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Flock   Listen
noun
Flock  n.  
1.
A company or collection of living creatures; especially applied to sheep and birds, rarely to persons or (except in the plural) to cattle and other large animals; as, a flock of ravenous fowl. "The heathen... came to Nicanor by flocks."
2.
A Christian church or congregation; considered in their relation to the pastor, or minister in charge. "As half amazed, half frighted all his flock."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Flock" Quotes from Famous Books



... was known to the little flock that she had just dismissed from the log schoolhouse beyond the pines, was taking her afternoon walk. Observing an unusually fine cluster of blossoms on the azalea-bush opposite, she crossed the road to pluck it, picking her way through the red dust, not without certain ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... the martial-looking bishop and his companions, I felt sure that his departure foreboded no good to the Patriot cause. I bowed to him as I passed, and he gave me a nod of recognition, although he was well aware that I was not a member of his flock. ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston

... upon his heel, his black eyes dim—for the autumn months would be long with only Madame Imogen for companion, beside his flock—and the sea. ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn

... Hampstead it's true at any rate of Fanny. That man comes from Holloway, and Paradise Row and the 'Duchess of Edinburgh.' Where Fanny goes for her lover, Hampstead is likely to follow. 'Birds of a feather flock together.'" ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... before they could see him—at least so both of them say, and there were no others in all the years. He shaved every day, wore a frock-coat and a high hat to church—where for ten years he was the only male member of the Episcopalian flock—and Mrs. Conklin told the women that altogether he was a credit to his sex and his family—a remark which has passed about ribaldly in town for a dozen years, though Mortimer Conklin never knew that he was the subject ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various

... although not quite as ancient, was a very picturesque ruin with its moss-covered roof of thatched straw, under which a flock of sparrows made their homes; but a modern building, how prosaic-looking it might be, or deficient in uniqueness and the charm of its surroundings, would undeniably have made a better, more ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann

... are to windward. Down, close; keep cool, and fire at the head of the flock, when I say fire!" said La Salle, hurriedly, for scarce sixty yards to windward, with outstretched necks and widespread pinions, headed by their huge and wary leader, the weary birds, eager to alight, but apprehensive of unseen danger, swung round to the south-west, and then, setting their ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall

... the ospreys, sailing in graceful pairs above the herrings' or the old wives' shoals, taking with elegance and conscientiousness the daily animal food that even man demands, with all his sentiments and gospels. There the canvas-back duck, in a little flock, broke the Sabbath to dive for the wild celery that grows beneath the sound. In yonder tree the bald eagle was starting out upon his Algerine work of vehemence and piety, to intercept the hawk and steal his cargo. The wild ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... to win the crown to which that of earth is but an idiot's wreath of withered leaves, not yet may thy soul forsake us. Whom commendest thou to us as shepherd to thy bereaven flock? whom shall we admonish to tread in those traces thy ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... shadows, and lighting the rest with gleams of purplish gold. The paths around the margin of the lake, and all the sloping banks were alive with gayly dressed people, and a single boat, over which a flock of gay parasols hovered like tropical birds, mirrored itself ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens

... doubtless with hardship to the farmers, as speedily as possible I withdrew all my investment. But something had to be done with the money, and in my reaction against unseen horrors I bought a farm near my native village and also a flock of innocent-looking sheep. My partner in the enterprise had not chosen the shepherd's lot as a permanent occupation, but hoped to speedily finish his college course upon half the proceeds of our venture. This pastoral enterprise still seems to me to have been essentially sound, both economically ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... then, as later, for the country negroes to flock largely into Charleston on Sunday. More than a thousand came, on ordinary occasions, and a far larger number might at any time make their appearance without exciting any suspicion. They gathered in, especially by ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... both by word and deed, faithfully to serve Thee in this office, to the glory of Thy name, and the edifying and well-governing of Thy Church. For this so great mercy, and for ail the blessings which, in Thy good Providence, it brought to this portion of the flock of Christ, we offer unto Thee our unfeigned thanks, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to Whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be all honour and glory, ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut

... send nothing more proper back again," said he, "than a flock of geese. I have enough ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... satisfactory until he rounded Candilli. Then a flock of small boats came down upon him pell-mell, the rowers pulling their uttermost, the ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... swept along when the river broke up. More bald eagles are seen on this part of the Missouri than we have previously met with; the small sparrow-hawk, common in most parts of the United States, is also found here. Great quantities of geese are feeding on the prairies, and one flock of white brant, or geese with black-tipped wings, and some gray brant with them, pass up the river; from their flight they seem to proceed much further to the northwest. We killed two antelopes, which were very lean, and ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks

... have any more such goings-on," said he. "Now, then! Move on, there, move on!" This to a butcher's boy, a maid, and one or two loafers who had collected. He clumped heavily down the street, driving this little flock before him. The Professor looked at me, and there was something humorous at the back ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... A whole flock of birds passed over the hunters, not suspecting the peril from which the doctor's presence saved them. Even Duke was compelled to ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne

... go up to the swamps to-morrow and rustle some duck eggs," Bill observed irrelevantly—his eyes following the arrow flight of a mallard flock. But his wife was counting audibly, checking the days ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... distance down, at an elevation of 4000 to 6000 feet, and, if carefully looked for, the herd may be seen feeding on an open grassy glade at the foot of some precipice. "I have," he adds, "seen above twenty individuals in a flock occasionally, but more generally not more than six or seven. With the large herds there is almost always one very large old male conspicuous by ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... than eighty years had passed since on May 14, 1796, Jenner had vaccinated a child with cowpox and proved that a slight attack of one disease protected the body from a disease of an allied nature. An occasion equally famous in the history of medicine was a day in 1881, when Pasteur determined that a flock of sheep vaccinated with the attenuated virus of anthrax remained well, when every one of the unvaccinated infected from the same material had died. Meanwhile, from Pasteur's researches on fermentation and spontaneous ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler

... bachelor bidding him take heart and get up to begin his pastoral life; for which he himself, he said, had already composed an eclogue that would take the shine out of all Sannazaro[48] had ever written, and had bought with his own money two famous dogs to guard the flock, one called Barcino and the other Butron, which a herdsman of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various

