"Ortolan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... descend immediately, but once more thrust his hand into the nest, hoping, no doubt, to find an egg or eggs in it. Instead of these, the contents proved to be a bird—and only one—a chick recently hatched, about the size of a squab-pigeon, and fat as a fed ortolan. Unlike the progeny of the megapodes, hatched in the hot sand, the infant hornbill was without the semblance of a feather upon its skin, which was all over of a green, yellowish hue. There was not even so much as a show ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid |
