He was going down, he said, to Reedy Lake with Judge ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... very amusing. One sees a little of everything here. Le monde qui passe—it makes life more diverting; it helps to kill the time. I look out from my perch, like a bird—a very old one, and caged"—and he shook forth a great laugh from beneath ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... branches. An agreeable smell met her nose; and she said at once, as any child would, "I smell candy!" She picked a cherry and ate it. Oh, how good it was!—all sugar and no stone. The next discovery was such a delightful one that she nearly fell off her perch; for by touching her tongue here and there, she found that the whole tree was made of candy. Think what fun to sit and break off twigs of barley sugar, candied cherries, and leaves that tasted ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... replace it on its hook. When the flowers fade, thither it will return, and grow and grow, please Heaven, until next summer it rejoices me again; and so, year by year, till the wood rots. Then carefully I shall transfer it to a larger perch and resume. Probably I shall sever the bulbs without disturbing them, and in seasons following two spikes will push—then three, then a number, multiplying and multiplying when my remotest posterity is extinct. ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... breeds by the crossing of any lesser number: how, for instance, could a pouter be produced by crossing two breeds unless one of the parent-stocks possessed the characteristic enormous crop? The supposed aboriginal stocks must all have been rock-pigeons, that is, they did not breed or willingly perch on trees. But besides C. livia, with its geographical sub-species, only two or three other species of rock-pigeons are known; and these have not any of the characters of the domestic breeds. Hence the supposed aboriginal stocks must either still exist ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... eastern aviary, in Church's care. He is a charming, furious little ruffian (I am speaking of the owl, and not of Church), and perfectly ready to peck any living thing, quite irrespective of size. Where he lost his eye is a story of his own, for he was first met with but one. He sits on his perch with a furious cock of the ears—which are not ears at all, but feathers—with the aspect of being permanently prepared to repel boarders; and the only thing that could possibly add to his fierceness ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... bob up and down in the water. Joyce felt a strong pull on her line, too. Almost at the same instant each of them lifted a fish from the water. Grandpa took the little perch from Don's hook, and a catfish from Joyce's; and with his big, hearty laugh he gave them each ...
— A Hive of Busy Bees • Effie M. Williams
... interrupted by the announcement that Tattle is in the parlour, duly keeping her agreement, by bringing her mistress's favourite canary, which, having flown away quite by accident, under her guidance, has chosen to perch in Hilary's new lodging, on purpose to give him the opportunity of returning it, and of obtaining an interview with Miss Mayley. The expedient succeeds in the next scene; the lover bows and stammers—as lovers do at first interviews—the lady is polite but dignified, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... species of perch (Perca labrax), found on the coast and in estuaries, commonly about ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... to measure, either at hand: and the practiser, to be by the thing Measured: and so, by due applying of Cumpase, Rule, Squire, Yarde, Ell, Perch, Pole, Line, Gaging rod, (or such like instrument) to the ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... road—possibly the track which we expected to find leading from Malham. Malham Tarn was not in sight, but we had learned that the water was about a mile in length and the only things to be seen there were two kinds of fish—perch and trout—-which often quarrelled and decimated each other. The weather was dull, and we had encountered several showers on our way, passing between the Parson's Pulpit to the left, rising quite 1,700 feet, ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... previous to that date there had been allowances made to tenants at the rate of about 1,000l. per annum. Yet when I took up the estate there was not one drain made by a tenant, not one slated house, not a perch of road, not a yard of sub-soiled land. I then adopted the system of making all improvements myself, charging interest of the outlay upon the occupier according to the circumstances and increased value of the farm. The result has been that in five-and-twenty years I have built about eighty houses ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... her chief business was to feed and tend it, and her chief pleasure to play with it. By these means little Tommy, for so the bird was called, was become so tame, that it would feed out of the hand of its mistress, would perch upon the finger, and lie contented in her bosom, where it seemed almost sensible of its own happiness; though she always kept a small string about its leg, nor would ever trust it with the liberty ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... that's what I'm going to do in the General Post Office of all England." As he said this the blood showed redly, and every line of his face deepened and hardened. "You keep a stout heart. This isn't going to shake William Dale off of his perch." ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... communities. The villani, or villeins, corresponding to the Saxon ceorls, were the most important class of tenants in villeinage, and each held about thirty acres in scattered acre or half-acre strips, each a furlong in length and a perch or two in breadth, separated by turf balks. The villein thus supported himself and his family, and in return was bound to render certain services to the lord of the manor, to work on the home farm, and provide two or more oxen for the manorial plough-team. He was not a free tenant, could acquire ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... high, having been pushed up out of reach for the day. The St. Clair ran off, and Miss Macy followed; but the two others consulted, and Lansing ran down to waylay the chambermaid and beg a broom. By the help of the broom handle my cap was at length dislodged from its perch, and restored to me. But I was angry. I felt the fiery current running through my veins; and the unspeakable saucy glance of St. Clair's eye, as I passed her to take my place in the procession, threw fuel ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... sudden start which took me, as they say, by the nape. I jumped back, I own—a foul accident, by which he took advantage. He comes behind me, thou sees, and with a skip 'at would have seated him upo' the topmost perch o' the castle, he lights whack, thump, fair upo' my shoulders. I ran but to shake the whoreson black slug fro' my carcase. Saints ha' mercy, but his legs waur colder than a wet sheet. I soon unshipp'd ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... chilly condescension with which, from now on, Zara treated him did not seem to trouble Purdy. When he ran in for five minutes of a morning, he eschewed the front entrance and took up his perch on the kitchen-table. From here, while Polly cooked and he nibbled half-baked pastry, the two of them followed the progress of events in ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... joined by the old crow, who had flown down from his perch unnoticed by Hiranya, and now addressed him ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... dozy way wouldn't suit me. I've laid in a heap of books, and I'm going to improve my shining hours reading on my perch in the old apple tree, when ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... recognized the Island of Molenes: the commander was hurriedly informed, and he sent an order to change our course. A lightening at another point in the horizon showed us some rocks. "The Pierres Vertes ahead!" sang out a coasting pilot specially shipped for the voyage, who was looking out from his perch on the foreyards, and the navigating officer tore off again to warn the commanding officer. During all these comings and goings the curtain of fog came down again, and we went driving on towards the reefs at the rate of twelve knots an hour. It could not be ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... skulker took advantage of the cessation of firing to tumble down from his perch and fly for his life. The indefatigable Smith broke away from Thurstane, dashed after the pitiful fugitive, leaned over him as he ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... see," said Mrs. Wren. "So I see. And now, if your business is finished, allow me to remind you that you have six hungry sons and daughters at home." Then Mrs. Wren twitched herself off her perch and flew back to the ...
— The Tale of Mrs. Ladybug • Arthur Scott Bailey
... that the least touch is enough to hold the object. I find Midges, Plant-lice and Ants caught in it, as well as tufted seeds which have blown from the capitula of the Cichoriaceae. A Gad-fly, as big as a Blue bottle, falls into the trap before my eyes. She has barely alighted on the perilous perch when lo, she is held by the hinder tarsi! The Fly makes violent efforts to take wing; she shakes the slender plant from top to bottom. If she frees her hinder tarsi she remains snared by the front tarsi and has to begin all over again. I was doubting the possibility of her escape when, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... will cake the insufficient earth and parch the delicate roots; the storms will batter and tear the frail creepers. No doubt. But at this present moment all is fair and fragrant. And when the storms have done their wicked worst, and the sun and the frosts—nay, when that roof on which we perch is pulled to pieces, tiles and bricks, and the whole block goes—may there not be, for those caring enough, the chance of growing another garden, there ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... in spite of the cold and hunger she was getting drowsy; it must have been long past her bedtime. We had sat on our dreary perch three hours, and there were six more to wait. I noticed that the sound of my voice tranquillized the children; so I repeated hymns slowly and monotonously until they nodded against me and fell into weary slumbers. "Thank God!" I murmured when I perceived this, and I leaned back against the ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... him—he would try the pump! So he rose softly and fixed the handle of the pump high in the air, so that it stuck out like a gallows, and tied a rope with a noose to the end of it. Then he got Tricky to perch on the top of the pump, tied the rope round his neck, and all was ready. The shepherd had heard that the object of hanging was to break the neck of the criminal by a sudden 'drop,' but as he could not give Tricky a long enough drop he determined to make up for it in another way. So he ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... and seems very happy and contented, swinging there on his perch. He likes to be talked to, and can answer very plain. If you say to him, "How do you do, Poll?" he will answer you, "Quite well, thank you, and how are you?" Poll is quite a companion, he is ...
— Child-Land - Picture-Pages for the Little Ones • Oscar Pletsch
... smelts, brook trout, perch, butter fish, etc., may be well cleaned, dried and then dipped in beaten egg and rolled in fine crumbs. Large fish should be cut into suitable pieces; sliced fish may also be prepared ...
— Mrs. Wilson's Cook Book - Numerous New Recipes Based on Present Economic Conditions • Mary A. Wilson
... and murky swamp My wrath was never in the lurch; I've killed the picket in his camp, And many a pilot on his perch. ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... found the golden blackbird standing on a wooden perch, but as stiff and rigid as if he was dead. And beside, was the beautiful ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... Haigh, "that we might just snap the thing in two amidships, and leave the hind wheels and all the back part behind? It would ease the load by at least three hundred-weight, and I think we could all perch on the foot-board in front. I'm sure the pole would ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... agility of a monkey, Ben Zoof had clambered to the top of a eucalyptus, and from his lofty perch was surveying the country to the south, as well as towards both Tenes and Mostaganem. On descending, be informed the captain that the plain ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... other hand, they had any quantity of fishing. Perch and cat-fish swarmed all around the island; and large pickerel, some of them weighing six or eight pounds, could be caught by trolling. Two miles farther north was another lake that was full of trout, and the boys visited it several times, ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... She made them perch about her in a great circle, some on the lower branches of the trees, some on the bushes, and some on the ground among the grass and flowers. And where each bird perched, there it was to build its nest. Then Mother ...
