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Carnivorous   Listen
adjective
Carnivorous  adj.  Eating or feeding on flesh. The term is applied:
(a)
to animals which naturally seek flesh for food, as the tiger, dog, etc.;
(b)
to plants which are supposed to absorb animal food;
(c)
to substances which destroy animal tissue, as caustics.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Carnivorous" Quotes from Famous Books



... the beasts of the field, Mrs. Eddy says that "The beast and reptile made by Love and Wisdom were neither carnivorous nor poisonous." Ferocious tendencies in animals are entirely the product of man's imagination. Daniel understood this, we are told, and that is why the ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various

... chopped down with his knife, catching the log-line between the steel edge and the rail. At once, no longer buoyed up by the Elsinore's two-knot drag ahead, the wounded men began to swim and flounder. The circling hosts of huge sea-birds descended upon them, with carnivorous beaks striking at their heads and shoulders and arms. A great screeching and squawking arose from the winged things of prey as they strove for the living meat. And yet, somehow, I was not very profoundly shocked. ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London

... great hole twelve inches deep and with a side chamber at the bottom. There she would have thrust him down the throat of the burrow, and then crawled in and laid an egg on the helpless beast, from which in time would have hatched the carnivorous wasp grub. Pepsis has many close allies among the wasps, all black or steely blue with smoky or dull-bronze wings, and they all use spiders, stung and paralyzed, to store ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... liqueurs, an orchestra of perfumes. In flowers he prefers the real flowers that imitate artificial ones. It is the monstrosities of nature, the offspring of unnatural adulteries, that he cherishes in the barbarically coloured flowers, the plants with barbaric names, the carnivorous plants of the Antilles—morbid horrors of vegetation, chosen, not for their beauty, but for their strangeness. And his imagination plays harmonies on the sense of taste, like combinations of music, from the flute-like sweetness of anisette, the trumpet-note ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... human enemies the two men were menaced by peril from wild beasts as well. Panthers prowled among the hills, great Himalayan bears, a blow from the paw of one of which would crack a man's skull, wandered on the jungle-clad slopes and, though not carnivorous, were always ready to attack human beings. Herds of wild elephants, which had scaled the mountains into Bhutan at the beginning of the Monsoon to reach the northern face of the Himalayas and escape ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... meannesses;—to such a reader who, from the hieroglyphic lines of feigned content, can translate the haggard spirit and the pining heart,—to such a man too often depressed and sickened by the contemplation of the carnivorous faces thronging the streets of London—faces that look as if they deemed the stream of all human happiness flowed only from the Mint,—to such a man, how great the satisfaction, how surpassing the enjoyment of these "last few days!" As with the Thane ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... fundamental role and constitute the nucleus of society. In the anthropoid ape we already find the family, but not the clan. This must also have been the case with the pithecanthropoids and other extinct transitory forms. In fact, the lowest savages still live as isolated families like the carnivorous mammals, rather than in clans or tribes. This is the case, for example, with the Weddas of Ceylon, the indigenes of Terra del Fuego, the aboriginal Australians, the Esquimaux and certain Indians of Brazil. In this way they ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... scouts the notion of an ancient origin of the phrase and fixes the terminus a quo by the recent introduction of vegetarian diet. Nuts being a prime staple of the votaries of this cult, a person who cannot do anything "for nuts" means, by implication, a carnivorous savage who is incapable of progress. Lastly, there remains the ingenious solution that the phrase as commonly employed involves a misspelling. It ought to be "four nuts," and playing four nuts was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various

... accomplishing her task with a passive regularity. She scarcely knows the lighter shades of sentiments and expressions. She laughs or she weeps. No smiling. When she laughs, it is with a large display of the solid white teeth of a carnivorous animal; when she weeps, it is with the deep sobs of a beaten child. She is strong and patient like the ox, she runs like the horse, she resists cold, heat, and fatigue; her sleep is profound and without ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton

... tends to multiply to such an extent as to occupy the whole earth and adapt itself to all possible conditions. In the Secondary period reptiles so adapted themselves: there were oceanic reptiles, flying reptiles, herbivorous reptiles, carnivorous reptiles. At the present day the Chelonia alone include oceanic, fresh-water, and terrestrial forms. Birds again have adapted themselves to oceanic conditions, to forests, plains, deserts, fresh waters. Mammals have repeated the process. The organs of locomotion ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... when you get back to Chester again. I'd hate to see the map of Ireland across your face in red scratches. Besides, there's always danger of blood poisoning setting in when a wild animal has scratched you, especially one that is carnivorous ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton

... and eyes in horror at our carnivorous propensities, to which she clearly attributed the disappearance of Lorna, I could scarce help laughing, even after that sad story. For though it is said at the present day, and will doubtless be said hereafter, that the Doones had devoured a baby once, as ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... has a very formidable set of teeth suitable for his carnivorous diet. The Weddell, living on fish, has a more simple group, but these are liable to become very worn in old age, due to his habit of gnawing out holes in the ice for himself, so graphically displayed on Ponting's cinematograph. When he feels death ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... table the flashing implements of carving held in askance for stroke, her lips lifted to a smile and a simulation of interest for display of further carnivorous appetites, Mrs. Kaufman passed her nod from one to ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst

... of infants, is generally owing to too great acidity in their bowels. Milk is found curdled in the stomachs of all animals, old as well as young, and even of carnivorous ones, as of hawks. (Spallanzani.) And it is the gastric juice of the calf, which is employed to curdle milk in the process of making cheese. Milk is the natural food for children, and must curdle in their stomachs previous to digestion; and as this curdling of the milk destroys a part ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... a great impression; a large man, with a large head, and a very landed manner; knowing enough to torment his fellow-creatures, not to instruct them; the ridicule of young ladies, and the natural butt and target of wit. It is easy to talk of carnivorous animals and beasts of prey; but does such a man, who lays waste a whole civilized party of beings by prosing, reflect upon the joy he spoils and the misery he creates in the course of his life, and that any one who listens to him through politeness ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... better still not to drink at all if the necessary liquid could be supplied to the body by means of fresh, juicy fruits. He contended that man is not naturally a drinking animal; that his thirst is a morbid symptom, the outcome of a carnivorous diet and other unwholesome habits. And I think that anyone may prove the truth of this for him or herself if he or she will adopt a fruitarian dietary and abstain from the use of ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel

... [7] The cabinets of Europe can, as yet, boast only of the larger species from tropical climates. It is sufficient to disturb the composure of an entomologist's mind, to look forward to the future dimensions of a complete catalogue. The carnivorous beetles, or Carabidae, appear in extremely few numbers within the tropics: this is the more remarkable when compared to the case of the carnivorous quadrupeds, which are so abundant in hot countries. I was struck with this observation both on entering Brazil, and when I saw ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... a carnivorous animal. This none but greengrocers will dispute. That he was formerly less vegetarian in his diet than at present, is clear from the fact that market-gardening increases in the ratio of civilization. So we ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... harmless little Owl and a Rattlesnake of questionable amiability. The Owl sits by the mouth of the hole till driven away by your approach, when he follows his confrere's example by diving; the Rattlesnake stays usually below, to give any prowling, thieving prairie-wolf, or other carnivorous intruder, the worst of the bargain, should he attempt to dig out the architect of this subterranean abode. But for this nice little family arrangement, the last prairie-dog would long since have been unearthed and eaten. As it is, the rattlesnake gets a den ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... meet with an adventure with a lion or a leopard in that dark belt of tall trees, under whose impenetrable shade grew the dense thicket that formed such admirable coverts for the carnivorous species, I took a stroll along the awesome place with the gunbearer, Kalulu, carrying an extra gun, and a further supply of ammunition. We crept cautiously along, looking keenly into the deep dark ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... squib (A description of a carnivorous plant supposed to subsist on human beings.) quite gravely, and when I found it stated that Felis and Bos inhabited Madagascar, I thought it was a false story, and did not perceive it was a hoax till I came ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... nostrils the breath of life, to call the eel into a new existence, with a knowledge of the treatment he had undergone, and he found that the instinctive disposition which man has in common with other carnivorous animals, which inclines him to cruelty, was not the sole cause of his torments; but that men did not attend to consider whether the sufferings of such insignificant creatures could be lessened: that ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... indiscriminate in their diet, which includes pork, snakes, rats, and even carnivorous animals, as panthers. They refuse only beef, monkeys and the leavings of others. The wilder Binjhwars of the forests will not accept cooked food from any other caste, but those who live in association with Hindus will take it when cooked without ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell

... had seen. She was about thirty-six feet long and wide in proportion, the stem rising upright about six feet, on top of which was a figure of some imaginary monster of uncouth sculpture, having the head of a carnivorous animal with large erect ears but no body, clinging by arms and legs to the upper end of the canoe, and grinning horribly. The ears were painted green, the other parts red and black. The stern also rose about five feet in height, but had no figure carved on it. ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... survival of one of the carnivorous dinosaurs," he decided, then paused, increasingly conscious of that steady ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... Waitress gives them, gently, but firmly, to understand that these coarse and carnivorous propensities must be indulged elsewhere; whereupon they depart, rebuked and abashed, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various

... remarkable difference in the saliva of carnivorous and herbivorous animals. The purest saliva was obtained for their experiments directly from the parotid duct, in man, the horse, and dog. The composition ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various

... no mistaking the meaning of the scene. The giant carnivorous crystals had obviously been lured from their normal habitat in Arret's red vegetation, and established there in the big pit by the rat-men to act as principals in ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells

... first up and out, and who, at this season, in flat defiance of all medical rules, adopt a purely animal diet. Later, long after Lent, their food is varied with fruits and seeds, but never to such an extent as to amount to vegetarianism. This carnivorous taste ranks high in the "charm of earliest birds" so interesting to the cultivator. He, as a rule, is not wrapped up in the strawberry or the cherry that in the fulness of time comes to be levied on, in very moderate percentage, by a few of his musical associates. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... is possibly the "musbilai" or mouse-cat of Behar, which preys upon birds and fish. Could it be the Urva of the Nepalese (Urva cancrivora, Hodgson), which Mr. Hodgson describes as dwelling in burrows, and being carnivorous and ranivorous?—Vide Journ. As. Soc. Beng., vol. ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... considering their uncivilised state; and the graves are frequently visited by the relatives of the deceased, to repair any injury, which they may have sustained from the violence of the rains, or the attacks of carnivorous animals. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... dangerous thing is the art of eating in these carnivorous larvae supplied with a single victim, which they have to spend a fortnight in consuming, on the express condition of not killing it until the very end! Could our physiological science, of which, with good reason, ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... ethics a Christian; Orator apt at the rhine-stone rhythm of Ingersoll. Carnivorous, avenger, believer and pagan. Continent, promiscuous, changeable, treacherous, vain, Proud, with the pride that makes struggle a thing for laughter; With heart cored out by the worm of theatric despair. Wearing the coat of indifference to hide ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters

... it maintains a secure hold of the silk lining of the tube by means of a pair of strong hooks at the posterior end of its soft defenceless abdomen. Their food appears for the most part to be of a vegetable nature. Some species, however, are alleged to be carnivorous, and a North American form of the genus Hydropsyche is said to spin around the mouth of its burrow a silken net for the capture of small animal organisms living in the water. Before passing into the pupal stage, the larva partially closes the orifice of the tube with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... have found here a tender mother in the respectable Madame Fribsbi), in this island, in this family? My genius would use itself in the company of these rustics—the poesy of my art cannot be understood by these carnivorous insularies. No—the men are odious, but the women—the women! I own, dear Fribsbi, are seducing! I have vowed to marry one; and as I cannot go into your markets and purchase, according to the custom of the country, I am resolved to adopt another custom, and ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... course, in Europe, where the wolf was one of the largest carnivorous animals, that the were-wolf superstition chiefly gained currency. In Eastern countries, where similar beliefs prevailed, bears, tigers, and other beasts of prey were substituted for the lupine form ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... section of the order, however, the Adephaga comprising the predaceous terrestrial and aquatic beetles, the larval foot has, like that of the adult, two claws. Some adephagous larvae, notably those of the large carnivorous water-beetles (Dyticus), often destructive to tadpoles and young fish, have completely armoured bodies as well as long jointed legs. More commonly, as with most of the well-known Ground-beetles (Carabidae), ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter

... I found no dolmens. The first mound contained three adult human skeletons, a few fragments of the skeleton of a child, the lower maxillary of which indicated it to be about six years old. I also found claws of some carnivorous animal. The surface of the soil had been scooped out and the bodies laid in the excavation and covered with about a foot of earth, fires had then been made upon the grave and the mound afterwards completed. The bones ...
— An introduction to the mortuary customs of the North American Indians • H. C. Yarrow

... be dragged about from city to city, like a bag of wheat or a cask of wine. He would dwell in pretentious and monumental hotels, where he would be numbered like a convict; he would meet the same carnivorous English family, with whom he might have made a tour of the world without exchanging one word; swallowing every day the tasteless soup, old fish, tough vegetables, and insipid wine which have an international reputation, so to speak. But above all, he was to have the horror, every evening ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee

... finding food is the great and unfailing stimulus towards the exercise of their vital functions; food which may, as we all know, be vegetable, animal, or a combination of both kinds. It is evident that in the case of carnivorous animals the object which satisfies this desire is a living subject, of which it is necessary to become possessed by arts, wiles, sometimes by a fierce and cruel conflict. In these cases, animals are in constant communication with an animal world resembling their ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli

... stopped to eat his victim," said Bearwarden, "it is fair to suppose he is not carnivorous, and so must have had some other motive than hunger in making the attack; unless we can suppose that our approach frightened him away, which, with such power as he must possess, seems unlikely. Let us see," he continued, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... that of sea-dog, fish-livers, and train-oil, and of these obtaining but a scanty provision; they are even aspiring to the rank of the interior inhabitants, whose nutriment is of a more delicate description, being the flesh of all kinds of wild animals, herbaceous and carnivorous, and birds of prey; but bear's flesh is their greatest dainty. Rein-deer flesh is commonly boiled in a large iron kettle, and when done, torn to pieces by the fingers of the major domo, and by him portioned out to his family and friends; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various

... said the scout-master, quickly, "though I'll take a look myself to make sure. Scratches from carnivorous animals are very dangerous on account of the poison that may cling to their claws. It's always best to be on the safe side, ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... harmless of created beings. From the first to the last gasp of our lives, we never inhale the air of heaven without butchering myriads of sentient and innocent creatures. Can we upbraid ourselves then for supporting our lives by the death of a few animals, many of whom are themselves carnivorous, when the infant who has lived for a single day has killed an infinitely greater number of human beings than the longest life would suffice to murder by design? Or, if we sacrifice either our lives or ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... sounds almost carnivorous. I am afraid that there are not many about here to satisfy her appetite. Your brother, Morris, the curate at Morton, and myself, if at my age I may creep into that honourable company, are the only single creatures within ...
— Stella Fregelius • H. Rider Haggard

... regular laws of nature, because I was not framed with a capacity of preserving my life, either by swiftness, or climbing of trees, or digging holes in the earth. They observed by my teeth, which they viewed with great exactness, that I was a carnivorous animal; yet most quadrupeds being an overmatch for me, and field mice, with some others, too nimble, they could not imagine how I should be able to support myself, unless I fed upon snails and other insects, which they offered, by many learned arguments, ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift

... Of carnivorous animals, we have the Panther and Black Bear in the wooded portions of the State, though rare; the Lynx, the Gray and Black Wolf, and the Prairie Wolf; the Skunk, the Badger, the Woodchuck, the Raccoon, and, in the southern part of the State, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... infant is the simple stomach of the carnivorous animal, intended for food which shall not need to stay long in that receptacle, but shall be speedily digested; and it is only as the child grows older, and takes more varied food, that the stomach alters ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... into the mouth of papa's dog: you will recognize these teeth by their rather curved points. They are longer than the rest, and are called fangs. I do not know, after all, why they have chosen to name these teeth canine, as all carnivorous animals have the same fangs, and in the lion, the tiger, and many other species, they are much more developed and sharper than in the dog. In cats they are like little nails. However, the name is given, and we cannot ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... just swallowed an opossum which proved to be of a species new to science. Miller told how once on the Orinoco he saw on the bank a small anaconda, some ten feet long, killing one of the iguanas, big, active, truculent, carnivorous lizards, equally at home on the land and in the water. Evidently the iguanas were digging out holes in the bank in which to lay their eggs; for there were several such holes, and iguanas working at them. The snake had crushed its prey to a pulp; and ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt

... kind, robberies of private houses, squandering of public money, were committed by these monsters." (The Ferney deputies brought with them the testimony of witnesses.)—Ibid., 290. (Letters of Representative Goupilleau, Beziers, Vendemiaire 28, year III. on the terrorists of Vaucluse.) "These carnivorous fellows, regretting the times when they could rob and massacre with impunity.... Who, six months ago, were starving and who now live in the most scandalous opulence... Squanderers of the public funds, robbers of private fortunes... Guilty ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... She is, in her own vernacular, "making, culture hum." Mr. Fuller, I understand, reproached her with her stockyards—an injustice which even Mr. Bernard Shaw would scarcely have committed. Is it the fault of Chicago that the world is carnivorous? Was not "Nature red in tooth and claw" several aeons before Chicago was thought of? I do not understand that any unnecessary cruelty is practised in the stockyards; and apart from that, I fail to see that systematic slaughter of animals ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... development of the canine teeth in the adult would seem to indicate a carnivorous propensity; but in no state save that of domestication do they manifest it. At first they reject flesh, but easily acquire a fondness for it. The canines are early developed, and evidently designed to act the important part of ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... assailants and attack them furiously, fighting with horns and hoofs. They show their rage by thrusting out the tongue, lashing the tail, and projecting the eyes. At such times they are fierce and formidable. The enemies of the bison are the carnivorous animals. A herd of bison has no cause to be afraid of wolves or bears, but solitary bison are often killed by these creatures. The cry of a bison resembles that of a groan or grunt. In case the leader is killed ...
— The Later Cave-Men • Katharine Elizabeth Dopp

