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Aquatic   Listen
adjective
Aquatic  adj.  Pertaining to water; growing in water; living in, swimming in, or frequenting the margins of waters; as, aquatic plants and fowls.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Aquatic" Quotes from Famous Books



... a peaceful tribe. At the bottom, the plump river snails discreetly raise their lid, opening ever so little the shutters of their dwelling; on the level of the water, in the glades of the aquatic garden, the pond snails—Physa, Limnaea and Planorbis—take the air. Dark leeches writhe upon their prey, a chunk of earthworm; thousands of tiny, reddish grubs, future mosquitoes, go spinning around and twist and curve like so many ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre

... once aquatic in habits, throw a flood of lurid light (as the newspapers say) upon the reason why this should be so. For example, frogs and toads develop from tadpoles, which in all essentials are true gill-breathing fish. It is, therefore, obvious that they cannot lay their eggs ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen

... did his temper some service, since, by conjuring up the reception his semi-aquatic acquaintance would be likely to bestow on one thus introduced, he burst into a hearty fit of laughter. Deerslayer too well knew the uselessness of attempting to convince such a being of anything against his prejudices, to feel a desire to undertake the task; and he was not ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... the rat-moles), the shrew-mice (which resemble true mice), the hedgehogs, and the less known spiny tanrec of Madagascar (which resemble porcupines in their clothing); certain graceful and active tree-frequenting insectivores of the Indian Archipelago, Tupaia (which resemble squirrels); an aquatic African form, Potomogale (which resembles the musk-rat); certain elephant shrews—long-legged, jumping, African insectivores (which resemble the jerboa amongst rodents); and, lastly, the so-called flying lemur of the Philippine Islands, or Galeopithecus, which resembles the flying squirrel, and ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... rose to the height of twenty feet, and, returning in a shower of prismatic globules, stole away through a bed of water-lilies and other aquatic plants, losing itself in a grove of lofty plantain-trees. These, growing from the cool watery bed, flung out their broad glistening leaves to ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... are ready to issue they burst open the lower end of the eggs and the young wrigglers escape into the water. The larvae are fitted for aquatic life only, so mosquitoes cannot breed in moist or damp places unless there is at least a small amount of standing water there. A very little will do, but there must be enough to cover the larvae ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane

... of remains of minute aquatic plants. It may be loose and powdery, or coherent like chalk. It is of sedimentary origin, accumulated originally at the bottoms of ponds, lakes, ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... creeks and lagoons. The frog in the well knows nothing of the salt sea, and its aboriginal prototype contents himself with milder and generally less remunerative kind of sport than that in which his bolder cousins revel. Such a man, however, may possess aquatic lore of which the other is admittedly ignorant, and be apt in devices towards which the attitude of the salt-water man is adverse, if not contemptuous. The fresh-water man is skilful in the use of a net shaped something like the secondary wings of a certain ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... with an almost perfect freedom from tremor. Along with this I purchased every possible accessory,—draw-tubes, micrometers, a camera-lucida, lever-stage, acromatic condensers, white cloud illuminators, prisms, parabolic condensers, polarizing apparatus, forceps, aquatic boxes, fishing-tubes, with a host of other articles, all of which would have been useful in the hands of an experienced microscopist, but, as I afterwards discovered, were not of the slightest present value to me. It ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... in the Homeric carousals of some ten thousand of the half-horse, half-alligator breed that nightly gathered in New Orleans. Broad-horns and mud-sills they were called in derision. A strange race of aquatic pioneers, jeans and leather clad, the rifle and the setting-pole equally theirs, they came out of every stream down which a scow could be thrust at flood-time; from tiny settlements far back among the hills; from those bustling ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... the other animals; that amphibians have a double existence difficult to explain; that certain inhabitants of the sea live in the greatest depths, and support there, without being crushed, pressures of fifty or sixty atmospheres; that some aquatic insects, insensible to the temperature, are met with at the same time in springs of boiling water and in the frozen plains of the Polar Ocean—in short, there are in nature many means of action, often incomprehensible, ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne

... deposits and the effects of the inundation upon the soil of Egypt—Paucity of the flora: aquatic plants, the papyrus and the lotus; the sycamore and the date-palm, the acacias, the dom-palms—The fauna: the domestic and wild animals; serpents, the urstus; the hippopotamus and the crocodile; ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... like other creatures both aquatic and terrestrial, have their moments of impatience and anger; and the zygaena, yielding to these passions, common to both piscine and human nature, at length determined to break through the rules of the game, and bring the play ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... follows: "Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered by natural selection more and more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler

... impassable mud below bristled with chevaux de frise of the dwarf palmetto. Two lone forest-trees, dead cypresses, stood in the centre of the marsh, dotted with roosting vultures. The shallow strips of water were hid by myriads of aquatic plants, under whose coarse and spiritless flowers, could one have seen it, was a harbor of reptiles, great and small, to make one shudder to the end of ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable

... before, and for a time it had been the scene of incessant nautical exploits. Stilling had rowed, sailed, paddled indefatigably, and all Highfield had been impressed to bear him company, and to admire his versatility. Then motors had come in, and he had forsaken aquatic sports for the flying chariot. The canoes of birch-bark and canvas had been hoisted to the roof, the sail-boat had rotted at her moorings, and the movable floor of the boat-house, ingeniously contrived to slide back on noiseless runners, had lain ...
— The Choice - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... Above all they revel in motion. When they tire of walking-matches—A rides on horseback, or borrows a bicycle and competes with his weaker-minded associates on foot. Now they race on locomotives; now they row; or again they become historical and engage stage-coaches; or at times they are aquatic and swim. If their occupation is actual work they prefer to pump water into cisterns, two of which leak through holes in the bottom and one of which is water-tight. A, of course, has the good one; he also takes the bicycle, and the best locomotive, and the right of swimming with ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock

... submerge; plunge, souse, duck, drown; soak, steep, macerate, pickle, wash, sprinkle, lave, bathe, affuse^, splash, swash, douse, drench; dabble, slop, slobber, irrigate, inundate, deluge; syringe, inject, gargle. Adj. watery, aqueous, aquatic, hydrous, lymphatic; balneal^, diluent; drenching &c v.; diluted &c v.; weak; wet &c (moist) 339. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... must be as indispensable for aquatic animals as for those which live upon the earth. They must draw it into their bodies, and convert it either into aerial acid or into vitiated air. Into whichever kind it is, however, it must always become separated from the water again, ...
— Discovery of Oxygen, Part 2 • Carl Wilhelm Scheele

... excellency, in a land as fertile as this, and caressed by a climate that would coax life from a stone, there must be an infinite number of aquatic and aerial treasures that will add materially to the scientific ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton

... very center of the fountain basin, a huge sphere, supported by a writhing mass of aquatic beasts, continues the scheme upwards, culminating in the youth on horseback as the dominating figure of the whole scheme. The sphere is charmingly decorated with reclining figures of the two hemispheres and with a great number of minor interesting motives of marine origin. The youth on horseback ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... felt this charm, and, yielding to it, splashed and sang like any beach-bird, while Aunt Pen bobbed placidly up and down in a retired corner, and Mr. Leavenworth swam to and fro, expressing his firm belief in mermaids, sirens, and the rest of the aquatic sisterhood, whose warbling ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott

... again mount the wagon at the further end of the bridge. We were sure the horse would have to swim in the middle of the current, and perhaps for a considerable distance beyond; but, having witnessed his proficiency in aquatic performances, we had no doubt of ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... in London again, little dreaming that the Elector would soon follow him as king. Incensed with him for leaving Hanover, the King at first refused to receive him; but some music which Handel composed for an aquatic fete in his honor brought about the royal reconciliation. In 1718 he accepted the position of chapel-master to the Duke of Chandos, for whom he wrote the famous Chandos Te Deum and Anthems, the serenata "Acis and Galatea," and "Esther," his first English oratorio. ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... fundamental principles of physiology must be understood before the study of Bionomics can begin. We must know the essential nature of the process of respiration before we can appreciate the different modes of respiration in a whale and a fish, an aquatic insect and a crustacean. The more we know of the physiology of reproduction, the better we can understand the sexual and parental habits of different kinds ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... burst early many of the birds which breed in the rains begin building their nests towards the end of June, but, in nine years out of ten, July marks the beginning of the breeding period of aquatic birds, therefore the account of their nests properly finds place in the calendar of that month, or of August, when the season is ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar

... such complete facility under confinement as the members of the great Duck family; yet, considering their aquatic and wandering habits, and the nature of their food, this could not have been anticipated. Even some time ago above two dozen species had bred in the Zoological Gardens; and M. Selys-Longchamps has recorded the production of hybrids from forty-four different members of the family; and ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... arches. The long projection of rock is so curved as to prevent the arches being fully seen in any one view. I have waded and swam through these rocky vistas, and there, where any more than moderate waves would have mangled me against the tusks of the cruel rocks, I have found little specimens of aquatic life by the millions, clinging fast to the rocks that were home to them and protecting themselves by taking lime out of the water and building such a solid wall of shell that no fierceness of the wildest storm could work them harm. All these seek their food from Him who feeds all life, and ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... looked out over the long stretch of unruffled water, filmed over with ice near the shores, and saw a tiny dark object traveling through it with self-possession and an air of purpose beneath the constellations; some aquatic bird up to something, heedless of the approaching midnight and ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens

... "in days long gone by, had with great difficulty lighted a fire on the bank of a river. The sun first came to warm itself by the fire, and while the otter had gone on one of its aquatic expeditions, the moon arrived too. The sun and moon together, feeling in a mischievous mood, put out the fire with water not extra clean. Then they ran for all they were worth. The otter, feeling cold, came out of the water and, to ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... the shoulder girdle and forelimbs (Olson, 1961:214). As Olson has pointed out, this further localized the stresses to which the bone was subjected. Additional localization of stresses was created with the origin and development of tetrapods (reptiles) that were independent of an aquatic environment and were subjected to greater effects of gravity and loss of bouyancy in the migration from the aqueous environment to the environment of air. The localization of these stresses was in the border area of the cheek, away from ...
— The Adductor Muscles of the Jaw In Some Primitive Reptiles • Richard C. Fox

