"Owl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Somewhere away in the night an owl hooted, and Nap turned his head sharply, as one accustomed to take note of every sound. A while longer he stood, seeming to listen, every limb alert and tense, then swiftly he wheeled and gazed full at the drooping woman's figure ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... simple supper at an "Owl" lunch-cart, totally unaware that, across the street, a couple of Cosmos men were waiting for him to come out. And, after this, buying a Socialist paper, he strolled into Evans Park to sit and read, a while, by the red light of ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... earnestly at one another. Outside, somewhere in the woodland, there sounded the haunting gush of a night-bird's song, shivering through the quietness like a silver bell. The sweet note finished in a frightened squawk, and was followed by the cry of an owl. The ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... suited for country houses, where every man would enjoy his company, and every woman would adore him. He had not then published "Piccadilly"; perhaps he was writing it; while, like all the young men about the Foreign Office, he contributed to The Owl. ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... across country by means of by-paths, in order to reach the spot where, according to the map and compass, I thought Vayrac ought to be. I came to a seventeenth century country-house, large enough to be termed a chteau, but now the dwelling of some peasant-farmer. It was a dilapidated, apparently owl-haunted building, with a dovecote tower over grown with ivy, and was half surrounded by a wall, whose tottering, ornamental pinnacles told a story of comparative grandeur that had come to grief in this remote spot. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... volley of one tongue For all their leathern shields too strong When only arm'd with noise and nails, The female silk-worms ride the males, 750 Transform 'em into rams and goats, Like Sirens, with their charming notes; Sweet as a screech-owl's serenade, Or those enchanting murmurs made By th' husband mandrake and the wife, 755 Both bury'd ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... instead Of vulgar chops and stews, and hashes, First course,—a phoenix at the head, Done in its own celestial ashes: At foot, a cygnet, which kept singing All the time its neck was wringing. Side dishes, thus,—Minerva's owl, Or any such like learned fowl; Doves, such as heaven's poulterer gets When Cupid shoots his mother's pets. Larks stew'd in morning's roseate breath, Or roasted by a sunbeam's splendour; And nightingales, be-rhymed to death— Like young pigs whipp'd ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous
... mainland, and even made him journey-cake, a trick which Polly Ann had taught me. And when I went about the island, if a man were loafing, he would seize his axe and cry, "Here's Davy, he'll tell the Colonel on me." Thanks to the jokes of Terence McCann, I gained an owl-like reputation for wisdom amongst these superstitious backwoodsmen, and they came verily to believe that upon my existence depended the success of the campaign. But day after day passed, and no sign from Colonel ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... see, Or Shepherdess, or drew into mine ear The sound of living thing, unless it were The Nightingale among the thick leav'd spring That sits alone in sorrow, and doth sing Whole nights away in mourning, or the Owl, Or our great enemy that still doth howl Against the Moons ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... wild Florida forest, and all was still save for the hooting of a distant owl and the occasional plaintive call of a whip-poor-will. In a little clearing by the side of a faint bridle-path a huge fire of fat pine knots roared and crackled, lighting up the small cleared space and throwing ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... of owl's light that has no distinctness in it, and yet is far removed from darkness. Vera's perfect figure, clad in some white, clinging garment that fell about her in thick, heavy folds, stood out with a statue-like clearness against the dark shrubs behind her. She seemed like some shadowy queen ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... something sadly sweet to me in the sight of these barbarous and naive facsimiles of miniature humanity, which come up like little spectres out of the dust of ancient days. They are so rude and queer, these Roman puppets; and yet they were loved once, and had pet names, and their owl-like faces were as tenderly kissed as their little mistresses had been by their mothers. So the Romany girl, unlike the Roman, is generally doll-less and toy-less. But the affection between mother and child is as ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... silvery flute, The melancholy lute, Were night owl's hoot To my low-whispered coo— Were I thy bride! The skylark's trill Were but discordance shrill To the soft thrill Of wooing as I'd woo— ...