... greater surface for the terminations of the placental vessels for the purpose of receiving oxygenation from the uterine ones; as the progeny of this class of animals are more completely formed before their nativity, than that of the carnivorous classes, and must thence in the latter weeks of pregnancy require greater oxygenation. Thus calves and lambs can walk about in a few minutes after their birth; while puppies and kittens remain many days without ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... waters were agitated; and the iron tone of the raven's voice, which strikes upon the ear at all times as the more dolorous from its regularity, was in fine keeping with the wild scene before our eyes. This carnivorous fowl is a great enemy to the lambs of these solitudes; I recollect frequently seeing, when a boy, bunches of unfledged ravens suspended from the church-yard gates of H——, for which a reward of ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... carnivorous race we have found that was—civilized, that had a science and was going to come out into space," the doelike one interrupted softly. ...
— The Carnivore • G. A. Morris

... his hat striken down over his eyes by the descending panther, and, leaping over the frail barrier of bushes into the water, he plunged forward and executed a series of diving evolutions, as if still endeavouring to elude the clutches of the carnivorous beast, which ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones

... had paused, crouching suddenly like a carnivorous beast, balked of its prey. There of a truth was the pavilion, but on the steps three men were standing, talking volubly and in whispers. Two of these men carried stable lanterns, and were obviously guiding their companion up to ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... Many carnivorous animals, as they crawl towards their prey and prepare to rush or spring on it, lower their heads and crouch, partly, as it would appear, to hide themselves, and partly to get ready for their rush; and this habit in an exaggerated ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin

... year from a long initiatory sojourn in Europe to lay siege to the tight little citadel of New York. "Of course if you and Regina invite her the thing is settled. Well, we need new blood and new money—and I hear she's still very good-looking," the carnivorous old lady declared. ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... himself an experiment station. On his own person he directly and practically tried out each idea ... his wife was also a convertee, slightly reluctant, to his tests ... and his son, perforce. Baxter actually kept a vegetarian dog. "Even carnivorous animals thrive better on a vegetarian diet." But the dog was no corroboration of his theory. It lacked gloss and shine to its coat, ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... whether they are cannibals," continued the doctor. "The worst of it is, if we killed one we should be no wiser. You see, you couldn't tell whether he was carnivorous or herbivorous by his teeth.—Well, captain, no ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn

... Here he lurks in caverns, or holes which he has digged in the sides of hills, or under the roots and trunks of fallen trees. Like the common bear, he is fond of fruits, and mast, and roots, the latter of which he will dig up with his foreclaws. He is carnivorous also, and will even attack and conquer the lordly buffalo, dragging his huge carcass to the neighborhood of his den, that he may prey upon it ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... animals, though not exclusively so. Carnivorous tendencies are displayed by many of them. They rob birds' nests of their eggs and young, they capture and devour snakes and other small animals. In zooelogical gardens monkeys are often observed to catch and eat mice. ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris

... quadrupeds with which we are familiar then existed, nor any related to nor resembling them. But in their place were reptiles large and small, carnivorous and herbivorous, walking, ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew

... examining the crevices in trees and withered leaves, seizing the largest beetles and munching them up with the greatest relish. It is also very fond of eggs and young birds, and must play havoc among the nestlings. Probably owing to its carnivorous habits, its flesh is not considered so good by monkey eaters as ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... sea-water, while it is unpleasant and poisonous to men if they drink it, is most agreeable and sweet to fishes. Swine also prefer to wash in vile filth rather than in pure clean water. Furthermore, some 56 animals eat grass and some eat herbs; some live in the woods, others eat seeds; some are carnivorous, and others lactivorous; some enjoy putrified food, and others fresh food; some raw food and others that which is prepared by cooking; and in general that which is agreeable to some is disagreeable and fatal to others, and should be avoided by them. Thus ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick

... join him in this singular viand, although the shikarree assured them that tiger-beef was far superior to the venison of the sambur deer. There may have been truth in Ossaroo's assertion; for it is well-known, that the flesh of several kinds of carnivorous animals is not only palatable, but delicate eating. Indeed, the delicacy of the meat does not seem at all to depend upon the food of the animal; since no creature is a more unclean feeder than the domestic pig, and what is nicer or more tender than ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid

... the Flesh was to be eaten. Nor did the Brutes themselves subsist by Prey (tho' pleas'd perhaps with Hunting, without destroying their Fellow Creatures) as may be presum'd from their long Seclusion of the most Carnivorous among them in ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn

... The carnivorous mammals of the sea—whales, seals, walruses, etc.—seem to have been derived from some of the creodonts of the early Tertiary by adaptation to aquatic life. Whales evolved from some land ancestry at a very early date in the Tertiary; ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton

... the Professor broke out. "It depends upon diet. Carnivores and birds of prey can take lethodyne with impunity; herbivores and fruit-eaters cannot recover, and die of it. Man, therefore, being partly carnivorous, will doubtless be able more or less to ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen

... silent. Wayne was picturing the sight, and knew everyone else was, too—the sight of hordes of carnivorous little aliens burrowing up through the sand and approaching the eight Earthmen who lay there, alive but helpless. Approaching ...
— The Judas Valley • Gerald Vance

... with rudimentary {70} wings, down to the dinornis, which probably died out in man's time. New Holland has merely marsupial and some monotrematous, but no placental, mammalia; even its tertiary strata give no placental mammalia, but marsupialia, in analogy with all living genera, herbivorous, and carnivorous. Indeed, the analogy goes so far that the same line which through the Indian Archipelago separates the present Australian animal and plant world from the Asiatic, forms also the separating line for the geological zones of the Pliocene epoch. All these are facts which render quite inevitable the ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid

... can; but, great loads of fire, fellow! don't think you can play tag with her, and feel funny at the finish. She'll do you up completely, and never turn a hair herself. She's always at it. She don't mean to be cruel, but she's naturally a carnivorous animal. It's her ...
— The Rejuvenation of Aunt Mary • Anne Warner

... said before, the situation is most unpleasant, but I don't see what we can do about it, for digging out Maurice means digging down "Mon Repos," and there's no sense in that. Albert Edward had a theory that the mole is a carnivorous animal, so he smeared a worm with carbolic tooth-paste and left it lying about. It lay about for days. Albert now admits his theory was wrong; the mole is a vegetarian, he says; he was confusing it with trout. He is in the throes of inventing ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, October 31, 1917 • Various

... is a kind of duck, for it has a duck-bill and four webbed paddles; it is a fish and quadruped together, for in the water it swims with the paddles and on shore it paws itself across country with them; it is a kind of seal, for it has a seal's fur; it is carnivorous, herbivorous, insectivorous, and vermifuginous, for it eats fish and grass and butterflies, and in the season digs worms out of the mud and devours them; it is clearly a bird, for it lays eggs, and hatches them; it is clearly a mammal, for it nurses its young; and it is manifestly a kind of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... This point is disputed by M. Rene Quinton, who regards the carnivorous and ruminant mammals, as well as certain birds, as subsequent to man (R. Quinton, L'Eau de mer milieu organique, Paris, 1904, p. 435). We may say here that our general conclusions, although very different ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... account for the origin of the stalwart oak or the lordly pine, without going back to any mycological or cryptogamic forms, to follow down an ever-changing vital plexus that is as likely to land in a buttonwood tree as an oak, or in a hemlock as a pine,—in fact, quite as likely to land in a carnivorous animal as in an insectivorous plant. "Let the earth bring forth," is still the eternal fiat,—just as implicitly obeyed to-day as it was in the world's primeval history, when an exuberance of endogenous vegetation laid the foundation ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... the claws of all carnivorous animals are dangerous. Blood poisoning is apt to set in, because of the fact that their claws are contaminated from the flesh of such birds or small game as have served them for a previous meal. And just then Paul had nothing along with him to prevent the possibility ...
— Boy Scouts on a Long Hike - Or, To the Rescue in the Black Water Swamps • Archibald Lee Fletcher

... there is nothing more thrilling to man than a meal alone with a woman he loves or is about to love. Perhaps, deep down, the reason is that there still vibrates in the masculine blood the thrilling surprise of the moment when man first realised that the angel woman was built upon the same carnivorous principles ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne

... head and tiger-fanged jaws, and the tremendous, rending claws on its short forearms, was plainly of a different species from the great herb-eaters of the dinosaurian family. It was one of the smaller members of that terrible family of carnivorous dinosaurians which ruled the ancient cycad forests as the black-maned lion rules the Rhodesian jungles to-day. The massive iguanodon which fled before it so madly, though of fully thrice its bulk, had reason to fear it as the fat cow fears ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... confusion of the attack, Carse knew the creature for what it was: a full-grown specimen of the giant carnivorous lemak, a seldom-seen, dying species, too clumsy, too slow, too huge to survive. His ray-gun came around, but he was caught in a feathered maelstrom and knocked too violently around to use it. Without pause the lemak's claws raked his ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore

... you the way. You, Denis," he added, "you disappoint me. You look like a boy who is fond of flowers. And yet you have never been to see my cannas, which are the finest in the kingdom, to say nothing of myself, who am also something of a flower. A carnivorous orchid, I fancy." ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... would cost to import two trustworthy baboons, also what would be a fair wage to give them; whether they would come under the provisions of the National Insurance Act, and whether they are vegetarians or carnivorous? Any other information bearing on their tastes and habits would be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 6, 1917 • Various

