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adjective
bats  adj.  Crazy; insane; loony; demented; batty.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bats" Quotes from Famous Books



... was done with the horse and mule,—those creatures who had served the exiles so faithfully and so well? Were they left behind to become a prey to the jaguars and the large blood-sucking bats, that kill so many animals in these parts? No—they were not to be left to such a fate. One of them—the mule—had been already disposed of. It was a valuable beast, and partly on that account, and partly from gratitude felt towards it for the well-timed kick ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... such an unusual hubbub in their usually quiet domain, the bats came swooping from their holes in the walls by hundreds, and the torches were extinguished almost instantly. The savages who were near the entrance drew back in haste; those who had entered stood rooted ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne

... recess was so dark that we could not ascertain either its formation or extent. . . . On first entering it we were nearly overpowered by a strong, sulphurous smell, which was soon accounted for by the flight of an incredible number of small bats, which were roosting in the bottom of the cave, and had been disturbed at our approach. We attempted to grope our way to the bottom, but not having a light, were soon obliged to give up its further examination. . . . From the ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... you the one that banged this 'ere door just now? 'Twas enough to scare the owls and bats and all the other beasties from their holes ...
— Odd • Amy Le Feuvre

... Markland strove to shut out from his mind the light shining in through the little window opened by Mr. Allison; but the effort was in vain. Steadily the light came in, disturbing the owls and bats, and revealing dust, cankering mould, and spider-web obstructions. All on the outside was fair to the world; and as fair, he had believed, within. To be suddenly shown his error, smote him with a painful sense ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur

... that was reckoned a witch—full of strange spells and devices; Nightly she wandered the woods, searching for charms voodooistic— Scorpions, lizards, and herbs, dormice, chameleons, and plantains! Serpents and caw-caws and bats, screech-owls and crickets and adders— These were the guides of that witch through the dank deeps of the forest. Then, with her roots and her herbs, back to her cave in the morning Ambled that hussy to brew spells ...
— Songs and Other Verse • Eugene Field

... thunder-cloud had made the room so dark that she could scarcely see, but she heard a loud buzz-buzzing, as if a great many huge flies had flown in, and soon she saw a crowd of ugly little shapes darting about, with wings like bats and with terribly long stings in their tails. It was one of these that had stung Epimetheus, and it was not long before Pandora began to scream with pain and fear. An ugly little monster had settled on her forehead, and would ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various

... proved three times as durable as lignum vitae. Mangrove forests. Monotony of tropical scenery. Trade—a list of exports. Edible birds'-nests. Description of the great Gomanton birds'-nests caves. Mr Bampfylde. Bats' Guano. Mode of collecting nests. Lady and Miss Brassey visit the Madai caves, 1887. Beche-de-mer, shark fins, cuttle fish. Position of Sandakan on the route between Australia and China—importance as a possible naval station. Shipping. Postal arrangements. ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... a striking example. Since the most remote times the inhabitants of the Commune of Bats, composed of 3,300 persons, have intermarried; yet this population is very healthy and vigorous and shows no sign of degeneration. On the other hand, we have seen that contrasts produce a mutual attraction in the domain ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... ghosts are nothing but rats and bats," said Tom. "Come on," he continued. "It's damp enough ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer

... a stone trap door less than two feet square in the stone floor and through this small entrance we squeezed, candle in hand, and descended a stone stairway to explore the dark crypt underneath. Although the ladies screamed when the bats, disturbed and blinded by the light, flew wildly overhead, they bravely followed the guide. The long passage was but three feet in width and we wondered why the dragoman had brought us down into its close and gloomy recesses; but when magnesium wires were lit, our wonder turned into ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... towards midnight, a bat flew into the apartment where the Court was; the King immediately cried out, "Where is General Crillon?" (He had just left the room.) "He is the General to command against the bats." This set everybody calling out, "Ou etais tu, Crillon?" M. de Crillon soon after came in, and was told where the enemy was. He immediately threw off his coat, drew his sword, and commenced an attack upon the bat, which flew into the closet where I was fast ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... heard the cropping of the goats, the jaws' champ when they chewed the crisp leaves; the flicker of the bats' wings. In the marsh, half a mile away, the chorus of frogs, when it swelled up, drowned all nearer noise; but when it broke off suddenly, those others resumed their hold upon the stillness. It was a breathless ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... by the scruff of the neck an' goes caperin' off up hill with him. An' to give that parent b'ar full credit, she's gettin' along all right an' conductin' herse'f as though Bowlaigs don't heft no more than one of them gooseha'r pillows, when, accidental, she bats pore Bowlaigs ag'in the bole of a tree—him hangin' outen her mouth about three foot—an' while the collision shakes that monarch of the forest some, Bowlaigs gets knocked free of her grip an' goes rollin' down the mountain-side ag'in like a sack of bran. It puts quite a crimp in Bowlaigs. The ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... that the boy be removed from her school—all this according to the earnest biographer. The facts are that the boy had so much energy and restless ambition; was so full of brimming curiosity, mischief and imagination—introducing turtles, bats and mice on various occasions—that he led the whole school a merry chase and wore the nerves of the ancient maiden to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... the errant knight with rested lance; Imps, demons, fays, in antic train succeed, 280 The wandering maiden, and the winged steed! The muttering wizard turns, with haggard look, The bloody leaves of the accursed book, Whilst giants, from the gloomy castle tower, With lifted bats of steel, more dreadful lower! At times, the magic shall prevail Of the wild and wonderous tale; At times, high rapture shall prolong The deep, enthusiastic song. Hence, at midnight, thou shalt stray, 290 Where dark ocean flings its spray, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles

... reputation of the town it is recorded that "owing to their having had two amusing days previous there was too much work in the game of cricket for their performance to be worth recording, and so threw away their bats and balls and retired to the Indies who were preparing a social cup of tea, making altogether ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston

... of the dark I return, From the speech of the Dead; I asked them for counsel and word, They twittered like bats when they heard And wailed for the ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson

... hastened onward, and the light grew till they could dimly see each other, and dimly they beheld the cave that it was both wide and high. Yet a little further, and their faces showed white to one another, and they could see the crannies of the rocks, and the bats hanging garlanded from the roof. So then they came to where the day streamed down bright on them from a break overhead, and lo! the sky and green leaves ...
— The Story of the Glittering Plain - or the Land of Living Men • William Morris