... the others, he made a desperate jump, but he jumped into the middle of the hole with such force that he sprained his ankle, besides sinking into a small pond that was almost dry, being overgrown with rushes and aquatic plants. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... disappeared altogether, and the boughs of beautiful trees, which hung over the banks, overshadowed them in their stead, forming an arch-like canopy, impervious to the rays of the sun. The river and the lesser stream abound with alligators and hippopotami, the wild ducks and a variety of other aquatic birds resorting to them in considerable numbers. In regard to the alligator, a singular fraud is committed by the natives of the coast, who collect the alligators' eggs in great numbers, and being in their size and make exactly resembling ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... Queen of Aquatic Plants the language of admiration has been exhausted. It was discovered in the first year of the present century by the botanist Haenke who was sent by the Spanish Government to investigate the vegetable productions of Peru. When in a canoe on the Rio Mamore, ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson

... are covered with a small, hard aquatic plant, which, when the surface is exposed, becomes dry and crisp, crackling under the foot as if it contained much stony matter in its tissue. It probably assists in disintegrating the rocks; for, in parts so high as not to be much exposed to the action ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone

... cover of the slight landswell which then, more plainly marked than it is now, formed the contour line of hummock upon which the fort and village stood. A watery swale grown full of tall aquatic weeds meandered parallel with the bluff, so to call it, and there was a soft melancholy whispering of wind among the long blades and stems. She passed the church and Father Beret's hut and continued for some distance in the direction of that pretty ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson

... stand upon a rich velvet mat, or on a flat mirror provided for the purpose. The latter is a clever idea for a centre-piece of pond-lilies or other aquatic plants, simulating a miniature lake, its edges ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton

... probably the true explanation as to why there has been no mermaid in Druid lake since. She may be in Cylburn brook, she may be in Jones' Falls, she may have reached the Patapsco, but no one has ever seen a creature answering her description and aquatic habits since the damsel who once held the job got ...
— The Mermaid of Druid Lake and Other Stories • Charles Weathers Bump

... pongee and damask silks, paper and lustring had been employed, together with rice-paper, to make flowers of, which had been affixed on the branches. Upon each tree were suspended thousands of lanterns; and what is more, the lotus and aquatic plants, the ducks and water fowl in the pond had all, in like manner, been devised out of conches and clams, plumes and feathers. The various lanterns, above and below, vied in refulgence. In real truth, it was a crystal region, a world of pearls and precious stones. On board the boat were also ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... remain quiet, threw off his clothes, and having covered his head with a bunch of grass which he hastily plucked from the bank, he made his way amid the water towards the bird; which, standing on a leaf, was engaged in picking up aquatic insects floating by, and uttering a low-sounding "cluck, cluck" at short intervals. When the bird turned towards Kallolo, he immediately stopped; then on he went again, till he got close behind it, when, suddenly darting out his hand, he seized it by its ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston

... toward the garden, shadowed with trees, rough with shells, flints, and iron ore. The bottom is paved with simple pebbles, as is also the adjoining walk up the wilderness to the temple, in the natural state, agreeing not ill with the little dripping murmur, and the aquatic idea of the whole place. It wants nothing to complete it but a good statue with an inscription, like that beautiful antique one which you know I am so fond of. You will think I have been very poetical in this description; but it ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... of course, gathered round this strange life—personal encounters, aquatic feats, and all manner of romantic and impossible episodes; their basis being, that Byron on one occasion thrashed, on another challenged, a man who tried to cheat him, was a frequent rider, and a constant swimmer, so that he came to be called "the English fish," "water-spaniel," ...
— Byron • John Nichol

... solution; and it is, therefore, found in larger or smaller quantity dissolved in all natural waters, both fresh and salt, since these waters are always to some extent charged with the above-mentioned solvent gas. A great number of aquatic animals, however, together with some aquatic plants, are endowed with the power of separating the lime thus held in solution in the water, and of reducing it again to its solid condition. In this way shell-fish, ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson

... good swimmers, but will not enter the water unless to avoid a foe. There is, however, one species of aquatic hare, found only in the Southern United States. It is amphibious, like the musk-rat, is a most expert swimmer, and makes its nest, or "form," on the edge of the morass, where it sleeps all day, sallying forth morning and evening for ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... for miles in length, was covered with playthings for him—a mosaic of pebbles red as coral, yellow as amber, and pure white, round as birds' eggs, all smoothed and polished by the sea. Even the scales of the dried fish, the aquatic plants dried by the wind, the shining seaweed fluttering among the rocks—all were pleasant to his eye, and matter for his thoughts; and the boy was an excitable, clever child. Much genius and great abilities lay dormant in him. How well he remembered all the stories and old ballads he heard; ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... that, if he did, the bag could be retrieved in such an amateurish way. But I had learned that when our Chauffeulier said a thing could be done, it would be done, and I confidently expected to see him returning accompanied by some obviously aquatic creature. ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... forelimb known to be missing are two subterminal and two terminal phalanges, probably of the first and third digits, and the proximal end of the second metacarpal. The smooth and relatively flat surfaces suggest an aquatic rather than terrestrial limb; only the proximal half of the humerus bears any conspicuous ridges or depressions. As we restore the skeleton of the limb, several features are remarkable: The humerus, ulna, and ulnare align themselves as the ...
— A New Order of Fishlike Amphibia From the Pennsylvanian of Kansas • Theodore H. Eaton