— The Curious Book of Birds • Abbie Farwell Brown
... fortunate in seeing a kingfisher dart upon the water, hover for an instant like a hawk-moth over honeysuckle, and, having caught a small gudgeon, fly away with it in its beak. They, like the martin, always perch on leafless wood, so that the leaves shall not impede their flight when pouncing upon a fish, and no doubt this is the reason they sometimes perch on the top joint of the rod of a ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... temporary impressions of seeing saucerlike, unblinking eyes, and then hordes of bizarre inhabitants started to climb up to their perch. ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... and neck and garments meet, there comes a little fragrance born of sweet flesh and new flannel, and the only motion is that of the half-open hand that seems to recognize and closes about your fingers as a vine to its trellis, or as a sleeping bird clings to its perch. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... and sufferings they have endured. 'We are few,' he exclaimed, 'and therefore our oppressions are aggravated; the same demands are made upon us as though we were many, and we have not the means of resisting or complying. We fly to the jungle; we are like deer—we have no home, no perch. Our wives and children are taken from us; our sufferings are very great.' On another occasion he said, 'I have felt my sufferings to be so great, that I wished to die, if Jovata would permit it. I wished to die; for I ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... Among the spiny-finned fishes, the Sticklebacks are the prettiest, but so savage that they often occasion much mischief. For a vessel containing twelve gallons the following selection of live stock is among those recommended: Three Gold Carp, three Prussian Carp, two Perch, four large Loach, a dozen Minnows, six Bleak, and two dozen Planorbis. Some varieties of the Water-Beetles, or Water-Spiders, which the fishes do not eat, may also well be added. The Newt, too, is attractive ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, No. 47, September, 1861 • Various
... 'Is not thy hawke upon a perch, Thy steed eats oats and hay, And thou a fair lady in thine armes, And wouldst ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... they had had daily information as to Mistress Forrester's welfare. Fred thought then of his own position, and all the time he was gazing down into the clear water, where he could see the bar-sided perch sailing slowly about, and the great carp and tench heavily wallowing among the lily stems, and setting the great flat leaves a-quiver as they floated on the surface. Ah, how it all brought back the pleasant old days when he and Scar ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... farewell character, half-festal, half-funereal, that he sank into silence, and remained brooding over the ice pudding in his attitude of owl-like inscrutability. But during the privacy of dessert his mystic mood took flight; he hopped, as it were, onto a higher perch; he stretched the wing of victory and gazed at it admiringly; there was an effect as of the preening of young plumage, ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... abounding with swamps; here they turn in their fat cattle, or such as they intend to stall-feed, for their winter's provisions. It is on the shores of this part of the island, near Pochick Rip, where they catch their best fish, such as sea bass, tew-tag, or black fish, cod, smelt, perch, shadine, pike, etc. They have erected a few fishing houses on this shore, as well as at Sankate's Head, and Suffakatche Beach, where the fishermen dwell in the fishing season. Many red cedar bushes and beach grass grow on the peninsula of Coitou; ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... great glass eyes. And then there are still other birds,—birds little and birds big, birds bright and birds dingy, all scattered about wherever there is room, each sitting or standing on its separate perch, and looking, for all the world, as if it were alive and would fly ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... turned upon his perch and looked down at her, smiling. "Coming up, Miss 'Lethe?" he inquired. "All right, don't break your neck, but get where you can see." Hastily he gave her such assistance as his absorbed attention to the events within the fence permitted, and, with a wild scramble, she found herself ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... interested in these resolutions, we shall here insert them for his satisfaction. The committee resolved, that the ell ought to contain one yard and one quarter, according to the yard mentioned in the third resolution of the former committee upon the subject of weights and measures; that the pole, or perch, should contain in length five such yards and a half; the furlong two hundred and twenty; and the mile one thousand seven hundred and sixty: that the superficial perch should contain thirty square yards and a quarter; the rood one thousand two hundred and ten; and the acre four thousand ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... stopped with a suddenness that made the woman in the door fear for Elly Precious; it seemed that he must be jolted from his narrow perch. ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... have been thought to be best adapted for, and really used in, capturing cod-fish in salt water and perch and pike in inland lakes. The broken hooks I found were fully as large; and so the little brook that now ripples down the valley, when a large stream, must have had a good many big fishes in it, or the stone-age fishermen would not have brought their ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... aisles, the chapels resembling grottoes, the secret passages, the low doorways, in a word everything in a Gothic church reminds you of the labyrinths of a wood, everything excites a feeling of religious awe, of mystery, and of the Divinity." The birds perch upon the steeples and towers as if they were trees, and "the Christian architect, not content with building forests, has been desirous to retain their murmurs, and by means of the organ and of bells, he has ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... negligent indulgences, or that mankind expect from elevated genius a uniformity of greatness, and watch its degradation with malicious wonder, like him who, having followed with his eye an eagle into the clouds, should lament that she ever descended to a perch. ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... at a run, and when the horses dropped to a walk Farmer Tossell explained to Arthur Miles, who had been thrust forward into a seat—or rather perch—beside him, that this bringing home of the sheep from Holmness was a great annual event, and that he was lucky, in a way, to ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... People look at me and laugh, because it's a clear case of bulbous root with me—let me pass (being humble) for the onion. I was looking miserable in February, and really could scarcely tumble across the room, and now I am up on my perch again—nay, even out of my cage door. The weather is divine. One feels in one's self why the trees are green. I go out, walk out, have recovered flesh and fire—my very hair curls differently. 'Is I, I?' I say with the metaphysicians. There's something ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... athlete made the heavy machine spring and quiver with every stroke; while the mignon grey figure with the laughing face, and the golden curls blowing from under the little pink-banded straw hat, simply held firmly to her perch, and let the treadles whirl round beneath her feet. Mile after mile they flew, the wind beating in her face, the trees dancing past in two long ranks on either side, until they had passed round Croydon and were approaching Norwood once ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... into a boisterous laugh that made the roof shake, stamping about and slapping his legs till the crazy floor trembled. But at that moment the master stepped to the perch and made ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... from my, lofty perch I crew, And would have sung much longer too, When came a crooked devil's minion, The slater 'twas in my opinion. Who after many a knock and shake Detached me wholly from my stake. My poor old heart was broke at last When from the roof he pulled ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... constantly circulates among the crowd with a basket of water-melons, which he has brought aboard "on spec," to vend among his fellow-passengers, hoping thereby to gain sufficient to defray the cost of his passage. Seated on whatever they can find to perch upon, near the canvas partition, all unmoved by the gay and stirring scenes before them, is a group of Mussulman pilgrims from some interior town, returning from a pilgrimage to Stamboul - fine-looking Osmanli graybeards, whose ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... above, the level with his head, have been characteristic of American students time out of mind. He never outgrew the tendency. Even when President and sitting with his Cabinet, his feet always found some lofty perch. ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... he did not; I could—I almost think I could be upon my oath he did not," she answered, gazing at Lord Hartledon with frightened eyes and white lips, which, to say the truth, rather puzzled him as he gazed back from his perch. ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... while Dr. Kraft ascended to the organ. It was an enormous one, the procession of pipes ranging from long, starveling whistles to thundering fat guns; they covered all the rear wall of the church, and the organist's figure, reaching its high perch, looked like that of some Lilliputian magician ludicrously daring the attempt to control a monster ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... on her tired brain like the coming of darkness, and she fell into sleep—the first rest that had visited her since she learnt of Charles's arrest. But her slumber was disturbed by dreams. She dreamt that she was back in Cornwall, sitting on her old perch at the foot of the cliffs, looking at the Moon Rock. The face in the Rock was watching her, as it had always watched her, but this time with a dreadful sneer which she had never seen before. It frightened her so that she moaned and tossed uneasily, and awoke ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... out and quite candidly indicated the point at which she proposed to perch herself. "And there's another window at the back," she added: "so's you can ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... exact intelligence from the tall forest of great personalities, they contrive to live humbly clinging to such bare plain stocks and poles (Tis and Jack and Cinderella) as enable them to find a precarious perch. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... learn to know the calls of the wildwood warblers, which I am credibly informed are many and varied in character; and by imitating those calls we charm the feathered minstrels to leave their accustomed haunts on the sheltering bough and to come and perch on our outstretched hands. ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... objectionable. It is a saving of labour to have one large wagon, rather than two small ones, because a driver and a leader are thereby spared. But if a very light wagon has to be taken, I should greatly prefer its being made on the Swiss and German fashion, with a shifting perch ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... sight. She sprang down lightly from her perch and advanced towards the house, smiling in her ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Mona. "It was awful for you to perch on one toe for a hundred million mile ride! And I reclined at ease on a Roman trident, or whatever you call it!" "Tripod, you mean," said Adele, laughing, "or is ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... he lived and toiled. But the ways of the Glug folk puzzled him; For some won honour, while some were foiled; Yet all were filled with a vague unrest As they climbed their trees in an endless search. But joi, the father, he mocked their quest, When he marked a Glug on his hard-won perch. ...
— The Glugs of Gosh • C. J. Dennis
... I get lost, I can find myself," muttered the newcomer. He looked regretfully at the green slopes about him; the lofty, impassive cliffs where Peace seemed to perch, a visible presence; the great sweeps of free forest; then at Uncle Pros and Johnnie. And they looked back at ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... to read. Stretched on his perch, and straining his neck to look, Athribis deemed the time long. His prying eyes noted carefully the distance of the loose brick from the floor. Athribis did not recognize the papyrus as one that he had seen before. The sight of any papyrus, however, had been distasteful to him since ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... morning, having directed Delorier to repair with his cart to the place of meeting, we came again to the fort to make some arrangements for the journey. After completing these we sat down under a sort of perch, to smoke with some Cheyenne Indians whom we found there. In a few minutes we saw an extraordinary little figure approach us in a military dress. He had a small, round countenance, garnished about the eyes with the kind of wrinkles ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... easy to hold himself like a pendulum swaying over the frightful abyss. But there was nothing upon which to rest his feet. He did not wish anything, and, swinging sideways, threw one leg over the ledge beside his hands, and, half-rolling over, raised himself securely for the time on his perch. ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... Dan Anderson from his perch on the fence of Whiteman's corral, from which he was observing what was probably the first game of croquet ever played between the Pecos and Rio Grande rivers. There were certain features of the contest in question which ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... ride, yu bet yure life! And fallers grab gun and drum and fife, And march to scrap vith dese British men. Maester Paul ban yolly brave hero den. And back in the church tower old Yohn Brenk Climb from his perch, and tak gude drenk. Val, dis ban all, Christina dear, 'Bout ...