— Bab Ballads and Savoy Songs • W. S. Gilbert
... going with the girl for a long while; and I knew nothing of it. Have you found out, sister,"—she leaned forward and looked at her guest with a very earnest expression,—"how the Koshare have learned about the owl's feathers in ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... Jupiter, and is now, alas! only the monument of an Englishman's crime against history, art, and Rome. The air was soft, and perfumed with scent from the roses in the side-alleys below. A monotonous bird-note came from the ilex darkness, like the note of a thin passing bell. It was the cry of a small owl, which, in its plaintiveness and changelessness, had often seemed to Manisty and Eleanor the very voice of the ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fountain of "hot water". Among less important controversies may be mentioned that with Grainger, the translator of Tibullus. Grainger replied in a pamphlet; and in the next number of the Review we find him threatened with "castigation", as an "owl that has broken from ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... out. At span-counter. At the marriage. At even or odd. At the frolic or jackdaw. At cross or pile. At the opinion. At ball and huckle-bones. At who doth the one, doth the At ivory balls. other. At the billiards. At the sequences. At bob and hit. At the ivory bundles. At the owl. At the tarots. At the charming of the hare. At losing load him. At pull yet a little. At he's gulled and esto. At trudgepig. At the torture. At the magatapies. At the handruff. At the horn. At the click. At the flowered or Shrovetide ox. At honours. At the madge-owlet. At pinch ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... undoubtedly the largest and strongest bird of the vulture tribe in existence, and extremely ravenous. Minerva's bird, the Owl, is well known as one of ill omen; besides the superstitious idea that the screech-owl foretells death by its cry, it was formerly believed to suck the blood of children. The Mongol and Calmuc Tartars have held the White Owl sacred since the days of Genghis Khan, when a bird of this species having settled on a bush in which that prince had hidden himself ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 542, Saturday, April 14, 1832 • Various
... yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... the talking and laughing and the formless progress of the mob hushed the nearer night voices of the fields and woods; but from a distance the shuddering cry of a screech-owl could be heard; and the melancholy call of a killdee in a pasture beside the creek. The people, friends and foes together, made their way unlighted except by the tin lantern which some one had caught from where it stood ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... weary of her life. For when she did sacrifice, the pure water would grow black and the wine be changed to blood. Also from the shrine of her husband, which was in the midst of her palace, was heard a voice calling her, and the owl cried aloud from the house-top. And in her dreams the cruel AEneas seemed to drive her before him; or she seemed to be going a long way with none to bear her company, and be seeking her own people in a land that was desert. Therefore, hiding the ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... upon the ear during the night in a far off place like this, are peculiar. The old owl hoots mournfully, the frogs bellow hoarsely along the reedy shore, while the tree toads are quavering from among the branches of the scrubby trees that grow along the rocky banks; the whippoorwill pipes shrilly in the forest depths; the breeze murmurs among the foliage of the tall old pines, ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... Another (Accipiter trinotatus) is a beautiful hawk, with elegant rows of large round white spots on the tail, rendering it very conspicuous and quite different from any other known bird of the family. Three owls are also peculiar; and one, a barn owl (Strix rosenbergii), is very much larger and stronger than its ally Strix javanica, which ranges from India through all the islands as ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... 'tis all done to tole us the wrong way. I have a mind that we go home for to-night without saying a word, and come the first thing in the morning with more hands. I know they have storages about here, but we can do nothing by this owl's light. We will look round the parish and see if everybody is in bed, John; and if all is quiet, we will do ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... complete accordance with all directions, and then went off to finish her Latin translation. It was a particularly stiff piece of Virgil, and she puzzled over it so long that she utterly forgot all about the chickens, and it was only the call of an owl waking up on the ivy-covered ash tree at the bottom of the garden that reminded ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... was full of the perfumes of the wood. The setter just outside the tent became uneasy, and dashed into a thicket near, and there was a snort and the measured, swift thud of feet flying in the distance. A deer had been attracted by the fire-light. An owl hooted from a dead tree near by. There was the hum of many insects of the night, and the soft sighing of the wind through boughs. It was simply ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... replied Front-de-Boeuf; "detestable screech-owl! it is then thou who art come to exult over the ruins thou hast ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... smaller poems (No. V.), printed by Mr. Wright with the Owl and the Nightingale, from the Cottonian MS. Calig. A. ix. "The sorie sowle maketh hire mone," in language not dissimilar to that used in the following fragment; and the dreary imagery of the house appointed for all living, and the punishment ...
— The Departing Soul's Address to the Body • Anonymous
... of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis, flambeau preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing the darkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof of the great pile of stable building away among the trees. All else was so quiet, that the flambeau carried up the steps, and the other flambeau held at the great door, burnt as if they were in a close room of state, instead of being in the open night-air. ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... presence with mocking grin. "Said I not sorrows in dark array, Crowded the future of Morna Grey? Why from the cheek do the roses fly? Where is the light of the flashing eye? Where has the rounded lips, ruby red, Gone, since we parted beside the dead? The white owl entered the casement high, O'er the brow of the dying I saw it fly; Presager of death! I hailed its wing, She scorned the omen but felt the sting Of bitter grief, when another day Bore her angel Mother ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... very numerous, and to have come from the vicinity of San Francisco Mountain. They did not move up to Chukubi, but built a large village on the summit, at the south end of the mesa, close to the site of the present Mashongnavi. Soon afterward came the Burrowing Owl, and the Coyote, from the vicinity of Navajo Mountains in the north, but they were not very numerous. They also built upon the ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... guessed that they were nearing their destination. They reached it a few moments later, and a peep from the window, as the vehicle stopped, showed her the outlines of a ruined watermill, ghostly, crumbling, owl-haunted, looming black against ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... drone homeward through the haze, And distant wood-fires wink behind the ridges, And the first flare some timorous Hun betrays; Now no shell circulates, but all men brood Over their evening food; The bats flit warily and owl and rat With muffled cries their shadowy loves pursue, And pleasant, Corporal, it is to chat In this hushed moment with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 14, 1917 • Various
... instant the little great man stood with wide, owl-like eyes, staring at the face ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... church owl, pushing his head out of the ivy-bush. "And shall she be Kyrkegrim when thou art turned preacher, and the preacher sits on the judgment seat? Not so, little Niss! Dust thou the pulpit, and leave the parson to preach, and let the Maker of ...