... take up a chance number of the Internacia Scienca Revuo, which happens to be on my table, and find the following subjects among the contents of the month: "Rle of living beings in the general physiology of the earth," "The carnivorous animals of Sweden," "The part played by heredity in the etiology of chronic nephritis," "The migration of the lemings," "Notices of books," "Notes and correspondence," etc. In fact, the Review has all the appearance of an ordinary scientific periodical, ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... a clerk will look as big as a senator to you and you'll begin to get bashful before elevator men. You'll get off the sidewalk when you see a man who looks as if he had a job and was in a hurry. You'll envy a messenger boy with a job and a future; you'll wonder if managers are really carnivorous or only pretend to be. You feel as tall as the Singer Building to-day, but you'll shrink before long. You'll shrink until, after a long, hard day, with about nine turndowns in it, you'll have to climb up on top of the dresser to look at yourself in ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch

... glass; wash down, crack a bottle, wet one's whistle. purvey &c. 637. Adj. eatable, edible, esculent[obs3], comestible, alimentary; cereal, cibarious[obs3]; dietetic; culinary; nutritive, nutritious; gastric; succulent; potable, potulent|; bibulous. omnivorous, carnivorous, herbivorous, granivorous[obs3], graminivorous, phytivorous[obs3]; ichthyivorous[obs3]; omophagic[obs3], omophagous[obs3]; pantophagous[obs3], phytophagous[obs3], xylophagous Phr[Biol]. "across the walnuts and the wine" [Tennyson]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... notwithstanding the difference in their size, who can look at the lion, whether in his more sleepy mood, as he lies curled up in the corner of his cage, or in his fiercer moments of hunger or of rage, without being reminded of a cat? And this is not merely the resemblance of one carnivorous animal to another; for no one was ever reminded of a dog ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... superior article of food and feeds about everything that either walks or flies on the desert. The Indians make meal of the seed and bake it into bread. Cattle that feed on the open range will leave good grass to browse on a mesquite bush. Even as carnivorous a creature as the coyote will make a full meal on a mess of mesquite beans and seem to be satisfied. The tree exudes a gum that is equal to the ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... a shell-builder, the Whelk, who uses his flinty tongue in quite another fashion. The Whelk does not care for a vegetable dinner. He prefers to eat other molluscs—he is carnivorous, a flesh-eater; but these other molluscs do not wait to be eaten. As the enemy draws near they retire into their shells, and shut themselves up as tight as they can. The Whelk, however, is a clever burglar; he knows how to make a ...
— On the Seashore • R. Cadwallader Smith

... recover from your previous pain or fatigue, the sages summoned by the Tur were divided in opinion whether you were a harmless or an obnoxious animal. During your unconscious state your teeth were examined, and they clearly showed that you were not only graminivorous but carnivorous. Carnivorous animals of your size are always destroyed, as being of savage and dangerous nature. Our teeth, as you have doubtless observed,* are not those of the ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... high bank, covered with forest trees, the advanced lines, as it were, of the vast wilderness which lay behind. From out the depths of those woods rose the occasional shrieks of an owl, or other night bird, and at intervals the long dismal howl of a wild dog — the only carnivorous animal indigenous in that country. The air was balmy, but there was something in the mournful aspect of the scene that weighed upon the spirits, and made one feel inexpressibly lonely in the midst of ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor

... living near Sagada says this animal eats his coffee berries. The other so-called "cat" is named "si'-le" by the Igorot. It is said to be a long-tailed, dark-colored animal, smaller than the in'-yao. It is claimed that this si'-le is both carnivorous and frugivorous. These two animals are trapped at times, and ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... without clouds and the earth itself began to tremble. And Rahu came to devour the Sun, although it was not the day of conjunction. And meteors began to fall, keeping the city to their right. And jackals and vultures and ravens and other carnivorous beasts and birds began to shriek and cry aloud from the temples of the gods and the tops of sacred trees and walls and house-tops. And these extraordinary calamitous portents, O king, were seen ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... was resolved to make the best of the meat. It proved tolerably palatable, especially the liver and kidneys, pronounced equal to those of a bullock. When the flour was gone, the only relief from the monotony of a carnivorous diet was obtained by experimentalising on seeds, fruits, and roots, of which many unknown species were met with. How the party escaped death by poison is a wonder, for they were very venturesome in their essays, and not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... frugivorous vulture, it cleared away the decaying vegetable matter. In no other place than an island, uninhabited by man or any other animal of prey, could the helpless dodo have existed. Some fancy it may yet be found in Madagascar. Vain idea! Its carnivorous enemies among the lower animals, would have cut short the existence of the dodo, even if man had never planted his conquering ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 440 - Volume 17, New Series, June 5, 1852 • Various