— The Norsk Nightingale - Being the Lyrics of a "Lumberyack" • William F. Kirk
... the horizon sky, floated a dark smudge, like the smoke-trail of a steamer, and beneath it was a black speck. It was no ship, but land, he knew. It was the expected landfall, the volcanic island, there ahead, and he, of all of the ship's company, first perceived it from his lofty perch. ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer
... ikan chanak (gymnotus); ikan gajah (cepole); ikan karang or bonna (chaetodon), described by Mr. John Bell in Volume 82 of the Philosophical Transactions. It is remarkable for certain tumours filled with oil, attached to its bones. There are also the ikan krapo, a kind of rock-cod or sea-perch; ikan marrang or kitang (teuthis), commonly named the leather fish, and among the best brought to table; jinnihin, a rock-fish shaped like a carp; bawal or pomfret (species of chaetodon); balanak, jumpul, and ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... ways and haunts of fish. He is wise in the salmon, the perch, the trout, the tarpon, and the muscalonge. He says. To-day the bass will bite on dobsons, but to-morrow ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... Serapis had not been unsupplied with marksmen, yet they had long since been cleared by the overmastering musketry of the Richard. Several, with leg or arm broken by a ball, had been seen going dimly downward from their giddy perch, like falling ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... range with the fence along which I was to pass in getting to the wood. As I passed out the gate, I "squared my main yard," and laid my course up the line of fence, I cast a last glance over my right shoulder, and saw the boy just perch his head above the garden picket to look after me; I heard at the same time great confusion with the team, the rain having made the ground slippery, and the horses having to cross the road with a slant and rise to get into the barn, ...
— The Fugitive Blacksmith - or, Events in the History of James W. C. Pennington • James W. C. Pennington
... their balance and subsided into the lake, being supported in a horizontal position by their branches. The islands and the swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless water-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... discovered—which made the descent beautifully easy and comparatively silent. With some diffidence we made for what we thought was our map reference, and found to our joy, that we were exactly right. Our "perch," as really it should be called, was on numerous ledges on the face of a very steep cliff, and it was a lengthy business getting the Battalion arranged with its different companies respectively in their right places; but by 4 A.M. we were all snug like ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
... was the answer at once: mosquitoes would not develop freely where fish had free access; and this fact is an important weapon in the crusade for their extermination. If the pond be large enough, all that is necessary is simply to stock it with any of the local fish,—minnows, killies, perch, dace, bass,—and presto! ...
— Rural Hygiene • Henry N. Ogden
... have endured. 'We are few,' he exclaimed, 'and therefore our oppressions are aggravated; the same demands are made upon us as though we were many, and we have not the means of resisting or complying. We fly to the jungle; we are like deer—we have no home, no perch. Our wives and children are taken from us; our sufferings are very great.' On another occasion he said, 'I have felt my sufferings to be so great, that I wished to die, if Jovata would permit it. I wished to die; for I ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... attentive survey of the wild slopes and hollow ravines a gesture of impatience escaped Eustacia. She vented petulant words every now and then, but there were sighs between her words, and sudden listenings between her sighs. Descending from her perch she again sauntered off towards Rainbarrow, though this time she did not go ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... him that she was not interested. At other times, however, her eyes seemed filled with a tender fear lest he should fall from that exceedingly dangerous platform. As for the young man, it was plain that these glances filled him with valor, and he stood carelessly upon his perch, as if he deemed it of no consequence that he might fall from it. In all the complexities of his daily life and duties he found opportunity to gaze ardently at the vision behind ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... study, at all the portraits of the friends of my life of active service above the shelves, and the old sixteenth-century Buddha, which Oda Neilson sent me on my last birthday, looking so stoically down from his perch to remind me how little all these things counted. I could not help remembering at the end that my friends at Voulangis had gone—that they were at that very moment on their way to Marseilles, that almost every one else I knew on this side of the water was either ...
— A Hilltop on the Marne • Mildred Aldrich
... wing: Then the Volsung followed his flight, for he looked to see him fall On the fluttering folk of the doves, and he cried the backward call Full oft and over again; but the falcon heeded it nought, Nor turned to his kingly wrist-perch, nor the folk of the pigeons sought, But flew up to a high-built tower, and sat in the window a space, Crying out like the fowl of Odin when the first of the morning they face, And then passed through the open casement as an erne to his ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris
... falls like a blight upon every attempt at united action. The non-Zionists may succeed in defeating their opponents; they can never dispense with Zionism which is a driving force in American Jewish life. The victory may perch on the banners of the Zionists but they can never forego the assistance of the non-Zionists who still form the backbone of American Jewry. Representing the common longings of the Jewish people throughout the world, Zionism should serve as ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... shading his eyes with his hand, scrutinized the small, melancholy figure, and then, hopping from his perch, sped toward him with a nimble and ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... he hangs around, so solemn-like an' still, His eyes they seem a-sayin': "What's the matter, little Bill?" The old cat sneaks down off her perch an' wonders what's become Of them two enemies of hern that used to make things hum! But I am so perlite an' 'tend so earnestly to biz, That mother says to father: "How improved our Willie is!" But father, havin' been a boy hisself, suspicions me When, ...
— Love-Songs of Childhood • Eugene Field
... frame of the saddle, and with one leg and arm dangling loose on each side of the saddle, I slept soundly all through the night. Every now and then the camel stumbled or gave a sudden jerk, which nearly made one tumble off the high perch, but otherwise this was really a delightful way of passing the long dreary ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... phrase. It does not necessarily follow that the widest lands breed the finest people; and there is worthless territory enough in the United States to cut up into two or three Englands. Yet no patriotic American would wish one rod, pole, or perch of it away, whether of the Bad Lands, the Florida Swamps, the Alkali Plains of the Southwest, or the most sterile and inaccessible regions of the Rockies. If of no other use, each, merely as an instrument of discipline, has contributed something to the hardening of the fibre of the people; ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... sorrowed for him as we waited for her on the terrace of the Bertolini, that perch on the cliff so high that even the noises of the town are dulled and mingle with the sound of the ...
— The Beautiful Lady • Booth Tarkington
... owner of the eye, as Omar Ben clawed his way to a perch beside him. "Yer clumb dat wall in a way dat make me proud. Now, den, ...
— A Night Out • Edward Peple
... well Lady Elizabeth stands portress at the door of my heart:—there is such bustling and pushing to get in;—but, notwithstanding her Ladyship's vigilance, Miss Powis has slipp'd by, and sits perch'd up in ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... caught sight of Osches lying straight ahead of them, its few poor hovels climbing in straggling fashion up the hillside, and the yellow church, embowered in trees, looking down on them from its perch ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... of feathery foliage. To the east of Atures other mountains appear, the ridge of which is composed of pointed cliffs, rising like huge pillars above the trees. When those columnar masses are situated near the Orinoco, flamingoes, herons, and other wading birds perch on their summits, and look like sentinels. In the vicinity of the cataracts, the moisture which is diffused in the air produces a perpetual verdure, and wherever soil has accumulated on the plains, it is adorned by the beautiful shrubs of ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... spectators. After all the depredations of all the Goths, and afterwards of the Farnese family, the ruin is gloriously beautiful; possibly more beautiful than when it was quite whole; there is enough left now for Truth to repose upon, and a perch for Fancy beside, to fly out from, and ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... pavement. It was the one great house on the hill, with its spreading wings, its stuccoed offices, its massive white columns at the rear, which presided solemnly over the terraced hill-side. A moment later he led me up to the high, spiked wall, and swung me from the ground to a secure perch on his shoulder. With my hands clinging to the iron nails that studded the wall, I looked over, and then caught my breath sharply at the thought that I was gazing upon an enchanted garden. Through the interlacing elm boughs the rosy light of the afterglow fell on the magnolias and laburnums, ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... with their lofty perch a sailor swung spider-like among the network of sheets and halyards that clung about the mainmast, its meshes clearly defined against the pure blue of the sky, while below there, on the bridge, the big brass nautical instruments gleamed, and the caps of the ...
— A Bookful of Girls • Anna Fuller
... Seating himself upon his box, he gathered up his reins and shouted a good-natured farewell to the crowd. A quick and vigorous application of the whip awakened the dozing horses so suddenly that they started up with a spasmodic jerk which nearly threw the old fellow from his perch. By a desperate effort, however, he maintained his seat, but his broad-brimmed hat went flying from his bald head and rolled to the ground, scattering in its fall his snuff-box, spectacles and a monstrous red bandanna handkerchief. This little episode ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... wind their way homewards, but they must have a little rest first, and one more look at the river and the woods, so they perched themselves about on the old tree roots, which formed most comfortable and convenient seats—all but Dan, who seemed to prefer to perch on a rock which stood in the middle of the river, which was shallower here and wider. To get to it he had to take off his shoes and stockings and wade, which perhaps made up for the uncomfortableness of the seat when ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... summer had fairly come to stay, the wharves of the city became full of fascination for the boys, and every afternoon they trooped thither to fish for perch and tommy cods; to board the vessels lying in their berths, and out-do one another in feats of rigging climbing; to play glorious games of "hide-and-seek," and "I spy," in the great cavernous warehouses, and when tired to gather around some idle sailor, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... be no test of wit, we must allow, perhaps, that it wears the appearance of valour. Alas! what is the appearance of anything? The little birds perch upon ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... hill at a run, and when the horses dropped to a walk Farmer Tossell explained to Arthur Miles, who had been thrust forward into a seat—or rather perch—beside him, that this bringing home of the sheep from Holmness was a great annual event, and that he was lucky, in a way, to ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mysteriously, and glanced at the parrot, who had turned upside down on his perch, and was surveying her ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... thought he discovered some object in the water three or four points off the lee bow. Hailing the deck to keep off for it, he very soon made out fragments of a vessel—spars, water casks, pieces of deck and, as they came still nearer, a boat; but the captain, even from his lofty perch, could see no sign of any ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... the little boat danced upon the swell as they rounded the outlying rocks. Estelle was on the look-out for dangers, but Marjorie understood her business too well, and they glided along without even grazing a single jagged point. The gulls, startled from their perch on the heights by the approach of the boat, rose, flapping and shrieking. It seemed as if hundreds were circling about the rocks, only to settle down again as the little skiff drew away from ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... opisthotis turtle's "occipital externe" Perch's Rocher (Cuvier) as the one thing needful to clear up the unity of structure of the bony cranium; and it shall be counted unto me as a great sin if I have helped to keep you back from it. The thing has been dawning upon me ever since I read Kolliker's ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... satisfaction. The committee resolved, that the ell ought to contain one yard and one quarter, according to the yard mentioned in the third resolution of the former committee upon the subject of weights and measures; that the pole, or perch, should contain in length five such yards and a half; the furlong two hundred and twenty; and the mile one thousand seven hundred and sixty: that the superficial perch should contain thirty square ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... after you, man," Skeet warned me from her lofty perch as I went out through the big room in quest of Ina Vandeman. "Better you stay here. I gif you a yob. Lots safer—only run the risk of getting ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... seizes birds before they can be alarmed by its presence. The natives assert that it has been known to strangle the pea-fowl at night, and feast on the brain. During the day the one which I kept was usually asleep in the strange position represented below; its perch firmly grasped with all hands, its back curved into a ball of soft fur, and its head hidden deep between its legs. The singularly-large and intense eyes of the loris have attracted the attention of the Singhalese, who ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... it were established his footing in the family, the negro removed the parrot to his perch, receiving a powerful bite of gratitude in the act, and invited the wife of Spotted Tiger to join the breakfast-party. This he did by the express order of Lawrence, for he would not himself have originated ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... from these enthusiastic pilgrims, had yet other things to show them. There was the back garden. Here was the green pottery seat upon which the unphilosophic philosopher had smoked his pipe—a singularly cold and uncomfortable perch. And here was where Mrs. Carlyle had tried to build a tent and to imagine herself in the country. And here was the famous walnut tree—or at least the stumpy bole thereof. And here was where the dog Nero was buried, best known of small ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... adieu and left me, for he thought he saw some one through the chatter and smoke whom he knew. So I was left with the would-be periwinkle, who was reduced to Wuerzburger without further ability to voice his aspirations to perch, melodious, upon the summit ...