— Last Words - A Final Collection of Stories • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... the flight of birds, were not only considered by the Egyptians as the symbols of the winds, but good and bad omens of every kind were founded or rather derived from the flying of the feathered tribe. The birds at this time had become wonderfully wise; and an owl, to whom, for reasons not precisely known, light is not so agreeable as darkness, could not pass by the windows of a sick person in the night, where the creature was not offended by the glimmerings of a light or candle, but his hooting ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... chilly mists, and the noxious vapours, and the heavy shadows, and the wailing gusts, and the owl's melancholy hootings: rising, with the Day, the darting shafts of light, and the wholesome morning breeze, and the warmth of a dawning life, and the mad music of ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... come to the more degraded forms of flies which live parasitically on various animals. We figure, from a specimen in the Museum of the Peabody Academy of Science, the Bird tick (Ornithomyia, Fig. 92), which lives upon the Great Horned Owl. Its body is much flattened, adapted for its life under the feathers, where it gorges itself with the ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... here all night!" she wailed. "It's lots wusser'n it was when Tess and I was losted and we slept out under a tree till morning, and that old owl hollered 'Who? Who-o?' all night—only I went to sleep and didn't hear him. But I ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill
... rested on it, instead of the doubtful twilight. The ivy was black against the white light, the empty doorway yawned like a toothless mouth, and the round eye above looked blindness on us. As I gazed, a white owl came from within, and blinked at us over the curve. Yvon started, thinking it a spirit, perhaps; but I laughed, and taking off my hat, saluted ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... immense droves of cattle with their drivers, passing through the streets of the city. Some of the men have a way of leading the cattle by a peculiar call, a wild, pensive hoot, quite musical, prolong'd, indescribable, sounding something between the cooing of a pigeon and the hoot of an owl. I like to stand and look at the sight of one of these immense droves—a little way off—(as the dust is great.) There are always men on horseback, cracking their whips and shouting—the cattle low—some obstinate ox or steer attempts to escape—then ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the grey old Cumnor towers and all The hollow haunted oaks that grew thereby, Gleamed on a casement whence the pure white face Of Amy Robsart, wife of Leicester, wife Unknown of the Queen's lover, a frail bar To that proud Earl's ambition, quietly gazed And heard the night-owl hoot a dark presage Of murder through her timid shuddering heart. But of that deed Elizabeth knew nought; Nay, white as Amy Robsart in her dream Of love she listened to the sobbing lute, Bitterly happy, proudly desolate; So heavy ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... girls," said Mrs. Rose, as she tucked up the impromptu beds. "It is Heavenly to sleep out here, but we older people dare not risk rheumatism. You'll love it, Dolly. Perhaps you'll hear an owl or two hooting you ...
— Two Little Women • Carolyn Wells
... Meadow-Mouse and their four children, Long-Tail, Sharp-Eyes, Pink-Ears, and Mouseykins, had finished their supper of cornbread and cheese, and Father Meadow-Mouse was telling of two narrow escapes he had had the night before, one from a horned owl and one from Farmer Green's cat, Mouser. He had just come to the most exciting part of his adventures and all the family were listening with breathless interest, when the door, which had been left unbolted, blew open, as I have told you, and in ...