... and sees and feels and hugs and enjoys as he paddles with his lean hands among the sliding, shining, ringing, innocent-looking bits of yellow metal, toying with them as the lion-tamer handles the great carnivorous monster, whose might and whose terrors are child's play to the latent forces and power of harm-doing of the glittering counters played with in the great game between ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... beaten off the Hyena-swine with the handle of his whip, and he and Montgomery were keeping away the excited carnivorous Beast People, and particularly M'ling, from the still quivering body. The hairy-grey Thing came sniffing at the corpse under my arm. The other animals, in their animal ardour, jostled me to ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... you on the shoulder. You licked Cheese- Face because you wouldn't give in, and you wouldn't give in partly because you were an abysmal brute and for the rest because you believed what every one about you believed, that the measure of manhood was the carnivorous ferocity displayed in injuring and marring fellow-creatures' anatomies. Why, you whelp, you even won other fellows' girls away from them, not because you wanted the girls, but because in the marrow of those about you, those who set ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... had been confined for many years; which task he accomplished in one day, by turning the rivers Alpheus and Peneus through the stables. For certain reasons this exploit was not counted. His sixth was to destroy the carnivorous birds, with brazen wings, beaks, and claws, which ravaged the country near the lake Stymphalis, in Arcadia. The seventh was to bring alive to Peloponnesus a bull, remarkable for its beauty and strength, ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... reciprocal reaction to the same definite end. None of these parts can be changed without affecting the others; and consequently each taken separately, indicates and gives all the rest." He then gives illustrations: arguing that the carnivorous form of tooth necessitating a certain action of the jaw, implies a particular form in its condyles; implies also limbs fit for seizing and holding prey; therefore implies claws, a certain structure of the leg-bones, a certain form of shoulder-blade. Summing up he says, that "the claw, the scapula, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... advanced civilization, curiously out of keeping with the thoughts which had occupied me on my walk. Why, I wonder, has Reggio paid such exceptional attention to this department of its daily life? One did not quite know whether to approve this frank exhibition of carnivorous zeal; obviously something can be said in its favour, yet, on the other hand, a man who troubles himself with finer scruples would perhaps choose not to be reminded of pole-axe and butcher's knife, ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing

... owl like appearance, whence they are sometimes called owl-faced monkeys. They are covered with soft gray fur, like that of a rabbit, and sleep all day long concealed in hollow trees. The face is also marked with white patches and stripes, giving it a rather carnivorous or cat like aspect, which, perhaps, serves as a protection, by causing the defenseless creature to be taken for an arboreal tiger cat or ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various

... provided—they set to work in earnest. They have been only politely trifling hitherto with the wing of a fowl or so, to keep the ladies' company. But now, as old Captain Phillips, at the head of the table, cuts a slice and a joke alternately, and the Tiger at the bottom begins to let out his carnivorous propensities, one gets to have an idea what breakfast means. "Let me advise you, my dear Mr Dawson—as a friend—you'll excuse an old stager—if you have no particular wish to starve yourself—you've had nothing yet but two cups of tea—to help yourself, and let your neighbours do the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... process is sooner completed in the carnivorous than in the herbivorous tribes. In the former the temporary callus may attain sufficient fineness of consistency for the careful use of the limb within four weeks, but with the latter a period of from six weeks to two months is not too long to allow before removing the supporting ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... the table of my dining-room, I'll take away all tasty joints and entrees. All sorts of meat, all forms of animal diet That the carnivorous cook hath gathered there: And, by commandment, will entirely live Within the bounds of vegetable food, Unmixed with savoury matters. Yes, by heaven! O most pernicious Meat! O Mutton, beef, and pork, digestion-spoiling! My tables, my tables! Meat? I'll put it down; For men may dine, and dine, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various

... he lost sight of them in the gloom. Also he became aware of a curious charnel-house kind of stench that now and then issued from the cavern. It was just the kind of odour that one would expect to meet with in the den of a carnivorous beast, and Phil peered keenly into the darkness, more than half-expecting to see the shining eyes of a jaguar or puma glaring at him when his own eyes had become accustomed to the subdued light of the place. But no such sight greeted him, only, as ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... being devoured by wild beasts haunted me, though in truth I had little of this fate to fear. The only carnivorous beasts on the desert are wolves, but as game is abundant, and can be caught with ordinary exertion, they have no occasion to feed upon men. About midnight my fears were roused by my pony taking alarm at the approach of some ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox



Words linked to "Carnivorous" :   meat-eating, carnivore, herbivorous, flora, piscivorous, predacious, plant, insectivorous, carnivorous bat, predaceous, flesh-eating, plant life, omnivorous, carnivorous plant



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