— The Four Million • O. Henry
... not been a paragraphist for nothing: the sale was a success. I paid a part of my debts, and gave notes for the rest that will keep my future poor. I started in again on the Times' city force. To board I hate: it's a chicken's life—roosting on a perch, coming down to eat and then going back to roost. So I got a little domicile in "The Patch." When the teakettle has begun to spend the evening the new cheap wallpaper, the whitewash and the soapsuds with which the floor has been scrubbed ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... de Rambouillet? She is all her mother is, and more. There, now she is a true rose-bud, ready to perch on my arm. No, no bon pere. So great a girl is too much for you to carry. Don't be afraid, my darling, we are not going to a sermon, no one will beat her; oh no, and if the insolent retainers and pert lacqueys laugh at her mother, ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and occasionally shouted with such startling imitation of human voices that I once asked Couttet if some one were not calling for help. But investigation showed that we were alone on our tempestuous perch, and that the cry of agony had been uttered by the hurricane, ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... it for two dollars or you'll let us git out," was his final word. As one overcome by superior force, the cabman yielded, climbed sulkily to his perch, and, bestowing a large, comprehensive wink upon the by-standers, started for the hotel his fare had indicated. Mr. Smith's spirits rose. Obviously, in this triumph he had demonstrated his fitness to cope with all the other grinding monopolies of New York. He ...
— Many Kingdoms • Elizabeth Jordan
... single mere. There is a wood there, with herons sprawling about the tree-tops,—I did not think there were so many in the world,—and fish for Lent and Fridays in every puddle and leat, pike and perch, tench and eels, on every old-wife's table; while the knights think scorn of anything worse than ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... all the court came with questions; so when the page advanced to gather up the money the load was almost more than he could carry. Then Tommie jumped down from his perch, and another page lifted him safely on to the big warm back of Lord Mountfalcon's horse, which felt fine and comforting to poor Tommie's feet. He was so tired that he took forty winks after he had told the Princess how to reach ...
— The Faery Tales of Weir • Anna McClure Sholl
... by much so well as Clun used to do; nor another Hart's, which was Cassio's; nor, indeed, Burt doing the Moor's so well as I once thought he did. Thence home, and just at Holborn Conduit the bolt broke, that holds the fore-wheels to the perch, and so the horses went away with them, and left the coachman and us; but being near our coachmaker's, and we staying in a little ironmonger's shop, we were presently supplied with another, and so home, and there to my letters at the office, and so ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the tent upon our soft bearskins, watching the brilliantly coloured and ever varying foliage of the banks, to sweep swiftly but silently around abrupt bends into long vistas of still water, startling the great Kamchatkan eagle from his lonely perch on some jutting rock, and frightening up clouds of clamorous waterfowl, which flew in long lines down the river until out of sight. The navigation of the upper Kamchatka is somewhat intricate and dangerous at night, on account of the rapidity of the current ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... habits, frequenting the villages in preference to the woods, singing at all hours of the day, particularly at noon, taking all their insect prey from the leaves and branches of trees, or seizing it as it flits by their perch, and amusing themselves, while thus employed, with oft-repeated fragments of song. Each builds a pensile nest, or places it in the fork of the slender branches of a tree. I have seen a nest of the Warbling Vireo placed ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... on the Dolphin's deck rose to their feet, and as he sank out of sight, the firing of a gun from the Illinois announcing the fact, saluted the flag as, at the same moment, it came fluttering down from its lofty perch. ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley
... that! Do you think to change and to crow over me. You will not or I'll lay my curse upon you, unless you would change me into an eagle would be turning his back upon the whole of ye, and facing to his perch upon the right hand of ...
— Three Wonder Plays • Lady I. A. Gregory
... therefore the little girl who kept the geese hastened to drive her charges away from the bridge, before the hunting company should come gallopping up. They drew near with such speed that the girl was obliged to climb up in a hurry, and perch herself on the coping-stone of the bridge, lest she should be ridden down. She was still half a child, and had a pretty light figure, and a gentle expression in her face, with two clear blue eyes. The noble baron took no note of this, but as he gallopped past the little goose-herd, ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... sitting on a log before the fire, smoking my pipe with the bowl downwards, for the rain had never ceased, and clouds of steam rose from our camp-fires. The fear was that the powder would get wet. I must have dropped off my perch asleep, for I picked myself up the next morning out of a pool of water. It was already dawn, and looking eastward I saw a streak of light beneath a dark curtain of cloud, like the gleam on the edge of a sword, so sharp and defined was it. This was ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... enemy; numbers of our men, it seems, were actually swallowed by them, and others strangled or crushed in their coils; of all this he was an eye-witness, taking his observations, however, from a safe perch up a tree. Thank goodness he did not come to close quarters with the brutes! we should have lost a very remarkable historian, and one who did doughty deeds in this war with his own right hand; for he had many adventures, and was wounded at Sura (in the course of ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... inclined to harm her, she was safe enough on the top of that high bookcase; but she did not know that. In her inexperience, she fancied me able to spring about the world as she did, and expected every moment that I should perch on the carved oak crown, and seize her in my mouth, jump down again and crunch her as ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... "boosts" from Tommy, who told him he would soon "go it" as well as anybody. Then they sat and talked boy-fashion about all sorts of things, among others, gardening; for Nat, looking down from his perch, asked what was planted in the many little patches lying below them on the other side ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... Indian fakirs do, with their arms above their heads until they stiffen there. They will perch themselves upon pillars like Simeon Stylites, for years, till the birds build their nests in their hair. They will measure all the distance from Cape Comorin to Juggernaut's temple with their bodies along ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... could hear smothered music, as of drum-fish beneath the water, beating, "thum! thum!" and crabs and alewives rose to the surface around them, chased by the tailor-fish. The cat-boat drifted into the mouth of a creek where rock and perch were running on the top of the water, and with the tongs Jack Wonnell raised half a bushel of oysters in a few dips, and opened them for the party. Along the shores wild haws and wild plums still adhered to the bushes, and the ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... is! The outside man, and tallest of the lot. Give him a cheer, auntie: he sees us, and remembers!" cried Tom, nearly tumbling off his perch, as he waved his hat, ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... late. He had scarcely ascended his perch when an Indian caught sight of him, and giving out a strange half-whoop and stream, he started on a full run toward him, closely followed by half of the ...
— Adrift in the Wilds - or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys • Edward S. Ellis
... down from his perch, laughing heartily, and thanked us all for having come to his assistance. Of course, our opportune appearance had very much astonished him; but we soon explained matters, and expressed our hope that he was none the worse for ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... the rustle of the maple-leaves, I see their breathing branches rise and fall, And hear, from their high perch along the eaves, The ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... could raise. We've got about enough left to get back to New York on. I need my share of that ten thousand. I want to work a copper deal in Idaho, and make a hundred thousand. That's the business end of the thing. Come down off your art perch, Carry, and let's land that ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... though in the lakes they grow too gross to take the fly. Many attempts have so far failed to acclimatise the salmon. The ova may be hatched out successfully, but the fish when turned out into the rivers disappears. The golden carp, however, the perch, and the rainbow trout take readily to New Zealand. The hare increases in size and weight, and has three and four leverets at a birth. The pheasant has spread from end to end of the Colony. The house-fly drives back the loathsome flesh-fly ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... words with the suddenness of a monkey swinging off a bough, leaving behind him a silence so marked that the fall of an unripe apple from the tree immediately above them caused Columbus to start and jump from his perch to investigate. ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... have had a pleasant life, but my malicious temper was destined to bring me much farther trouble. My new master appeared very fond of me, and did much for my comfort. I was allowed the liberty of a fine perch, well provided with clean new feed dishes, but, to my intense mortification and disgust, a chain was put upon my feet. My perch stood near a large window, but heavy curtains prevented me from getting more than a single peep of daylight. ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... bewilder every passer-by, they fancy they are in the upper-ten of womanhood. Vain! The peacock, whose little heart is one beating pulse of vanity, is not half so vain as they. Giddy, trifling, empty, vapid, cold, moonshine women, whose souls can perch on a plume, and whose only ambition is to be a traveling advertisement for the men and women who traffic in what they wear, are many who flaunt in satins and glitter in diamonds. How many such there are we would not say. But I doubt not, that not a little like them are many ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... make a cast correctly: the fly went over the fish's nose; he rose; I hooked him, and he was a great silly brute of a grayling. The grayling is the deadest-hearted and the foolishest-headed fish that swims. I would as lief catch a perch or an eel as a grayling. This is the worst of it—this ambition of the duffer's, this desire for perfection, as if the golfing imbecile should match himself against Mr. Horace Hutchinson, or as the sow of the Greek proverb challenged Athene to sing. I know it all, I deplore it, I regret ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... You ever thought too much of that kestril-kite, Master Roland, and he knows nought of sport after all, but what he caught from you. I saw how it had been betwixt you, and I sent him out of my company with a wanion—I would rather have a rifler on my perch than a false knave at my elbow—and now, Master Roland, tell me ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... heron, the snake-bird, and vulture. We found a bluff, with deep water below it, into which we had scarcely thrown our lines when we each hooked a large black bass; after which we caught several bream, cat-fish, and perch, until we had as much ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... weather of January they came halfway to the cabin every morning, and fluttered around him as doves all the way to the feeding-ground. Before February they were so accustomed to him, and so hunger-driven, that they would perch on his head and shoulders, and the saucy jays would try to pry ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Franklin was a boy he was very fond of fishing; and many of his leisure hours were spent on the margin of the mill pond catching flounders, perch, and eels that came up thither ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... Eagle had a man in his talons. From far aloft, as was his wont, he dropped the man upon the rocks. Naye{COMBINING BREVE}nayezgani took up one of Elk's antlers and just as the great bird was alighting on his perch hurled it at him, striking him on the head. Listening, he heard the body drop upon the rocks far below. Then a slow rain began to fall, and the Eaglets cried, "Our mother is coming!" Soon the mother Eagle came. ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... legs from his perch and brushed aside a troublesome prickly pod that depended in such a position as to tickle his neck. "I'm from Yale. Ever been to New Haven? What are ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... contenting himself to remain there on his precarious perch; indeed, only that he did not wish to seem to be interfering with Jack's plans Joel certainly would have ventured across the window sill. Unable to beep silent any longer, he finally gave a ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... too late and they had a narrow escape. They were whirled round and banged up against a cliff with the bottom of the canoe tipped to the rock and held there for a while, but fortunately did not turn over till an unusually tempestuous rush of water reached up and lifted the canoe from its perch down into the water again. Then tying a rope at either end they clambered out to a precarious perch on a slope in the cliff. By careful manoeuvring they succeeded in turning the canoe round and getting ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... his back to her the better to intrench himself in his fortress of reserve, but now he could not help stealing a glance at her from over his shoulder. There sat Roseen, still vigorously sobbing, her feet dangling downward as she sat on her high perch, her shoulders heaving, her ruffled brown head drooping, the tears forcing their way through fingers that were just as sunburnt as of old. Many a time had Mike seen her give way to paroxysms of childish woe, and comforted her with loving words and no less loving kisses. The recollection ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... door of the closet, gave a low whistle, and stood listening. A moment after, I heard, or seemed to hear, a soft whir of wings, and, looking up, saw a white dove perch for an instant on the top of the shelves over the portrait, thence drop to Mr. Raven's shoulder, and lay her head against his cheek. Only by the motions of their two heads could I tell that they were talking together; I heard nothing. Neither had I moved my eyes from them, when suddenly ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... for Mrs Pods that she did so, for her resigned eyes beheld the globe of the cabin lamp pitched off its perch by a violent lurch and coming straight at her. Thus she had time to bow to circumstances, and allow the missile to pass over her head into the bosom of Lady Tower, where it was broken to atoms. The effect of mutual concession was so strong ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... the meadow lark, sweet and incessant as it balanced on a rosin-weed, of the lark bunting and lark finch, poured forth melodiously; twittering blue-birds looked into the air and back to their perch atop the dead cottonwood as they gathered luckless insects; the brown thrush, which sings the night through in the bright starlight, rivaled the robin and grosbeak as Philip gazed over the blue-skyed, green-grassed land. ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... "Hop off your perch, Eugene," he said, "and tell us how you came to drive Count Vassilan's taxi, and where you ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... a nut in his paw, which was almost like a hand, and then, as squirrels often do, he looked for a high place on which he might perch himself to eat. Frisky saw the shelf over Joe's couch, the same shelf on ...