... lay upon her pretty bed, which had been painted for her in Paris with a flock of unblushing Amours, and stared at the painted ceiling, her good sense rapidly came back to her. In her character it was the substitute for humor. After all, there was nothing so extraordinary in the fact. There must be many similar cases of poor relations among all the people she knew, even ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick

... combines with his exaltation a logic which is often very concise in its details, although applied on a morbid basis. Moreover, he clothes his utterances in fine and poetical language, and in this way succeeds in rallying round him, not a flock of Panurge's ignorant sheep, but more elevated people and even a considerable proportion of the surrounding society. In this case pathological exaltation may be united to a high moral and intellectual ideal, which is very apt to veil the bizarre fancies of the prophet. We thus meet with the astonishing ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... property from Protestant uses, that they were willing where there was a large parish consisting entirely of Catholics that the tithes should be taken from the rector of such parish and given to one who had a large Protestant flock—an arrangement which would disgust the Catholics as much as or more than any other, and be considered a perfect mockery. The fact is we may shift and change and wriggle about as much as we will, we may examine and report and make laws, but tithe, the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... uncompromising attitude towards the sinful members of his parish. In fact, the Guestrow citizens regarded him as a strong Christian, and rejoiced in his fervid biblical language. Many of the spinsters of his flock would gladly have become Frau Mueller, but he paid no heed to their blandishments, and openly avowed his intention of making Wilhelmine the mistress of the Pfarrhaus, though she appeared strangely insensible to the glory of this prospect. In the first place, with the arrogance ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... the longing desire for the coming of the Spirit of God into their midst. At the sermon's close, he took what, for the First Church, was a very wide and startling departure from the beaten track. After a tender personal appeal, especially addressed to the young people of his flock, ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... till the crowing cock, The Alectryon of the farmyard and the flock, Sang his aubade with lusty voice and clear, To tell the sleeping world that dawn was near. And then they parted; but at parting, lo! They saw the palace courtyard white with snow, And, placid as a nun, the moon on high Gazing from cloudy cloisters of the sky. "Alas!" he said, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... Though not fools of the flock, On whom love like the tiger gives one bound. And then the heart is rent—a thunderstroke That makes men dust before they hear the sound— A shaft that leaves dark venom in the wound— A frost that all the buds ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various

... life, came to the ceremonious exit of her body. They sat along the four sides of the large drawing-room, looking like a black dado against the white walls, and the Rev. Cecil Wray Goodchild, the pastor of the larger number of that sombre flock, sonorously read the prayers for the dead. Hugh Knox felt that his was the right to perform that ceremony; but he was a Presbyterian, and Peter Lytton was not one of his converts. He was there, however, and so were several Danes, whose ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... down we went, through the basement stored with muskets; it seemed dark as we entered, but soon we saw streams of light coming through the windows at the end; they had not been cleaned for years. We rubbed the glass and looked up. Above us was a flock of women's legs of all sizes and shapes flashing before us, thick and thin in wonderful variety. We could see them by looking up, it being bright above; but dark and dusty below, they could not by looking down see us, through the half cleaned windows; or notice round ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous

... "chickadee-dee-dee" of the tamest of the birds of winter and the somewhat sadder note of the wood pewee mingled with the occasional caw of a crow, the shrill cry of a jay, or the tapping of woodpeckers upon the boles of dead trees. A flock of snow-bunting fluttered and fed in a patch of dry seed-laden weeds. Even the creek was full of life, for there could be seen the movements of creeping things upon its bottom, while through the clear waters trout and minnow flashed brilliantly. There were odors in the air. There was evidence ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo

... vibrant with derision, "a preacher! Well, of all things, Bob Hampton! You led around by the nose in that way! Did he want you to bring me to Sunday school? A preacher! And I suppose the fellow expects to turn me over to one of his flock for religious instruction. He'll have you studying theology inside of a year. A preacher! Oh, Lord, and you agreed! Well, I won't go; ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... obliging. He had his shepherd's son into the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond of singing. He could sing a little himself. She believed he was very clever, and understood every thing. He had a very fine flock, and, while she was with them, he had been bid more for his wool than any body in the country. She believed every body spoke well of him. His mother and sisters were very fond of him. Mrs. Martin had told her one day (and there was a blush as she said ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... my soul loveth! where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson

... A little flock of clouds go down to rest In some blue corner off the moon's highway, With shepherd-winds that shook them in the West To borrowed shapes of earth, in bright array, Perhaps to weave a rainbow's gay festoons Around the ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various

... a seaside railway station, the arriving place of one of those health resorts where people flock in their millions to enjoy a little peace and quiet together. He, no doubt as a punishment for a misspent youth, was the station-master; she was one of those many kind ladies who come to meet their relatives ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various

... you already return from the city?" sounded a voice from the clearing where he went to look at the flock. Palko ran to meet him. In his hand he carried a ...
— The Three Comrades • Kristina Roy

... St. John—probably the first in New Brunswick. It received among other royal gifts a small bell which now hangs in the belfry of the Indian chapel at Central Kingsclear, a few miles above Fredericton. The church seems to have been such as would impress by its beauty and adornments the little flock over which Loyard exercised his kindly ministry. It is mentioned by one of the Jesuit fathers as a beautiful church (belle eglise), suitably adorned and furnished abundantly with holy vessels and ornaments of ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... bed of a frozen brook, and coming in sight of the broad river, espied his father, gun in hand, stealthily creeping under a load of brush and twigs which the Judge's negro had piled about his back and head, to conceal his figure from a flock of ducks that were bathing and diving in an open place of deep water, to which ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... his staff, the King briefly called for information upon some point. It was the royal will to direct each move on the gigantic chessboard; to hold in the hollow of his hand the hosts who looked to him for guidance. At his left, a flock of swallows, affrighted by the noise of the cannonade, rose high in air, wheeled, and vanished ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... which, the garden intervening, runs a little trout stream, which to the right seems to be lost in an island of oziers, and over which is a rustic bridge into a very beautiful meadow, where at present graze a numerous flock of sheep. ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... moving along with great caution, as the least unusual noise causes them to flit away like a phantom, and they will be seen no more. The animal is gregarious, but it is seldom that more than eight or ten are found in a flock. When not grazing they seek the sheltered sides of the mountains, ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy

... the way of making any alteration in this state of things. See you, were men free to wander as they chose over the land instead of working at their vocations, the country would be full of vagrants who, for want of other means for a living, would soon become robbers. Then, too, very many would flock to the towns, and so far from bettering their condition, would find themselves worse off than before, for there would be more people than work could ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty

... several groups of people in fancy dress, all ready and eager for the ball. Pierrots and Pierrettes, monks in drooping cowls, flower-girls, water-carriers, symbolic figures of "Night" and "Morning," mingled with the counterfeit presentments of dead-and- gone kings and queens, began to flock together, laughing and talking on their way to the ball-room; and presently among them came a man whose superior height and build, combined with his eminently picturesque, half-savage type of beauty, caused every one to turn and watch him as he passed, and murmur whispering ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... tableau. A lion with a human face, and a thunder-bolt in his right paw, stands on a green hill. A flock of sheep ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark

... gist of your preaching, so far as I can understand, is a Hobson's choice,' retorted the doctor. 'When your flock of criminals lose everything through your exposure of their crimes, they have nothing ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... as to form a continuous line of battle along the rear, they began to manifest the greatest uneasiness and alarm. And heir innate dread of being surrounded soon becoming too strong for the restraints of discipline, they broke from their position, and, like a flock of wild horses, commenced a tumultuous flight across the field towards the woods in open space between the two approaching forces of their opponents, who, quickly changing fronts, poured in upon them a rapid succession of ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... the stitching in the hide, had so soaked the rush-grass as to render the floats no longer buoyant. He was compelled, therefore, to spend two hours in re-stuffing the skin with such material as he could find. Some light and flock-like seaweed, which the action of the water had swathed after the fashion of haybands along the shore, formed an excellent substitute for grass, and, having bound his bundle of rushes lengthwise, with the goat-skin as ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... angry and expostulating tone. "They," he said, "had placed him in the high situation in which he stood; he sought it not; there was neither man nor woman treading on English ground who could say he did. God knew that he would rather have lived under a wood side, and have tended a flock of sheep, than have undertaken the government. But, having undertaken it at their request, he had a right to look to them for aid and support. Yet some among them, God was his witness, in violation of their oaths, were ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc

... Joppa, a place mighty in its own conceit, and high too in the estimate of others, to whom it was becoming known as the gayest and the prettiest of all dear little summer resorts; and thither strangers were beginning to flock in considerable numbers each year, made warmly welcome by the Joppites as an occasion for breaking out into an unending round of parties and picnics and dinners and lunches and teas, and even breakfasts when there was not room to crowd in any thing else. The summer was one continual whirl from beginning ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... small and few good deeds shall be weighed, lest the heaviness of our sins preponderate and cast us down to the bottomless pit of perdition. Moreover, let them ever venerate with due observance the most deserving Confessor Cuthbert, the care of whose flock we have unworthily undertaken, ever devoutly praying that he may deign to excuse by his prayers his all-unworthy vicar, and may procure him whom he hath admitted as his successor upon earth to be made his assessor in Heaven. Finally, let them pray ...
— The Philobiblon of Richard de Bury • Richard de Bury

... O'Joscelyn did not absolutely give utterance to such imprecations as these against the wolves who, as he thought, destroyed the lambs of his flock,—or rather, turned his sheep into foxes,—yet he by no means concealed his opinion, or hid his light under a bushel. He spent his life—an eager, anxious, hard-working life, in denouncing the scarlet woman of Babylon and all her abominations; ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... valiant tribe of Caledonia, the Attacotti, the enemies, and afterwards the soldiers, of Valentinian, are accused, by an eye-witness, of delighting in the taste of human flesh. When they hunted the woods for prey, it is said, that they attacked the shepherd rather than his flock; and that they curiously selected the most delicate and brawny parts, both of males and females, which they prepared for their horrid repasts. If, in the neighborhood of the commercial and literary town ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... Shakspeare. What a powerfully diversified concert of flatteries and of empty testimonies of devotedness! It is highly amusing to see the suitors, whom the ruined circumstances of their patron had dispersed, immediately flock to him again when they learn that he has been revisited by fortune. On the other hand, in the speeches of Timon, after he is undeceived, all hostile figures of speech are exhausted,—it is a dictionary of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... prove its electrical properties by tearing up paper into little bits and attracting them with the mouth-piece of your pipe rubbed on your sleeve. Don't insist philologically that when every shepherd 'tells his tale' he is not relating an anecdote but simply keeping 'tally' of his flock. Just go on reading, as well as you can, and be sure that when the children get the thrill of the story, for which you wait, they will be asking more questions, and pertinent ones, than you are able to answer."—("On the ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... miles from us, began to lose sheep from a flock of seventy which he owned and which were kept in a pasture that included a high hill and sloped northward over rough, bushy land to the great woods. It was not the custom there to enclose the sheep in pens ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... sheer strength disappears, and an agitated theme sounds out—if, indeed, we may call it a theme—and then we get a lull after all the hurly-burly. Bruennhilda and Sieglinda come in; Bruennhilda tells of her disobedience, and like a flock of wild-fowl disturbed the other Valkyries squeak and gibber in disgust and horror. The music here is perhaps the most operatic part of the opera—Bruennhilda begging first one and then another to aid her; one after another refusing in very conventional phrases. ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... Saltzburg, was apprehended and committed to prison for instructing his flock in the knowledge of the gospel. While he was in confinement he wrote a confession of his faith; soon after which he was condemned, first to be beheaded, and afterward to be burnt to ashes. In his way to the place of ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox

... arranged for, our family should have been happy; but three days ago I discovered that it was William who was going to be the real trouble. To think of William, the pride of the flock, betraying us! ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne

... seemed to make for my having a modest ecclesiastical career in Brittany. I should have made a very good priest, indulgent, fatherly, charitable, and of blameless morals. I should have been as a priest what I am as a father, very much loved by my flock, and as easy-going as possible in the exercise of my authority. What are now defects would have been good qualities. Some of the errors which I profess would have been just the thing for a man who identifies himself with the spirit of his calling. I should have got ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan

... In a flock? Oh, yes. We choose some high place from which to get a good start. There we all stay, sometimes a day or two, strutting about and talking big. It is gobble, gobble gobble, from morning till night. Just like one of your conventions, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II., No. 5, November 1897 - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... my testimony to the grand work which is going forward at various places in China by means of the medical departments of missions. There are fourteen hospitals of this kind in the country, and patients from all parts flock to them. In diseases of the eye unusual success seems to have been achieved, and stories are told of mandarins almost blind who have been restored to sight; and in dealing with cutaneous disorders, which are very common, ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... out either on a vote of confidence or on an adverse vote on any of the three Bills next week," Dartrey said. "We don't want to drive them out like a flock of sheep. They can go out waving banners and blowing tin horns, if they like, but they're going. It's time the country was governed, and the country, after all, is the only thing that counts.—I am sorry to send ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... Chapman in "Bird-Life" says: "I wish that every one knew the Goldfinch. His gentle ways and sweet disposition are never-failing antidotes for discontent. One cannot be long near a flock of these birds without being impressed by the refinement which seems to mark their every note and action. They show, too, a spirit of contentment from which we may draw more than a passing lesson. ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy

... of the discontent of the country and of the army concurring with reports from other quarters, had excited the hope that the loyalists and the dissatisfied, allured by British gold, and the prospect of rank in the British service, would flock to his standard, and form a corps at whose head he might again display his accustomed intrepidity. With this hope he published an address to the inhabitants of America, in which he laboured to palliate ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall

... of the Ocean, and the name fits him well, even though his flock were less like sheep than like a leash of hunting leopards. His theory was that with a pack of small and active pinnaces he could successfully hunt the lumbering Spanish galleons without their being able to hit back. He was, in contradistinction to many preceding English admirals, a cautious fighter ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... Australian colonists (Acanthophis tortor) a very poisonous species. Among the seafowl, a large gull (Larus pacificus) was exceedingly plentiful, together with a smaller one (Xema jamesonii) and a few penguins (Spheniscus minor.) A fine flock of wild geese (Cereopsis novae hollandiae) was seen, but they were too wary to allow of close approach. About dusk clouds of mutton-birds came in from the sea, and we amused ourselves with chasing ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... brother Parsons, deal more gently with the flock," interposed Campian. "Your opinion, though probable, as I well know, in the eyes of most of our order, is hardly safe enough here; the opposite is at least so safe that Mr. Leigh may well excuse ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... or regret, or for the indulgence of the rosy dream that lay like a lovely morning cloud above and behind me. My clothing was costly and tasteful; I was exhibited at Saratoga, Long Branch, and Newport, those popular human expositions, where wealth and fashion flock to display and compare their textile fabrics and jewellery, as less 'developed' cattle still on four feet are hurried to State fairs, to ascertain the value of their pearly short horns, thin tails, and satin-coated ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... there came to be, in time, a "missing link;" the mother's life went out, and from the darkened fireside vanished the little flock, scattered through various ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... close at hand, and a curlew rose, and then a flock of lapwings, to flit round and round, uttering their peevish calls; but Max saw nothing but the scene at the castle, heard nothing but The Mackhai's bitter words, and he tramped onward and onward into the wilderness of mountain and ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn

... Hercules at the rate of 20,000 miles an hour, much quicker than a rifle bullet; and, nevertheless, he will take more than a million years to cover the distance. Eight large or major planets, with their satellites, and a flock of minor planets or planetoids, are revolving round him as their common centre and luminary at various distances, but all in the same direction. The orbits, or paths, about the sun are ovals or ellipses, almost circular, of which the sun occupies one focus, and they are so nearly ...
— A Trip to Venus • John Munro

... pocket in the heart of high hills into which they had fled. The bold, sure line of a Roman road divided it, cutting tyrannically through the cowed hovels of the town as an arrow drives through a flock of pigeons. On either side were the dim shapes of great rocks and semi-recumbent cedars. Retiring into shadow were the darker outlines of the surrounding circle of hills, rived by intervals of black night ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... all. I hold very practical views not only regarding the duties of the Englishman to the alien, but of the pastor towards his flock. But I find it almost impossible, I regret to say, to become personally acquainted with all my parishioners. My curates are capital young fellows—earnest, active, go-ahead. But in a large area such as this there is always a shifting population with which the clergy, however energetic, ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... "his commission under him terminated with the capture of Oran; that two generals were too many in one army; that the cardinal should rest contented with the laurels he had already won, and, instead of playing the king, go home to his flock, and leave fighting to those to ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... could make little difference; and though Jacques was a very good match, considering his prospects and his favor with the lumber-king, Valloir had a kind of fear of him, and could not easily promise his beloved Marcile, the flower of his flock, to a man of whom the priest so strongly disapproved. But it was a new sort of Jacques Grassette who, that morning, spoke to him with the simplicity and eagerness of a child; and the suddenly conceived gift of a pony stallion, which every man in the parish envied Jacques, ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker

... evils which are to overwhelm the believer. I look round upon my little flock of hearers, and I seem to see them led as lambs to the slaughter—poor, defenceless creatures, set upon by worse than lions and wolves. And you, lady of Piso, how can I sincerely rejoice that you have added your great name to our humble ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware

... I was not ill-equipped for my attempt. I do not know any one of our hillsides as it is known to the shepherd, to whom every rabbit-hole and glimmer of mica is a landmark; but he, like his flock, has only to cross a dike to find himself in a strange land, while I have been everywhere in ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... silver birch; here and there, the ruins of ancient and inconsiderable fortresses—made the unchanging characters of the scene. Occasionally, but only in the distance, we could perceive the smoke of a small town or of an isolated farmhouse or cottage on the moors; more often, a flock of sheep and its attendant shepherd, or a rude field of agriculture perhaps not yet harvested. With these alleviations, we might almost be said to pass through an unbroken desert—sure, one of the most impoverished in Europe; and when I recalled to mind that we were ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson

... man's ranch, when I tell you that Hunter and Johnson milked three cows and made butter, fed a few pigs on the skim milk and the alfalfa stalks which the saddle horses and the cows disdained to eat, kept a flock of chickens, and sold what butter, eggs and pork they did not need for themselves. Cattlemen seldom do that. More often they buy milk in small tin cans, butter in "squares," ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... to show, if possible, that the mother of Stephen Girard had certain tender, womanly qualities, but the fact is that no such qualities were ever manifested. If there was ever any soft sentiment in her character, the fond father of his flock had kicked it out of her. That she was usually able to hold her own in fair fight was the one redeeming memory that ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... vanity, that as I approached my fifteenth year, I was a very pretty girl; my form had begun to develop and ripen, and my maiden graces were not likely to escape the lustful eyes of the elderly roues of our 'flock,' and seemed to be particularly attractive to that aged libertine known ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn

... ascendency she now owed to fashion. Her drawing-room was acquiring political individuality: "What do they say at Madame d'Espard's?" "Are they against the measure in Madame d'Espard's drawing-room?" were questions repeated by a sufficient number of simpletons to give the flock of the faithful who surrounded her the importance of a coterie. A few damaged politicians whose wounds she had bound up, and whom she flattered, pronounced her as capable in diplomacy as the wife of ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac

... proportion to the extent of the country and the number of the Protestant population, or of the parishes. The entire population in communion with the Church fell short of 900,000. The number of parishes scarcely exceeded 1400. But over this comparatively scanty flock were set no fewer than eighteen bishops and four archbishops; while England, with 12,000 parishes, was contented with twenty-four bishops and two archbishops. It was proposed to consolidate these bishoprics into ten, the archbishoprics into two, a reduction which could hardly fail to commend ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge

... Reverend Mother, guarding her flock from sin or shame, a visitor from the Unseen World held less of horror than a possible intruder from ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay

... which everything is etched as it were on a misty mirror. The bare shrubs, near our post, have been visited by a flock of green birds, with white-bordered wings; the cocks have black heads with a white spot. How can I tell you what it was to hear the solitary sound of their flight in this stillness!—That is one good thing about war: there can be only a certain amount of evil in the world; now, ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous

... boats for New York markets, or to Bridgeport or New Haven—a two-days' journey in either case. The cheese was ripened, or cured, being rubbed and turned every day, and kept until the dealers came around to inspect and purchase. On every farm was kept a flock of geese, which were picked once in six weeks to keep up the supply of feather beds and to furnish the requisite number for the outfit of ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson

... never draw fire from an ambush," said the Grey-Feather cunningly. "The wild drake swims first into the net; the flock follows." ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... choose to have you. Understand, I am not saying anything against the Morrisons. Frances is a nice child, and her mother is very pleasant and kind, but you can't change the world; birds of a feather will flock together." ...
— The Spectacle Man - A Story of the Missing Bridge • Mary F. Leonard

... the priest, with a placid smile, during which his eyes seemed to shrink within their dim sockets, "be not over-hasty. We cannot reasonably hope that they should flock to our standard almost ere we unfurl it for ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... we care, Greg? I don't care what the world thinks as long as I have you! Let them have the letters, let them buzz— we'll be miles away, and we won't care! And in a year or two, Greg, we'll come back, and they'll all flock about us—you'll see! That's the advantage of a name like the Gregory name! Why, who among them all dropped Clarence on Paula's account, or ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... what we must all come to, my dear,' said Lady Elizabeth, looking at the young mother, with her boy leaning against her knee, deep in a book of illustrations. 'You have a good many years to look forward to with your little flock; but, one way or other, they will go ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... lieutenant had the guard relieved, and I could not help bursting into a merry laugh. They were like a flock of sheep: all fine men, well-made and strong; but without uniform and without discipline the finest band is but a herd. However, they quickly learned how to present arms and to obey the orders of their officer. I caused three sentinels to be placed, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... But music had already gained the day; and where the Phoebus of Provence had shone, the AEolus of storm-shaken Les Baux was powerless. Again, when Blacas, a knight of Provence, died, the great Sordello chanted one of his most fiery hymns, bidding the princes of Christendom flock round and eat the heart of the dead lord. 'Let Rambaude des Baux,' cries the bard, with a sarcasm that is clearly meant, but at this distance almost unintelligible, 'take also a good piece, for she is fair and good and truly virtuous; let her keep it well ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds

... Sunday the people found the churchyard locked up, except during service, when beadles walked there, and desired them not to loiter and disturb the congregation, closing the gates, and showing them out like a flock of sheep the moment the service was over. This was fuel to the already boiling blood of Stockington. The week following, what was their astonishment to find a much frequented ruin gone! it was actually gone! not a trace of it; but the spot where it had stood for ages, turfed, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... fifty, tall and large-limbed, with a hoary shock of hair and a snub nose. I knew he had a host of children—I had been at his door once, and they had run, pattered, waddled, crept, and rolled through the doorway to gape at me. It had seemed as hopeless to try to count them as a large flock of sheep. I knew there was no income except what the old man and woman—and possibly the elder children—managed to earn from day to day. My employer in Copenhagen had strictly forbidden us to give ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... whom I mention made, On Scotia's mountains fed his little flock; The sickle, scythe, or plough he never sway'd: An honest heart was almost all his stock; His drink the living water from the rock: The milky dams supplied his board, and lent Their kindly fleece to baffle winter's shock; And he, though oft with dust and ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... refund, profuse, fusion Gero, gestum carry belligerent, gesture, digestion Gradior, gressus walk degrade, progress *Gratia favor, pleasure, ingratiate, congratulate, good-will disgrace *Grex, gregis flock segregate, egregious Habeo, habitum have, hold habituate, prohibit Itum (see Eo) Jacio, jeci, jactum throw, hurl reject, interjection Jungo, junctum join conjugal, enjoin, juncture Juro swear abjure, perjury Jus, juris law, right justice, jurisprudence Judex (from ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... active principles in voluntary acts, such as the acts of sins, are not determined, of necessity, to one act, and consequently from one active or motive principle, diverse species of sins can proceed: thus from fear engendering false humility man may proceed to theft, or murder, or to neglect the flock committed to his care; and these same things may proceed from love enkindling to undue ardor. Hence it is evident that sins do not differ specifically according to their various active or motive causes, but ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas

... Every few days he came home bringing a new prize. They overflowed the yard and crept onto the porch. Sam never knew him to sell any of this stuff. He had at one time sixteen sets of harness all broken and unrepaired in the barn and in a shed back of the house. A great flock of chickens and two or three pigs wandered about among this junk and all the children of the neighbourhood joined Freedom's four and ran howling and shouting over and under ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson

... and gray tin offices, rusty cranes, and a gray floating quay. Gangs of Egyptian beggars in ragged clothes and a flock of little brown children continually dodged the native police as we sailed slowly through the docks. They were the only touch of colour in a muddle of Government buildings, ...
— At Suvla Bay • John Hargrave

... of seeing a flock of doves," says he. "That's a bad sign. I'd give a dollar for a glimpse ...
— Wilt Thou Torchy • Sewell Ford

... as follows: The flock is divided into two or more parts, in all cases the wethers being kept separate from the ewes and lambs, and occupying different portions of the run, the object being that the ewes and lambs may have rest, the wethers being liable to be driven ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth

... inclined to accompany him far in this opinion. But the enormity of this power has in it nothing inherent or permanent. Two signal overthrows in pitched battles would, I believe, go far to destroy it. Germans, Dutch, Italians, Swiss, Poles, would desert the army of Buonaparte, and flock to the standard of his Adversaries, from the moment they could look towards it with that confidence which one or two conspicuous victories would inspire. A regiment of 900 Swiss joined the British army in Portugal; and, if the French had been compelled to surrender as Prisoners ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... history, is to miss one of their deepest lessons—that such piety and beneficence were set in the midst of a most tumultuous and perilous age. Those times were by no means favourable to the cultivation of the deepest life. The flock of God had long left the green pastures and still waters of outward peace, and were passing through the valley of death-shadow, every step of the path being infested by the enemies of their peace. The wolf, ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... with by him in Brazil; and I never went any distance into the woods around Santo Domingo without seeing them. The reason of their association together may be partly for protection, as no rapacious bird or mammal could approach the flock without being discovered by one or other of them, but the principal reason appears to be that they play into each other's hands in their search for food. The creepers and woodpeckers and others drive the insects out of their hiding-places under bark, amongst moss, and in withered leaves. ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... hill; Spello and Spoleto standing out in bold profile in the opposite direction; Montefalco lying like a gray pile of rocks on a southern hilltop; the village and church of Santa Maria degli Angeli nestled like a flock of cloves in the plain; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various

... having failed, a local preacher was called in, who with the assistance of certain of his flock screamed and sang and raved over Tommy for several hours, making such a noise as set Lady Eleanor's peacocks screaming till they could scream no more. The boy was at first rather terrified, but as his helpers became more vehement and their antics more grotesque, ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue

... brilliant sporting and social event of the year, the Europeans flocking into Jesselton from the little trading stations along the coast and from the lonely plantations in the interior just as their friends back in England flock to Goodwood and Newmarket and Epsom. The Derby is always followed by the Hunt Ball. In spite of the fact that there are at least twenty men to every woman this is always a tremendous success. It usually ends ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... After mass at Castletown, Bear Haven, Father Brennan ordered his flock to resist conscription, take the sacrament, and to be ready to resist to the death; such death insuring the full benediction of God and his Church. If the police resort to force, let the people kill the police as they would kill any one who threatened their ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister

... to seek his fortune. And he went all that day, and all the next day; and on the third day, in the afternoon, he came up to where a shepherd was sitting with a flock of sheep. And he went up to the shepherd and asked him to whom the sheep ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel

... pried up. The length of the pit lay at right angles to the road, and the men were working with their backs towards us. They were in their shirts and trousers, and the heavy mottled shadows thrown by the beech limbs hovered on their backs and shoulders like a flock of night birds. The earth was baked and hard; the mattock rang on it, and among the noises of their work they did not ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... just as the sun was setting, and this, she said, was the most beautiful sight of all. The whole sky looked like gold, while violet and rose-colored clouds, which she could not describe, floated over her; and, still more rapidly than the clouds, flew a large flock of wild swans towards the setting sun, looking like a long white veil across the sea. She also swam towards the sun; but it sunk into the waves, and the rosy tints faded from the clouds and from ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... I name endearing,— Flock from Scotland's moors and dales, From the green glad fields of Erin, From the mountain homes of Wales,— Rise! for sister England calls you, Rise! our commonweal to serve, Rise! while now the song enthrals you Thrilling every vein and nerve,— Hail, Britannia! hail, Britannia! ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... Italian pipare, and the French pepier, is the ultimate origin of the verb to peep; which, in old English, bore the sense of chirping, and is so used in the authorised version of Isaiah, viii. 19., x. 14. Halliwell, in his Archaic Dictionary, explains "peep" as "a flock of chickens," but cites no example. To peep, however, in the sense of taking a rapid look at anything through a small aperture, is an old use of the word, as is proved by the expression Peeping Tom of Coventry. As so used, it corresponds with the German gucken. Mr. Richardson ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 38, Saturday, July 20, 1850 • Various

... deep into his trouser pockets; he fetched out a handful of things: chewing-tobacco, bits of flock, broken matches, and in the midst of all a crumpled ten-kroner note. "So I thought!" he said, fishing out the note. "I was afraid the girls had quite cleaned me out last night! Now Pelle, you go up and spin them some sort of a yarn; I can't do it properly myself; ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... nights were apt to be chilly to those unaccustomed to sleeping in the open-air. The rules of quarantine were of course sternly kept. No girl might go outside the pasture without special permission. Sometimes Miss Huntley took her flock for a walk along quiet country roads and rambling by-lanes, but the vicinity of their ...
— The Luckiest Girl in the School • Angela Brazil

... noses into the door-crack of a man's business when they know the man ain't got strength to slam the door shut on 'em. Wimmen's clubs is all right so long as they stick to readin' hist'ry and discussin' tattin', but when they flock like a lot of old hen turkeys and go to peckin' a man because he's down and can't help himself, it ain't anything but persecution—wolves turnin' on another one that's got his leg broke. I know animiles, and I know human critters. Them wimmen better be in other business, and I told my ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day

... settled, and that Aracan has become English, and we have the seaports on the Tenasserim coast, trade will increase tremendously. You may be sure that the Burmese will be only too glad to flock into our provinces, and to live under a fair rule, to escape the tyranny of their own officials; and my uncle is just the man to take advantage of the new openings. I don't say that I want to live out here all my life. At any rate, I hope by the time that I am thirty, ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty

... from forth a column'd gate A fearful shepherd, pale and silent, crept, Who, as he watch'd his folded flock star-late, Had mark'd the robber steal where ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... transported, with an over desire, and thirstiness after fame, and that deceitful fame of popularity; and, to help on his catastrophe, I observe likewise two sorts of people that had a hand in his fall: the first was the soldiery, which all flock unto him, as it were foretelling a mortality, and are commonly of blunt and too rough counsels, and many times dissonant from the time of the court and State; the other sort were of his family, his servants ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... my ladies, should wot either of your own knowledge or by report, there dwelt a worthy priest, and doughty of body in the service of the ladies: who, albeit he was none too quick at his book, had no lack of precious and blessed solecisms to edify his flock withal of a Sunday under the elm. And when the men were out of doors, he would visit their wives as never a priest had done before him, bringing them feast-day gowns and holy water, and now and again a bit of candle, and giving them his blessing. Now it ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio

... upon a surge I saw a giant wave, topping all the others, and coming after them like a driver following a flock, sweep down upon the vessel, curling its great, green arch over the ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle

... reception of ladies and gentlemen of the Ranting persuasion, upon whom, on the first occasion of their assemblage, the admonitions of the Reverend Melchisedech had produced so powerful an effect, that, in their rapturous performance of a sacred jig, which closed the service, the whole flock broke through into a kitchen below, and disabled a mangle belonging to one ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... to examine the straw, as also on the ricks. But in Brighton, which is a treeless locality, a rook may sometimes be seen on a chimney-pot in the midst of the town, and the pinnacles of the Pavilion are a favourite resort; a whole flock of rooks and jackdaws often wheel about the domes of that building. At the Chace a rook occasionally mounted on a molehill recently thrown up and scattered the earth right and left with his bill—striking now to one side and now to the other. Hilary admitted that rooks destroyed vast quantities ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies

... alarm Pirouz's unfortunate son. He armed himself, departed from the city, and like a shepherd, who had lost his flock, searched the country for his brothers, inquiring at every village whether they had been seen: but hearing no news of them, abandoned himself to the most lively grief. "Alas! my brothers," said he, "what is become of you? Are you fallen into the hands of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.

... House of Nero, hard by the vast ruins of the Coliseum. We had already visited the Forum once; so this time we did not stay long; just long enough for some ambitious pickpocket to get a wallet out of my hip pocket while I was pushing forward with a flock of other human sheep for a better look at the ruined portico wherein Mark Antony stood when he delivered his justly popular funeral oration over the body of the murdered Caesar. I never did admire the character of Mark Antony ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... Resolution and diligence will supply all that is wanting, and all that is lost. But if your health should be impaired, I know not where to find a substitute. I shall have no mistress; Mr. Thrale will have no wife; and the little flock will ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson

... particular. She knocked, with a troubled face, alone. Yes, the flat was to let; had she any children? The woman heaved a sigh. "Six, but they are all in Greenwood." The landlord's heart was touched by such woe. He let her have the flat. By night he was amazed to find a flock of half a dozen robust youngsters domiciled under his roof. They had indeed been in Greenwood; but they had come back from the cemetery to stay. And stay they did, the rent ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... middle of February. From Christmas, therefore, to this period the reverend pastor was employed in making out bills, receipts, leases and releases, charges and discharges, wills and codicils to wills for most of the hardworking householders amongst his flock. This work paid better than spinning. By this night work, by the summer work of cutting peats and mowing grass, by the autumnal work of reaping barley and oats, and the early winter work of taking up potatoes, the reverend gentleman could average ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... bivouac at daybreak, first ascending and then descending, sometimes making our way through thickets and other times through glades; suddenly a flock of vultures attracted our attention. A hideous spectacle was now presented to our eyes. A coyote—doubtless that which l'Encuerado had wounded the day before—lay half devoured on the ground, and more than fifty guests were coming in turn for their share, and to tear, ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... and performed many other duties cast upon him, besides appointing all the committees of the House. The Speaker is naturally the person to whom members, employees, and others having business with the House flock for advice, assistance, and with their real or imaginary grievances. An extensive correspondence and social duties demand much of the Speaker's time. All this, independent of his real duties as presiding officer of the House, in performing what is expected, without time for ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer

... are," cried Griggs, as a little flock rose cackling from somewhere away to their right and skimmed along over the top of some waving reed-beds, but far out ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn

... Without exception, the loveliest spot in Europe. The so-called gambling is the cause of numberless blessings. It is an institution that should be held up to the admiration of mankind. All the aristocracy of the civilised world flock to it to indulge in a recreation to which only the greatly prejudiced can possibly take exception. The Government is benevolent to the last degree. In what other country are rates, taxes, and improvements ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 6, 1890 • Various

... farmer left his plow, and the shepherd his flock. Both sexes and all ages were inspired with a common passion. Before a military organization could be made, a disorderly host, poorly armed and ill-provided, led by Peter the Hermit and Walter the Penniless, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... A shameful thing happened in connection with the snow this morning when we came out of school. A flock of boys had no sooner got into the Corso than they began to throw balls of that watery snow which makes missiles as solid and heavy as stones. Many persons were passing along the sidewalks. A gentleman ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... the sheep, as they wander over a large expanse of barren mountain land, is dismal indeed, and well might become ominous of storms and disasters. The big fat sheep, which are penned in the lowlands of England, with a tinkling bell strapped to the neck of the king of the flock, convey a notion of peace and plenty to the mind of the spectator, that the shy active mountain sheep, with their angry grunt and stamping of their feet never convey. Still, these latter are endowed with an instinct which the English mutton-producer does not exercise. Welsh sheep ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen

... lake and besought a brant (or wild goose) to change him into one of themselves, and to make him ten times larger than the others. Straightway they changed him into an enormous brant, and, with a whirr of wings, the whole flock rose in the air and flew northward. "Take good heed and look not downward, lest some great mishap befall you," cried the other birds to Pau-Puk-Keewis, and he heeded their words. But on the morrow, as they ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman

... of Hyacinthe. Her mother, who was a tramp, ran off when the child was three years old, leaving her to grow up as best she could. She was passionately fond of geese, of which she had a large flock. When little more than a child, she had as her lovers Delphin Becu and Nenesse ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... heavens between the mountain peaks, an opal dawn, pale and luminous. Here and there objects defined themselves against the velvety surfaces of the hills, a hut by the river brink, a thread of smoke rising straight in the still air, a herdsman driving his flock in a path across the valley. But Karl, the chauffeur, drove madly on, more madly, it seemed, as the light grew better. People appeared as if by magic upon the road, with loaded vehicles bound to market—awe-stricken peasants, who leaped aside ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... ejaculated Mrs. Gubling, as one devastating tableful rose lingeringly from the repast, and another flock began to gather in hungry expectancy at the door,—"I do declare, I'm near beat out. Is this a starvin' community? At this rate they'll eat up all there is in the house, and the minister and his wife and babies into ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe

... remarkable breed of sheep, which at one time was well known in the northern states of America, and which went by the name of the Ancon or the Otter breed of sheep. In the year 1791, there was a farmer of the name of Seth Wright in Massachusetts, who had a flock of sheep, consisting of a ram and, I think, of some twelve or thirteen ewes. Of this flock of ewes, one at the breeding-time bore a lamb which was very singularly formed; it had a very long body, very short legs, and those legs were bowed! I will tell you by-and-by how this singular variation ...
— The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission And Variation • Thomas H. Huxley

... circulating library.' Times without number they have been derided and decried, even in the days when they were popular. The curate of La Mancha was not the only one who disapproved of them. 'In our fathers tyme,' wrote old Roger Ascham, judging the flock by a few black sheep, 'nothing was red, but bookes of fayned cheualrie, wherein a man by redinge, shuld be led to none other ende, but onely to manslaughter and baudrye.' Possevino, a learned Jesuit and famous preacher of the sixteenth century, used ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... plague-stricken hospital at Quebec. No argument could induce him to think of his own safety, for he had learned from the lessons and the example of his Divine Master, that the good shepherd must be ready to lay down his life, if needful, for his flock. In his establishment, and in his personal habits, he was a model of evangelical poverty, but where the rights of the Church and the dignity of his charge were concerned, he understood perfectly how to maintain both, and his desire and aim were ever to surround the ceremonial of religion with ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... Paula with great delight, and before the aunt was aware of it, three, four goats came bounding down, and more and more of them, each wearing around the neck a little bell so that the sound came from every direction. In the midst of the flock came the goat-boy leaping along, and singing his song ...
— Moni the Goat-Boy • Johanna Spyri et al

... gradually grown accustomed to the idea and now wept in silence. Without precisely suffering from any pangs of fear for the future, an immense sadness seemed to ache within her very bones. All things were passing away. The flock of girls in whose midst she had lived was gone; a later train would take Mortimer to London; Bret was bidding them good-bye; Beaumont was consulting a Bradshaw. How sad it seemed! The theatre and artists were vanishing into darkness like a dream. Not a day, nor an hour, could she ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore

... are none of my flock; but Bill Troutling knows more of this sort of genteel chaps ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and I believing his words! It is then I would have waked him well and would have cried my seven generations after him! And I have lost all on this side of the world, losing that trust and faith I had, and finding him to think of me no more than of a flock of stars would cast their shadow on his path. And I to die with this scald upon my heart; it is hard thistles would spring ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... self pity Upon the government of Nuns by religious men That we must not be wedded to our own plans His views regarding Ecclesiastical dignities His promotion to the Bishopric of Geneva and his refusal of the Archbishopric of Paris A Bishop's care for his flock Upon the first duty of Bishops Upon the pastoral charge Upon the care of souls Upon learning and piety Advice to Bishop Camus as to resigning his See The joyous spirit of Blessed Francis Upon daily Mass. His advice to a young Priest A Priest ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... not the best of friends. Indeed, the latter had threatened to gag the young preacher with the doctrinal deeds of Rehoboth, and was only waiting his opportunity. Thus Mr. Penrose hardly knew how to console this sick member of his flock, and words refused to flow from his ministerial lips. After a somewhat awkward pause, however, he ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather

... time, because it has all been eaten so long ago; but the farmer was vexed because there were no shrimps. Not that he cared half the clip of a whisker for all the shrimps that ever bearded the sea, only that he liked to seem to love them, to keep Mary at work for him. The flower of his flock, and of all the flocks of the world of the universe to his mind, was his darling daughter Mary: the strength of his love was upon her, and he liked to eat any thing of ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore

... thanks her Saviour from the depth of her heart, that He has blessed her child; that He has breathed into it His divine life, washed it, sealed it, and adopted it as His son or daughter. How sweet the consolation to know that her precious little one is a lamb of Christ's flock, "bearing on its body the marks ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding

... torpid, so long as the sun is above the horizon, woodcocks are always on the alert, and wake and shake their feathers the moment night comes; leaving the shady thickets and grassy spots, they flock to the glades and little paths of the woods, and thrust their long beaks into the soft, damp soil—for this bird, be it remembered, never touches either corn or fruit, but lives ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... hurt you so cruelly, have done it solely through ignorance. They have never seen anything beyond their own little strip ''twixt the hill and the sky,' and they can only follow a leader like a flock of pretty sheep. It is true that they ought to have a broader horizon than the boundary of the little social circle in which they were born, but you must make allowances for them, my child. From their cradles they have been hedged round with conventionalities which have made them short-sighted. ...
— Cicely and Other Stories • Annie Fellows Johnston

... as possible. Oh, well, we have all got to come to a real division of parties along lines of tendency and temperament and have those of us who feel democratic-wise get into the same wagon, and those who fear democracy, and whose first interest is property, flock together on the tory side. ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... for the Weapon-show came the Folk flock-meal to the great and wide meadow that was cleft by Wildlake as it ran to join the Weltering Water. Early in the morning, even before sunrise, had the wains full of women and children begun to come thither. Also there came little horses ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris



Words linked to "Flock" :   inundation, raft, sheep, batch, lot, bunch together, move, animal group, huddle together, great deal, flight, deluge, travel, pile, pot, stack, huddle, mess, wad, assemble, mint, fold, mickle, torrent, cluster, large indefinite quantity, deal, good deal, go, locomote, sight, bunch up, bunch, clump, hatful, mountain, faithful, foregather, large indefinite amount, wisp, plenty, muckle, mass, bird, slew, bevy, quite a little, forgather, covey, tidy sum, troop, passel, spate, haymow, flood, crowd, gaggle, constellate, meet, heap, exaltation, covert, gather, congregation, peck



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