... world of course in the historical sense of that expression. In presence of that conception the petty nationalities lost their centre of gravity, brute fact dispelled their illusions, they flung their gods to the moles and to the bats (Isaiah ii.). The prophets of Israel alone did not allow themselves to be taken by surprise by what had occurred, or to be plunged in despair; they solved by anticipation the grim problem which history set before them. They absorbed into their religion that conception of the world which was ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... mountains when you're footsore and weary. But we stumbled upon a niche, in a bit of a slope near the top, and turned out the bats and foxes, ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn

... resurrection, In the grave of Possession; while the knoll[191] 10 Of long-lived parents finds a jovial echo To triple time in the son's ear. I'm cold— I'm dark;—I've blown my fingers—numbered o'er And o'er my steps—and knocked my head against Some fifty buttresses—and roused the rats And bats in general insurrection, till Their cursed pattering feet and whirling wings Leave me scarce hearing for another sound. A light! It is at distance (if I can Measure in darkness distance): but it blinks 20 As through a crevice or a key-hole, in The inhibited ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron

... patterns, may turn to Mr. Haddon's Evolution of Art. {64c} Mr. Haddon shows how the Portuguese pattern of horizontal triangles is, in the art of the uncivilised natives of Brazil, meant to represent bats. {64d} A cross, dotted, within a circle, is directly derived, through several stages, from a ...
— The Clyde Mystery - a Study in Forgeries and Folklore • Andrew Lang

... him. Some of the party, armed with bows and arrows, started away into the woods, while the others collected sticks and lighted a fire. The hunters soon returned, bringing with them a tree kangaroo and a cuscus, with several large bats. The latter creatures I had seen before, and heard them called flying-foxes. They were very ugly, and one of them; which I took up had a rank, powerful, foxy odour. One of the natives who saw me thought I ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston

... accustomed to take up winter quarters in the attic of the church, the wood-peckers had pecked numerous holes in the paintless walls. The eaves were daubed with mud carried by the pewees in the building of their yearly nests. Bats, at their own good pleasure, came in and out through the paneless windowsashes and found daytime repose on top of the sagging beam which, just above the windows, spanned ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison

... players arrived. He looked at them closely and his nerves jumped. Gosh! didn't they look big! And what big black bats! ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger

... Apennines that rise around, the loud voices of the dogs echo from cliff to cliff boom down into the abyss, and rattle there like thunder. The night-birds catch up the sound and screech; the frightened bats circle ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... purple mountains of the interior, flank the silvery straits, populous with native proas, coasting steamers, sampans, and the hollowed log or "dug-out" which serves as the Malayan canoe. Patched sails of scarlet and yellow, shaped like bats' wings, suggest gigantic butterflies afloat upon the tranquil sea. The red roofs of whitewashed towns, and the tall shafts of white lighthouses emphasise the rich verdure between the silvery azure of sky and water. The little voyage ends at Tandjon Priok, nine miles from Batavia, for a volcanic ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings

... he found that the farmer's wife, in clearing out a garret some years before, had found some rubbishy old papers which she had burnt, and which had probably been papers used in the wrapping up of pigs' cheeks to keep them from the bats. 'O, wretched woman!' exclaimed he; 'do you know what you have done?' 'O dear, no!' said the woman, half frightened out of her wits: 'no harm, I hope; for the papers were very old; I dare say as old as the house itself.' This threw him into an additional degree of excitement, ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett

... the objects of personal devotion: Minerva or Vesta, with handsome niches or shrines in which they might reside. There, too, were the brass crowns, or nimbi which were intended to protect the heads of the gods from bats and birds. There you might buy, were you a heathen, rings with heads on them of Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Serapis, and above all Astarte. You would find there the rings and signets of the Basilidians; amulets too of wood ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... life: darkness may bring thought, but a dull daylight, the uncertain glimmer of a leaden sky, merely make one restless and weary. These indecisive and chaotic states of nature are ugly, like all amorphous things, like smeared colors, or bats, or the viscous polyps of the sea. The source of all attractiveness is to be found in character, in sharpness of outline, in individualization. All that is confused and indistinct, without form, or sex, or accent, is antagonistic to beauty; ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... a fine thing to raise the spirits, though to my mind last night they took enough to raise more than they expected—ha, ha, ha! They thought they were attacked by ghosts and goblins, when in reality only a number of bats flew out against them after the foul air had already damped their ardour. The place swarms with the vermin. By the by, if the Senor, my master, will give me the key of the vault, I will get up that beast of a dog, and bury him or hang him up to ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... scatter and that is the end of it, but when we interfere, there is no telling where the matter will end. In 1866, we once closed the park against them, and the consequence was a riot in which the police suffered severely from brick-bats, and the mob finally took hold of the iron fence and tore it away for a long distance along the park, made their entry, and took their own way." "Well could you not have punished those offenders according to due process of law?" I asked. "Yes," he rejoined, ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner

... umpire's judgment and experience, but managing to get the ball done his own way after all; whilst outside the shop, the rest of the eleven, the less-trusted commons, are shouting and bawling round Joel Brent, who is twisting the waxed twine round the handles of bats—the poor bats, which please nobody, which the taller youths are despising as too little and too light, and the smaller are abusing as too heavy and two large. Happy critics! winning their match can hardly be a greater delight—even if to win it they be doomed! ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various

... and a quantity of silver. He began to count the silver, putting it on the table, and found that it made up three pounds ten more. "So that, altogether, there's six pounds ten; that's thirty shillings more than— and it won't be wanted till next summer term, because all the bats and balls are bought now. I dare say Montagu won't even open the box again. I know he keeps it stowed away in a corner, and hardly ever looks at it, and I can put back the five pounds the very first day of next term, and it will save ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... heads and faces wrapped in a light muslin veil; they wear also a kind of mantilla of black silk, which gives them a peculiar appearance. When they came riding along, and the wind caught this garment and spread it out, they looked exactly like bats with ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... chattels removed for the occasion, he said it was so very comfortable he should now write all his letters here, for at his lodgings he had such a miserable low table he had been forced to prop it up by brick-bats! ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay

... halfpenny and at Bathurst a penny each; the bitter Kola, a very different article from the esculent; skewered rots of ground-hog, a rodent that can climb, destroy vegetables, and bite hard if necessary; dried bats and rats, which the African as well as the Chinese loves, and fish cuits au soleil, preferred when 'high,' to use the mildest adjective. From the walls hung dry goods, red woollen nightcaps and comforters, leopards' and monkeys' skins, ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... venerable, terrible, dark, and dreadfully crowned with her doom. It was not often that anyone dared wander near to Thlunrana by night when the moan of the magicians invoking we know not Whom rose faintly from inner chambers, scaring the drifting bats: but on the last night of all the man from the black-thatched cottage by the five pine-trees came, because he would see Thlunrana once again before the enemy that was divine, but that dwelt with men, should come against it and it should be no more. Up the dark valley he went like a bold man, but ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... air," explained the Kid. "Bats in the belfry. Dizzy. See what I mean? It's often like that when a feller puts one in with a bit of weight behind it just where that one landed. Gee! I remember when I fought Martin Kelly; I was only ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... sending out another army to take another Sebastopol. More paraphernalia were required to enable these thirty-two lads to play their game with propriety than would have been needed for the depositing of half Gladstonopolis. Every man from England had his attendant to look after his bats and balls, and shoes and greaves; and it was necessary, of course, that our boys should be equally well served. Each of them had two bicycles for his own use, and as they were all constructed with the new ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope

... blowing their noses in the dawn. Never a mouse moved in the stable at night but she was aware of it. And when a horse was training for a big event barely a night passed but in the small hours a white, bare-footed figure issued from the partition and came swiftly along the loft, disturbing rats and bats as she came, to lift a trap-door and look down with guardian eye on the hope of the ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant

... charm'd before, 345 The various terrors of that horrid shore; Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, And fiercely shed intolerable day; Those matted woods where birds forget to sing, But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling; 350 Those pois'nous fields with rank luxuriance crown'd, Where the dark scorpion gathers death around; Where at each step the stranger fears to wake The rattling terrors of the vengeful snake; Where crouching tigers wait their hapless prey, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... this. when we see sum peeple waulking on the sidewaulks we run by them fast and stamp hard in the pudles and the water spaters all over them. we dont do it to wimmen and girls. but we do to men and fellers. it is lots of fun to hear them sware. Beany got 2 bats in the ear and a kick and i got 3 bats in the ear and 2 kicks. so i beat Beany. one of the kicks was a peeler. ennyway ...
— Brite and Fair • Henry A. Shute

... and the flower-girl laughed a merry peal. "Why, brother of the mole and lord of all the bats, where hast thou been asleep not to know that to-day our young Messer Giovanni is to be ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks

... innumerable cave temples, which are said to hold no fewer than 446,444 images of Buddha. Huge caves, of which the most noted are the Farm Caves, occur in the hills near Moulmein, and they too are full of relics of their ancient use as temples, though now they are chiefly visited in connexion with the bats, whose flight viewed from a distance, as they issue from the caves, resembles ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... once then, Captain; the delay of half an hour may seal his doom. I will place Barbara in a nook of the old tower, where nothing comes but bats and mice; and, as it overlooks the paths, she can see from it the road that Burrell takes, and so avoid ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall

... opposed to near (16' i) Buckthorn Brown. Previous to the taking of this specimen, Webb and Jones (1952:277) reported as E. f. pallidus a specimen, saved as a skull only, which was picked up dead at Niobrara. It seems best to assign these two bats from the vicinity of Niobrara, Knox County, to E. ...
— Distribution of Some Nebraskan Mammals • J. Knox Jones

... things!" he breathed. "Jumping, they were, and leaping, and flying on their leather wings like a lot of black bats out o' hell! And I'm thinkin' that's where they've taken Chet Bullard, and never again will he hold a ship like 'twas in the hollow of his hand, and him settin' it ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin

... the church is strictly limited to the written Word. Throw away then to the owls and the bats all tradition, and the power of the church to decree rites and ceremonies. It is treason against God to suppose that he omitted anything from his Bible that his church ought to do, or commanded that which may be neglected, although human laws may ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... say the bells of St. Marg'-ret's; Brick-bats and tiles, chime the bells of St. Giles'; Halfpence and farthings, ring the bells of St. Martin's; Oranges and lemons, toll the bells of St. Clement's; Pancakes and fritters, say the bells of St. ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green

... agitation of the cord alone told us that anything was going on below. At last the rope ceased shaking and a faint shout came rumbling up the well, announcing Ali's safe arrival. Then, far below, a tiny star of light appeared. He had lit the candle, thereby disturbing hundreds of bats that flitted up in an endless stream and as silently as spirits. The rope was hauled up again, and now it was my turn; but, as I declined to trust my neck to the hand-over-hand method of descent, the end of the cord was made fast round my middle and I was lowered bodily into those sacred depths. ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... whither; and the citizens were filled with greater dread, at the convulsion which "shook lions into civil streets;"—birds, strong-winged eagles, suddenly blinded, fell in the market-places, while owls and bats shewed themselves welcoming the early night. Gradually the object of fear sank beneath the horizon, and to the last shot up shadowy beams into the otherwise radiant air. Such was the tale sent us ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... become aware of its existence. For the sake of internal safety a wall has been built round the top of the precipice, and at certain points you may look over this parapet, sheer down some ten or twelve hundred feet, into an abyss fit only to be the habitation of the owls, bats, and birds of prey which frequent its solitudes. There seems no resting-place for any wingless creature: thus the strange birds which haunt the wild recesses of the rocks do so in perfect security, and their varied cries, along with the roar of the water, are the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... ceased to sing, and all the barnyard fowls Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died; Men prayed, and women wept; all ears grew sharp To hear the doom blast of the ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer

... found out. He led them down into the cellar and showed them some old baseballs, some bats, some gloves, and, best of all, a ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue Keeping Store • Laura Lee Hope