— The Story of a Nodding Donkey • Laura Lee Hope
... seemed to the curious without, and to the agitated, nervous witnesses peering through the unchinked logs of the wall, they sat on their comfortless perch, half crouching forward, and chewed, and discussed the testimony. There were frequent intervals of silence, and in one of these Con Hite was disturbed to see the sketch of the "witch-face" once more passed from hand to hand. They grew to ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... up Long Ditch into the lower end of Far Wood. This is sadder and darker than the 'Volaterrae' end because of an old marlpit full of black water, where weepy, hairy moss hangs round the stumps of the willows and alders. But the birds come to perch on the dead branches, and Hobden says that the bitter willow-water is a sort of medicine ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling
... laid his course for the Consul's and been taken care of. He sat on a bench at the curbstone in front of a fruit store to think things over. It was a comfortable seat, except that every time a trolley passed he had to lift his feet high so he wouldn't be swept off his perch. ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... disarrayed By chill November, late I strayed, A lonely minstrel of the wood Was singing to the solitude I loved thy music, thus I said, When o'er thy perch the leaves were spread Sweet was thy song, but sweeter now Thy carol on the leafless bough. Sing, little bird! thy note shall cheer The ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... enough to hold the object. I find Midges, Plant-lice and Ants caught in it, as well as tufted seeds which have blown from the capitula of the Cichoriaceae. A Gad-fly, as big as a Blue bottle, falls into the trap before my eyes. She has barely alighted on the perilous perch when lo, she is held by the hinder tarsi! The Fly makes violent efforts to take wing; she shakes the slender plant from top to bottom. If she frees her hinder tarsi she remains snared by the front tarsi and has to begin all over again. I was doubting ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... taste in any finch! I bought that goldfinch for money. He was sent home, and hung upon a nail over against my table. He lived outside a counterfeit dwelling- house, supposed (as I argued) to be a dyer's; otherwise it would have been impossible to account for his perch sticking out of the garret window. From the time of his appearance in my room, either he left off being thirsty—which was not in the bond—or he could not make up his mind to hear his little bucket drop back into his well when he let it go: a shock which in the ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... some of the old Scotch ballads themselves. There is in them a still more original cast of thought, a more romantic imagery— the thistle's glittering down, the gilliflower on the old garden-wall, the horseman's silver bells, the hawk on its perch—a closer intimacy with nature, a firmer reliance on it, as the only stock of wealth which the mind has to resort to, a more infantine simplicity of manners, a greater strength of affection, hopes longer cherished and longer deferred, sighs that the heart dare hardly heave, and "thoughts that ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... waving; suddenly the ropes that still held it gave way, and it disappeared in the darkness of the night like a vast sea-bird. At the same moment a violent crash was heard, and cries of distress. Dantes from his rocky perch saw the shattered vessel, and among the fragments the floating forms of the hapless sailors. Then all was ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... very fleet of foot, set off running, side by side, the brigand holding Chiquita by the hand, so as to give her all the aid and support he could, and they quickly passed out of sight. No sooner had they departed than the crows came swooping down from their perch in the nearest tree, and fell to fiercely upon their horrible feast, in which they were almost directly joined by several ravenous wolves—and they made such good use of their time, that in a few hours nothing remained of the poor old horse but ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... a ferocious-looking pair of eyes glaring at him, and before he had time to add another word, some huge object rushed towards him, struck him a determined blow, and lifting him off his perch sent him into the ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... the lady beside him, would be revealed. Jean's mouth was already open to speak. He waved her aside. She adhered to her post. He shouted to the postilion, and the huge, lumbering vehicle was set in motion. At the first turn of the wheels, Jean slipped from her perch, her dress caught in the spokes, and ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... cheered the boy orator, and hauled him from his perch with such hearty thumps that he feared they ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... nets, call birds are employed, of which there must be one or two of each of the different kinds which are expected to be caught, such as linnets, goldfinches, greenfinches, etc. Besides the call birds there are others denominated flur birds, which are placed upon a moveable perch within the net, called a flur, and which can be raised or depressed at pleasure, and these are secured to the flur by means of a brace or bandage of slender silk strongly fastened round the body of the bird. The call birds are deposited in cages ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... bird in the Zooelogical Gardens, which sits so tame on its perch, and droops and slouches like a drowsy duck! That is the great and soaring eagle. Who would believe it, to look at him? Yet all he wants is to be put in his right place instead of his wrong. He is not himself in man's cages, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... seen within a radius of six miles, when, all on a sudden, there came a shot—then two, almost together, then a quick crackle and sputter of small-arms afar down the stream. "By Jove!" cried Bonner, from a perch by the lookout at the office. "They've opened ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... happiness upon earth must be experienced by the driver, who sat all day long on the box, and controlled his four horses with his whip. Now he saw this happy creature nearer; for the post-wagon stopped, and the lad never once removed his eyes from the wonderful man, as he came down from his perch, stepped into the inn, and came out again with an enormous piece of black bread in his hand, upon which lay a ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... of the eleventh day, ere the sun had dried the dew from the springing grass, the keen-eyed watchman, in his perch on the topmost tower, cried out in happy accents to the ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... on the steps, his difficulties being by no means lessened by the tremolo movement which Martha called steadying them. Twice he was nearly shaken from his perch like an over-ripe plum, but all went well until they were hanging the curtains in the best bed-room, when Martha, stooping to recover a dropped ring, shut the steps up ...
— Salthaven • W. W. Jacobs
... really means, and so his bait is the more alluring and dangerous. But when once the hook has been swallowed and struck, then the Academician takes no more notice of the victim, but leaves him to struggle and dangle at the end of the line. You are an angler; well, when you have taken a fine perch or a big pike, and you drag it along behind your boat, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... went to live with the sempstress, and their love for each other grew and strengthened, and overflowed in a thousand little acts of kindness to all who came near them. Their room was filled with brightness. The birds flew to perch on the window-sill and sing in the early mornings; flowers bloomed in the cracks of the old stonework; the sempstress sang as she worked, and whenever she left her sewing to carry the child out into the Market Place to breathe the fresh air she ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... hours watching the roll and plunge of the breakers with the silent, unreasoned enjoyment of a child. All at once he developed a passion for fishing. He would sit all day nearly motionless upon a point of rocks, his fish-line between his fingers, happy if he caught three perch in twelve hours. At noon he would retire to a bit of level turf around an angle of the shore and cook his fish, eating them without salt or knife or fork. He thrust a pointed stick down the mouth of the perch, and turned it slowly over the blaze. When ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... Athabasca that it swarms with fish, such as pike, trout, perch, barbel, and other kinds not easily identified. Apparently there is also a form of gar-pike found here (see p. 74); this is described as having scales of a very large and stiff kind, and being a beautiful bright silver ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... he reached the bend of the road he turned and looked back. The two girls had returned to their perch on the fence, and were deeply absorbed in something one of them ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter
... his lofty perch; I'd dash him on the stones; I'd serve the lifeless bronze the same as I'd have served his bones; And on the empty stance I would in radiant metal show, A bolder and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... then perhaps only one of them would have lost his temper. As they drew apart they were growing more angry every instant. And when they wheeled and glared at each other old Mr. Crow, who was watching them from his perch in the pine tree, called out: "Don't stop! ...
— The Tale of Nimble Deer - Sleepy-Time Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... spirits, and as his mother and sister were still exhausted with weeping, he was not easy to manage, till Arthur took heart of grace, and offering him a perch on his knee, let him look out at the window, explaining the objects on the way, which were all quite new to the little Parisian boy. Fortunately he spoke French well, with scarcely any foreign accent, and his answers to the little fellow's eager questions interspersed with ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was wonderful. Below her were the waving tops of countless trees, and beyond them she could look down and over the cultivated valleys, full of farms, whose fields, marked off by stone fences, looked small and insignificant from her high perch. ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Long Lake - Bessie King in Summer Camp • Jane L. Stewart
... the slanderous cuckoo, nor The boding raven, nor chough hoar, Nor chattering pie, May on our bride-house perch or sing, Or with them any discord bring, But ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the principal amusement here, and shared by both sexes. What the Marne and the Morin contain in the way of booty, we hardly know; but it is certain that more cunning fish, whether perch, tench, or bream, never existed, and are not, "by hook or by crook," to be caught. Wherever we go, we find anglers sitting patiently by these lovely green banks, and certainly the mere prospect they have before them—clear water reflecting water-mill and lofty poplar trees ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... great ocean was but a Spanish lake, as much the king's private property as his fish-ponds at the Escorial with their carp and perch. No subjects but his dared to navigate those sacred waters. Not a common highway of the world's commerce, but a private path for the gratification of one human being's vanity, had thus been laid out by the bold ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... thronging the roadway the crawling approach of a hansom. He gave no sign; but when the low step gliding along the curbstone came to his feet he dodged in skilfully in front of the big turning wheel, and spoke up through the little trap door almost before the man gazing supinely ahead from his perch was aware of having ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... was long, interminably long. Once and again Johnson came down out of his perch, and spoke a few clumsy words of well-meaning encouragement, but found her unresponsive. Her brain was too busy with taking leave of old conceptions and in mastering new duties to be otherwise than vaguely grateful to her companions. Her mind was clear on one other point—this journey ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... communicating; with each other by signs, or holding discourse in sounds, which might be mistaken by the wayfarer for the cries of hawks and crows, or the bleating of the mountain flocks. After they had reconnoitred the neighborhood, and finished their singular discourse, they descended from their airy perch, and returned to their prisoners. The captain posted three of them at three naked sides of the mountain, while he remained to guard us with what appeared his ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... garden, with free birds twittering and flitting about it, and you turn dull pain into shattering agony. The vicar's little study, with the rows of books he had made me know and love with some small measure of his own learning and passion, was the perch and seed-bowl of my cage, the things in it, after my sweet mother and saucy Kate, that made life possible, but still part of the cage, and it would have maddened me to hop and twitter there in sight of free men with arms in their hands and careers in front of them. Jack Dobson would march ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... a little cheerful wren of a woman from a little Western town, a Mrs. Boyd. That is, she is cheerful now. Then she was like a bird in a cage, pining to death for the freedom she had been accustomed to, and moping on her perch. She came to New York to bring her niece, Lucy, who is all she has to live for. Some art teacher back home told her that Lucy is a genius—has the makings of a great artist in her, and they believed it. She'll never get beyond fruit-pieces and maybe a dab at china-painting, but she's ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston
... aloofly, with a coldness which bordered on hostility, as she flipped her mask into its pocket on top of the gill-pack. Below his rocky perch she came to a halt, her feet slightly apart in the sand, an impish twist to her lips as she ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... in hand, with his luxurious feet raised on a holy water-pail, that lay along, and therein a cat, new kittened, sat glowing o'er her brood, and sparks for eyes. And the cart-horse cavalier had on his shoulders a round bundle, and thereon did perch a cock and crowed with zeal, poor ruffler, proud of his brave feathers as the rest, and haply with more reason, being his own. And on an ass another wife and new-born child; and one poor quean a-foot scarce dragged herself along, so near her time was she, yet held two little ones by the hand, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... yes, a good many of that sort of craft founder in these waters, as I know to my sorrow"; and, sighing tragically, Mr. Joe turned to help Debby from her perch, but she had glided silently into the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... cake the insufficient earth and parch the delicate roots; the storms will batter and tear the frail creepers. No doubt. But at this present moment all is fair and fragrant. And when the storms have done their wicked worst, and the sun and the frosts—nay, when that roof on which we perch is pulled to pieces, tiles and bricks, and the whole block goes—may there not be, for those caring enough, the chance of growing another garden, ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... in it for God, because by their exertions these workers pronounce God an unmerciful slave driver, an unfaithful and angry Judge. They despise God, make a liar out of Him, snub Christ and all His benefits; in short they pull God from His throne and perch themselves ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... he will perch On Tuba's golden bough; His home is on that fruited arch Which cools ...
— Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and Salaman and Absal • Omar Khayyam and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... and clambered into the boats holding the coins in their mouths. One youth more daring than the others mounted to the upper deck of our steamer and offered, if a shilling instead of a penny was thrown into the water, to plunge from his high perch to the sea fifty feet below and get the silver. And he won much applause ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob
... whose dung he had taken, for my trouble, as it was a fine large cock, and he had nothing better to offer for my Sunday's dinner. And as the poultry was by this time gone to roost, he went up to the perch which was behind the stove, and reached down the cock, and put it under the arm of the maid, who was just come to ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... the eye of the monster, who immediately opened his jaws, and as he did so, Hans, with an activity I could scarcely have expected, hauled himself up to the top of the bough, where I sprang after him, while the crocodile, giving a whisk of his tail which nearly knocked us off our perch, retreated into deep water, the next instant to turn lifeless on its back, when, floating down a few yards, its huge body was brought up by a ledge of rocks which projected partly out of ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... me, and it was no other than Ane Kirstine. 'Are you sitting there sleeping?' said she; 'come along in now, it is as it ought to be. The knacker has spoken a good word for us to mother, and when nothing could change her he said, "There is a black cock sitting on the perch: maybe a red one will crow over you if you don't do as I say." At this she got a little bit scared, and said, "Then let it be! but this I tell you, Ane Kirstine, I'll keep the black-headed cow for milking, and I'll have all the hay that is my ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... any sound, 'tis sweet, The hidden rush of eager feet Where robins flutter in the dust, Or perch ...
— The Five Books of Youth • Robert Hillyer
... and then they sat round the hearth, and the mother took her spectacles and read aloud out of a large book, and the two girls listened as they sat and spun. And close by them lay a lamb upon the floor, and behind them upon a perch sat a white dove with its ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Kyral laughed. "You've slipped the wrong hawk, Dallisa. The catmen killed him." His skean flicked loose. He climbed to a perch near the rope at my wrists. "Bargain with ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... "Come round in your own way," he said at last. "I don't want to hurry you. I suppose every bird has its own way of dropping from a perch." ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... nor another Hart's, which was Cassio's; nor, indeed, Burt doing the Moor's so well as I once thought he did. Thence home, and just at Holborn Conduit the bolt broke, that holds the fore-wheels to the perch, and so the horses went away with them, and left the coachman and us; but being near our coachmaker's, and we staying in a little ironmonger's shop, we were presently supplied with another, and so home, and there ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... which it sank out of sight in the mountain to reappear at some point far removed. The wood and undergrowth that surrounded the camp of the Sauk were very close and dense, so that the view in every direction was shut off, unless one should climb the tallest tree and take his survey from that perch. ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... leaped down from her high perch, and was now taking a drink from a little sparkling mountain rill which flowed through ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... the dry beech-mast to the boat-house. Doll unlocked the door and climbed into one of the boats; Hugh and Crack followed. They got a perch-rod off a long shelf, and half a dozen trimmers. Then they pulled out a little way and stopped near an archipelago ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... and very movable, so that they may readily pick up food and other objects from the ground. The muscles of their toes are so arranged that the simple weight of the body closes them, and they are able, in consequence, to sit on a perch a long time without fatigue. Even in a violent wind a bird easily retains its hold of the branch or twig on which it is sitting. Their bills are of almost all forms: in some kinds they are straight; in others curved, sometimes upwards and sometimes ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... he strode, with steadier gait Than Satan trod the Syrtis, at his fall, And perch'd himself, with his monastick weight, Upon the ...
— Broad Grins • George Colman, the Younger
... it came there. I wondered whether the two swollen faces were of Mr. Jaggers's family, and, if he were so unfortunate as to have had a pair of such ill-looking relations, why he stuck them on that dusty perch for the blacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving them a place at home. Of course I had no experience of a London summer day, and my spirits may have been oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and by the dust and ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... nave, out at the west gates, over the heads of the crowd, reaches the carro, ignites a fusee there, turns, and, still propelled by its fiery tail, whizzes along the cord again, till it has reached its perch on the pole in the choir, when the fire goes out and it remains stationary. But in the meantime the match ignited by the dove has communicated with the squibs and crackers attached to the carro, and the whole mass of painted wood and flowers is enveloped in fire and ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... break of day is as joyful a sound, though not so musical, as the voice of the Robin who chants his lays at the same early hour. To me the cawing of the Crow is cheering and delightful, and it is heard long before the majority of birds have left their perch. If not one of the melodies of morn, it is one of the most notable sounds that herald its approach. And how intimately is the voice of this bird associated with the sunshine of calm winter-days,—with our woodland ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... the winding staircase, and then he turned back to his office. In the outer office he stopped to speak to Joe, who, perched on an office-footstool, was tapping quickly on the office-table with his pen-knife, swaying backwards and forwards dangerously on his perch in the intensity of his emotions as he played the hero's part in the drama of saving the runaway engine from dashing into the 4.40 express by calling up the Red Gulch station on ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... smooth and shining, and the guard embossed with a variety of elegant devices. But the part which first arrested attention and attracted the most admiration was the head, whereupon was sculptured a gigantic honey-bee, with wings expanded, as if about to fly from its perch; the eyes were sparkling diamonds, the body was composed of different colored metals, in imitation of life—and the whole so cunningly wrought, that it seemed a living bee about to mount into the air. The man rode and looked as ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... me thou wottest not, to wit, that I have a gift that wild things love and will do my bidding. The house-mice will run over me as I lie awake looking on them; the small birds will perch on my shoulders without fear; the squirrels and hares will gambol about quite close to me as if I were but a tree; and, withal, the fiercest hound or mastiff is tame before me. Therefore I feared not this lion, and, moreover, I looked to it ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... they are released and set on the enemy; numbers of our men, it seems, were actually swallowed by them, and others strangled or crushed in their coils; of all this he was an eye-witness, taking his observations, however, from a safe perch up a tree. Thank goodness he did not come to close quarters with the brutes! we should have lost a very remarkable historian, and one who did doughty deeds in this war with his own right hand; for he had many adventures, and was wounded at Sura (in the course ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... attached to the soul-absorbing bob. A clothes-line wire cable, furnished with well-assorted hooks baited with cotton, dough, and cheese well mixed together, and stretched in eddy-water when the river is muddy, will give fine reward in carp, white perch, catfish, turtles, garfish, and sweet revenge on ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... fly after the swart raven, Over the deep water, To quest whether the foaming sea Had of the green earth Yet any part laid bare. Wide she flew seeking her own will, Far she flew yet found no rest. Because of the flood With her feet she might not perch on land, Nor on the tree leaves light. For the steep mountain tops Were whelmed in waters. Then the wild bird went At eventide the ark to seek. Over the darling wave she flew Weary, to sink hungry To the ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, And let it keep one shape till custom make it Their perch, ...
