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Carnivorous   /kɑrnˈɪvərəs/   Listen
Carnivorous

adjective
1.
Relating to or characteristic of carnivores.
2.
(used of plants as well as animals) feeding on animals.



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"Carnivorous" Quotes from Famous Books



... Mr Foster, "are of a different opinion, and agree in discerning the characteristics of the carnivorous classes." ...
— Headlong Hall • Thomas Love Peacock

... limp, paralyzed, spider giant to her nest hole not far distant—a great hole twelve inches deep and with a side chamber at the bottom. There she would have thrust him down the throat of the burrow, and then crawled in and laid an egg on the helpless beast, from which in time would have hatched the carnivorous wasp grub. Pepsis has many close allies among the wasps, all black or steely blue with smoky or dull-bronze wings, and they all use spiders, stung and paralyzed, to store their ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

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

... eventually an impasse would be reached when greater mobility would endanger nutrition. If the roots withdrew from the soil, the vine would die—unless, he agreed slowly, echoing her shudder, the vine solved the dilemma by becoming again a carnivorous strangler. Nature made unaccountable blunders and sometimes found strange remedies, turning a blessing for one species into ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan

... his young friend to a mutton-chop, Kenelm helped himself, and replied gravely, "Tell your mistress that if she had only given us vegetables, I should have eaten you. Tell her that though man is partially graminivorous, he is principally carnivorous. Tell her that though a swine eats cabbages and such like, yet where a swine can get a baby, it eats the baby. Tell her," continued Kenelm (now at his third chop), "that there is no animal that in digestive organs more resembles man than a swine. ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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

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

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

... slave court, has been replaced by a mean hole in the wall. The external work was demolished, lest the enemy effect a lodgement there. We can walk seawards round the green knob scattered with black boulders, and pick an excellent salad, a kind of African dandelion, which the carnivorous English miners called 'grass,'—with a big, big D. Entering the hole in the wall, and passing through a solid arched gateway and across a small court upon which the prison opens, we ascend the steps leading to the upper work. This is a large ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... the fumes of incense full, With parasites tickled, with slaves begirt, He strutted, a cock, he bellowed, a bull, He rolled him, a dog, in dirt. And dog, bull, cook, was he, fanged, horned, plumed; Original man, as philosophers vouch; Carnivorous, cannibal; length-long exhumed, Frightfully living and armed to devour; The primitive weapons of prey in his pouch; The bait, the line and the hook: To feed on his fellows intent. God of the Danae shower, He had but to follow his bent. He battened on fowl ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

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

... and thou art its stay! Thou shall not, with all thy body, be reduced to the state of one who eateth of all things promiscuously. O thou of flames, the flame that is in thy viler parts shall alone eat of all things alike. The body of thine which eateth of flesh (being in the stomach of all carnivorous animals) shall also eat of all things promiscuously. And as every thing touched by the sun's rays becometh pure, so shall everything be pure that shall be burnt by thy flames. Thou art, O fire, the supreme energy born of thy own power. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... sense works upon another. We can please the palate through the eye. There is some undoubted connection between these senses. If you doubt it, suck a lemon in front of a German band and watch the result. The sight of meat causes the saliva to run from the mouths of the carnivorous animals at the Zoo. This is often noticeable in the case of a dog watching people eat, and it is an old saying, "It makes one's mouth water to look at it." In the case of endeavouring to induce a change of living in grown-up persons, ...
— Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery - A Manual Of Cheap And Wholesome Diet • A. G. Payne

... of degeneration, of coarseness—the coarseness of satiety, and shapeless, battered-out appetite—with an almost savage taste for carnivorous diet, had come over the company. A rumour went abroad of certain women who had drowned, in mere wantonness, their newborn babes. A girl with child was found hanged by her own act in a dark cellar. Ah! if Denys also had not felt himself mad! But when the guilt of a murder, committed with a great ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

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

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

... Pygmies or Orang-Outang fighting the Cranes, this, I think, may be easily enough made out, by what I have already observed; for this wild Man I dissected was Carnivorous, and it may be Omnivorous, at least as much as Man is; for it would eat any thing that was brought to the Table. And if it was not their Hunger that drove them to it, their Wantonness, it may be, would make them apt enough to rob the Cranes Nests; and if they did so, no doubt ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson

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

... keep still!" cried out Nance Pete; and she snatched him up bodily, and held him out to the elephant. I believe my own pang at that moment to have been general. I forgot that elephants are not carnivorous, and shuddered back, under the expectation of seeing Davie devoured, hide and hair. But Nance had the address to stiffen the little arm, and my lord took the cookie, still clutched in the despairing hand, and passed on. Then Davie wiped his eyes, after peeping stealthily about to see whether ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

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

... promptness, and perseverance are likened to "the cattle upon a thousand hills." They carry the baggage of stern resolve, and 514:18 keep pace with highest purpose. Tenderness accompa- nies all the might imparted by Spirit. The individ- uality created by God is not carnivorous, as witness the 514:21 millennial ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy

... went out with one man Geo. Drewyer & Killed the bear, which was verry large and a turrible looking animal, which we found verry hard to kill we Shot ten Balls into him before we killed him, & 5 of those Balls through his lights This animal is the largest of the Carnivorous kind I ever Saw we had nothing that could way him, I think his weight may be Stated at 500 pounds, he measured 8 feet 71/2 In. from his nose to the extremity of the Toe, 5 feet 101/2 in. arround the breast, 1 feet 11 Ins. around ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al

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

... Venus's Fly-trap stood alone, it would be doubly marvelous—first, on account of its carnivorous propensities, and then as constituting a real anomaly in organic Nature, to which nothing leads up. Before acquiescing in such a conclusion, the modern naturalist would scrutinize its relatives. Now, the nearest relatives of our vegetable wonder ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... ailments, but I'm not so bad off as to be able to live on a potato a day. And since we were having a vacation, I didn't see the point. So I came home where I have seven courses for dinner, all good; and Mrs. Leggett took my place in the car. That carnivorous company went on. They've got to eat six kinds of meat and two meat pies and—currants! I haven't. Your mother calls me up on the phone every morning—me, who am living here in luxury, seven courses at every dinner—and asks ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

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

... spoke as follows: "The political civilisation which has sprung from the soil of Europe and is overrunning the whole world, like some prolific weed, is based upon exclusiveness. It is always watchful to keep the aliens at bay or to exterminate them. It is carnivorous and cannibalistic in its tendencies, it feeds upon the resources of other peoples and tries to swallow their whole future. It is always afraid of other races achieving eminence, naming it as a peril, and tries to thwart all symptoms of greatness outside its own ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland

... drain the cup; toss off, toss one's glass; wash down, crack a bottle, wet one's whistle. purvey &c 637. Adj. eatable, edible, esculent^, comestible, alimentary; cereal, cibarious^; dietetic; culinary; nutritive, nutritious; gastric; succulent; potable, potulent^; bibulous. omnivorous, carnivorous, herbivorous, granivorous, graminivorous, phytivorous; ichthyivorous; omophagic, omophagous; pantophagous, phytophagous, xylophagous. Phr. across the walnuts and the wine [Tennyson]; blessed hour of our dinners! [O. Meredith]; now good digestion wait on appetite, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... saved us the trouble of killing it. Men, and all carnivorous animals, can not live except on the condition of sacrificing other creatures. Didn't you shoot a squirrel yesterday? And you did not refuse your share of those beautiful birds, the plumage ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart

... them with our butterfly-net he will be found to bear a general resemblance to the portrait here indicated—a slender-legged, proportionably large-headed beetle, with formidable jaws capable of wide extension, and re-enforced by an insatiate carnivorous hunger inherited ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson

... of dissimulation and depravity, and taken to typify the degrading life of the mountebank. It may also be remembered that this carnivorous beast, which was supposed to carry its young in the mouth and give birth to them through the ear, is numbered among the unclean animals ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