... day and night: and then I loved thee, And show'd thee all the qualities o' the isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place, and fertile. Cursed be that I did so! All the charms Of Sycorax, toads, beetles, bats, light on you! For I am all the subjects that you have, Which first was mine own king: and here you sty[387-95] me In this hard rock, whiles you do keep from me The rest o' ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... arising from the constant recurrence of joints. Great insistence must be laid on this point, especially at the junctions of walls, where the admission of closers already constitutes a weakness which would only be increased by the use of other bats ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... that Hercules who enjoys immortal life in heaven among the gods, and is married to Hebe or Youth; but his shadow, which remains below. About him the dead flocked as thick as bats, hovering around, and cuffing at his head: he stands with his dreadful bow, ever ...
— THE ADVENTURES OF ULYSSES • CHARLES LAMB

... on Huggins for about a week, an' at last effects his rescoo from that hostile jack rabbit an' them crimson rattlesnakes an' blue-winged bats that has j'ined dogs with it in its attempts ag'in Huggins. Later, when Peets sends his charges, this yere ingrate Huggins—lovin' money as I states—wants to squar' it with a quart or two of whiskey checks on the Bird Cage bar. Nacherally, Peets waves ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis

... above the chin of the ladies, and the dirty shirts and shaggy hair of the young men, who have levelled nobility almost as much as the mobility in France have, have confounded all individuality. Besides, if I did go to public places and assemblies, which my going to roost earlier prevents, the bats and owls do not begin to fly abroad till far in the night, when they begin to see and be seen. However, one of the empresses of fashion, the Duchess of Gordon, uses fifteen or sixteen hours of her four-and-twenty. I heard her journal of last Monday. She first went to Handel's ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... especially unenviable. There was evidently to be a ball game. College boys with crimson H's on their shirts; men with a blue Y; together with a group of short-sleeved players not yet honored with insignia from their universities were hurrying out to the lawn with bats, balls, ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett

... and go straight up to glory, politically and socially and every which way, in a few years, and there's nothing to it. Grant's a good son, and a good brother, and a good friend and neighbor, but"—the Doctor pounds his chair arm vehemently, "there are bats, my dear, bats in his belfry just the same. Don't get excited when you see Grant mount his haystack to jump into the crack o' ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White

... and the shadows shiver As the wind sweeps by, and the hut doors close, And the bats dip down in the shaft or quiver In the ghostly light, round the grey horse goes; And he feels the strain on his untouched shoulder, Hears again the voice that was dear to him, Sees the form he knew — and his heart grows bolder As he works his shift ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens

... the many-hued iris, and a multitude of flowers that no man had named; here, too, serpents great and small, of wonderful colorings, and the dull and loathsome moccasin sliding warily off the dead tree; in dimmer recesses the cow alligator, with her nest hard by; turtles a century old; owls and bats, raccoons, opossums, rats, centipedes and creatures of like vileness; great vines of beautiful leaf and scarlet fruit in deadly clusters; maddening mosquitoes, parasitic insects, gorgeous dragon-flies and pretty water-lizards: the blue heron, the snowy crane, the red-bird, the moss-bird, the ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... do this, six cuttings were made in the rock for the reception of the ends of the six great beams of the beacon. Each beam was to be fixed to the solid rock by two strong and massive bats, or stanchions, of iron. These bats, for the fixing of the principal and diagonal beams and bracing-chains, required fifty-four holes, each measuring a foot and a half deep, and two inches wide. The ...
— The Lighthouse • R.M. Ballantyne

... moistened Pecuchet's forehead, and Bouvard began to gnash his teeth: a cramp gripped his epigastrium; the floor, like a wave, seemed to flow under his heels; the sulphur burning in the chimney fell down in spirals. At the same moment bats flitted about. A cry arose. ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... wert; Even thy child beholding thee in ruins, As if the waters of Oblivion In dark Oblivion's Dale had touched his lips, Left thee; and thou didst writhe like a whole world Engulfed in sounds of woe: Hair-tearings and Breast-beatings, groans of sad despair, night-bats Wandering restlessly, unheeded prayers Of souls condemned, loud thunder peals, fierce glares Of lightnings, and the laughter of ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas

... open. It was blacker than any night I've ever seen before or since; we couldn't see a foot ahead, and the sounds we heard in the woods didn't make us feel any too comfortable, for all we'd got used to living in the open. We knew, of course, that the sounds came from birds and bats and moths and such, but when a man is out on a job like that his nerves are not what they are at other times—every sound seems unusual and magnified. I didn't like so much silence from the village down below us—it seemed too quiet; and it appeared to me that the noises we heard in the ...
— The Boss of the Lazy Y • Charles Alden Seltzer

... surroundings—the substantial realisation of the concrete-are perfect. So Mr. Phillip had a suit for every purpose—for football, cricket, tennis, bicycle, shooting, dining, and strolling about. In the same way he possessed a perfect armoury of athletic and other useful implements. There were fine bats by the best makers for cricket, rods for trout fishing, splendid modified choke-bores, saddles, jockey caps, and so on. A gentleman like this could hardly long remain in the solitary halls of learning—society must claim him for parties, balls, dinners, and the usual round. It was understood ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... was suicide,—though the woman was a church member and didn't know how to fire a gun off, besides. And then there come along a detective younger and smarter than all the rest, and says he, 'If all you bats have seen everything you can see, I guess I'll take a look around,' says he. Sure enough, there was a rug with 'Welcome' on it layin' in front of the washstand, and when he turned it up he found an elegant diamond stud with a man's full name and address on ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin

... among swelling cushions like a child in a rocking cradle. And here she was allowed the full privileges of a child. She shouted; called to the startled wild geese; teased the night-swallows, and the bats skimming along the surface of the lake in quest of water-spiders. Here she even ventured to sing, and gave voice to charming melodies, which floated over the water like the sounds of an ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai

... two louis-d'or upon quicksilver. The curve of his nose presented an aquiline silhouette, which suggested the Oriental or Jewish type. His hands—thin, slender, full of nerves which projected like strings upon the finger-board of a violin, and armed with claws like those on the terminations of bats' wings—shook with senile trembling; but those convulsively agitated hands became firmer than steel pincers or lobsters' claws when they lifted any precious article—an onyx cup, a Venetian glass, or a ...
— The Mummy's Foot • Theophile Gautier