— Grasshopper Green and the Meadow Mice • John Rae
... little hut, on the reed-thatched roof of which the screech-owl now lays its eggs, dwelt thirty years ago, a crazy old woman, they called her Magdolna. She must have been for a long time out of her wits; some said she had been born so, others maintained that the roof had fallen right upon her head and injured her brain; others again affirmed that ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... the gaunt wolves howl, From the oak loud whoops the felon owl; The snow-storm sweeps in thunder past, The forest creaks beneath the blast; No more I list, with boding fear, The sleigh-bells' distant chime to hear. The merry sleigh-bells, with soothing power Shed gladness on the evening hour. Ding-dong, ding-dong, ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... boat of one of the wagon beds, and had a regular ferry, and when they pulled the wagons over they sank below the surface but came out all right. We came to Pawnee Village, on the Platte, a collection of mud huts, oval in shape, and an entrance low down to crawl in at. A ground owl and some prairie dogs were in one of them, and we suspected they might be ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... The owl he has eyes that are big for his size, And the night like a book he deciphers; "Too-woop!" he asserts, and "Hoo-woo-ip!" he cries, And he means to remark he is awfully wise; But he lags behind us, who are "on" to the lies Of the hairy ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... their feet, and Petard himself comes forth from that portion of the tower devoted to his retirement. That was some recognized signal-that cry which, to the uninitiated, might have been mistaken for the whoop of an owl, or some wild bird's cry ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... really mean it," protested Nancy, in whom Judith confided. "She's just busy with the play—you know she's to be the heroine—and she's writing on her diploma examination too. Cheer up, Judy, don't look so like an owl." ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... explained the origin, appeared in the heavens. Also, a short time before, a thunderbolt fell at Sirmium, accompanied with a terrific clap of thunder, and set fire to a portion of the palace and senate-house: and much about the same time an owl settled on the top of the royal baths at Sabaria, and pouring forth a funeral strain, withstood all the attempts to slay it with arrows or stones, however truly aimed, and though numbers of people shot at it in ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... must have holidays, and I have flown hither. But the wind has changed, and the owl, for all his feathers, is a-cold, as the poet observes. I shall return to the Metropolis—templa quam dilecta—as Plautus might have said in his Owlowlaria, if he had liked. I never thought much of these Latin dramatists, and indeed I never ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... into this lake a year and a day before the evening when you restored me to the waters the second time. If you had not done so the first night the otter brought me to you I should have been changed into a hooting owl; if you had not done so the second night, I should have been changed into a croaking raven. But, thanks to you, Enda, I am now a snow-white swan, and for one hour on the first night of every full moon the power of speech is and will be given to me as long as I remain a swan. And a swan I must ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy
... the forest. And when Tommy Fox suddenly heard a cry of "Whoo—whoo—whoo!" he jumped, in spite of himself. Tommy knew, right away, that it was only Mr. Owl. And he felt very sheepish. And then all at once Tommy jumped again. This time he was terribly frightened, for the strangest thing happened. The snow rose right up beneath his feet, and flew in his face. And something struck him a good, hard blow ...
— The Tale of Tommy Fox • Arthur Scott Bailey
... YOUNG PEOPLE for me, and I enjoy it very much. I save all my money to buy Du Chaillu's books. I have three now, and mean to get them all. Will you please tell me if Du Chaillu is alive yet? I hope he is, and is making some more books for us boys. I have a pet horned owl. He snaps his bill ...
— Harper's Young People, June 1, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... too; Little Tom Thumb that pipes Shall go betwixt you. Tom, tickle up thy pipes Till they be weary: I will laugh, ho, ho, hoh! And make me merry. Make a ring on this grass With your quick measures: Tom shall play, I will sing For all your pleasures. The moon shines fair and bright, And the owl hollos, Mortals now take their rests Upon their pillows: The bat's abroad likewise, And the night-raven, Which doth use for to call Men to Death's haven. Now the mice peep abroad, And the cats take them, Now do young wenches sleep, Till their dreams wake them. Make a ring ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... to give vent to his complaints; but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth: his spirits sunk within him. No sound now reached his ears but the baying of the shepherds dogs, and the drowsy tinklings of the distant folds. The owl, the solemn bird of night, sat buried among the branches of the aged oak, and with her melancholy hootings gave an additional serenity to the scene. At a small distance, on his right hand, he perceived a contiguous ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... are birds of prey. The eagles are the heroes, and the owls the sages. Duplessis is not an eagle nor an owl. I should rather call him a falcon, except that I would ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... my sight is clear; yet, Elfonzo, return to thy worldly occupation—take again in thy hand that chord of sweet sounds—struggle with the civilized world and with your own heart; fly swiftly to the enchanted ground—let the night-OWL send forth its screams from the stubborn oak—let the sea sport upon the beach, and the stars sing together; but learn of these, Elfonzo, thy doom, and thy hiding-place. Our most innocent as well as our most lawful DESIRES must often be ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... Nod. Again, when I have been exceedingly anxious to keep awake, I have been attacked by sleep with such irresistible energy that I have been utterly unable to keep my eyelids open or my head erect, and have sat with my eyes blinking like those of an owl in the sunshine, and my head nodding like that of ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... gray-wrought lichen The boulders lie in the sun; Along its grassy footpath, The white-tailed rabbits run. The crickets work and chirrup Through the still afternoon; And the owl calls at twilight Under ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... woman skilled in witchcraft. The curiosity of Lucius being greatly exercised about the sorceress and her magic, he importunes the girl to procure from her mistress a magic salve which will transform him at will into an owl. By mistake he receives the wrong salve; and instead of the bird metamorphosis which he had looked for, he undergoes an unlooked-for change into an ass. In this guise, and in the service of various masters, he ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... They saved the legs of the grouse for him, too. They waited and waited, but still Hawk-Eye did not come. They began to get a little frightened, he was gone so long. At last there was a call, "Hoo, hoo, hoooooo," like the hooting of an owl, and he appeared crashing through the bushes. He had a rabbit hanging from his shoulder. Then Firefly played ...