— Measure for Measure • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... was stacked. For some reason or other this courtyard was a favorite playground for a large company of rats. I don't know what the attraction was for them, except that they may have liked nibbling the paint off the canvas. Out they used to troop in swarms, and I, from my perch on the window-seat, would watch and wonder. Once a terrible storm came on, and years after, at the Lyceum, the Brocken Scene in "Faust" brought back the scene to my mind—the thunder and lightning and the creatures crawling on every side, the ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... like a rocket into the air. I had barely time to withdraw my feet from the stirrups, to throw up one arm to protect my glazed sombrero and grasp an overhanging branch with the other, before Chu Chu darted off. But to my consternation, as I gained a secure perch on the tree, and looked about me, I saw her—instead of running away—quietly trot through the open gate into ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... upon his perch and looked down at her, smiling. "Coming up, Miss 'Lethe?" he inquired. "All right, don't break your neck, but get where you can see." Hastily he gave her such assistance as his absorbed attention to the events within ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... High-perch'd upon the rocky way, Stands a Posada stern and grey; Which from the valley, seems as if, A condor there had paus'd to 'light And rest upon that lonely cliff, From some stupendous flight; But when the road you gain at length, ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... water being no longer clear, their very sharp eyes are of little use to them. Then a lucky throw will sometimes bring out two or three carp weighing several pounds each. The fish commonly caught are mullet, perch, barbel, gudgeon, bream, and chub. As a food-supplying river, the Dordogne is one of the most valuable in France, and, owing to the rapid current and the purity of the water, the fish is ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... not like the looks of the thing from the first, and my early impressions did not improve when, as we bumped off the drive on to the pave, the screen suddenly detached itself from its perch and flopped ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... into the main-top, leaving Harry still in his perch, and examined the seizing. It was, as the captain had said, loose, so the boy ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... Thomas Jefferson!" she called softly. But he was a sound sleeper, she remembered; she would have to find him and wake him. In the darkness she felt about on Thomas Jefferson's perch for Thomas Jefferson. When the little groping hand came upon something very soft and warm, the other hand went up to join it, and together they lifted Thomas Jefferson down. He gave a protesting croak, and ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... positions were gained and lost, towns and villages along the far-flung battle line were occupied and evacuated, countless deeds of heroism were wrought, to be sung and celebrated by posterity in a dozen different lands—but the lines on both sides held and victory refused to perch ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... would as soon attempt to entice a star To perch upon my finger; or the wind To follow me like a dog—as try to make Some people do what ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... this jumped down from his perch, laughing heartily, and thanked us all for having come to his assistance. Of course, our opportune appearance had very much astonished him; but we soon explained matters, and expressed our hope that he was none the ...
— Afar in the Forest • W.H.G. Kingston
... upheaval; sublimation, exaltation; prominence &c (convexity) 250. lever &c 633; crane, derrick, windlass, capstan, winch; dredge, dredger, dredging machine. dumbwaiter, elevator, escalator, lift. V. heighten, elevate, raise, lift, erect; set up, stick up, perch up, perk up, tilt up; rear, hoist, heave; uplift, upraise, uprear, upbear^, upcast^, uphoist^, upheave; buoy, weigh mount, give a lift; exalt; sublimate; place on a pedestal, set on a pedestal. escalate &c (increase) 35 102 194. take up, drag up, fish up; dredge. stand up, rise ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... brilliant red, one was gone. Something flopping on the rocks gave a mewling cry and somersaulted back into the water. Then a finger of mist drew between Rynch and the lights which were now only faint, glowing patches. He swung down from his perch, shook Hume awake. ...
— Star Hunter • Andre Alice Norton
... he stood in full sunlight with his bare toes turned inward, holding his stomach with both hands, while Yasmini settled herself in graceful youthful curves on the cushioned bench, with her face in shadow, and the smirking maid at her feet. Then before climbing ponderously back to his perch on the throne the priest touched his forehead once with both hands and came close to a semblance of bowing, the arrogance of sanctity combining with his paunch to cut that ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... other woman, dully, from her perch on the driver's seat. "But I reckon my man ain't never goin' ter quit ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter
... your dollar." Crosby drew a silver dollar from his trousers pocket, almost falling from his perch in the effort. ...
— The Day of the Dog • George Barr McCutcheon
... support of his daughter-in-law and her little Judith. He began to look upon hunting and fishing as a duty and seemed to feel that they would have been destitute without his occasional donation of a small string of perch or a rabbit. Mrs. Knight tolerated him because she was used to him. Judith had a real affection for the old man and, when he died, mourned for him sincerely. To be sure he had been a very untidy old ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... we looked long and intently. It was the moral of the picture; it appeared to gather in to itself the sympathies of the whole beautiful world; and as it hung there, herding with the things of heaven, our spirit seemed to ascend and perch upon its pale bosom like a wearied dove. Presently we knew the nature of the influence it exercised upon our imagination; for a cord, not visible at first to the external organs, though doubtless felt by the inner sense, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... clock, in a handsome case, and would, undoubtedly, have been a becoming perch for a bird of my dignified appearance, but I will not describe it to-day. Nor will I speak of my meditations as I sit in my Ivy Bush like any other common owl, and reflect that if I had not had my own way, but had listened to Little Miss, I might have sat on an Eight-day ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... by a blue and yellow macaw at one window chained to his perch, and a green monkey tethered in like manner ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the skin of his teeth. He got me so nervous that I couldn't look at the view. I couldn't look at anything but him. Every time he went sailing over one of those abysses my breath stood still, and when he grabbed for the perch he was going for, I grabbed too, in sympathy. And he was perfectly indifferent, perfectly unconcerned, and I did all the panting myself. He came within an ace of losing his life a dozen times, and I was so troubled about him that I would have shot him if I had had anything to do it with. But I strongly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... way. About fifty yards down the stream, and in the direction of Chapel Farm, was a deep hole in the river bed, about five feet wide. On the other side of it there were not more than eighteen inches of water at any point. Catharine knew that hole well, as the haunt of the jack and the perch. She reached it, cleared it at a bound, and alighted on the bit of shingle just beyond it. Her pursuer came up and stared at her silently, with his mouth half open. Just at that moment the instant sound of wheels was heard, and he slowly sauntered back to his barge. Catharine ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... a narrow ledge under the brink of the bank to seek a little shelter from the pitiless storm. There they had lain, growing weaker and weaker, until unable to cling any longer to their precarious perch they had slipped into the trench to lie among the human excreta, urine and other filth. They knew where they were but were so far gone as to be unable to lift a finger on their own behalf. Their condition, when we fished them out, to place them upon as dry a spot as we could find, I can leave ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... one of the islands) than from a smoke hole, or from an aperture in the wall, closed at night with a tuft of grass. The calf and pig were seen as inmates, while the little furniture that appeared, was either festooned with strings of dried fish, or crossed with a perch for the ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... coochman as puts oop at th' White Hoss tellt me as theer war another nevey, a deal finer chap t' looke at nor this un, as died in a fit, all on a soodden, an' soo this here yoong un's got upo' th' perch istid.' ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... these are extremely graceful birds, and strong flyers, and in desert places, where man seldom intrudes, they gather to follow the traveller, calling to each other with low whistling notes, and in the distance look like white flowers as they perch on the topmost stems of the tall ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... will stand below to catch her I think I shall be able to release her," called Harriet from her perch ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... pompous Crevel. "Madame la Baronne, I throw myself at your feet! Good Heavens, how the children grow! they are pushing us off the perch—'Grand-pa,' they say, 'we want our turn in the sunshine.'—Madame la Comtesse, you are as lovely as ever," he went on, addressing Hortense.—"Ah, ha! and here is the best of good money: ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... of his fasting By the lake he sat and pondered, By the still, transparent water; Saw the sturgeon, Nahma, leaping, Scattering drops like beads of wampum, Saw the yellow perch, the Sahwa, Like a sunbeam in the water, Saw the pike, the Maskenozha, And the herring, Okahahwis, And the Shawgashee, the crawfish! "Master of Life!" he cried, desponding, "Must our lives ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... offered by the North River (the Hudson) for the study of the fresh-water fishes of this country. I have filled a barrel with them. The species differ greatly from ours, with the exception of the perch, the eel, the pike, and the sucker, in which only a practiced eye could detect the difference; all the rest belong to genera unknown in Europe, or, at least, in ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... matter of driving. As we drew near, Culhane suddenly called a halt and, lining us up as was his rule, called to the horses of the brewery wagon, who also obeyed his lusty "Whoa!" The driver, from his high perch above, stared down on us with ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... life is consecrated to your service," replied Laoy, with strong emotion. "You know with what pride I would fight at your side, secure that victory must always perch upon the banners of my ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... The perch or coupling-pole should be shifting or movable, as, in the event of the loss of a wheel, an axle, or other accident rendering it necessary to abandon the wagon, a temporary cart may be constructed out of the remaining portion. The tires should ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... the guide, sliding slowly down from his perch on the camping outfit. He emptied the pipe he had been comfortably smoking. "Time enough," he answered. Naki was ...
— The Automobile Girls in the Berkshires - The Ghost of Lost Man's Trail • Laura Dent Crane
... You can hear this strange cry: "How are you, father? A parrot-man I." He sits on his perch, In his little white cap, And pecks at your hand If the cage door you tap. Now give him some seeds, Hear him say with a ...
— Philippine Folklore Stories • John Maurice Miller
... her one morning, as having met by chance they were walking home together along the Embankment. "You're not 'Clorinda'; you ought to be writing letters to her, not from her, waking her up, telling her to come off her perch, and find out what the earth feels like. I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll trot you round to Carleton. If you're out for stirring up strife and contention, well, that's his game, too. He'll use you for his beastly sordid ends. He'd have roped in John the Baptist ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... against a rocky bluff so high it dwarfed the whole ranch to pygmy size when one gazed down from the rim, and so steep that one wondered how the huge, gray bowlders managed to perch upon its side instead of rolling down and crushing the buildings to dust and fragments. Strangers used to keep a wary eye upon that bluff, as if they never felt quite safe from its menace. Coyotes ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... saw the whole from his perch, but his meal was not at all disturbed, for he began eating again with apparent relish. Indeed, I was soon furnished with another of these unconscious protectors. This one came from the opposite direction to a point where I had hung a splendid ham of venison. He cared to go ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... (He takes a plug of tobacco from his pocket and hands it to his father. Nora slides down off her perch and ...