... banana- and oubi-trees; we besides found fresh water here, which comes trickling through the clay in small rills, and has to be gathered in pits dug for the purpose; the island also contains large numbers of bats living in the trees, on which account we have given to it the name of Vleermuys-Eylant [Bats' Island] in the new chart. We have seen no huts or human beings in it, but found unmistakable signs that there had been men here ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres

... old world is sometimes jealous of the chap who means to rise; It sneers at what he's doing or it bats him 'twixt the eyes; It trips him when he's careless, and it makes his way so hard What's left of him is sinew, not a walking tub of lard; But it's only wasting effort, for by George, the guy keeps on When his hopes have crumbled round ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris

... supplied a Mrs. Williams with milk, but afterwards refused to serve her, and the cause was as follows: Mrs. Braithwaite had up to that time been very successful in churning her butter, but about a month ago the butter would not come. She tried every known agency; she washed and dried her bats, but all to no purpose. The milk would not yield an ounce of butter. Under the circumstances she said Mrs. Williams had witched her. The neighbours believed it, and Mrs. Williams was generally called a witch. Hearing these reports, ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme

... the 'off' leader down if he bats an eyelash when the train pulls in, I'll be much ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart

... say that if gold or silver be hid when the moon is in conjunction with the sun, and the place be perfumed with saffron, henbane, and black poppy, the treasure will never be feloniously carried away, for spirits will constantly watch over it. The blood of doves, lapwings, and bats possesses peculiar virtues—attracting spirits to places where they may be required to appear, and exciting ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... the Bats, who hang, head downwards, by their hind-legs from the roof of their caves. A special formation of the toes enables birds to sleep on one leg, which automatically and without fatigue clutches the swaying bough. The Empusa shows me nothing akin to their contrivance. The extremity of her ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre

... on Arthur's Seat, St Anthon's well aye springin'; The lammies playing at her feet, The birdies round her singin'. The solemn haunts o' Holyrood, Wi' bats and hoolits eerie, The tow'ring crags o' Salisbury, The lowly wells o' Weary, O[62] ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various

... of unreckoned human misery. These are their views, and when the play begins, they have resolved themselves into a committee of the whole, and are out on a commission of inquiry and administrative reform, armed with bats and clubs and other weapons,—such as came first to hand, intending to make short work of it. This is their peace budget, and as to war, they have some rude notions on that subject, too;—some dim impression that nature intended them for some other ends than to be sold in the shambles, as the ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... the intoxication of her first gold and turquoise day at Monte Carlo. A sense of loneliness—such as a solitary dove might feel in a wilderness of evil bats—oppressed her. Had she not been aware that she was a remarkably attractive woman and the object of innumerable glances, she would have cried. And twenty louis pitched into unprofitable space! Yet she stood ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke

... that he was really alone. It seemed incredible that in all that huge expanse of sand he should be the only moving, living being, yet, though he knew that there were living creatures in the desert—jackals and other prowling things, and a whole host of bats and tiny insects—they gave no sign of their presence, and it seemed to him that he was the only live ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... up, the moon is up! The larks begin to fly, And, like a drowsy buttercup, Dark Phoebus skims the sky, The elephant, with cheerful voice, Sings blithely on the spray; The bats and beetles all rejoice, Then let me, ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells

... the owls delight to hoot, the bats go whirring past, the moonbeams surely cast their kindest rays; by day the pigeons coo from the topmost boughs their tales of love, while squirrels sit blinking merrily, or run their Silvios on their ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton

... on all its surroundings a mild reflecting gleam. Richberta was cold and indifferent to either the pleasures or sorrows of her fellow-men. When night casts her shades upon the earth, all the sweet bright birds and butterflies hide and make room for a host of ghastly animals like owls and bats. So in Richberta's soul all her soft qualities had gone to sleep for want of the tender gleam of love, and only dark and harsh feelings haunted her soul. Immense pride in her own wealth, a bitter envy towards those who possessed more than she did, ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland

... other influence, but the wild drawn face seemed gradually to lose some of its hardness and unhappiness. Every day, through the long monotonous hours, the song of his little guest would come up in snatches to the lonely watcher, and at evening, when the vesper-bell was ringing and the great grey bats slid out of their hiding-places in the belfry roof, the bright-eyed bird would return, twitter a few sleepy notes, and nestle into the arms that were waiting for him. Those were happy days for the Dark Image. Only the great bell of the Cathedral rang out daily its mocking ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki

... town three days ago, Ana. And the bats also may have flown from the town. Hark to the wailing. Was ever such a ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... the spit were the Harpies' brood, Which the bard sang near Cremona, With a garnish of bats in their leathern wings imp't; And the fish was—two delicate slices crimp't, Of ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... began to dispute as to whether or not the flames lighted this evening would continue to burn, and to cast henceforth their cheerful glow on meadow, fields, and woods; and as they doubted whether the new order of things had strength enough to endure, the smoke drove the bats from their home in the chimney, and they came flapping down stupefied on the summit of the tower, while the owls in its crevices shook their round heads and hooted in ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... takes the basket as she says it, and goes into the kitchen. I hurry over this, and go into the little sitting-room. There is a tray with a glass of milk and some oaten cakes upon the table. I am too disturbed to sit down; I stand at the window and watch the bats flitter in the gathering moonlight, and listen with quivering nerves for her step—perhaps she will send for the tray, and not come after all. What a fool I am to be disturbed by a grey-clad witch with a tantalizing mouth! That comes of loafing about doing nothing. ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various

... the moon was so bright and clear that the shadows of my solitary figure and the "telegraph-postes" were as black and sharp as at noonday. Bats were flitting about up and down. A white owl flew silently across the road. Rabbits were playing in the fields in the silver light. It was all very beautiful, but a little lonely and eerie. I hadn't passed a ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... a dreadful story about the bats, that the servants told—I dare say you never heard it; and I kept thinking. 'Suppose they were at the windows now, behind the blinds.' And then I was afraid to look at the bed; I fancied ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... ghosts to realms of night or day, Points out the long uncomfortable way. Trembling the spectres glide, and plaintive vent Thin hollow screams, along the deep descent. As in the cavern of some rifty den, Where flock nocturnal bats and birds obscene, Cluster'd they hang, till at some sudden shock, They move, and murmurs run through all the rock: So cowering fled the sable heaps of ghosts; And such a scream fill'd all ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber

... all tennis rackets, golf clubs, baseball bats * * * balls of all kinds, including baseballs * * * sold by the manufacturer, producer, or importer * * *" as applied to articles sold by a manufacturer to a commission merchant for exportation, held a tax on exports within the prohibition of ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... farmers and even peasants with petitions to present, lawyers and their clients, and I know not who besides, through which of all these none were suffered to advance beyond a certain mark where the light began to fall. Speaking in whispers all of these folk flitted to and fro like bats in a tomb. ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... wriggled through a big crack or cleft in the side of the mountain for about one hundred feet, when we emerged into a large dome-shaped passage, the abode during certain seasons of the year of innumerable bats, and at all times of primeval darkness. There were various other crannies and pit-holes opening into it, some of which we explored. The voice of running water was everywhere heard, betraying the proximity of the little stream by whose ceaseless corroding the cave and its ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... fell with the dews at even— Her tears fell ere the dews were dried; She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide. After the flitting of the bats, When thickest dark did trance the sky, She drew her casement-curtain by, And glanced athwart the glooming flats. She only said, "The night is dreary— He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, weary, I would ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... charcoal-burner, nor of other human being, was seen. Night came, and thick darkness settled around; and all the demons of the forest came forth, and clamored and chattered, and shrieked and howled. But Siegfried was not afraid. The bats and vampires came out of their hiding-places, and flapped their clammy wings in his face; and he thought that he saw ogres and many fearful creatures peeping out from behind every tree and shrub. But, when he looked upwards through the overhanging tree-tops, ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... and ignorant dull ages Will quite be swallowed in oblivion; And though this hope by many surly Sages Be now derided, yet they'll all be gone In a short time, like Bats and Owls yflone At dayes approch. This will hap certainly At this worlds shining conflagration. Fayes, Satyrs, Goblins the night merrily May spend, but ruddy Sol shall make them all ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... wouldn't deny their guilt. Their condign punishment was to be "fives-batted" publicly in Big School—in which, however, they regained very considerable popularity by the way they took a "spanking" without turning a hair, though it cost no less than a dozen bats before ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

... Temple's innermost Shrine is set, Where the bats and shadows dwell, The worn and ancient Symbol of Life, at rest In its oval shell, By which the men, who, of old, the land possessed, Represented their Great Destroying Power. I cannot forget That, just as my life was touching its fullest flower, Love came and destroyed it all in ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.

... to see the blue sky and breathe the free air again, for the bad odor of the bats which inhabited the tower almost suffocated me. But how terrible the cold was in that cage, open to every wind, and how dazzlingly the snow shone over twenty leagues of country! All the little city of Phalsbourg, with its six bastions, ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann

... one of the party in Bedlam that night. The room lay at the extreme end of the corridor, round a corner, so that it was in a manner shut off from the rest of the wing. It was an extraordinary place. Stretched on the walls, dried or drying, were specimens of every possible variety,—bats, frogs, snake skins, bird skins. Along the mantelpiece were jars and bottles, all containing other specimens preserved in spirits. In one corner stood part of a human skeleton. It stood on one leg, with a jaunty air, having indeed but one leg to stand on; both arms were wanting, ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards

... store yesterday," hastily put in Lady Feng, "I noticed that there were still in those boxes, made of large planks, several rolls of 'cicada wing' gauze of silvery red colour. There were also several rolls with designs of twigs of flowers of every kind, several with 'the rolling clouds and bats' pattern, and several with figures representing hundreds of butterflies, interspersed among flowers. The colours of all these were fresh, and the gauze supple. But I failed to see anything of the kind you speak of. Were two rolls taken (from those I referred to), and a couple of bed-covers ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... whistlings speaking to him."(1) Whistling is also the language of the ghosts in New Caledonia, where Mr. Atkinson informs us that he has occasionally put an able-bodied Kaneka to ignominious flight by whistling softly in the dusk. The ghosts in Homer make a similar sound, "and even as bats flit gibbering in the secret place of a wondrous cavern,... even so the souls gibbered as they fared together" (Odyssey, xxiv. 5). "The familiar spirits make him" (that Zulu sorcerer) "acquainted with what is about ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang

... tells us that bats possessed the power of rendering the eggs of storks unfruitful. Accordingly, when once a stork's egg was touched by a bat it became sterile; and in order to preserve it from the injurious influence, the stork placed in its nest some branches of the maple, which frightened away every ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer

... swallows are asleep; The bats are flitting fast in the gray air; The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep; And evening's breath, wandering here and there Over the quivering surface of the stream, Wakes not one ripple from its silent dream. ...
— Handy Dictionary of Poetical Quotations • Various

... was shining at intervals, for the night was partially clouded. There seemed to be nobody stirring, though his attention was unusually awake, and he could hear the whirr of the bats overhead, and the pulsating croak of the frogs in the distant pools and marshes. Presently he detected the sound of hoofs at some distance, and, looking forward, saw a horseman coming in his direction. The moon was under a cloud at the moment, and he could only observe ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... rows, fish commonly known by the name carpet shark; batfish, a sort of reddish isosceles triangle half a meter long, whose pectoral fins are attached by fleshy extensions that make these fish look like bats, although an appendage made of horn, located near the nostrils, earns them the nickname of sea unicorns; lastly, a couple species of triggerfish, the cucuyo whose stippled flanks glitter with a sparkling gold color, and the bright ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... heavy, boy. No son o' Baldur could keep a light heart in them. Sure ye'd be as much out o' place as a sunbeam in a cave o' bats. If ye care not for your own comfort think o' the poor lad in the green chair. He's that proud and pleased to see them on ye it would be a shame to reject his offer. Sure, if they were dry yer own garments would be good enough, God knows, ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller

... dead. The historicity of the tale of Julnar the Sea Born and her son King Badr [75] seemed established, Queen Lab and her forbidding escort might have appeared at any moment. On all sides were bowing walls and tenantless houses. Poisonous plants covered the site of the Viceregal Palace, and monster bats hung by their heels at the corners of tombs. Thoughts of Camoens continued to impinge on his mind, and in imagination he saw his hero dungeoned and laid in iron writing his Lusiads. A visit to the tomb of St. Francis Xavier also deeply moved him. To pathos succeeded ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright

... their shrieks and groans in the dungeon in which she was thrust; a most awful black hole, full of bats, rats, mice, toads, frogs, mosquitoes, bugs, fleas, serpents, and every kind of horror. No light was let into it, otherwise the gaolers might have seen her and fallen in love with her, as an owl that lived up in the roof of the tower ...
— The Rose and the Ring • William Makepeace Thackeray

... College servants flitted round the groups to take instructions, and, if so might be, to extract the balances of extortionate bills out of their departing masters. Dog-fanciers were there also, holding terriers; and scouts from the cricketing grounds, with bats and pads under their arms; and hostlers, and men from the boats, all on the same errand of getting the last shilling out of their patrons—a fawning, obsequious crowd for the most part, with here and there a sturdy Briton who felt that he was only ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... He's not mad, far from it. He's just a bit queer—he's got 'bats in the belfry', as men say. He gets these attacks when he's at home in the dark winter days and has nothing to occupy him. But there's little sign of it in the summer. ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... is very often seen Flying perchance around the village green; But unlike many other bats, its flight Is always made by day and not by night. There may be one exception though,—and that Is when it's aimed at ...
— A Phenomenal Fauna • Carolyn Wells

... shedding upon the earth's surface an illumination somewhat akin to full moonlight. Usually the planet Venus and a few stars shine out the while in the darkened heaven. Meantime around the observer animal and plant life behave as at nightfall. Birds go to roost, bats fly out, worms come to the surface of the ground, flowers close up. In the Norwegian eclipse of 1896 fish were seen rising to the surface of the water. When the total phase at length is over, and the moon in her progress across the sky has allowed the brilliant disc of the sun to spring into ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... comrades in arms, and a unit in counsel. Their views were in full accord as to the necessity of immediately reducing Camp Jackson. Defiance was daily passing between the marshalling hosts, not face to face, but through dubious partisans who passed from camp to camp, flitting like the bats of fable in the confines of conflict. Capt. Lyon's decision, urged thereto by Col. Blair, was made without calling a council of the rest of his advisers. They heard of it, however, and, though brave and loyal men all, they gathered around him in his ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... thriving community, and boasted of a good nine, with whom the St. Louis team expected to cross bats a number of times during the training season. Then, too, in nearby towns, were other teams, some of them semi-professional, who would be called on to sacrifice themselves that the Cardinals might have something to bring out their ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick

... forgive them, lad. Too many of the Englishmen who have come here were bad bats from the South, so hot-footed that they burned the grass. Then—don't forget that the Germans have a military government to the south of us—all experienced men—a great many of them unmitigated rascals, ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... you listen or look, there is not a wave of the wing—the wing never waves! A bird without a feather! a beast that flies! and so cold! as cold as a fish! It is the most supernatural-seeming of natural things. And then to see how when the windows are open at night those bats come sailing ... without a sound—and go ... you cannot guess where!—fade ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... said the Philosopher. "It has been suggested that we go to sleep at night because it is then too dark to do anything else; but owls, who are a venerably sagacious folk, do not sleep in the night time. Bats, also, are a very clear-minded race; they sleep in the broadest day, and they do it in a charming manner. They clutch the branch of a tree with their toes and hang head downwards—a position which I consider singularly ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... immense army of crows, rooks, ravens, screech-owls, and all birds of ill-omen was heard, and at the same instant a huge owl skimmed up to the Princess, and threw over her a scarf woven of spiders' webs and embroidered with bats' wings. And then peals of mocking laughter rang through the air, and they guessed that this was another of the Fairy ...
— The Red Fairy Book • Various

... hour of the day calls into action another race of animals.... When the sun goes down, most of the animals retire to rest ... myriads of luminous beetles now begin to fly about like ignes fatui, and the blood-sucking bats hover like phantoms in the profound darkness of the night.... The traveller does not here meet with the impressions of those sublime and rugged high Alps of Europe, nor, on the other hand, those of a meaner ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... villagers, who busied themselves with watching and reporting the progress of events at Collingwood. Fires were kindled on the marble hearths, and the flames went roaring up the broad-mouthed chimneys, frightening from their nests of many years the croaking swallows, and scaring away the bats, which had so long held holiday in the deserted rooms. Partitions were removed, folding doors were made, windows were cut down, and large panes of glass were substituted for those of more ancient date. ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... in destroying insects. So of toads and bats. No one should ever be wantonly killed. Boys, old or young, should never be allowed to shoot birds, or disturb their nests, only as they would domestic fowls, for actual use. A wanton recklessness is exhibited about our cities and ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... Green reptiles crawled along the horizontal branches. Parrakeets, a colony of saucy green and red balls, screamed and protested from the lower zones. An agile monkey swung from one of the long sweeping vines, and scolded at us from another tree. Bats, owls, and crows inhabited the upper regions, while the buzzards perched like evil ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... unfastened, falls. And behold! a darling little fairy of about twelve or fifteen years of age, slim, and already a coquette, already a woman—dressed in a long robe of shaded dark-blue china crape, covered with embroidery representing bats-gray bats, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... into ruins, and stars twinkled among their shattered and darkened walls. The moon burned icily above the eastern hills. The nightingales (or John was no true prophet) sang better than they had ever sung before, while bats, hither, thither, flew in startling zig-zags, as if waltzing to the music. And all the air was sweet with the breath of ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland

... the study of our church bells has made great progress, and many volumes have been written upon the bells of various counties. Too long have our bells been left to the bats and birds, and the belfry is often the only portion of a church which is left uncared for. We are learning better now, and the bells which have sounded forth the joys and sorrows of our villagers for so many generations are ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield

... vegetables is being used, and consequently only half an egg is needed; the other half should then be reserved for this purpose.) Arrange a circle of balls on a hot dish, have ready the carrots boiled, slice them rather thickly and shape them into the form of tennis bats; place them in the centre, and pour the sauce over them. If curried sauce be used, rice may either be served separately, or a border of it placed round ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich

... as it goes. Gives me beans upon occasion, for which Max always swears at me as if it were my fault. I'm not allowed to see by artificial light at all, so after sunset I join the bats. Lucky for me the sun sits up late just now. By the way, I had a positively gushing epistle from old Badgers this morning. He seems almost hysterical at the thought of getting me back again; says that married or single, I've got to go." Noel stopped to take in a long breath of ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... rid of them and substituted clothing for this purpose, except on the top of our heads; but their roots also are very richly supplied with nerves so that they form almost a sort of feelers, or organs of sense. Many animals that move about much in the dark, like cats and bats, for instance, have their lips or faces studded with long, delicate, stiff hairs called whiskers, which act in this way and prevent their bumping into objects in the dark. And it is probable that the bristling of the hair on ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... whisper of the Wolverine where it swept, deep and strong; its strident chatter to a fling of gravel at occasional bends in the stream; its sucking snarl over a sunken boulder. The movements and whistlings of owls and bats in the dark, moss-clung corridors on either side were quite distinct; so were the whines and snorts of weasels and other small animals, noisy in the underbrush. And undertoning all other sounds, unceasing, like a hidden menace, rose the drone ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse

... any chance ever saw a sign of life. It was a ruin like those pretentious deserted structures sometimes seen in frontier towns—relics of the wide-open days, which stand afterward, stark and sombre, to serve as bats' nests or blind-pigs. The inn at Calabasas looked its part—a haunt of rustlers, a haven of nameless ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman

... writings is best shown by a cursory examination of the work last mentioned.[20] There we are introduced to a bewildering array of mirabilia, snakes, hippopotami, scorpions, giant-lobsters, forest-men, bats, elephants, bearded women, dog-headed people, griffins, white women with long hair and canine teeth, fire-spouting birds, trees that grow and vanish in the course of a single day, mountains of adamant, and finally sacred sun-trees and moon-trees ...
— The Influence of India and Persia on the Poetry of Germany • Arthur F. J. Remy

... mulberry orchards were cut down, and much of his property was wrested from him. He was beaten and stoned, and his name cast out as vile. When they were building the church he brought a basket full of stones and brick-bats, which had been thrown through his windows, to be incorporated in the foundation wall. He described the effect of persecution in his own case, thus: "The truth in my heart was like a stake slightly driven into soft ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... temple there was no sound but the rustling of the bats' wings as they flew in before dawn, or sometimes the chirping of a swallow which had lost its way, and was frightened to see all the grim marble faces gazing at it. But the quietness did me good, and I waited, hoping that the young King of Sweden would marry, ...
— Wonder-Box Tales • Jean Ingelow

... orders of placental mammals, neither the Whales, nor the hoofed creatures, nor the Sloths and Ant-eaters, nor the carnivorous Cats, Dogs, and Bears, still less the Rodent Rats and Rabbits, or the Insectivorous Moles and Hedgehogs, or the Bats, could claim our 'Homo', as ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley

... And heavy with the scent of steaming leaves, And rosebuds mouldering on the dripping porch; One twilight, without rise or set of sun, Till beetles drone along the hollow lane, And round the leafless hawthorns, flitting bats Hawk the pale moths of winter? Welcome then At best, the flying gleam, the flying shower, The rain-pools glittering on the long white roads, And shadows sweeping on from down to down Before the salt Atlantic gale: yet come In whatsoever garb, or gay, or sad, Come fair, come foul, 'twill still ...
— Andromeda and Other Poems • Charles Kingsley

... would explain why there are no mammalia in islands far from continents, except bats, which can reach them by flying; and also why the birds, insects, plants, and other inhabitants of islands, even when specifically unlike, usually agree generically with those of the nearest continent, it being assumed that the original stock of such species ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell

... light, Like the dragon that strangles the moon in the night; Fierce sphinxes, long serpents, and asps of the south; Wild birds of huge beak, and all horrors that drouth Engenders of slime in the land of the pest, Vile shapes without shape, and foul bats of the West, Bringing Night on their wings; and the bodies wherein Great Brahma imprisons the spirits of sin, Many-handed, that blent in one phantom of fight Like a Titan, and threatfully warr'd with the light; I have heard the wild shriek that gave signal to close, When ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... this voyage, the admiral, called the Castle of Comfort, George Fenner general[293] of the expedition, and William Bats master; the May-Flower, vice-admiral, William Courtise master; the George, John Heiwood captain, and John Smith of Hampton master; besides a small pinnace. Walter Wren, the writer of the narrative, belonged to ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... place on the prairie, or in winter, on a frozen lake or river, is chosen. Each player has a sort of bat, called "T-ke-cha-ps-cha," about thirty two inches long with a hoop at the lower end four or five inches in diameter, interlaced with thongs of deer-skin, forming a sort of pocket. With these bats they catch and throw the ball. Stakes are set as bounds at a considerable distance from the centre on either side. Two parties are then formed, and each chooses a leader or chief. The ball (T-pa) is then thrown up half way between the bounds, and the game begins, the contestants ...
— Legends of the Northwest • Hanford Lennox Gordon

... chase, Winds drive it to Misery's seas, Laughs ascend from sequestered well, Thro' shadows vague it hears its shame. And tomb-thrown groans and sighs we hear— Tho' midnight's near and afrite's sleep: An Owl, perturbed at some strange sound, Scares bats in space and wings for domes. All signs of woe hath flown with fear, No maidens heave their breasts and weep, All wrecks of Flesh lie on the ground, Removed from shoals where Terror moans. On skulls that some in Death hath ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque

... a challenge, not a truce! This is my homage to the mightier powers, To ask my boldest question, undismayed By muttered threats that some hysteric sense Of wrong or insult will convulse the throne Where wisdom reigns supreme; and if I err, They all must err who have to feel their way As bats that fly at noon; for what are we But creatures of the night, dragged forth by day, Who needs must stumble, and with stammering steps Spell out their paths in ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.



Words linked to "Bats" :   kooky, fruity, batty, balmy, bonkers, loco, dotty, barmy, loony, nuts, loopy, daft



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