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

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

... gave to his dark blue double-breasted coat an air of tightness that just failed of compromising his tailor, had for his main facial sign a certain pleasant brutality, the effect partly of a bold handsome parade of carnivorous teeth, partly of an expression of nose suggesting that this feature had paid a little, in the heat of youth, for some aggression at the time admired and even publicly commemorated. He would have been ugly, he substantively granted, had he not been happy; he would have ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... beforehand for the operation," and rape alternates with massacre.[31121]—Thus far, at least, slaughter has been seasoned with robbery, and the grossness of eating and drinking; at Bicetre, however, it is crude butchery, the carnivorous instinct alone satisfying itself. Among other prisoners are 43 youths of the lowest class, from 17 to 19 years of age, placed there for correction by their parents, or by those to whom they are bound;[31122] one need only look at them to see that they are genuine Parisian scamps, the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... opinion of joint-stock banks in general, and of that one in particular in which Miss Matty's money was invested. In vain I put in "When was it—in what year was it that you heard that Mr Peter was the Great Lama?" They only joined issue to dispute whether llamas were carnivorous animals or not; in which dispute they were not quite on fair grounds, as Mrs Forrester (after they had grown warm and cool again) acknowledged that she always confused carnivorous and graminivorous together, just as she did horizontal and perpendicular; but then she apologised for it very ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... of a fish. The hind-feet are like those of a duck when in the water, and the front ones have, beyond the skin, only a flapper or paw with claws, at the end of it. They are covered with thick, glossy hair, closely set against the skin. The form of their jaws and teeth proves that they are carnivorous, and they are known to live on fish, crabs, and sea-birds. The birds they catch in the water, as they can swim with great rapidity and ease. They can remain also for a considerable time under the water, without coming to the surface ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston

... English anthropologist, tells us in his interesting volume, "Prehistoric Man," that "there was not, so far as we are aware, any carnivorous creature ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various

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

... dress differed very little from the garb she wore in the country, save that she had a feather-trimmed hat instead of a man's cap, and carried an umbrella in place of a bludgeon. A smile, which showed all her strong white teeth in a somewhat carnivorous way, overspread her face as she shook hands vigorously with her hostess. And Miss Greeby's grip was so friendly as to be ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume

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

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

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

... attributes of a complex whole, are adjectives. Thus redness, considered as part of the complex idea of a rose, becomes the adjective red; flesh-eater, as part of the idea of a dog, is represented by carnivorous; whiteness, as part of the idea of silver, ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... possibly the "musbilai" or mouse-cat of Behar, which preys upon birds and fish. Can it be the Urva of the Nepalese (Urva cancrivora, Hodgson), which Mr. Hodgson describes as dwelling in burrows, and being carnivorous and ranivorous?—Vide Journ. As. Soc. ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... a fearsome and terrifying creature. His snarls and growls waked fury in the breast of the irritable old tiger, who was not accustomed to hear threats or warnings from any of his neighbours, he being the only large carnivorous animal in the show, and, in consequence, he threw himself against the partition between Finn's cage and his own, snarling ferociously. This put the strength of centuries of hunting and fighting courage and fierceness into Finn's replies, and left the Wolfhound, ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson

... soil and station, and, among animals, those which require the same kind of station, or food, or climate; those are the indirect opponents; the direct opponents are, of course, those which prey upon an animal or vegetable. The 'helpers' may also be regarded as direct and indirect: in the case of a carnivorous animal, for example, a particular herbaceous plant may in multiplying be an indirect helper, by enabling the herbivora on which the carnivore preys to get more food, and thus to nourish the carnivore more abundantly; the direct helper may be best illustrated by reference to some parasitic creature, ...
— The Conditions Of Existence As Affecting The Perpetuation Of Living Beings • Thomas H. Huxley

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

... animals are peculiar to this small island, and have not yet been detected elsewhere. Amongst those thus limited in their geographical range are the tiger and devil of the colonists, the two largest indigenous Australian carnivorous quadrupeds. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

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

... are some animals which eat only vegetables, while others live only on animal substances. The number and form of the teeth, and the structure of the stomach, and bowels, determine whether an animal be herbivorous, or carnivorous. The first class have a considerable number of grinders, or dentes molares; and the intestines are much more long and bulky; in the second class, the cutting teeth are predominant, and ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... the garden had been ravaged by skunks. Although carnivorous by nature, the little pests seem to have a great liking for sweet corn when ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... among those sharks was Queequeg; who often pushed them aside with his floundering feet. A thing altogether incredible were it not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the otherwise miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a man. Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such a ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp to them. Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which I now and then jerked the poor fellow from too close a vicinity ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville

... happened. He caught another glimpse of the Taube rushing away like a huge carnivorous bird that had already seized its prey, and then he ran swiftly down the street. The bomb had burst in a swarm of fugitives and a woman was killed. Several people were wounded, and a panic had threatened, but the soldiers ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler

... thing that grew there, a huge ball with a thousand stinging tentacles. A carnivorous plant. Even as the realization flashed across his mind he saw that the spiny sphere was opening. Split vertically, the two halves fell apart to disclose the steaming interior whose walls were lined with ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent

... maul of a fist free and drove it at the face beneath him. Jim saw it coming and turned his head. The blow fell on his neck and his carnivorous grin smoothed out as if sleep had suddenly fallen upon him. He drew a long, shuddering breath, his muscles quivered, and his ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... a mess of ochre-coloured boiled pumpkin, boiled mealie[33] cobs, and boiled coffee of the consistency of treacle. In fact, everything boiled and boiled to death. A repast truly characteristic of the Dutch, who are most carnivorous in their choice of food, and far too feckless and lazy to spend time and trouble over such a common function as eating. It was the meal of a people devoid of imagination and artistic taste. None the less it was the best that the house could produce; and as the guests ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer

... ark landed on Mount Ararat, and the animals went forth, how did they subsist? As they went down the mountains, the carnivorous animals would have devoured a large portion of the herbivorous animals saved in the ark. Beside the lions, tigers, leopards, ounces, and other carnivorous mammals, amounting to eight hundred and ninety-two, there were in the ark six hundred and sixty-six eagles, for there ...
— The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science - A Discourse • William Denton

... country embraces fifty-two varieties of mammal quadrupeds, including three species of large felidae—the jaguar, the puma, or cougar, and the ocelot, a carnivorous cat-like animal, whose name is derived from the native Mexican word ocelotl. There are five varieties of monkeys in the tropical forests, as well as a sloth. There are forty-three classes of reptiles, including alligators and turtles, and ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... the contrary I am assured on the best authority that it is a term of endearment rather than reproach. But, above all, as a Vegetarian I welcome the choice of the term as an indication of the growth of the revolt against carnivorous brutality. If the child in question had called her parent a "saucy kipper" or "a silly old sausage" there would have been reasonable ground for resentment. But comparison with a bean involves no obloquy, but rather panegyric. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various

... possible. Inasmuch as the species is limited to Tasmania, Mrs. Roberts and others fear that the sheepmen will totally exterminate the remnant at an early date. This animal is the largest and also the most interesting carnivorous marsupial of Australia, and its untimely end will be a ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday

... and the bolted flame, And hide thy body where the hinge of stone Shall catch it like an arm! and when thou hast passed A long black time within, thou shalt come out To front the sun; and Zeus's winged hound, The strong, carnivorous eagle, shall wheel down To meet thee—self-called to a daily feast— And set his fierce beak in thee, and tear off The long rags of thy flesh, and batten ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson

... a broad sweep of deep orange, we saw a large wild animal of some sort on the crest of the hill silhouetted against the colour. I started for it with my rifle, but of course it did not wait; no animal ever does if he can help it, unless he is carnivorous and famished. The weather remained generally fair, though one day we had a wild gale that nearly relieved us of the tent in the midst of thick flurries of snow. We often climbed among the cliffs, and everywhere we found picture-writings, poles laid up, stepping-stones, fragments of pottery, arrowheads, ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... Ocean, into that part of the world where I had first seen the light—the China Seas. We had several sheep and a supply of hay to feed them on. Some of the men had an idea that our tamed pets would gladly feed on the hay, but their carnivorous teeth refused to munch it. They, however, turned suspiciously hungry glances towards the newcomers. Oldershaw observed it, "They have probably never eaten sheep or midshipmen," he observed, "but the nature to do so is in them, and depend ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

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

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

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

... And all of these creatures, excepting the crows and magpies, fell before the unerring and unexpectedly useful blunderbuss of Captain Bunting, passed a temporary existence in the maw of the big iron pot, and eventually vanished into the carnivorous jaws of Ned ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne

... of insects (Fig. 4) are horny processes situated on each side of the mouth. They are variously toothed, so as to tear the food, and move horizontally instead of up and down as in the horse. The act of taking the food, especially if the insect be carnivorous in its habits, is quite complex, as not only the true jaws, but the accessory jaws (maxillae, Fig. 5, a, upper, b, under side of the head of a young beetle; at, antennae, md, mandible, mx, maxillae, mx[1], labium) and the feelers (palpi) attached to the maxillae, and the ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard

... safe from undue force of their own appeals, though more susceptible hearts might be crushed through conscientious compliance. It maddened Oswald that this lovely girl, with all her perfections of mind, face, and form, should be cast, like a common worm, into the great, vulgar, carnivorous mouth of human want. If Christ's ultimate aim were alleviation of physical suffering, why not feed and heal all earth's hungry, diseased millions, through diviner, broad-gauged philanthropy than lagging processes ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... heavy fleshy bird. This may account far the fact of its being found chiefly on very small islands, while in the western half of the Archipelago, it seems entirely absent from the larger ones. Being a ground feeder it is subject to the attacks of carnivorous quadrupeds, which are not found in the very small islands. Its wide distribution over the whole length of the Archipelago; from extreme west to east, is however very extraordinary, since, with ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... in that convenient trick of blaming "the old Adam" for our misbehavior than some of us have thought. That most culpable sinner we no longer see as a white-souled adult baby, living on uncooked food in a newmade garden, but as a husky, hairy, highly carnivorous and bloodthirsty biped, just learning his giant strength, and exercising it like ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... as the Squalidae family, and they are, upon the whole, as unpleasant a family as a Squalid Castaway would desire to meet with in a Squall. They are all carnivorous, cartilaginous, and cantankerous. No fish culturist, from St. ANTHONY to SETH GREEN, has thought it worth while to take them in hand, with the view of reforming them, and their Vices are as objectionable now as they were three thousand years ago. If ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various

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

... is enough to let you know what his soul is like; it is a face such as can be seen nowhere but on the racecourse or in the betting-club: the last trace of high thought has vanished, and, though the men may laugh and indulge in verbal horse-play, there is always something carnivorous about their aspect. They are sharp in a certain line, but true intelligence is rarely found among them. Strange to say, they are often generous with money if their sentimental side is fairly touched, but their very generosity is the lavishness of ostentation, and they ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... we haven't even had a tire accident. We're having a delightful journey—only this country yields neither vegetables nor fruits, and I have to live on oatmeal. They spell it p-o-r-r-i-d-g-e, and they call it puruge. But they beat all creation as carnivorous folk. We stayed last night at a beautiful mountain hotel at Braemar (the same town whereat Stevenson wrote "Treasure Island") and they had nine kinds of meat for dinner and eggs in three ways, and no vegetables but potatoes. But this morning we struck the same thin oatbread that you ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... she was herself so much wearied and in want of sleep that she would have given all she possessed to have been allowed to dismount and rest; but, unfortunately for her, those piratical quadrupeds of the plains, the wolves, advised by their carnivorous instincts that she and her exhausted horse might soon fall an easy sacrifice to their voracious appetites, followed upon her track, and came howling in great numbers about her, so that she dared not set her feet upon the ground, fearing they ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... the depth of degradation to which the human race may sink through war, disease, or isolation. And if we are to draw inferences about the origin of marriage from the practice of barbarous nations, we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much ...
— The Republic • Plato

... on Monte-Leone. This person was Felippo San Angelo, the ogre of whom Pietro had spoken, the terror of all criminals, the Grand Judge of Naples. If the morale of the Judge had been calumniated by Pietro, his physique bore a strong analogy to that of certain beasts of prey to which carnivorous appetite is attributed. His nose was hooked like an eagle's, his brow was prominent, oblong and bald, his lips were thin and fixed as if he had never smiled, his body was long and attenuated, and he never met the glance of those ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... the scene of the following story, we have described in our first series of Traditions, where Sir Tarquin, a carnivorous giant, is slain by Sir Lancelot of the Lake. These circumstances, and more of the like purport on this subject, we therefore omit, as being too trite and familiar to bear repetition. We do not suppose ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... but compare cats and wolves with the ungulates that make a first concoction of herbs for their sake. It is true that our monkey kin are chiefly frugivorous; for it may be plausibly argued that man was first differentiated by becoming definitely carnivorous, a sociable hunter, as it were, a wolf-ape. Hence the advantage of longer legs, the use of weapons, the upright gait and defter hands to use and make weapons, more strategic brains, tribal organisation, and hence liberation ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen

... very short legs attached to it. It has not been considerate enough to leave any of its hair behind it. But its general shape must be what I have indicated, and it can run up a curtain, and it is carnivorous." ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... But even as he reached, and before his fingers had closed on the missile, she sprang back into safety; and he knew that she was used to having things thrown at her. She had snarled as she sprang away, baring her white fangs to their roots, all her wistfulness vanishing, being replaced by a carnivorous malignity that made him shudder. He glanced at the hand that held the brand, noticing the cunning delicacy of the fingers that gripped it, how they adjusted themselves to all the inequalities of the surface, curling over and under ...
— White Fang • Jack London