... dug-out, leaky and every way disabled. But by dint of skillful engineering they have got her afloat and are pulling and paddling about, as happy, as free from care, and to complete the picture, as naked as any South Sea Islander in his merriest aquatic mood. Hither and thither, up and down, they float at their own sweet wills, having no orders from superior officers to obey. And this is part of a column supposed to be watching a vigilant and powerful enemy! What ...
— Our campaign around Gettysburg • John Lockwood

... coat, and folded it up with great elaboration, staring at Miss Sally all the time; then put on a blue jacket with a double row of gilt buttons, which he had originally ordered for aquatic expeditions, but had brought with him that morning for office purposes; and, still keeping his eye upon her, suffered himself to drop down silently upon Mr Brass's stool. Then he underwent a relapse, ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... with every low whisper of the autumn breeze: where there was a faint perfume of pine wood; where every here and there, between the lower branches of the trees, there was a blue glimmer of still water-pools, half-hidden under flat green leaves of wild aquatic plants, where there was a solemn stillness that reminded one of the holy quiet of a church, and where Sir Philip Jocelyn had every chance of ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... these intelligences with the more lofty constitution of certain angelical choirs.... the Seraphim, Virtues, and Powers (being) of a fiery character, the Cherubim terrestrial, the Thrones and Archangels aquatic, while the Dominations and Principalities are aerial." A. E. Waite, The Occult Sciences, ...
— Legends, Tales and Poems • Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

... independent main branches the four separate stems of the Molluscs, Star-fishes, Arthropods, and Vertebrates. It is only these last whose bodily structure and development in all essential respects coincide with those of man. A long series of lower aquatic Vertebrates (lancelets, lampreys, fishes) precedes the lungbreathing Amphibians, which appear for the first time in the Carboniferous period. The Amphibians are followed in the Permian period by the first Amniota, the oldest reptiles; from these develop ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel

... knees, leaving her legs bare; her bluish apron drips and smells of the brine like a filter; and her bare feet in contrast with the brown color that the sun has given her flesh, are singularly pallid, like the roots of aquatic plants. And her voice is limpid and childish; and some of the words that she speaks seem to light up her ingenuous face ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton

... production. On the other hand the thickets are alive with pheasants, quail, pigeons, wild pigs and other descriptions of game. The waters swarm with the most excellent fish and innumerable turtles sport in the lagoons, while curlews, snipe, ducks and other aquatic fowls flock on their shores; and not the least of the gifts with which the munificent hand of nature has so bountifully endowed this delicious oasis of the ocean is its delightful and soft, yet invigorating, climate, that makes well nigh useless the ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.

... the child, who was evidently enjoying his aquatic sport, for some time, the two women proceeded on their way. On reaching home, Mrs. Boyton, with a feeling of remorse for keeping her young son so long in captivity, went up stairs to release him, and to her consternation ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... the capital of Colonel Gordon's new province, a distance of about 1000 miles, another obstacle presents itself, in the form of an almost impassable barrier, known as a "sudd," which forms on the river, and puts a stop to traffic. Gordon said that the sudd is formed by an "aquatic plant with roots extending five feet in the water. The natives burn the top parts, when dry; the ashes form mould, and fresh grasses grow till it becomes like terra firma. The Nile rises, and floats out the masses; they come down to a curve and then stop. ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill

... cells seated on threads, not compacted into a hymenium PHYSOMYCETES. Threads felted, moniliform— Sporangia irregular Antennariei. Threads free— Sporangia terminal or lateral Mucorini. Aquatic Saprolegniei. ...
— Fungi: Their Nature and Uses • Mordecai Cubitt Cooke

... among you!' and vanished. The road which connected Nightmare Abbey with the civilised world, was artificially raised above the level of the fens, and ran through them in a straight line as far as the eye could reach, with a ditch on each side, of which the water was rendered invisible by the aquatic vegetation that covered the surface. Into one of these ditches the sudden action of a shy horse, which took fright at a windmill, had precipitated the travelling chariot of Mr Toobad, who had been reduced to the necessity of scrambling in dismal plight through the window. One of the wheels was ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock

... at this distance, as the blouses of the Sacred Sixty-three, who frequented this somewhat public spot for bathing purposes, blandly indifferent, or resigned, to the gaze of inquisitive onlookers. Mr. Heard, among others, had witnessed their aquatic diversions. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... ossicles are replaced by large bones and cartilages connected with the jaw, and the drum and Eustachian tube by a gill slit. We have, in fact, in the ear, as the student will perceive in the sequel, an essentially aquatic auditory organ, added to and patched up to fit the new needs of a ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells

... of them were single figures of men and women; some were busts; some were groups in natural or allegorical poses—all were done with consummate skill and feeling. Between the statues there were fountains, magnificent bronze and glass groups of the strange aquatic denizens of this strange planet, bathed in geometrically shaped sprays, screens, and columns of water. Winding around between the statues and the fountains there was a moving, scintillating wall, and upon ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith

... created the earth and man and who formerly dwelt in a vast cavern under the Falls of St. Anthony. The Unktehee sometimes reveals himself in the form of a huge buffalo-bull. From him proceed invisible influences. The Great Unktehee created the earth. "Assembling in grand conclave all the aquatic tribes he ordered them to bring up dirt from beneath the waters, and proclaimed death to the disobedient. The beaver and otter forfeited their lives. At last the muskrat went beneath the waters, and, after a long time appeared at the surface, nearly exhausted, with some dirt. From this, ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... its wing. The harrier methodically ducked its head each time its tormentor rushed down at it, after which it would tear its prey again in its uncomfortable manner. Farther away, in the depression running along at the foot of the hill, meandered a small stream so filled with aquatic grasses and plants that the water was quite concealed, its course appearing like a vivid green snake, miles long, lying there basking in the sunshine. At the point of the stream nearest to me an old man was seated ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson

... slopes of the moraine deposits four species of lemming, hunted by the Canis lagopus, find quarters. Two species of the white partridge, the lark, one Plectrophanes, two or three species of Sylvia, one Phylloscopus, and the Motacilla must be added. Numberless aquatic birds, however, visit it for breeding purposes. Ducks, divers, geese, gulls, all the Russian species of snipes and sandpipers, etc., cover the marshes of the tundras, or the crags ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various

... mirror. It soon appeared that our anticipations of good sport were not to be disappointed: on all sides, as far as the eye could reach, as well as near at hand in the pools at the base of the gisr or dike, appeared innumerable birds, principally aquatic. Large flocks of paddy-birds, often called the white ibis, speckled the green of the fields; enormous pelicans stood hanging their enormous beaks, as if in drowsy contemplation, over distant pools; storks and herons, single, or arranged, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various

... Club commenced their aquatic brotherhood in June, 1877, and the members do themselves honour by gratuitously attending the public baths in the summer months to teach the art of swimming to School Board youngsters. [See "Baths,"] The celebrated swimmer, Captain Webb, who was drowned at Niagara, July 24, 1883, visited this ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... height from the ground eight feet. This has apparently been used by them for smoke-drying a dead blackfellow. We have seen no natives since leaving the Roper, although their smoke is still round about us. On and about the marsh are large flocks of geese, ibis, and numerous other aquatic birds; they are so wild that they will not allow us to come within shot of them. Mr. Kekwick has been successful in shooting a goose; it has a peculiar-shaped head, having a large horny lump on the top resembling a topknot, and only a very small web at the ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... of the mouth is ever an indication of the grade of a creature: thus in man, who is at the head of the scale, it is in the upper part of the body; that in proportion to the heat of an animal is its grade higher; thus those that are aquatic are cold, and therefore of very little intelligence, and the same maybe said of plants; but of man, whose warmth is very great, the soul is much more excellent; that the possession of locomotion by an organism always implies the possession of sensation; that the senses of taste ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper

... neither written testimony nor circumstantial hint. Herodotus tells us, "The Egyptians say the soul, on the dissolution of the body, always enters into some other animal then born, and, having passed in rotation through the various terrestrial, aquatic, and arial beings, again enters the body of a man then born."1 There is no assertion that, at the end of the three thousand years occupied by this circuit, the soul will re enter its former body. The plain inference, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... I was fascinated by the aquarium, with its multitudes of aquatic animals and fish. There, for the first time in my life, I saw an elephant, and did not tire of gazing at the mighty beast. I was struck by the strange caprice with which the great Being we call Nature goes to work, or, more correctly, by the contrast between ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... green, over which a speckled skin was knotted like a scarf across the right shoulder—this was the Fairy of the Woods. As to the Fairy of the Waters, she wore a garland of reeds on her head, with a white robe trimmed with the feathers of aquatic birds, and a blue scarf, which now and then rose above her head and fluttered like the sail of a ship. Great ladies as they were, they looked smilingly at Graceful, who had taken refuge in his grandmother's arms, and ...
— Laboulaye's Fairy Book • Various

... the remains of more than three thousand distinct species of aquatic animals have been discovered among the fossils of the chalk, that the great majority of them are of such forms as are now met with only in the sea, and that there is no reason to believe that any one of them inhabited fresh water—the collateral evidence ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley

... The aquatic gambols of the porpoises lasted but a few minutes after they had called in all their neighbors, and had chased me into three feet depth of water. They then spouted a nasal farewell, which sounded more catarrhal than guitaral, and left ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... English bathing-dress. In their striped tights on land these last look exactly like saw-dust and rope ring clowns, but when they dive into the water from that well-bred lawn and dart in wild pursuit of the maidens, who beat them off with oars from climbing into the canoes, amid shouts of aquatic and terrestrial laughter, one would almost swear they were neither the clowns they looked a moment ago, nor yet the English gentlemen they really are, but fantastic mermen bent upon carrying earth-brides back with them into their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various