— The Straw • Eugene O'Neill
... fly, the main-topsail was backed against the mast. She hove-to. I almost fell from my post with joy as I saw a boat lowered, which came rapidly pulling towards the rock. Putting on my shirt—it was now perfectly dry—I descended from my perch to the rock, and there stood eagerly watching the boat. Again a thought occurred to me, that she might, after all, be the "Emu," and in another few minutes I might be in the clutches of old Growles and the boatswain, and my other persecutors. But as I strained my ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... get lost, I can find myself," muttered the newcomer. He looked regretfully at the green slopes about him; the lofty, impassive cliffs where Peace seemed to perch, a visible presence; the great sweeps of free forest; then at Uncle Pros and Johnnie. And they ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... housekeeper at Chesney Wold, sits within the chaise; and by her side sits Mrs. Bagnet with her grey cloak and umbrella. The old girl would prefer the bar in front, as being exposed to the weather and a primitive sort of perch more in accordance with her usual course of travelling, but Mrs. Rouncewell is too thoughtful of her comfort to admit of her proposing it. The old lady cannot make enough of the old girl. She sits, in her stately manner, holding her hand, and regardless of its roughness, puts it often to her lips. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... seated upon the upper step of the west porch, her chin cradled in her hand, her elbow on her knee, gazing on the darkening sky, and crooning Scotch ballads in a pensive, dreamy way. Mabel, from her perch, eyed her as if she were a creature belonging to another world—seen dimly, and comprehended yet more imperfectly. Yet it could not have been half an hour—thirty fleeting minutes—since the two had talked as dear friends ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... well. It was for this reason that I sat upon the Shrubbery gate towards nine o'clock of a certain evening, swinging my legs and listening for the sound of her step along the path. In the fulness of time she came, and getting off my perch, I took the heavy basket from her ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol
... favoured an upside-down bucket for a seat. Nothing more uncomfortable for a fat man can be imagined, yet Cheon sat on his rickety perch, for the most part chuckling and happy. Perhaps, like Mark Tapley, he felt it a "credit being ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... the commerce of Amalfi, then a republican city of fifty thousand people; and Grecian Paestum on the marshy shore, even then a ruin, its deserted porches and columns monuments of an architecture never equaled elsewhere in Italy. Upon this charming perch, the old Carthusian monks took the summer breezes and the winter sun, pruned their olives, and trimmed their grapevines, and said prayers for the poor sinners toiling in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the old fable of the frogs and the stork finely touches one form of it; but truth will image it more closely than fable, for tyranny is not complete when it is only over the idle, but when it is over the laborious and the blind. This description of pelicans and climbing perch, which I find quoted in one of our popular natural histories, out of Sir Emerson Tennant's Ceylon, comes as near as may be to the true ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... as that?" he thought. "Does Ska know that I am so near gone that he dares come down and perch upon my carcass?" And even then a grim smile touched those swollen lips as into the savage mind came a sudden thought-the cunning of the wild beast at bay. Closing his eyes he threw a forearm across them to protect them from Ska's powerful beak ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he flew down from his perch and said, "Cock-a-doodle-do" three times and a half, and after that the owl flew away. "That was very kind of you," said the little rabbit. "Oh, don't mention it," said the red rooster, "but there is one thing you can do for me." "What's that?" asked ...
— Billy Bunny and Uncle Bull Frog • David Magie Cory
... story of my escape with amazement, saying, "You fell into the hands of the Old Man of the Sea, and it is a mercy that he did not strangle you as he has everyone else upon whose shoulders he has managed to perch himself. This island is well-known as the scene of his evil deeds, and no merchant or sailor who lands upon it cares to stray far away from his comrades." After we had talked for awhile they took me back with them on board their ship, where the captain received me kindly, ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... tendency to produce, amid such a scene. But making an effort to shake off the superstitious awe that he felt creeping around his own heart, the lieutenant relieved the mind of the worthy old seaman so far as to call the careless boy from his perch, to his own side; where respect for the sacred character of the quarter-deck instantly put an end to the lively air he had been humming. Tom walked slowly forward, apparently much relieved by the reflection that he had ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... to check the laughter on their lips, and dim their bright eyes with tears? The little group, headed by Louisa, has suddenly come to a pause under a tree, where a wee robin, half dead with hunger and cold, has fallen from its perch. ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... most beautiful of the Cumberland lakes, in the S. of the county; extends S. from Keswick; is over 3 m. long, and over 1 m. broad; is dotted with wooded islands, and is overlooked by Skiddaw; it abounds with perch. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... depend upon every true American; we owe you a debt, and depend upon it every descendant of the founders of our country will die before that obligation is allowed to be repudiated." With loud cheers, Mid was lifted from his perch. ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... a parrot belonging to King Henry VIII. having been kept in a room next the Thames, in his palace at Westminster, had learned to repeat many sentences from the boatmen and passengers. One day sporting on its perch, it unluckily fell into the water. The bird had no sooner discovered its situation, than it called out aloud, 'A boat, twenty pounds for a boat.' A waterman happening to be near the place where the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 476, Saturday, February 12, 1831 • Various
... cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by the three look-outs, the men on deck rushed to the rigging to behold the famous whale they had so long been pursuing. Ahab had now gained his final perch, some feet above the other look-outs, Tashtego standing just beneath him on the cap of the top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian's head was almost on a level with Ahab's heel. From this height the whale was now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing his ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... was good, for at that moment Nelson opened furiously on the quarter-master at the conn. 'I'll knock you off your perch, you rascal, if you are so inattentive.—Sir Ed'ard, send your best quarter-master to ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... misdeemed appellative. Better be an old maid, a woman with herself for a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one. When playing the sempstress, Jarl's favorite perch was the triangular little platform in the bow; which being the driest and most elevated part of the boat, was best adapted to his purpose. Here for hours and hours together the honest old tailor would sit darning and ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... of deep-blue sky and bright sunshine, the soft spring air vocal with the song of birds. As soon as early drill ended I had left the fort-enclosure, and sought a lonely perch on the great rock above the mouth of the cave. It was a spot I loved. Below, extended a magnificent vista of the river, fully a mile wide from shore to shore, spreading out in a sheet of glittering silver, unbroken ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... mouth, but also in the fact that the tail was of considerable length. With regard to its habits and mode of life, Professor Phillips remarks that, "gifted with ample means of flight, able at least to perch on rocks and scuffle along the shore, perhaps competent to dive, though not so well as a Palmiped bird, many fishes must have yielded to the cruel beak and sharp teeth of Rhamphorhynchus. If we ask to which of the many families ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... Elmsley, in tears indeed, for as my aunt pressed me to her bosom, I returned her embrace with an intense emotion, that seemed to resume in itself the history of my past life; but still with the eager impatience of the bird who wildly takes his flight from the perch to which he is still confined, and hopes, by the keen impetuosity with which he soars, to shake off the dead weight which chains him down to earth. The day was beautiful: white fleecy clouds were flitting rapidly across the sky; and the mild breeze ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... when only three were on a seat they banged each other perpetually, and ran much risk of injuring their hats against the roof by the violent jolting of the roads. In front of the vehicle was a wooden bench where Pierrotin sat, on which three travellers could perch; when there, they went, as everybody knows, by the name of "rabbits." On certain trips Pierrotin placed four rabbits on the bench, and sat himself at the side, on a sort of box placed below the body of the coach as a foot-rest for the rabbits, which was always full of straw, or of ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter, In there stepp'd a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Not the least obeisance made he, not a minute stopp'd or stay'd he, But, with mien of lord or lady, perch'd above my chamber-door; Perch'd upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber-door;— Perch'd, and sat, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... the centre, in whose close embrace, From all the wild circumference, each line Directly runs to find its resting-place: Upon their swiftest wings, to perch on thine Ennobling breast, which is their only butt, The arrows of all high desires ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... they had any quantity of fishing. Perch and cat-fish swarmed all around the island; and large pickerel, some of them weighing six or eight pounds, could be caught by trolling. Two miles farther north was another lake that was full of trout, and the boys visited it several times, and found out how delicious ...
— Harper's Young People, September 7, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... leave our perch, the snow was falling faster and in larger flakes. It made pictures for Georgia and me upon the branches of big and little trees; it gathered in a ridge beside us upon the log; it nestled in piles upon our buffalo robe; and by the ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... will, and I will exalt you above my other wives, and will set you nearer to me than them all." Then she said to him, "Take a greenish dove with a ring about its neck, and write something on its foot with the menstruous blood of a blue-eyed maid; then let the bird loose, and it will perch on the walls of the city, and they will fall down." For that, says the Arab historian, was the talisman of the city, which could not be destroyed in any other way. And Sapor did as she bade him, and the city fell down ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... Gap Railway to its junction with the Orange and Alexandria road, below Bull Run. For aught that I knew, some concealed observer might now be watching me from the pine-tops on the nearest knoll. Some rifleman might be running his practised eye down the deadly groove, to topple me from my perch, and send me crashing through the boughs. The uncertainty, the hazard, the novelty of my position had at this time an indescribable charm: but subsequent exposures dissipated the romance and taught me the folly ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... no doubt, would be a great advantage, but the loss of a recognized seat of government, with its diplomatic and other traditions, would have been of vastly more fatal consequence to us than the capture of their provisional perch in Virginia would have been to the Rebel authorities. It would have brought foreign recognition to the Rebels, and thrown Maryland certainly, and probably Kentucky, into the scale against us. So long as we held Washington, we had on our side the two powerful sentiments ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... bathe. The trees along the shore were occupied by immense crowds of exemplary sea-fowl, whose regular and primitive habits of life had sent them to roost at this early hour. Notwithstanding their webbed feet, they managed to perch securely among the branches, many of which were so heavily freighted, that they bent almost to ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... "that is just my case, for, It's far better to sit on one's own perch, for then one can never be left in the lurch; besides, All cocks crow loudest at home. If I may have your leave, I will come ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... thought we had really taken in all that we could, we did not stay on our lofty perch much longer, fearing the result of our guide's geological researches; however, we found him still fairly well, and very little less lazy, so took him for a little jolting down a rather "fast" bit, which not only woke him up, but brought us quickly down to our shepherd's hut again. ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... see him quite plainly now. Below the ape-man Bara was about to pass. Could he do it? But even as he asked himself the question the hungry man launched himself from his perch full upon the back ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
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