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Dorsal   Listen
adjective
Dorsal  adj.  
1.
(Anat.) Pertaining to, or situated near, the back, or dorsum, of an animal or of one of its parts; notal; tergal; neural; as, the dorsal fin of a fish; the dorsal artery of the tongue; opposed to ventral.
2.
(Bot.)
(a)
Pertaining to the surface naturally inferior, as of a leaf.
(b)
Pertaining to the surface naturally superior, as of a creeping hepatic moss.
Dorsal vessel (Zool.), a central pulsating blood vessel along the back of insects, acting as a heart.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Dorsal" Quotes from Famous Books



... the tip of the abdomen, on the dorsal surface. If your capture be an Halictus, there will be here a smooth and shiny line, a narrow groove along which the sting slides up and down when the insect is on the defensive. This slide for the unsheathed weapon denotes some member of the Halictus tribe, ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre

... so utterly and transcendently splendid. I saw it—in a way to be sure of it—only once. Then, on an island in the Hillsborough, two birds stood in the dead tops of low shrubby trees, fully exposed in the most favorable of lights, their long dorsal trains drooping behind them and swaying gently in the wind. I had never seen anything so magnificent. And when I returned, two or three hours afterward, from a jaunt up the beach to Mosquito Inlet, there they still were, as if they ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... Spain, the strictest minutiae of demeanour and deportment are laid down. The body should be borne upright, but not stuck up, and when the congregation is addressed the chest is slightly advanced. The dorsal region must never face the Sacrament; this would be turning one's back, as it were, upon the Deity. The elbow may not rest upon the cushion. The head, held erect, but not haughtily, should move upon the atlas ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... extreme degree that I could have been of the least use to you about the nature of the parts."—"Life and Letters," III., page 264.) You know the membranous cup or clinandrum, in many orchids, behind the stigma and rostellum: it is formed of a membrane which unites the filament of the normal dorsal anther with the edges of the pistil. The clinandrum is largely developed in Malaxis, and is of considerable importance in retaining the pollinia, which as soon as the ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin

... but, failing this, had actually settled on snow-drifts, where they presented a peculiar sight, as the heat of their bodies having caused them to sink in the snow, their heads alone were visible above the surface. One bird was observed carrying an egg on the dorsal surface of his feet as the Emperor penguins do. Feathers were scattered broadcast around each rookery. These result from the numerous fights which occur and are also partly derived from the bare patch of skin at the lower part of the abdomen which provides the necessary heat ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson

... and the swift-flying terns, the broad shield of the sea, and the purple mountains. Close to the islet what I took to be the tip of a shark's fin appeared. It seemed to be cutting quick circles, rising and dipping as does the dorsal fin when a shark is closely following, or actually bolting its prey. As the boat approached, the insignia of a voracious shark changed to the spent Ulysses, making forlorn and ineffectual efforts to rise. Once again, however, the ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... the cause. It was the sharks that were darting about—now rushing impatiently from point to point; now lying in wait, silent and watchful, like cats, ready to spring upon their prey. Here and there we could see their huge dorsal fins standing like gaff-topsails above the surface, now cleaving the water like huge blades of steel, anon dipping below to appear again at some point nearer ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid

... Aplysia is very common. This sea-slug is about five inches long; and is of a dirty yellowish colour, veined with purple. On each side of the lower surface, or foot, there is a broad membrane, which appears sometimes to act as a ventilator, in causing a current of water to flow over the dorsal branchiae or lungs. It feeds on the delicate seaweeds which grow among the stones in muddy and shallow water; and I found in its stomach several small pebbles, as in the gizzard of a bird. This ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin

... was an expert swimmer, volunteered to dive for some conchs and shell-fish; oysters there were none. Asking us to keep a sharp lookout on the surface of the water for sharks, which generally swim with the dorsal fin exposed, he went down and brought up a couple of live conchs about the size of a man's fist. Breaking the shell, we drew the quivering body out. Without its coat it looked like a huge grub, and not more inviting. The general ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... all my courage, and being tired of holding on by the spar, resolved to mount upon his back, which I accomplished without difficulty, and I found the seat on his shoulders before the dorsal fin, not only secure but very comfortable. The animal, unaccustomed to carry weight, made several attempts to get rid of me, but not being able to sink I retained my seat. He then increased his velocity, and we went on over a smooth sea, at the rate of ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat

... done. A large piece of rusty pork was stuck upon a hook attached to the end of a stout chain, the chain being fastened to a strong rope. All was now excitement on board. The captain, Hubert, Frank, and Jacob Poole looked over at the monster, whose dorsal fin just appeared above the water. He did not, however, seem to be in any hurry to take the bait, but kept swimming near it, and now and then ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson

... subspecies of softshell turtle most closely allied to Trionyx muticus muticus but differing from that subspecies in having: (1) a juvenal pattern of large, circular spots, (2) no stripes on dorsal surface of snout, and (3) postocular stripe with thick, black borders immediately behind eye in adult males. T. m. calvatus resembles T. m. muticus, and differs from the several subspecies of Trionyx ...
— Description of a New Softshell Turtle From the Southeastern United States • Robert G. Webb

... member of the gapperi group. Dorsal stripe wide, between Chestnut and Bay (capitalized color terms after Ridgway: Color Standards and Color Nomenclature. Washington, D. C., 1912), with slight mixture of black-tipped hairs; sides and venter heavily washed with Ochraceous-Tawny. Skull flattened; rostrum proportionately short and ...
— Comments on the Taxonomy and Geographic Distribution of North American Microtines • E. Raymond Hall

... profoundest depths, the large fish leave them, and, ascending to the surface, remain under the cool shade of the trees, watching for whatever tit-bit or delicacy the stream may bring with it, while others prefer a quiet saunter, or, with the dorsal fin above the water, lie so still and stationary near some lily or other aquatic plant, ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... the older ones. Richardson speaks of a woman falling down a few weeks before her delivery. Her pelvis was roomy and the birth was easy; but the infant was found to have extensive wounds on the back, reaching from the 3d dorsal vertebra across the scapula, along the back of the humerus, to within a short distance of the elbow. Part of these wounds were cicatrized and part still granulating, which shows that the process of reparation is as active ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... scale rises into a minute spine curved towards the caudal fin. In the narrowest part of the tail there are not above three or four of these spines in a vertical row, but there are ten or more between the posterior parts of the dorsal and anal. Immediately behind the gill openings there are three roundish scales larger than the others. The scales of the cheeks are studded with points, which are more minute and rounded than the others, and there ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes

... esteemed, I have known them sold at thirty for a penny. It keeps near the bottom commonly, at no great distance from land; but sometimes multitudes will mount together to the surface; and move along with the first dorsal fin above the water: they will even quit their native element, and spring to the distance of a yard; thus imitating the flying gurnard, though not to the same extent. In summer they are found basking ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various

... seven days' incubation inject that amount of the culture corresponding to 1 per cent. of the body-weight of a healthy frog, into the reptile's dorsal lymph sac. ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... such minutiae in order to teach singing? I think the answer must ever be in the negative. You might as well talk to a gold-fish in a bowl-and say: 'If you desire to proceed laterally to the right, kindly oscillate gently your sinister dorsal fin, and you will achieve the desired result.' Oh, Art, what sins ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower

... in like manner the spinal cord in the human vertebrae at no period agrees with the corresponding part of the lower kind of animals. The moment it becomes visible in the human embryo, it is entirely dorsal in position; while in mollusks and articulatas a great part, or nearly the whole, is ventral. The same is true of the heart, or centre of the vascular system, which has always a different relative position in the great nervous centre ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous

... and a foot across the dorsal sepal!" said the young man in a kind of gasp, "and a Cypripedium! ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard

... fire. It seemed to the boy as if he were never going to pull the trigger, but the old gunner knew the exact moment, and just as the whale was about to 'sound' the back heaved up slightly, revealing the absence of a dorsal fin, and thus determining that it was a devil-whale in truth; at ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... end of the digestive tract, through which the food remnants are passed: the posterior part of the individual: specifically, in Coccidae, a more or less circular opening on the dorsal surface of the pygidium, varying in location as regards the circumgenital gland orifices: ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith

... either at the tarso-metatarsal or at the ankle joint. If these be passed, it usually spreads up the leg to just below the knee before signs of arrestment appear. Further, it is seen from pathological specimens that the spread is greater on the dorsal than on the plantar aspect, and that the death of skin and subcutaneous tissues extends higher than ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles

... from both parents, and suffered all my life fearfully at intervals, from brachycephalic or dorsal neuralgia. Dr. Laborde made short work of this by giving me appallingly strong doses of tincture of aconite and sulphate of quinine. Chemists have often been amazed at the prescription. But in due time the trouble quite ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland

... frequent qu'il soit, n'est guere une maladie proprement dite, mais plutot un symptome de la plus haute importance, comme il indique par le centre dorsal du grand nerf sympathique, qu'il y a une affection des organes generateurs qu'on fera bien de ne point negliger. Aussitot que ces affections ou uterines, ou ovariennes ou renales sont gueries par l'emploi de Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound, ce mal de dos tourmentant ...
— Treatise on the Diseases of Women • Lydia E. Pinkham

... Rachel," said Jack, penitently, eyeing his aunt, who was rocking to and fro in her chair. "Besides, I hurt myself like thunder," rubbing vigorously the lower part of the dorsal-region. ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger

... meal," urged X-Ray Tyson, "or we'll all be sprouting gills and dorsal fins and scales. Once a day after this ought to satisfy the trout hunger. Now it seems to me that's a bully good fire ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone

... which is a city quite peculiar in its appearance. One wide street runs the length of the town, with which narrow cross streets are connected, like the smaller bones with the dorsal vertebrae of a fish. There are handsome modern houses, which, as usual, have not the slightest character. But the more modest dwellings have a local stamp; they are one-story buildings, very low—not over seven or eight feet in height—capped with a huge roof of fluted ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various

... the surface, looked around him, saw young Jesse W. just coming up and shouting for help while he swam, and then, not far behind, what had caused him to take the knife with him, the sharp dorsal fin of a good-sized shark moving ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh

... is referred provisionally to E. grandis. The dentition is larger and heavier, and the ridges and depressions on the dorsal surface of the rostrum are more pronounced than in Recent E. fuscus. The P4-M3 length is 6.1 (approximately 6.1 in the holotype of grandis, less in fuscus); least interorbital constriction, 4.2 (4.3 in the holotype of grandis, more in fuscus); breadth of rostrum between infraorbital ...
— Pleistocene Bats from San Josecito Cave, Nuevo Leon, Mexico • J. Knox Jones, Jr.

... finer development, as a rule, than the white woman. We may, in part, discover the cause for this in the prevalence of the custom, already alluded to, of the mother carrying her offspring on her back, which, with its not undue strain on the dorsal muscles, no doubt, promotes and conserves muscular strength. The Indian woman being commonly a wife and mother before a really full maturity has been reached, or any absolute unyieldingness of form been contracted, the figure yet admits ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie

... however, he grew more tame, and Louis paddled the canoe very carefully up to him, while Joe stood watching his chance with the gaff, which he put deep in the water. At last I got the fish over it, when with a sudden pull the gaff was driven into him just behind the dorsal fin; but he was so strong that I thought he would have taken the man out of the canoe. The water flew in showers, and the big salmon lay in the bottom of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... ancestors seem to have been satisfied with the paned sides and floriate back, unless heraldic accessories intervened to usurp the space occupied by the lateral ornament or (as in some of John Evelyn's or his sovereign's books) a gilt ornamental cypher formed the dorsal embellishment. ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt

... lips, his white teeth, his pure breath, will always arouse the envy of an aged emperor. And then, every morning, he sets himself afresh to the task of earning his bread; and while his hands earn his bread, his dorsal column gains pride, his brain gathers ideas. His task finished, he returns to ineffable ecstasies, to contemplation, to joys; he beholds his feet set in afflictions, in obstacles, on the pavement, in the nettles, sometimes in the mire; his head in the light. He is firm, serene, ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... 'Algae' of the submerged banks, for which purpose the upper lip is very large, thick, and as it turns down suddenly at right angles with the head, it much resembles an elephant's trunk shorn off at the mouth. Its length averages from eight to fourteen feet; there is no dorsal fin, and the tail is horizontal; colour blue, and white beneath. Its means of propulsion are two paddles, with which it also crawls along the bottom, and beneath which are situated the udders, with teats exactly like a cow's. Its flesh is far from bad, resembling ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden

... tedious process, which she performed relentlessly, without haste and without scamping her work. With each member of the aristocracy of his new profession Ashe shook hands, and on each member he smiled, until his facial and dorsal muscles were like to crack under the strain. It was amazing that so many high-class domestics could be collected into one ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... me when swimming. This done, I poised myself upon the spar preparatory to diving off the mast, and had raised my hands above my head, when not half-a-dozen fathoms away, and immediately between me and the spot for which I was bound, I saw the dorsal fins of two enormous sharks sculling quietly to and fro, as though to blockade me and cut me off from ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood

... immensity of ocean, and to effect circulation in the cockchafer's few drops of blood. In the latter we find the moving agent to be a long tube, which runs the whole length of the back, and is called the dorsal vessel (from the Latin dorsum, back). I told you that the cockchafer had no heart under his cuirass, but I spoke too hastily. The dorsal vessel is a true heart, but a heart devoid of veins or arteries, and thrown into the midst of the blood. ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... interest in this relation. A bullet entering at the occipital protuberance traversed the muscles of the neck, passed through the thoracic cavity, fractured the bodies of the third and fourth and grooved the seventh and eighth dorsal vertebrae, grooved the seventh and eighth and fractured the ninth and tenth ribs, traversed the muscles of the back and finally lodged against the ilium; the whole length of this track measured some 25 inches. Again, at the battle of Belmont ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... satisfied with the artist. Mr. Leech, his chief contributor, and some kindred humorists, with pencil and pen have served Mr. Punch admirably. Time was, if we remember Mr. P.'s history rightly, that he did not wear silk stockings nor well-made clothes (the little dorsal irregularity in his figure is almost an ornament now, so excellent a tailor has he). He was of humble beginnings. It is said he kept a ragged little booth, which he put up at corners of streets; associated ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray

... same, he saw before him a chain of mountains very high and blue, with white summits, which reminded him of the Alps, and gave him the feeling of having drawn near to his own country once more. They were the Andes, the dorsal spine of the American continent, that immense chain which extends from Tierra del Fuego to the glacial sea of the Arctic pole, through a hundred and ten degrees of latitude. And he was also comforted by the fact that the air seemed to him to grow constantly warmer; and this ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis

... Desmoscolecida move by looping their bodies like geometrid caterpillars or leeches, as well as by creeping on their setae. The mouth is terminal, and leads into a muscular oesophagus which opens into a straight intestine terminating in an anus, which is said to be dorsal in position. The sexes are distinct. The testis is single, and its duct opens into the intestine and is provided with two chitinous spicules. The ovary is also single, opening independently and anterior to the anus. The nervous ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... is induced by interruption of the nervous control along the vasomotor tracts, as in destruction of the upper or lower cervical sympathetic ganglion, by cutting the nervous branch connecting these two, in injury to the spinal marrow in the interval between the brain and the second or fourth dorsal vertebra, or in disease of the celiac plexus, which directly presides over the liver. Certain chemical poisons also cause saccharine urine, notably woorara, strychnia, morphia, phosphoric acid, alcohol, ether, quinia, chloroform, ammonia, arsenic, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... the direction of the latter being east, and the course of the former, in its lower part, north-west. Our anglers caught several fine fishes and an eel, in the water-holes of the Mackenzie. The former belonged to the Siluridae, and had four fleshy appendages on the lower lip, and two on the upper; dorsal fin 1 spine 6 rays, and an adipose fin, pectoral 1 spine 8 rays; ventral 6 rays; anal 17 rays; caudal 17-18 rays; velvety teeth in the upper and lower jaws, and in the palatal bones. Head flat, belly broad; back of a greenish silver-colour; belly silvery white; length of the body 15-20 ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... or Ka-Kow-in has a large dorsal fin shown in a conventional manner in the pictograph between the Thunder Bird and the face of the Indian girl, sister to Shewish. The Killer Whale was often used as a family emblem or crest and as a source from which personal ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael

... then, what appear to be the upper and under surfaces of the sole, are really the right and left sides, and this can easily be proved by a careful examination of the body, which, if it be placed on edge will be found to have a back or dorsal fin, and a pair of breast fins—one on either side, as ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various

... himself up, from that Jew-of-Malta tumble down the steps, less damaged by the fall than could have been imagined possible; the fact being that his cat-like nature had stood him in good stead—he had lighted on his feet; and nothing but a mighty dorsal bruise bore witness to the prowess ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... some semi-divine attribute, which should have all but divine power of mastering the loaves and fishes, then would they who followed him believe in him more firmly than other followers who had believed in their leaders. When you see a young woman read a closed book placed on her dorsal vertebrae,—if you do believe that she so reads it, you think that she is endowed with a wonderful faculty! And should you also be made to believe that the same young woman had direct communication with Abraham, ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... shortness of its antennae and the presence of wing pads. After a brief existence the pupa emerges from the ground, and, holding on to a plant stem by means of its powerful front legs, sets free the perfect insect through a slit along the median dorsal line of the thorax. In some cases the pupa upon emerging constructs a chimney of soil, the use of which is not known. In one of the best-known species, Cicada septemdecim, from North America, the lifecycle is said to extend over seventeen ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various

... afternoon, while some of the new-comers were fishing off the rocks, west of the hotel, a shark came close in shore. Hearing their outcries, I looked out of my chamber window, and saw the dorsal fin and the fluke of his tail stuck up out of the water, as he moved to and fro. He must have been eight or ten feet long. He had probably followed the small fish into the bay, and got bewildered, and, at one ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... inoculating-filament, and two side-pieces, which together constitute a scabbard. The two latter are more substantial, are hollowed out like the sides of a groove and, when uniting, form a complete groove in which the filament is sheathed. This bivalvular scabbard adheres loosely to the dorsal part; but, farther on, at the tip of the abdomen and under the belly, it can no longer be detached, as its valves are welded to the abdominal wall. Here, therefore, we find, between the two joined protecting parts, a simple trench in which the filament lies ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... the rains and where the wild ass (Equus Onager, Khar-gadh, in Pers. Gor-khar) still breeds. This would explain the "stallions of the sea" and we find traces of the ass blood in the true Kathiawar horse, with his dun colour, barred legs and dorsal stripe. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton

... circumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards, he carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in almost all latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose. When not more profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena whale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil for domestic employment—as some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of company, and quite alone ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... the spawning period. Taking his "net and coble," he fished the river for the special purpose, and all the spawned grilse of 4 lb. weight were marked by putting a peculiarly twisted piece of wire through the dorsal fin. They were immediately thrown into the river, and of course disappeared, making their way downwards with other spawned fish towards the sea. "In the course of the next summer we again caught several of those fish which we had thus marked with wire as 4 lb. grilse, grown ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various

... simmering surface which had been frothed up by the descent of the vessels; the next moment it turned over and gave us a view of its whole length—a sixty to seventy-foot whale, if the carcass was an inch, with here and there the black scythe-like dorsal fin of a shark sailing ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell

... PLATE XXIX. Upper or dorsal surface of the lungs of the ox, reduced to one-twelfth of the natural size: a, a', the right and left principal lobes. These are the largest and are situated posteriorly, resting upon the diaphragm; b, b', the ventral lobes, situated between the principal lobes; and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... in man extends only as far downwards as the last dorsal or first lumbar vertebra; but a thread-like structure (the filum terminale) runs down the axis of the sacral part of the spinal canal, and even along the back of the coccygeal bones. The upper part of this filament, as Prof. Turner informs me, is undoubtedly ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... every second; she will be gone in less than five minutes. I hope those brave fellows will be able to get out of her before she goes, for the bay is simply swarming with sharks! Look at the black dorsal fins of the beggars playing round the old Blanco! It's enough to make a fellow sick to think of those gallant chaps being torn to pieces by such monsters as these. Ah! I am glad to see that Condell has ceased ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood

... their charge that you may stand close by in the water and examine them at your leisure. I have thus stood over them half an hour at a time, and stroked them familiarly without frightening them, suffering them to nibble my fingers harmlessly, and seen them erect their dorsal fins in anger when my hand approached their ova, and have even taken them gently out of the water with my hand; though this cannot be accomplished by a sudden movement, however dexterous, for instant warning is conveyed to them through their denser element, but only by letting the fingers ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... kind. The last, I believe, is undescribed: it is certainly not the one (Caretta imbricata) producing the greater part of the tortoise-shell of commerce, and which is not rare in Torres Strait, distinguished by having the posterior angle of each dorsal plate projecting, so as to give a serrated appearance to the margin of the carapace which, in the present species is quite smooth. The green turtle averaged 350 pounds each, and the hawksbills about 250 pounds. Although a strong prejudice existed against the hawksbill as an article ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray

... from the vertical line, rests on the envelopes which compose the skin of the stomach. The latter being susceptible of almost infinite distention, would be unable to replace themselves, when this effort diminishes, if they did not have a mechanical art, which, resting on the dorsal column, becomes an antagonist, and restores equilibrium. This belt has therefore the effect of preventing the intestines from yielding to their actual weight, and gives a power to contract when pressure is diminished. It should never be ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... have seen him turning handsprings on a sponge lawn, or riding in his water-tight chariot with his feet over the dash-board, beside a slim young mermaid with Paris green hair, and dressed in a tight-fitting, low-neck dorsal fin, say he ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... spaces, or flues, are enclosed either by lath and plaster, or by smooth boards, quite to the highest part of the roof, whether your rooms are finished to the top or not,—and provided with an abundant outlet at the top. This may also be as simple as the dorsal breathing-holes of a tobacco barn, gorgeously imposing as an Oriental pinnacle, or it may be a part of the chimney; only let it be at the very summit, ample, and so arranged that an adverse wind ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner

... he had brought hooks with him; and I found, when I got back, that he and the sergeant had caught a dozen salmon-trout, between a pound and a pound and a half in weight. Their colour was of a light gray above, and a pale yellow below. The dorsal and caudal fins were dark gray, and the others mostly of a brilliant orange ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston

... be efficiently forced into the general circulation. After from three to five minutes of this faradization, the surface board may be successively applied for a minute or two each to the arms, abdomen, pectoral and dorsal muscles. I believe the best results can be obtained by first going through the faradic process, then subjecting the patient to general galvanization, as above indicated, and concluding by another but ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig

... his pertinacious enemy still maintained his hold, and was evidently getting the advantage of him. Much alarm seemed to be felt by the many other whales around. These "killers," as they are called, are of a brownish colour on the back, and white on the belly, with a long dorsal fin. Such was the turbulence with which they passed, that a good view could not be had of them to make out more nearly the description. These fish attack a whale in the same way as dogs bait a bull, and worry him to death. They are armed with strong sharp teeth, and generally seize the whale ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous

... in Campbell County, all in Wyoming, and Harrison, Sioux County, Nebraska), the subspecies to the southward, westward, and northward, E. m. silvaticus differs in: General tone of upper parts markedly darker, more reddish and less grayish; dorsal stripes darker; crown markedly darker. External measurements, and measurements and characters of the skull of the two subspecies, do not differ significantly. Unless otherwise specified all comparative material is in the Museum of Natural ...
— A New Chipmunk (Genus Eutamias) from the Black Hills • John A. White

... the girl farewell, was wrought to aching thoughts and quivering lips. But his sorrow was not for Izz. That evening he was within a feather-weight's turn of abandoning his road to the nearest station, and driving across that elevated dorsal line of South Wessex which divided him from his Tess's home. It was neither a contempt for her nature, nor the probable state of her heart, ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... protruding above an abdomen cruelly corseted. Afterwards, long afterwards, would appear a white and radiant countenance, a face like a full moon, and while her smile like a night star was greeting the little Ulysses, the dorsal complement of her body kept on coming in—forty carnal years, ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... there! That's a fin-back! There's another, and another; three of them with their dorsal fins five or six feet high. Just see them swimming between two waves, quietly, making no jumps. Ah! if I had a harpoon, I bet my head that I could send it into one of the four yellow spots they have on their bodies. But ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne

... other hand, American Eutamias agrees with the Asiatic members of the genus in the shape of the rostrum, the well-defined striations of the upper incisors, the presence of the extra peg-like premolar, and in the pattern of the dorsal stripes.'" ...
— Genera and Subgenera of Chipmunks • John A. White

... is that the extremity of the dorsal part of the tail is prehensile. This portion is deprived of quills for a length ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various

... characteristic of the entire Glow-worm tribe, independently of sex and season. It appears upon the budding grub and continues throughout life unchanged. And we must not forget to add that it is visible on the dorsal as well as on the ventral surface, whereas the two large belts peculiar to the female shine only ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... The dorsal ridge of the Hindu Kush has here a mean elevation of some 16,000 feet, and this great mountain of Tirach Mir stands on a southward spur from the main range from which it towers up thus 9,000 feet above the latter. The head of the Dura Pass, which leads to Zebak and Ishkashim, is a little ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard

... typical bicycle "scorcher,"—making each particular vertebra stand out sharply under the tight drawn skin. Dr. Jonnesco quickly ran his finger along the protuberances, and finally selected the space between the twelfth dorsal and the first lumbar vertebrae—in other words, the space just above the small of the back. He then took an ordinary hypodermic needle, and slowly pushed it through the skin and tissues until it entered the ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... a fact only second in significance to the differentiation of its alimentary canal into stomach and intestine. That in the higher Annulosa, a single heart replaces the string of rudimentary hearts constituting the dorsal blood-vessel in the lower Annulosa, (reaching in one species to the number of one hundred and sixty), is a truth as much needing to be comprised in the history of evolution, as is the formation of a respiratory surface by a branched expansion of the skin. A ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... been wounded long. He answered in low, hoarse whispers that he had been lying in the mud and rain for several days. Then he turned his eyes up so that only the whites were visible. They remained rigidly fixed in that position. He received a dorsal injection, being too weak for chloroform. The shattered thigh was painted with picric acid and the tourniquet tightened above the injury. The surgeon cut through the leg with a circular sweep of the knife, the splintered bone offering ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt

... man and the ape family is more than offset by structural differences which deny kinship. Alfred McCann in his great book "God—or Gorilla" says, p. 24, "Man has 12 pairs of ribs; the gibbon and chimpanzee, 13; man has 12 dorsal vertebrae; the chimpanzee and gorilla, 13; the gibbon, 14. The gorilla has massive spines on the cervical vertebrae above the scapula"; and, like the other quadrumana (4-handed animals) has an opposable thumb on the hind foot. There are wide differences in the shape of the skull, thorax, ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams

... along the dorsal line; nose, upper lip, and forehead, with two inches of the end of the tail black-brown; mere edge of upper lip and whole of lower jaw hoary; a short longitudinal white stripe occasionally on the front of ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale

... other aliases, we shall denominate our hero), who had thrown himself at full length on a bench at the far end of the room, and who seemed plunged into a sullen revery, now looked up for a moment, and then, turning round and presenting the dorsal part of his body to ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... interest you greatly. Your suggestion that Rathke's canals in Amphioxus [The Lancelet.] are the Wolffian ducts was a capital shot, but it just missed the mark because Rathke's canals do not exist. Nevertheless there are two half canals, the dorsal walls of which meet in the raphe described by Stieda, and the plaited lining of this wall (a) is, I believe, the renal organ. Moreover, I have found the skull and brain of Amphioxus, both of which are ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley



Words linked to "Dorsal" :   dorsal vertebra, dorsal fin, biology, abaxial, adaxial, ventral, dorsal scapular vein, dorsal root, biological science, dorsum, dorsal horn



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