... is usually given to a variety of growths which are met with in the nasal passages far more frequently than any other tumors. They are thus designated because of their fancied resemblance to the aquatic polypus. They occur singly, or in clusters, as illustrated in Fig. 13. In the early stages the mucous membrane is swollen and irregularly dilated, presenting a rough and mottled appearance not unlike chronic catarrh with which they are usually associated. Gradually these mound-like tumors ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... on the last night of the great aquatic contest: the starter had fired his pistol, and all the boats ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... of it behind which Shirwa Lake lies, and Chikala and Zomba nearly due south from us. People say hippopotami come from Lake Shirwa into Lake Nyassa. There is a great deal of vegetation in Pamalombe, gigantic rushes, duckweed, and great quantities of aquatic plants on the bottom; one slimy translucent plant is washed ashore in abundance. Fish become very fat on these plants; one called "kadiakola" I eat much of; it has a good ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... snakes, and lizards, animal life was a-wanting. Bird and insect life, too, was hardly to be seen, and owing to the absence of rivers and lakes, aquatic life was unknown. ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... The geological formation is a concrete of shells of enormous thickness, which has hardened to the only semblance of rock which the coast affords, and the low dunes have shut off from the Atlantic long lagoons which swarm with life, marine and aquatic creatures occurring in numberless species and orders; alligators lie in wait for their prey, and schools of porpoises come in by the inlets in pursuit of other schools of fat mullet which swarm in the water. Such teeming life I had never before any conception of. In the surf the sharks lurked ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James

... afterwards going across to Christine, and breaking the discovery to her. She would not come to view the skeleton, which lay extended on the grass, not a finger or toe-bone missing, so neatly had the aquatic operators done their work. Conjecture was directed to the question how Bellston had got there; and conjecture alone ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy

... animals. Winged creatures have less of the earthy, less moisture, heat in moderation, air in large amount. Being made up, therefore, of the lighter elements, they can more readily soar away into the air. Fish, with their aquatic nature, being moderately supplied with heat and made up in great part of air and the earthy, with as little of moisture as possible, can more easily exist in moisture for the very reason that they have less of it than of the other elements in their bodies; and so, when they are drawn ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius

... very general impression that light, dry, sandy soils are the best for the strawberry. Just the reverse of this is true. In its desire for moisture it is almost an aquatic plant. Experienced horticulturists have learned to recognize this truth, which the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder has suggested in the following piquant manner: "In the first place, the strawberry's chief need is ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... Two of our horses were found bogged in a creek near the camp, but were soon released without injury; they had strayed into the creek to eat the aquatic grass, which is plentiful on almost all the creeks between the swamps and the sea. The soil here was rather stiffer than we had found it before, being a light sandy loam, and in places clayey. There were not so many shells to be seen, and what ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... the tallest trees. Nearer the sea, a band of noble chestnuts and evergreen oaks attests the riches of the soil, which is capable of producing such magnificent specimens of vegetable life; and over the whole plain the extraordinary richness of the herbage, and luxuriance of the aquatic plants, bespeaks a region which, if subjected to a proper culture and improvement, would, like the Delta of Egypt, reward eighty and an hundred fold the labours of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various

... a variety of queer sounds as came to their ears from the adjacent marshes, most of which must have been made by the aquatic birds that spent the night there; but there were also mysterious grunts and squawks that kept both boys guessing for the longest time, while they sat on deck, Thad smoking his pet pipe and Maurice just bundled up in a blanket, taking ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne

... things that have come to us from other times that it should be easy to make our homes beautiful, but I have seen what I can best describe as apoplectic chairs whose legs were fashioned like aquatic plants; tables upheld by tortured naked women; lighting fixtures in the form of tassels, and such horrors, in many houses of to-day under the guise of being "authentic period furniture." Only a connoisseur can ever hope to know about the furniture of every period, ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe

... earthworms. For example, rotenone, an insecticide derived from a tropical root called derris, is as poisonous to humans as organophosphate chemical pesticides. Even in very dilute amounts, rotenone is highly toxic to fish and other aquatic life. Great care must be taken to prevent it from getting into waterways. In the tropics, people traditionally harvest great quantities of fish by tossing a handful of powdered derris (a root containing rotenone) into the water, ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon

... and to the manner born. The Kentucky has done remarkably well; the Wilson not so well. Raspberries, on the whole, have done well, but currants and gooseberries will not survive. The strawberries have done better than I hoped. I have always looked upon the strawberry as a semi-aquatic plant, and this view has been strengthened by an account of a wonderful crop produced in this region by abundant and systematic watering. The great difficulty against which we have to contend is the prolonged summer, when, for weeks, the thermometer ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe

... man's yacht." The canoe editor of Forest and Stream pertinently says, "we may as properly call a bicycle 'the poor man's express train'." But, suppose it is the poor man's yacht? Are we to be debarred from aquatic sports because we are not rich? And are we such weak flunkies as to be ashamed of poverty? Or to attempt shams and subterfuges to hide it? For myself, I freely accept the imputation. In common with nine-tenths of my fellow citizens I am poor—and the canoe is my yacht, ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears

... is: given certain original simple forms of life, probably marine or aquatic—for it is in the water that the most likely occur—these will gradually change and vary, some in one direction, some in another; that the changes go on increasing, each creature giving birth to offspring which exhibits the stored-up results of change, ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell

... the arrangements were fixed, and the party began to advance towards the aquatic hermit, who, by this time aware of their approach, drew himself up to his full height, erected his long lean neck, spread his broad fan-like wings, uttered his usual clanging cry, and, projecting his length of thin legs far behind him, rose upon the gentle breeze. It was then, with a loud whoop ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... an aquatic plant, which spreads itself over ponds, and interweaves itself with the lotus. The interlacing of its stalks is compared in ...
— Sakoontala or The Lost Ring - An Indian Drama • Kalidasa