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

... equipment, their tools and appurtenances, up to their stations, it may be, 3,000, 4,000, 6,000 feet above the level. And at those heights are the larders of shell which must always be kept full so that the carnivorous mouths of the man-eaters may not go hungry even for the single hour of the single day which, at any ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

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

... coppers a day. He became aware of the prices of things to eat, and was taught the relative virtues of nutriment. Perforce a vegetarian, he found that a vegetable diet was good for his health, and delivered to himself many a scornful speech on the habits of the carnivorous multitude. He of necessity abjured alcohols, and straightway longed to utter his testimony on a teetotal platform. These were his satisfactions. They compensate astonishingly for the loss of ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... to be destroyed by fire with remarkable facility at one season of the year; and it is well that this is the case; for, whether as a retainer of miasma, a shelter for wild beasts, both carnivorous and herbivorous, alike dangerous to man, or from their liability to ignite, and spread destruction far and wide, the grass-jungles are most serious obstacles to civilization. Next to the rapidity with which it can be cleared, the adaptation of a great part of the soil to irrigation ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... Francis was at Grecio, he freed the country from the wolves which had ravaged it. At Gubio, he tamed one in an extraordinary manner. He took it into the public square where he preached, and having pointed out to his auditors that God sends sometimes these carnivorous animals to warn sinners to return to their duties, he addressed the wolf, and made an agreement with it, the clauses of which were, that the inhabitants should feed it, and that the wolf should do no injury to any of them. This was faithfully attended to on both sides. During ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe

... purpose of this provision—to endeavour, if possible, to find its justification. Insects lured by the sweetness of the exudation are callously entrapped, and why so? Do the seeds require the presence of animal matter to ensure germination? In that case the tree is indirectly carnivorous, and therefore decidedly entitled to recognition among the curiosities of the island. Is the glutin secreted to secure the wide dispersal of the seeds? If so, the object is largely self-defeated, for seeds by the hundred cling as they fall to the branches of the parent tree, and to those ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

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

... found him, prone and exhausted, on the yellow sands. Near-by, tall and stately trees nodded at him; close at hand a great crab regarded him with reflective interest, hesitating between prudence and carnivorous desire. Gluttonous inclination to sample the goods the gods had provided prevailed over caution; it moved quickly forward, when what it had considered only an unexpected and welcome piece de resistance abruptly ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... would imitate those animal murderers, by catching some fish which we broiled to satisfy our carnivorous appetites. It was delightful to float in that tiny boat, gazing through the green canopy of leaves at the great white clouds sailing over like ships upon the sea, listening to the ecstatic trilling of the orioles, and the flute-like melodies of the ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... place, and crawled, with stoppages, along the poop. In the dark and on all fours he resembled some carnivorous animal prowling amongst corpses. At the break, propped to windward of a stanchion, he looked down on the main deck. It seemed to him that the ship had a tendency to stand up a little more. The wind had eased a little, he thought, but the sea ran as high as ever. The waves foamed viciously, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... attempt a jest. On hearing an intelligent but somewhat eccentric neighbour observe, that "all flesh is grass," in a strictly physical sense, seeing that all the flesh of the herbivorous animals is elaborated from vegetation, and all the flesh of the carnivorous animals from that of the herbivorous ones, Uncle Sandy remarked that, knowing, as he did, the piscivorous habits of the Cromarty folk, he should surely make an exception in his generalization, by admitting that in at least one village ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

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

... marvelous floral display, Nadia breathed deeply of the inviting fragrance—and collapsed senseless upon the ground. Thereupon the weird plant moved over toward her, and the thick leaves began to enfold her knees. This carnivorous thing, however, did not like the heavy cloth of her suit and turned to the hexaped. It thrust several of its leaves into the wounds upon the carcass and fed, while two other leaves rasped together, sending out ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith

... hog for this species of food proves that in a state of nature it is partially a carnivorous animal. The peccary, which is the true representative of the wild hog in America—has the very same habit, and is well-known to be one of the most fatal enemies of the serpent tribe to be found ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... hope, and to hope much. Already, forgetting his carnivorous instincts, the stranger accepted a less bestial nourishment than that on which he fed on the islet, and cooked meat did not produce in him the same sentiment of repulsion which he had showed on board the "Bonadventure." Cyrus Harding had profited by a moment when ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... Carnivora, allied to the bears (Cercoleptes), found only in the Amazonian forests, is entirely arboreal, and has a long flexible tail like that of certain monkeys. Many other similar instances could be enumerated, but I will mention only the Geodephaga, or carnivorous ground beetles, a great proportion of whose genera and species in these forest regions are, by the structure of their feet, fitted to live exclusively on the branches and leaves ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... erect on its hind legs, regarding every thing that passes with great attention. It is of a very restless disposition, and always carries its food to the most retired place to consume it, and is very cleanly in its habits; but it is exclusively carnivorous and destructive to poultry, employing great ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... underworld of a great city has no ventilation, housing or lighting problems. Rooks and crooks who live in the putrid air of crime are not denied the light of day, even though they loathe it. Cadets, social skunks, whose carnivorous eyes love darkness, walk in God's sunshine and breathe God's air. Scarlet women turn over in wide beds and draw closer velvet curtains to shut out the morning. Gamblers ...
— Every Soul Hath Its Song • Fannie Hurst

... among these herbivorous animals, and especially among the ruminants, it has been found that from the circumstances of the desert countries they inhabit they are incessantly exposed to be the prey of carnivorous animals, and find safety only in precipitous flight. Necessity has forced them to run swiftly; and from the habit they have thus acquired their body has become slenderer and their limbs much more delicate: we see examples in the antelopes, the ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... these two ideas—Yankeedom and the crocodile. They are worth the coupling. The crocodile is asleep. He does not sleep on both ears; he sleeps with one eye open; his jaws are also open. Rows of teeth appear, sharped, fanged, pointed, murderous, carnivorous, omnivorous. Some of the teeth are wanting: say a dozen. Who knocked those teeth out? A demon. What demon? Or perhaps an angel. What angel? The angel is secession: the demon is rebellion. ORMUZD and AHRIMAN: BALDUR and LOKI: the DEVIL and ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke

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

... appointments she worked with an allotment of stenographers and clerks. She had an assistant, too; at least, she confiscated him from the press department—one Leon Greenberg, a young night student from New York University, with an enormous profile rendered positively carnivorous of thrust by his struggle up from First Street and Avenue A, which is mire with a pull ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... blade of grass remained; every tree and shrub was leafless, and their branches were stripped of their bark. We could not help looking with painful amazement on the scene of desolation which those small animals had caused. Not only would they, as Ned Gale said, have eaten us up had they been carnivorous, but they might have devoured Pizarro and the army with which he conquered Peru in the course of a night. For miles in advance they had left traces of their visit. We congratulated ourselves on having brought water with us, as we could find none in the neighbourhood. What became of this vast ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

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

... surface, and as he has become more and more the master of his environment, he has inevitably disturbed the relationships of the birds and mammals about him, has upset the balance of nature. If he kills the carnivorous species because of their depredations on game and live stock he must be prepared to cope with the increased hordes of rodents which feed on vegetation and on which the carnivorous animals act as a check. ...
— Life History of the Kangaroo Rat • Charles T. Vorhies and Walter P. Taylor

... fact. Our civilization is founded on the shambles, and every individual existence goes out in a lonely spasm of helpless agony. If you protest, my friend, wait till you arrive there yourself! To believe in the carnivorous reptiles of geologic times is hard for our imagination—they seem too much like mere museum specimens. Yet there is no tooth in any one of those museum-skulls that did not daily through long years of the foretime ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... horny skin on the shoulder of the boar is a defence only against animals of his own species, who strike obliquely upwards, nor are his tushes for other purposes, except to defend himself, as he is not naturally a carnivorous animal. So the horns of the stag are sharp to offend his adversary, but are branched for the purpose of parrying or receiving the thrusts of horns similar to his own, and have therefore been formed for the purpose of combating other stags for the exclusive possession ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... in a hoarse and savage whisper. I was furious. This time I had fought with disease not only, as in a common struggle, with carnivorous Death, but as a hardened sinner whose heart has suddenly opened to ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child

... yourself you are but showing a proper scientific reserve," said Challenger, with massive condescension. "I am not myself prepared to go farther than to say in general terms that we have almost certainly been in contact to-night with some form of carnivorous dinosaur. I have already expressed my anticipation that something of the sort might exist upon ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

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

... tracts, exposed not only to terrible fatigue, but to hunger, thirst, and fierce carnivorous animals. It appeared impossible that they could ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid



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



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