— The Cave Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... marvellous honour, and fastened with snowy fleeces and festal boughs. Forth of it she seemed to hear her husband's voice crying and calling when night was dim upon earth, and alone on the house-tops the screech-owl often made moan with funeral note and long-drawn sobbing cry. Therewithal many a warning of wizards of old terrifies her with appalling presage. In her sleep fierce Aeneas drives her wildly, and ever she seems being left ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... that reminded them all of the wedding, and Miss Meadows thanked Mr. Dog for his handsome and useful present, and just then Mr. Turtle came in, bringing some beautiful bridal wreaths he had promised to make, and right behind him was Mr. Owl, who is thought to be wise, and is Doctor and Preacher and Lawyer in the Big Deep Woods, ...
— Hollow Tree Nights and Days • Albert Bigelow Paine
... morning, "John, I shall preach on a particular subject this morning, and shall choose my own psalm, of which I will give out the first line, and you will proceed and repeat the next as usual." When the time for psalmody arrived Wesley gave out, "Like to an owl in ivy bush," and the clerk immediately responded, "That rueful thing am I." The members of the congregation looked up and saw his small head half-buried in his large wig, and could not restrain their smiles. The clerk was mortified and the rector gratified that he should have been taught a lesson ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... ritual theory." It can, indeed, be no matter for surprise that such suspicions should be aroused. When, for instance, an educated man hears that the Israelites worshipped a golden calf, or that the owl and the peacock were respectively sacred to Juno and Minerva, he can readily understand what is meant. But when he is told that an Australian Emu man, strutting about in the feathers of that bird, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... night. Mice, rats, and rabbits destroy millions of young trees. These bold animals often flay baby trees in the daylight, and while at their deadly feast many a time have they been surprised by hawks, and then they are at a banquet where they themselves are eaten. The owl, the faithful nightwatchman of trees, often swoops down at night, and as a result some little tree is splashed with the blood of the very animal that came ...
— Wild Life on the Rockies • Enos A. Mills
... the raven flaps his wing In the briar'd dell below; Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing, To ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... throat would not voice them. Before he could clear his throat or wet his lips his eye caught something lighter than the night—two things—ten—twelve paces off—two things that glowed or sheened as though there were light inside them—too big and too far apart to be owl's eyes, but singularly like them. They moved, a little sideways and toward him; and again he heard ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... melted away; then all melted: and he awoke with a loud cry that echoed through the edifice, now dark and cold as the grave; and a great white owl went whirling, and with his wings made the only ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... forest. The dogs had crept in close to the blazing logs and lay as still as though life no longer animated their tawny bodies. From far away there came the lonely howl of a wolf; a great white man-owl fluttered close to the camp and chortled his crazy, half-human "hello, hello, hello;" the trees cracked with the tightening frost, but neither wolf howl nor frost nor the ghostly visitant's insane voice aroused ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... Work without hope of profits! That cannot be, for it would be self-destruction. He would like to, perhaps; he has not the courage. Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. The retired proprietor is really the owl of the fable gathering beech-nuts for its mutilated mice until it is ready to devour them. Is society also to be blamed for these effects of a passion so long, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... the show we drifted over to the Owl Tavern and took a table against the north wall, behind the pool tables and across from the bar. Doc had put his dark glasses back on, and he sat facing ...
— Trees Are Where You Find Them • Arthur Dekker Savage
... point he came to a vast canebrake that seemed impassable, yet he made his way through it almost without slackening speed, and came to a grove of oaks, so large and so dense that the sunlight never entered there. He stopped at its edge and imitated the long, haunting cry of the owl. In a moment or two a note like it, but distant and faint, came. He uttered the cry a second time, and ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... however, you love to collect wild and mournful tales—tales, even, of horror, with which to rivet the attention of the family group over the fire in the winter evenings,—stop at every ruined wall over which the lizard is harmlessly creeping; stop at every massive tower in which the owl is screeching—at every large isolated stone under which the serpent is hissing; linger along each tortuous path, and your peasant guide will tell you ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... for the loyal birds she would have gone back to Polynesia at once; but they flocked faithfully to her standard, led by the Owl, the wisest of all feathered things, who had lived too long, and had too much good feeling to ignore fairies, though he was, perhaps, just a little of a prig. The insects, however, who, considering the size of their brains, one might have thought would believe ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... At this moment he retires apace. His fires are dark; all sounds have ceased that way Save voice of owl or mongrel wintering there. But, were he nigh, these movements I detail Would knock ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... in the depths of the eyes, and the commonest sentence would be flashed on by this immortal light. And she overflowed the edges of the dream; he remarked that her softness was like that of some vast snowy owl; she wore a ruby ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... "O my lord and my love and solace of my eyes," answered she, "dost thou not know that I am married to my cousin, and that I hate to look upon him and abhor myself in his company. Did I not fear for thy sake, I would not let the sun rise again till his city was a heap of ruins wherein the owl and the raven should hoot and wolves and foxes harbour; and I would transport its stones behind the mountain Caf."