... the far village must have been three or four feet more elevated. Their canoes, which are small, long, and narrow, and have no outrigger, axe hollowed out to a mere shell to give them buoyancy. Although the open water was several feet deep, it was so full of aquatic plants that a craft of any width, or drawing more than a few inches, would make but slow progress through it. Needless to say that these craft, which retain the round form of the log, are exceedingly unstable, but their owners stand up in them ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker

... cloud to mitigate his violence. I felt a burning fever take possession of my body. My tongue was scorched with intolerable heat, and it was in vain I endeavoured to moisten my mouth with repeated draughts of water. At night we came to a little rising ground, at the foot of which we perceived some aquatic herbs and a small quantity of muddy water, of which our camels took prodigious draughts; here we spread our tents and encamped for the night. With the morning we pursued our journey; but had not proceeded far before we saw a cloud of dust that seemed to rise ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... my ward is learning to keep late hours. It is after eleven o'clock, and you should be dreaming of the cool, beryl, aquatic abodes you have been frequenting as Undine; for indeed you look a very ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... found neither tree nor bush in the island. Exposed to the continual ravages of the stormy west winds which prevailed the entire year in these latitudes, it appeared uninhabitable. I found nothing there but seals, penguins, sea-gulls, Mother Carey's chickens, and every variety of aquatic birds, usually met with by navigators in the open sea, when passing the Cape of Good Hope. These creatures, never having seen a man, were not wild, and allowed us to take them in the hand. The female ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... filled with ink, so black and stagnant was the liquid it contained. Down yonder, through the branches, I saw, like patches, bits of the Mediterranean gleaming so that they fairly dazzled my eyes. But my glance always returned to the immense somber well that appeared to be inhabited by no aquatic animals, so motionless was its surface. Suddenly a voice made me tremble. An old gentleman who was picking flowers—this country is the richest in Europe for ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... sky they proceeded to it, and landed on its roof. From the little machine the single man came out. Using the webbed hands and feet that had led the Allied scientists to think them an aquatic race, he swam upward, and through the water-dense atmosphere of the planet ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell

... allowed them to tax non-freemen and strangers and to cause them to contribute in like manner as themselves to all talliages, aids and grants to the king.(173) Two years later—soon after his son Henry had been created Prince of Wales and the city had done him honour by an aquatic display on the river between Richmond and London(174) he confirmed (16 June, 1610) the privileges granted to them in 1383 by Richard II with the sanction ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... beach, on our left great beds of grass growing out of the shoal water—weedy banks filled up the once spacious harbour, and cattle waded amongst the long grass, where within the last twenty years a frigate has lain at anchor. Wading and aquatic birds were abundant in the marshes, amongst which white cranes and a chocolate-brown jacana, with lemon-yellow under wing, were the most conspicuous. A large alligator lazily crawled off a mud-spit into the water, where he floated, showing only ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... hardy aquatic perennial, frequently found in our ponds. It flowers in June, and may be increased by dividing the roots. ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink

... we see in the aquatic sports are equally as remarkable as those that we find among the runners and walkers. In the ancient days the Greeks, living on their various islands and being in a mild climate, were celebrated for ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... concealed on the surface, can see each other at long distances, and perpetual calling is not needful: moreover, in that still atmosphere sound travels far. As a rule their voices are strangely subdued; nature's silence has infected them, and they have become silent by habit. This is not the case with aquatic species, which are nearly all migrants from noisier regions, and mass themselves in lagoons and marshes, where they are all loquacious together. It is also noteworthy that the subdued bird-voices, some of which are exceedingly sweet and expressive, ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson

... ground and passed into the superb public gardens of the city. Seating themselves beside one of the numerous fountains sparkling with colored waters and perfumed with strange aquatic plants, they watched the brilliant scene that surrounded them. Aerial chariots flashed above, and men, women, and children moved through the air entirely regardless of the law of gravitation. Occasionally a passer-by ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale

... we see the march of civilization in the budding cities and expanding commerce culminating at Grand Para. The scenery from the deck of an Amazonian steamer, if described, appears monotonous. A vast volume of smooth, yellow water, floating trees and beds of aquatic grass, low, linear-shaped, wooded islets, a dark, even forest—the shores of a boundless sea of verdure, and a cloudless sky occasionally obscured by flocks of parrots: these are the general features. No busy towns are seen along the banks ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton

... belonging to still existent families—elephant, hippopotamus, and rhinoceros—though extinct as species. Some of these forms are startling from their size. The great mastadon was a species of elephant living on aquatic plants, and reaching the height of twelve feet. The mammoth was another elephant, and supposed to have survived till comparatively recent times. The megatherium is an incongruity of nature, of gigantic proportions, ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous

... many, more unfortunate, have been ingulfed in the maelstrom created by its fury. From its veering so suddenly to every point of the compass, the usual precautions against ordinary gales afford but little protection. A heavy, boding swell precedes, to give notice of the dreaded Ty-foong. The aquatic birds, with natural instinct, take wing and fly before its approach; whilst on shore the air is filled with insects in constant motion. So indicative, indeed, is this flight of insects, that the Chinese ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... wheat, barley, grape marc, and some times even lobsters and other such aquatic animals. The pond in the enclosure should be fed with a large head of water so that it may ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... Aquatic insects are taken by the help of a net like that used for insects of the air, but whose bag should be of canvass instead of cloth. In fine, to catch the hymenopters, whose sting is often formidable, it is necessary to have a pincers whose prongs are ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various

... A good part of this was taken up by the spina, or middle space, adorned with temples, statues, and two great obelisks; as well as by the euripus, or canal, made by order of Julius Caesar, to contain crocodiles, and other aquatic animals, which were killed occasionally. This was so large, that Heliogabalus, having filled it with excellent wine, exhibited naval engagements in it, for the amusement of the people. It surrounded three sides of the square, so that the whole extent of the race ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett

... and aspect were not at all formidable; accordingly she tripped back to the gondola with great activity and resolution, and the procession ended as it began. Though there was something attractive in this aquatic parade, the black hue of the boats and the company presented to a stranger, like me, the idea of a funeral rather than a wedding. My expectation was raised too high by the previous description of the Italians, who are much given to hyperbole, who gave me to understand that this ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... made the air vocal; millions of little birds of every size and hue twittered an accompaniment, and myriads of mosquitoes and other insects filled up the orchestra with a high pitched drone, while alligators and other aquatic monsters beat time ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne

... cannot be interesting to you, who have rusticated all your life—the annals of routs, riots, balls and boxing-matches, cards and crim. cons., parliamentary discussion, political details, masquerades, mechanics, Argyle Street Institution and aquatic races, love and lotteries, Brookes's and Buonaparte, opera-singers and oratorios, wine, women, wax-work, and weather-cocks, can't accord with your insulated ideas of decorum and other silly expressions not inserted ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... marsh or aquatic grasses. Leaves are linear or lanceolate. The inflorescence is a panicle. The spikelets are one-to two-flowered, subsessile and subsecund on the branches which are produced as awn-like bristles beyond the ultimate spikelet, obscurely jointed and persistent on their obconic short pedicels, ...
— A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses • Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar

... Brotteaux railway station and the left bank of the Rhne. It measures 282 acres, and contains, besides an abundant supply of varied walks, alarge and excellent botanic garden with hothouses, alake with islands inhabited by aquatic birds, and a dairy farm, whose produce is sent every morning into town for sale. Adjoining the park are the rifle-butts and the racecourse. In the Boulevard du Nord is the Guimet Museum, containing a collection of objects from the extreme east, to facilitate the study ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... Midway between these semi-aquatic Polynesians and those Arctic tribes who are forced out upon the deep, to struggle with it rather than associate with it, we find the inhabitants of the Mediterranean islands and peninsulas, who are favored by the mild climate and the tideless, fogless, ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple

... floating down the great ecclesiastical current of the Middle Age, appear to me like the trees carried away by the inundation of some mighty tropical river. They drift along the stream, passive, lifeless, broken; yet they are covered with gay verdure, the aquatic plants hang and twine about the sodden timber and the draggled leaves, the trunk is a sailing garden of flowers. But the adornment is that of Nature—it is the decoration of another and a strange element: the roots are in the air; the boughs which should be full of birds, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... river gleamed more and more brightly. Boats navigated even the rapids, for these were hardy water-people, whose whole life had been semi-aquatic. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... a border of aquatic reeds, tenanted by crocodiles and hippopotami, the latter staring, grunting, and snorting, as if vexed at the intrusion on their privacy. Many parts of the shore were desolate, the result of ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston

... these answers to a month, and to the corresponding sign of the Zodiac. The Assyrian year began with the spring equinox; consequently, the eleventh month, called "the rainy," answers to our January-February, and to the sign which corresponds with our Aquarius. The aquatic adventure of Hasisadra, therefore, is not inappropriately placed. It is curious, however, that the season thus indirectly assigned to the flood is not that of the present highest level of the rivers. It is too late for the winter rise and too ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley

... pretenders; a happy circumstance, in itself, for the progress of knowledge on fixed principles. Place the subject more erect, that we may see the natural movement of the muscles. Here is an evidence of great aquatic habits in the dimensions of the foot, which go to confirm original conceptions. It is a happy proof, through which, reasonable and prudent conclusions confirm the quick-sighted glances of practice. I pronounce the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper

... in following the fortunes of the Hilltop boys may be glad to continue their acquaintance with Jack Sheldon and his friends and enemies in the next volume, "The Hilltop Boys on the River," which, in addition to giving an account of many aquatic sports, contains also a number of thrilling incidents, which serve to bring out the characters of the boys ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh

... Another aquatic worm, Myrianida, is still more remarkable, not only on account of its eyes, but also on account of the wonderful way in which it reproduces its young. When seen swimming in the water it presents the appearance ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir

... Maids are grouped at the bases of the columns in front of the tower. It was at first planned to have the fountains play to the tops of the columns on which sit the aquatic maids shooting their arrows into the waters, but a change in the plans left the aquatic maids high and dry, hence your wonderment at ...
— Palaces and Courts of the Exposition • Juliet James



Words linked to "Aquatic" :   aquatic plant, plant life, flora, aquatic vertebrate, amphibious, semiaquatic, subaqueous, underwater, submerged, aquatic fern, submersed, water



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