[FN23] "Thou liest, O accursed one!" said the black, "and I swear by the valour of the blacks (else may our manhood be as that of the whites!) that if thou tarry ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... it! he acknowledges it!" roared the magician. "Wretch, dotard, owl, mole, miserable buzzard! I have no reason to tell thee now that thy form is monstrous, that children cry, that cowards turn pale, that teeming matrons shudder to behold it. It is not thy fault that thou ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... was one of the ugliest men in the world. He had one glass eye, and his nose was like an owl's, his mouth large, his teeth ugly and decayed, his face and head very small, his body long and bent, and he was bitter and ill-tempered. His name was Gluinel. Madame de Cornuel one day was reading his grandson's genealogy, ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... long season of toil they had been plentifully fed; but they were now to know the pains of hunger, and the ills which follow upon a meagre diet. The hunters were daily reporting increasingly bad luck in the chase; some days would yield nothing; upon other days the camp would heartily welcome an owl, an eagle, or a bag of insignificant small birds of any sort, or even a wolf—anything that ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... heard was that of the owl, at which he was greatly terrified, and, quickly descending the tree he had climbed, he ran with alarm to the lodge. "Noko! noko! grandmother!" he cried. "I ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... him in the act of putting aside his book. He was seated in a deep easy-chair; a dressing gown of silk and a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles gave him a look of owlish wisdom, with a touch of the owl's futility of expression, likewise. He rose, as usual, with all his courtesy. She thought at first, as he showed her to a chair, that he was going to take his usual damnable tack of pretended ignorance in order to see how much she would confess. However, tonight this was not ...
— Ronicky Doone • Max Brand
... I that caught you then, And kiss'd you on the saddle-bow? Did not the blue owl mark the men Whose spears ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... into the gulf of time as I sit in my grandfather's chair and listen to the tick of my grandfather's clock I see a smaller but more picturesque London, in which I shot snipe in Battersea Fields, and the hoot of the owl in the Green Park was not yet drowned by the hoot of the motor-car—a London of chop-houses, peg-top ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 26, 1916 • Various
... a wonderful night. The moon, which was in its first quarter, was still low in the east, but the stars were thick overhead, making a silvery dome that almost obliterated the blue. Rivers were rumbling on the hillside, an owl was hooting in the distance, kine that could not be seen were chewing audibly near at hand, and sheep like patches of white in the gloom were scuttling through the grass before Israel's footsteps. Israel walked quickly, tracing his course between the ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine
... and most abnormal offshoots. One would imagine beforehand that no two birds could be more unlike in every respect than the gaudy, noisy, gregarious cockatoos and the sombre, nocturnal, solitary owls. Yet the New Zealand owl-parrot is, to put it plainly, a lory which has assumed all the outer appearance and habits of an owl. A lurker in the twilight or under the shades of night, burrowing for its nest in holes in the ground, it has dingy brown plumage like the owls, with an undertone ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... books." I am sorry 'tis imperfect, as the lottery board annexed to it also is. Methinks you might modernise and elegantise this Supersedeas, and place it in front of your "Joan of Arc," as a gentle hint to Messrs. Park, &c. One of the happiest emblems and comicalest cuts is the owl and little ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... the country and the loneliness of the dark road. She hurried her steps, jumped at every sound and grew cold from pure terror as the awful stillness and emptiness closed in about her. She stood still every few minutes, staring at blurred bushes beside the road. The screech of an owl almost made her scream. And in the dark the hard lumpy road hurt her feet cruelly. The little slippers were never meant for dark country roads. So Jocelyn had to pick her steps, and with every second's delay ...
— Green Valley • Katharine Reynolds
... neighbourhood of bungalows, and is a very lively neighbour, especially in the mornings and evenings. These birds are continually quarrelling among themselves, sallying after insects, or making their best attempts at singing. They are dead on Kites, Crows, and such-like depredators. For several days an Owl (Bulaca newarensis) was flying about near the Cinchona Bungalow at Mongpho, and being a stupid creature at the best, and doubly so during daylight when it had no business to be abroad, was evidently considered fair game by the ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... scrape, an' squeeze, an' growl, Their worthless nievefu' of a soul May in some future carcase howl, The forest's fright; Or in some day-detesting owl May ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Guy's in his dark house in the rock, but there's a many rooms, and 't mout be, we're a walking jest now, over his head. Then he mout hear, you see, and Guy's got ears like the great owl. He kin hear mighty far in the night, and see too; and you mustn't step into his holes. There's heap of holes in Guy's dark ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... masses of the oaks and hickories rose a wall of black to curtain half the hemisphere of starry sky. As always in our forest land, the hour was shrilly vocal, though to me the chirping din of frogs and insects hath ever stood for silence. Somewhere beyond the thicket-wall an owl was calling mournfully, and I bethought me of that superstition—old as man, for aught I know—of how the hooting of an owl betokens death. And then I laughed, for surely death would come to one or more of those beneath my father's roof within the ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... "Hooty the Owl didn't get one of us that time," said Old Mr. Toad to his nearest neighbor with a chuckle of satisfaction. Then he swelled out his music bag and began to sing again. And at once, as abruptly as it had stopped, the great chorus began ...
— The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad • Thornton W. Burgess
... comes Anthony, solemn as an owl. 'Major,' said he, 'I done did all I c'u'd, an' dere ain't no way 'cept breakin' down de do'. Las' time I done dat, Mis' Slocomb neber forgib me ...
— A Gentleman Vagabond and Some Others • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to her devotion. Pipes was a natural genius in the composition of discords: he could imitate the sound produced by the winding of a jack, the filing of a saw, and the swinging of a malefactor hanging in chains; he could counterfeit the braying of an ass, the screeching of a night-owl, the caterwauling of cats, the howling of a dog, the squeaking of a pig, the crowing of a cock; and he had learned the war-whoop uttered by the Indians in North America. These talents were exerted successively, ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... amiss, father?" said young Reuben. "Ye've bin a-settin' there shakin' yer head like a old owl since I turned into the road. It be time ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... gold, on amulets of men, in wine and in wort, and in the welcome seat, on Gungnir's point, and on Grani's breast, on the Norn's nail, and the owl's neb. ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... and frolicked among the underwood; and there, over by the group of evergreens, a little mass of leaves and fur showed where the number of the frolickers had been decreased by one when the great owl of the north dropped fiercely upon his prey; there showed the neat tracks of the fox beside the coverts. The twin pads of the mink were clearly defined upon the snow-covered ice which bordered the tumbling creek, ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... the creaking of a door. It was an extraordinary thing at that hour. The whole house hold was asleep. Nothing could be heard save the footsteps of the watch-dogs on the sand, or their scratching at the foot of a tree in which an owl was screeching. An excellent opportunity to use his listening-tube! Upon putting it to his ear, M. Gardinois was assured that he had made no mistake. The sounds continued. One door was opened, then another. The bolt of the front door was thrown back with an effort. But neither Pyramus ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... there are a number of animals which are wholly white all the year round, or which only turn white in winter. Among the former are the polar bear and the American polar hare, the snowy owl and the Greenland falcon; among the latter the arctic fox, the arctic hare, the ermine, and the ptarmigan. Those which are permanently white remain among the snow nearly all the year round, while those which change their colour inhabit regions which are free from snow in summer. The ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... of scrabbling at the hitch of the side door, and STRANGWAY comes into the nearly dark barn. Out in the night the owl is still hooting. He closes the door, and that sound is lost. Like a man walking in his sleep, he goes up to the ladder, takes the rope in his hand, and makes a noose. He can be heard breathing, and in the darkness the motions of his hands are dimly seen, freeing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... long enough to hide her ears. Meanwhile the diviners drew omens of her future character from the various birds or animals that flew past or crossed her path. If they saw a parrot, they would say she was a chatterbox; if an owl, she was lazy and useless for domestic labours, and so on.[132] In similar circumstances the Chiriguanos of southeastern Bolivia hoisted the girl in her hammock to the roof, where she stayed for a month: the second month the hammock was let half-way down from the roof; and ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... a night, when every louder wind Is to its distant cavern safe confined, And only gentle Zephyr fans his wings, And lonely Philomel, still waking, sings; Or from some tree, famed for the owl's delight, She hollowing clear, directs the wanderer right; In such a night, when passing clouds give place, Or thinly veil the heaven's mysterious face; When in some river, overhung with green, The waving moon and trembling leaves are seen; When freshened grass now ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum
... had found a songbird," he went on smiling, "but I was afraid he didn't know the difference between that and an owl—I see he did. I'll be glad to have you for a pupil. Royal can bring you to ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... [507] Some of it, however, was derived from his friendship in early days with the painter-astrologer Varley. If a horse stopped for no ascertained reason or if a house martin fell they wondered what it portended. They disliked the bodeful chirp of the bat, the screech of the owl. Even the old superstition that the first object seen in the morning—a crow, a cripple, &c.—determines the fortunes of the day, had his respect. "At an hour," he comments, "when the senses are most impressionable the aspect of unpleasant spectacles has a double effect." [508] He ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... cliffs have been laid out as gardens, much of the land having been given by the owners of Boscombe House on their succeeding to the estate. The roads here are very similar to those of Bournemouth, with their rows of pines, and villas encircled by the same beautiful trees. A peculiar designation of Owl's Road has no direct connection with birds, but is commemorative of The Owl, a satirical journal in which Sir Henry Drummond Wolfe, a large landowner of Boscombe, ...
— Bournemouth, Poole & Christchurch • Sidney Heath
... beyond. Just above the levee top a tiny red light was creeping down and a tiny green one was creeping up. Then the passing steamers saluted, and the hoarse din startled the drowsy silence of the melancholy lowlands. The stillness returned, save for the little voices of the night—the owl's recitative, the capriccio of the crickets, the concerto of the frogs in the grass. The piccaninnies and the dawdlers from the quarters had been dismissed to their confines, and the melee of the day was reduced to an orderly and intelligent silence. The ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... cage against the glass case. "Coppertoes," I whispered, "Other birds! Aren't they pretty? Want to get in an' play with them, old chap? See the pretty oriole? An' the owl, Coppertoes. Lovebirds, too. Want to get in, little fellow? Such a bully big cage ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... way was lonely; the hard road echoed under the old cart-horse's hoofs; many a black and desolate tract of forest lay across their twenty miles' ride; more than once the tremulous shriek of a screech-owl smote ominously on Sally's wakeful sense, and quavered away like a dying groan; more than once a mournful whippoorwill cried out in pain and expostulation, and in the young leaves a shivering wind foreboded evil;—but they rode on. Presently Sally's drooping ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... restrained him. She did not seem to be the least bit angry. Instead, she said in a confident tone of voice: "It would be pretty poor business if one who is as old as I am could not manage to get out of worse difficulties than this. If only Mr. and Mrs. Owl, who can stay awake all night, will fly off with a couple of messages for me, I think that ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... drawing a flap of his coat over his gun, to protect it from the rain. "There isn't a stump, or even a tuft of grass, in the meadow large enough to cover us. Besides, if we undertake to climb over the fence, every crow will be out of sight in a moment; then good-by, owl." ...
— Frank, the Young Naturalist • Harry Castlemon
... was steeped in quietness. The rustling of the dry leaves under the feet of the woman was all she heard, except when the low sighing of the wind, the sharp bark of a fox, or the shriek of an owl, broke the silence for a moment, and all was ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... which the spirits were dismissed with the formula, "Depart, ye ghosts, the revels now are ended." Mr. Andrew Lang has suggested that the animals associated with gods and goddesses (such as the mouse which is found in the hand, or the hair, or beside the feet of the statues of Apollo, the owl of Minerva, etc.) are relics of the earlier worship. This would satisfactorily explain much of the disreputable element which lingered on side by side with the noble thoughts of Greek religion. The Olympians, ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... old white owl to marry us, I suppose. Oh, Cardo, another dream. No, no; wait until you return from ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... the sky, is a perfect realization of all the stories of adventures he has ever read. He tells the other boys afterwards that he heard something in the night that sounded very much like a bear. The hired man says that he was very much scared by the hooting of an owl. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... originators (it was soon found out that the poem had proceeded from our clique) were severely censured; for nothing of the sort had been seen since Cronegk's and Rost's attacks upon Gottsched. We had besides already secluded ourselves, and now found ourselves quite in the case of the owl with respect to the other birds. In Dresden, too, they did not like the affair; and it had for us serious, if not unpleasant, consequences. For some time, already, Count Lindenau had not been quite satisfied with his son's tutor. For although the young man was by ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... Peter seated in the dull dignity of civic magistracy: the court is thronged—a young delinquent blinks like an owl in sunshine 'neath the mighty flashing of his bench-lit eye. His crime, ay, what's his crime? it can't be much—so pale, so thin, so woe-begone! look, too, so tremulous of knee, and redolent of hair! what has ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... a huge saber, Friar Tuck has forgotten his cowl; And we're quite at a stand-still with Weber, For want of a lizard and owl: And then, for our funeral procession, Pray get us a love of a pall; Or how shall we make an impression On ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... half through its leg when the man came. I remember that he had a cat with a little red collar on its neck, and an owl in his hand, both of them dead, for he was Giles, the head-keeper, going round his traps. He was a tall man with sandy whiskers and a rough voice, and he carried a single-barrelled ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... very midst of some quiet fun, when they leaped aside suddenly and disappeared among the ferns as if by magic. The next instant a dark shadow swept across the opening, almost into my face, and wheeled out of sight among the evergreens. It was Kookoo-skoos, the big brown owl, coursing the woods on his nightly hunt after the very rabbits that were crouched motionless beneath him as he passed. But how did they learn, all at once, of the coming of an enemy whose march is noiseless as the sweep of a shadow? And ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... can get the housemaid to help you," said Miss Sewell, decidedly. "I don't mind what you give her. Now go to bed, Grier. I'm sorry I woke you up; you look as tired as an owl." ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lost, I know it! Only not because of your power, but rather because of my weakness. Yes! You, too, are only worms in the eyes of God. And, wait! You shall choke. I am lost through blindness. I saw much and I became blind, like an owl. As a boy, I remember, I chased an owl in a ravine; it flew about and struck against something. The sun blinded it. It was all bruised and it disappeared, and my father said to me then: 'It is the same ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky |
