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Swarm   /swɔrm/   Listen
Swarm

noun
1.
A moving crowd.  Synonyms: drove, horde.
2.
A group of many things in the air or on the ground.  Synonym: cloud.  "Clouds of blossoms" , "It discharged a cloud of spores"



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"Swarm" Quotes from Famous Books



... followed by the Mountaineer, and after them in single file came three Fung, who apparently thought no more of the perilous nature of their foothold than do the sheiks of the Egyptian pyramids when they swarm about those monuments like lizards. Nor, for the matter of that, did Oliver or Japhet, who doubled down the tail as though it were a race track. Oliver swung himself on to the ladder, and in a second was half across it, we holding its other end, ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard

... following thought, and step by step led on, He entered now the bordering Desert wild, And, with dark shades and rocks environed round, His holy meditations thus pursued:— "O what a multitude of thoughts at once Awakened in me swarm, while I consider What from within I feel myself, and hear What from without comes often to my ears, Ill sorting with my present state compared! 200 When I was yet a child, no childish play To me was pleasing; all my mind was set Serious to learn and know, and thence to do, What might be public ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton

... a whole swarm of memories, and a whole crowd of images, belonging to the palace of which this was a part. Before the time you speak of, ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner

... climate maddened these unbridled Europeans. Avarice is a calculating passion; but here were aimless and exhausting horrors, like those which swarm in the drunkard's corrupted brain. What were vices at home became transformed into manias here. The representatives of other nations were not slow to imitate the example of the possessors of Hayti. Venezuela was ceded to a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various

... encouraging him. Once having consciously decided that, she turned no more until she had reached the protection of the fountain in the middle of the Circus. There she stopped and glanced back. He was gone. In all the hundreds of human beings who mingled and churned like a swarm of ants upon an ant-hill, he was nowhere to be seen. With a genuine sigh of relief, she crossed over to the Piccadilly side and walked beside a Hammersmith 'bus, as if slowed gradually down to the regulated place where the ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... of peace, I was driven at first into the loft of the inn, of which the cottage was a dependency. Here the vocal music of the inhabitants was somewhat muffled, but the opportunities for studying natural history were rather excessive. A swarm of bees had established themselves in a corner where they could not be dislodged, and they had a way of crawling over the floor that kept my expectations constantly raised. The maize grown upon the small farm having been stored here from time immemorial, the rats had ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... confederation of self-governing republics and will seek the privilege of being admitted within its safe and happy bosom, transferring with themselves, by a peaceful and healthy process of incorporation, spacious regions of virgin and exuberant soil, which are destined to swarm with the fast growing and fast-spreading millions ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce

... and pendent, Apples of Hesperides! Not one missing, still transcendent, Clustering like a swarm of bees. Yielding to no man's desire, Glowing with a saffron fire, Splendid, unassailed, the ...
— A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass • Amy Lowell

... the present opportunity," I answered, and steering the boat closer in to the shore I observed that there were thousands and tens of thousands of the creatures hanging by their claws to the boughs in a most curious manner as thick as a swarm of bees. With a boat-hook we pulled off two or three, which falling inboard were picked up. They showed, however, no fear, nor did they make any attempt to escape, but licked our hands and appeared ...
— The Mate of the Lily - Notes from Harry Musgrave's Log Book • W. H. G. Kingston

... the' abyss, Spirit, that swell'd so proudly 'gainst his God, Not him, who headlong fell from Thebes. He fled, Nor utter'd more; and after him there came A centaur full of fury, shouting, "Where Where is the caitiff?" On Maremma's marsh Swarm not the serpent tribe, as on his haunch They swarm'd, to where the human face begins. Behind his head upon the shoulders lay, With open wings, a dragon breathing fire On whomsoe'er he met. To me my guide: "Cacus is ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... shrouded females, toned down by the sombre shabbiness of the Russian moujiks and peasant-women, and pierced by a vivid circular line of red fezzes on the unbared, unreverential heads of the Turkish regiment keeping order among the jostling jealousies of Christendom, whose rival churches swarm around the strange, glittering, candle-illumined Rotunda that covers the tomb of Christ. Not an inch of free space anywhere under this shadow of Golgotha: a perpetual sway to and fro of the human ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... towards Scipio. The latter, with his cavalry, had crossed the Ticino and was within five miles of Vercella, when Hannibal, also with his cavalry, came within sight. Scipio's front was covered with a swarm of foot skirmishers mixed with irregular Gaulish horsemen; the Roman cavalry and the cavalry of the Italian ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty

... doves or swallows, A muster of peacocks, A siege of herons, A building of rooks, A brood of grouse, A plump of wild fowl, A stand of plovers, A watch of nightingales, A clattering of choughs, A flock of geese, A herd or bunch of cattle, A bevy of quails, A cast of hawks, A trip of dottrell, A swarm of bees, A school of whales, A shoal of herrings, A herd of swine, A skulk of foxes, A pack of wolves, A drove of oxen, A sounder of hogs, A troop of monkeys, A pride of lions, A sleuth of ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs

... and I recovered my senses. Frequently, during my delerium and unconsciousness, I would feel my mouth pulled open, and hear a spoon chink against my teeth, and I would taste something bad going down my neck, and then my head would buzz as though a swarm of bees had taken up their abode where my brain used to be. Sometimes I would hear the clanking of a saber and a pair of Mexican spurs, and feel a great big hand on my head, and I knew that was Jim, but I couldn't move a muscle, or say a word. "I guess he's ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... granted pardon to the people of the city, Bonaparte will endeavour to strike some heavy blows at the Arabs. He knows how terribly they harassed him on his march here, and that wheresoever his troops may move, they will again swarm round him. He has overawed Cairo, and can safely leave a small garrison there if he marches away. And he may well seek to overawe the Arabs by making expeditions against their oases, which he can now easily do, as his cavalry are all mounted on Egyptian horses, capable of supporting ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty

... was enough. She shuffled on a shift and a petticoat, snatched a shawl, and tiptoed out. Annina, her bosom friend, had no troubles. She was half undressed, but she too slipped a shawl over her head and went peering into the alley. There she met Ippolita, and joined hands. Flaring torches, a swarm of eager black heads, whispers, grunting, the archers' plumed helmets—"Madonna! What's all this?" cried the two girls together in a stew of curiosity. A dead Jew? A murdered Jew? O Gesu! They borrowed a quattrino apiece from a neighbour and were richly rewarded. Ah, the blood, ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... by a quick trip to the grounds in one of the ancient hacks that seem to swarm in Hampton. If the starting field had been a scene of confusion the day before, it was a veritable chaos now. Smoke and the fumes of gasolene hung like a pall above it. Through the bluish cloud could be seen dim figures hurrying with ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham

... occurred a short time ago in Singapore harbor, on board the British steamer Antonio, which at the time was lying entirely outside the shipping in the roads. A swarm of wild bees from the shore suddenly located themselves directly under the sternpost of a boat lying above the deck, and all attempts to drive them away proved unavailing, the chief officer being very severely ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... accustomed than any live eel ever was to being skinned. The time consumed was but an hour and the pecuniary swindle trifling. But though the hour was early and there were few habitations in sight, there soon gathered around us a swarm of most importunate beggars—brown, withered old women spinning on distaffs held in the hand (a process I fancied the world had outgrown), and stopping every moment to hold out a dirty claw, with a most disgusting grimace and whine—"For the love of God, Signor"—with ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley

... far away now," Jack said, "and we ought to swarm down there and take him back with us. We ought to take the big lobster Jimmie seems to have on his mind back ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... reveals to the astonished senses a consciousness of the universality of life. In the oceanic depths, far exceeding the height of our loftiest mountain chains, every stratum of water is animated with polygastric sea-worms, Cyclidiae and Ophrydinae. The waters swarm with countless hosts of small luminiferous animalcules, Mammaria (of the order of Acalephae), Crustacea, Peridinea, and circling Nereides, which when attracted to the surface by peculiar meteorological conditions, convert every wave into a foaming ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt

... reserve, disappeared, leaving him the reckless wayward being we have more than once described. Even the men, whose vigilance had needed no quickening in running the gauntlet of the cruisers which were known to swarm in the narrower seas, appeared to breathe a freer air, and sounds of merriment and thoughtless gaiety were once more heard in a place over which the gloom of distrust had been so long and so ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper

... all those who frequent this place are not "innocents abroad." That is another evil resulting from this pandemonium. Blacklegs and adventurers of both sexes swarm here from all parts of Europe, demoralizing and degrading the lovely shores of the Mediterranean, by their vulgar and hateful presence. Thousands of invalids and others of all nations yearly visit the beautiful little towns along the Riviera, and this fatal trap at Monte Carlo, ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... mistake. It is not all woods and water. This mighty Baie des Chaleurs teems with fish. We filled our boats as we passed along; and did all Europe take to a fish diet that one bay could supply them. And the woods, Sieur! They swarm with animals. Mink, otter, beaver, fox, are as plentiful there as sheep and goats are with us, and as easily captured. There would be no trouble to get their skins, or time lost in hunting them either. The Indians would bring in pelts ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis

... unless under the influence of this peculiar music; and the constable, holding faithfully to the popular belief, rushed down his garden, "tanging" as though his life depended upon it, in the hopes that the soothing sound would induce the swarm to settle at once ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes

... boats' crews, without orders, were busy with their boats, some cutting up old blankets to muffle the oars, other making new grummets. The ship's company were as busy as bees, bustling and buzzing about the decks, and reminding you of the agitation which takes place in a hive previous to a swarm. At last, Osbaldistone came on deck, and ordered the boats' crews to be piped away, and prepare for service. He was to have the command of the expedition in the launch—I had charge of the first cutter—O'Farrell of the second, and Swinburne had the charge of the ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat

... Vera Cruz. If Ned himself had been aware of it, he might have changed his plans and ridden right in among his own friends. As it was, however, in less than three minutes he had cantered in among a swarm of angry Mexicans and glittering spear-points. Their state of discipline was witnessed to by the fact that the captain in nominal command of them had some difficulty in obtaining from them permission to ask his own questions of this newcomer. When at last he succeeded in doing so, ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard

... silence and like an automaton. That old man's chatter brought down around his head, like a swarm of pestering mosquitoes, all the provoking, irritating obligations of his life. He felt like a man rudely awakened by a tactless servant in the middle of a sweet dream. His lips were still tingling with Leonora's kisses! His whole body was aglow with her gentle warmth! And here was this ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... which appear in decaying organic matter were generated there by the decomposition of the substance, without the previous agency of individuals of the same stock. Every schoolboy is acquainted with Virgil's mode of obtaining a new swarm of bees from the decaying carcass of a heifer. Subsequent researches, made with more care, and perhaps with better instruments of observation, have entirely disproved the hypothesis, and show that the maggots were produced ...
— A Theory of Creation: A Review of 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation' • Francis Bowen

... some disgusting goo and key it to teen-agers as a group—that'd take care of them. Fay, doesn't it give you a rich warm kick to think of my midget missiles buzzing around in your tunnels, seeking out evil-doers, like a swarm of angry wasps or ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber

... that the streams now swarm with trout and grayling as they did when honest Isaac Walton sung their praises in quaint poetical prose, although they still twine and foam along their rocky beds all overhung with willows and tufted ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... me by lifting on the point of your dissecting knife this stinging sin of mine to which you refer? The noxious brood swarm so teasingly about my ears that they deprive me of your cool, clear, philosophic discrimination. Which particular Tenthredo of the buzzing swarm around my spoiled apple of life would you advise me to ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... also provision was made. The river about the city, above and below, was well protected by a flotilla of gun-boats improvised from the swarm of steamers which lay at the wharves. A storm of shot and shell, such as they had not dreamed of, would have played upon their advancing columns, while our regiments, pouring down from the fortifications, would have fallen upon their ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various

... moment the girl of Opar stood wide-eyed and staring. Then a look of hopeless misery suffused her eyes—tears welled into them, and with a little cry she sank to the cold floor, just as a swarm of frightful men dashed past her to leap ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Twickenham, who, not finding themselves received with enthusiasm, generally demanded compensation by way of damages, in addition to coach-hire there and back. Nor were these the only uninvited clients whom the advertisement produced. The swarm of begging-letter writers, who would seem to be always watching eagerly for any hook, however small, to hang a letter upon, wrote to say that having seen the advertisement, they were induced to apply with confidence ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... not listening. She had a burning wish to escape from the soft buzzing of the senora's words, which, a velvety, sting-infested swarm, whirred around her bee-like, seeking ...
— A Prairie Infanta • Eva Wilder Brodhead

... nothing to satisfy his deepest needs, and that only in turning his back on the world of people and flying to commune with God, nature, and himself, in solitude, can he attain the mystical peace he longs for. The social world which becomes an obsession to Trafford, his hero, is made to swarm about him through the inevitable net of marriage—although it is marriage to a fascinating woman whom he still loves. At first he had sacrificed his scientific ideal to the domestic and material needs. He had abandoned research in order ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... supposed it had fallen down with the boxes, having either been placed upon them or assisting to support them. It appeared, as far as I could judge, to be twelve or fourteen feet long, and was thick enough to enable me to swarm up it, and thus to serve the purpose of a ladder. I first tried to reach the roof of the large vault with it, but it was not long enough, though I lifted it as high as I could; and then carrying it in my hands went back to the recess, and, eager to ascertain the height, ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston

... promise—Buchner, among others, giving a detailed account of it. I have many a time lain in wait for the queen-bee's return, and I confess that I have never noticed any unusual emotion except in the case of a young queen who had gone forth at the head of a swarm, and represented the unique hope of a newly founded and still empty city. In that instance the workers were all wildly excited, and rushed to meet her. But as a rule they appear to forget her, even though the future of their city will often be no ...
— The Life of the Bee • Maurice Maeterlinck

... the Gates And Porches wide, but chief the spacious Hall (Though like a cover'd field, where Champions bold Wont ride in arm'd, and at the Soldans chair Defi'd the best of Panim chivalry To mortal combat or carreer with Lance) Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the air, Brusht with the hiss of russling wings. As Bees In spring time, when the Sun with Taurus rides, Poure forth thir populous youth about the Hive 770 In clusters; they among ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton

... so monotonous that Suma grew accustomed to it and did not notice its existence. But the chamber in the giant tree trunk remained dry and comfortable, a little world apart from its mournful surroundings. And scarcely had she entered upon her voluntary retirement when a swarm of craneflies took up its station at the entrance. These latter were slender, almost wasplike insects with lacy wings and long, thread-like legs, that whirled and danced with the mad joyousness of life, ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller

... swearing," he wrote the copyist in reference to the A minor Quartet. Elsewhere he complains about the carelessness of the publishers of his earlier quartets, which are "full of mistakes and errata great and small. They swarm like fish in ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... she thought, and she enjoyed the idea. Beverly's earnest manliness made her admire him greatly. It almost reconciled her to Octavie's silliness! He was so different from the swarm of social bees who sipped only the sweets of pleasure. He was a worker, a sincere worker, and his promised appointment to the diplomatic service, notwithstanding his youth, attested the fact that he was unusual. "He takes an interest in his country's welfare," thought Helene, "and does not ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein

... next day was spent in rowing around Lake Narsac. They did not linger around the north shore, for it was wild and uninviting, and they had no desire to make the acquaintance of the snakes said to swarm there. They spent two hours inspecting a large cove to the westward, and finally concluded that this spot offered the best place for a permanent camp. There was a sandy beach, where swimming would be good, plenty of the right kind of growth for firewood, and from the rocks some distance back gushed ...
— Young Hunters of the Lake • Ralph Bonehill

... extent to Kentucky. It must be confessed that a device better calculated to produce jealousy, suspicion, ill-will and hatred, could not have been contrived. It is further affirmed that this overture, offensive in itself, was made precisely at the time when a swarm of colonists from these United States, were covering the Mexican border with land-jobbing, and with slaves, introduced in defiance of Mexican laws, by which slavery had been abolished throughout the Republic. The war now raging in ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... Whether every squire that made his domain swarm with busy hands, like a bee-hive or ant-hill, would not serve his own interest, as well as that of ...
— The Querist • George Berkeley

... hall was almost filled when they entered. Bright fans on the wing looked like a swarm of gay butterflies. The subdued hush of conversation came from all parts of the room. Elizabeth looked about but could not ...
— Elizabeth Hobart at Exeter Hall • Jean K. Baird

... two years before my story began, Latkin's wife died: it is true, however, that she had for a long time been ill. His second daughter, a child of three years, became deaf and dumb one day from fright: a swarm of bees lit on her head. Latkin himself had a stroke of paralysis and fell into the most extreme misery. How he managed to scrape along at all, what he lived on, it was hard to imagine. He dwelt in a tumbledown hovel but a short distance from our ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... enable them to carry out their perfidious ends, whilst at the same time providing a profitable market for the produce of their manufacturers. Another manner in which they torment the Spaniards of Peru is by despatching a swarm of pirates to these seas. During the last war very rich prizes were captured by simple whaling vessels, and you can judge what attacks of this kind will be like when they are directed and sustained by the ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott

... anchorage, bathing, night-lines, and what-not, shall have what description is necessary as the story proceeds; but, so far as paying rent was concerned, we might equally well have pitched our tents on any one of a hundred others that clustered about us as thickly as a swarm ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... was to be seen, but only Simon Laidlaw's, with his timber caps and luggies; and the talk was, that meal would be half-a-crown the peck. The grief, however, of the business wasna visible till the Saturday—the wonted day for the poor to seek their meat—when the swarm of beggars that came forth was a sight truly calamitous. Many a decent auld woman that had patiently eiked out the slender thread of a weary life with her wheel, in privacy, her scant and want known only to her Maker, ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... reserved for the Emperor Henry of Luxembourg, from whom Dante expected so much, and who died before aught was accomplished. As Dante gazed, the hosts with wings of gold and faces of living flame, singing anthems, alternately sank into the Rose, like a swarm of bees sinking into summer flowers, and rose again to view the Divine splendor. Turning to question Beatrice again, Dante found in her place Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, an old man full of the tenderest pity, who pointed out to him Beatrice in her own place, the third round of the first rank. ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... certain of this, that I shall not stand by and see my daughter make a fool of a young man of undoubted integrity and of excellent prospects, for the sake of one of these foreign adventurers who swarm wherever foolish Englishwomen wake their appearance. I beg you will say nothing, but let me observe for myself, and leave the young people to come to an understanding ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold

... in the Lines, Dudley Norton, O.S.I., Deputy Commissioner, and ruler-in-chief of the station, fought him no less energetically in the bazaar and native city; an even more heart-breaking task. For here was no disciplined body of men, but a swarm of prejudiced individuals, caring nothing for infection, and everything for the sanctity of house and caste. Precautions and sanitary measures had to be carried at the point of the bayonet; and they were so carried. ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... the opportunities of Kensington Gardens—the Round Pond, the winding Serpentine, the mysterious seclusion of the Dutch brick Palace! Genii swarm there. One jostles possibilities. It is a land of romance, bounded on the north by the Abyss of Bayswater, and on the south by the Amphitheatre of the Albert Hall. But for a centre of adventure I choose the Long Walk; it beckoned me somewhat as the North-West Passage beckoned my seafaring ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... an aeroplane sailed serenely. There was a sense of life, motion and exhilaration abroad, but only for the first half hour of our journey. Then momentarily a depression grew up about us. Fields and trees were becoming dead, as if a swarm of locusts had eaten their way across them. Greenness was vanishing. Houses were becoming untenanted; there were holes in the walls of many of them, through which one gained glimpses of the sky. Here, by the road-side, we passed a cluster of insignificant graves. Then, almost ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson

... position infinitely superior to that of the king, whose realm was terribly exhausted by the long contest with England, a contest wherein one nation alone had felt the invader's foot. French prosperity had been nibbled off like green foliage before a swarm of locusts, and the whole north-eastern portion of France was in a sorry state of desolation by 1435. On the other hand, the territories covered by Burgundy as an overlord had greatly increased during the sixteen years that Philip had worn the title. An aggregation of duchies, counties, ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... make a splendid match. So she went on coquetting; and coquetting, rejecting and rejecting, till at length she arrived at an age when she could reject no longer. She ceased to be an object to matrimonial adventurers, but to these succeeded a swarm of female legacy-hunters. Among the most distinguished was her companion, Mrs. Ingoldsby, whose character she soon discovered to be artful and selfish in the extreme. This lady's flattery, therefore, lost all its power to charm, but yet it became necessary to Almeria; and even ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth

... coming in its place, and the nearest inn being twelve kilometres away, we slept on the boat under a tent, and were comfortable enough though it rained all night. Next morning we were under sail at seven, and had a delightful day. A curious thing about that night was a swarm of ephemerae so dense that it was like a blinding snowstorm. I could hardly see to steer for them; they hit my face like pelting rain. They fell on the deck, till it was covered an inch deep, and two inches deep in parts. Next morning Stephen, ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al

... stop to hear. He suddenly clapped his bonnet on his head and went out. He had an urgent errand on High Street, to buy grass and flower seeds and tools that would certainly be needed in April. It took him an hour or more of shrewd looking about for the best bargains, in a swarm of little barnacle and cellar shops, to spend a few of the kirk's shillings. When he found himself, to his disgust, looking at a nail studded collar for a little dog he called himself a "doited auld fule," and tramped back across ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson

... love any vegetable substance in fermentation, whether acetic or vinous. Hence it will abound about cider mills, swarm on preserves in the pantry, and in cellars or places where wine is being made or stored. The paper showed the tendency of the glucose in the over-ripe grape to the vinous ferment, and that the fly delighted in it. A singular accident showed how they loved even the very high spirits. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various

... had its flowering of bright people, and its multitude of motors to swarm after the Prince as he passed along the Drive, paused to review a company of English-Americans who had served in the war, and then continued on his way to the Yacht Club jetty, where he was to take boat to the Renown. Lying in deep water high up in ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton

... even four to the square inch. Even in the lagoon, where certain shell-fish seem to sicken, others (it is notorious) prosper exceedingly and make the riches of these islands. Fish, too, abound; the lagoon is a closed fish-pond, such as might rejoice the fancy of an abbot; sharks swarm there, and chiefly round the passages, to feast upon this plenty, and you would suppose that man had only to prepare his angle. Alas! it is not so. Of these painted fish that came in hordes about the entering Casco, some bore poisonous spines, and others were poisonous if eaten. The stranger ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... us suppose that Germany should triumph and that German emigration should swarm into the Caribbean countries, or into Brazil or some other country where there is already a large German colony—elated, triumphant Germans, not Germans disgusted by a disastrous war. Would Germany be likely to heed ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... that. Kielland could see a group of little wooden shacks that looked as though they were ready at a moment's notice to sink with a gurgle into the mud. Off to the right across a mud flat one of the dredges apparently had done just that: a swarm of men and natives were hard at work dragging it up again. Control Tower was to the left, balanced precariously at a slight tilt in ...
— The Native Soil • Alan Edward Nourse

... him swam some five feet off the street bed itself; at intervals the thick swarm on either side would part for a second, and Keith could glimpse the huge mound-buildings, ever growing larger, with round entrance holes dotted all over their smooth surface, above ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various

... that she might have to account for ten talents hereafter, instead of one, had often of late been a positive distress to her. There was also in her mind a secret disgust at the thought of the hungry creatures who would swarm round her if she should ever be in a position to bestow patronage. This had grown upon her as the habits of lonely life gave her more and more of that fastidious dislike to males in general, as such, which is not rare in maidens who have seen ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various

... I was never up-stairs in the house in my life," said Maria. Again she gazed away from Lily at the snow-covered hills. Her face wore an expression of forced patience. It really seemed to her as if she were stung by a swarm of platitudes ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... trim to the highest degree, and more adapted to a villa near London than the ancient seat of a great Baron. In a word, nothing except the numbers of unindustrious poor that swarm at the gate excites any one idea of its former circumstances.' Pennant's Scotland, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... accomplished. The other was gained; for the enemy, expecting another volcanic shower of tombstones and plough-coulters, and remembering the recent fate of their comrades on the bridge, had retired shuddering into the forts. Meantime, in the glare of these vast torches, a great swarm of gunboats and other vessels, skimming across the leaden-coloured waters, was seen gradually approaching the dyke. It was the fleet of Hohenlo and Justinus de Nassau, who had been sailing and rowing since ten o'clock of the preceding ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... maliciously. "When yonder moon becomes round it will be the night of sacrifice. Know you what will happen then?" he licked his thin lips greedily. "I may not be here to see, but it will be the same. Up that path of rocks will swarm all of my race, and what then can save you from the altar? How they will welcome the ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish

... this island. How will you feed them? How will you clothe them? How will you house them? They have given up butcher's meat; must they give up bread? And as for raiment and shelter, the rags of the kingdom are exhausted and your sinks and cellars already swarm like rabbit warrens. ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... treatises on the rearing of bees, and also one or two new patterns of hives, and proposed to rear my bees on the most approved model. I charged all the establishment to let me know when there was any indication of an emigrating spirit, that I might be ready to receive the new swarm ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... about the breast."—Id. "Children's minds are narrow and weak."—Id. "I would not have little children much tormented about punctilios, or niceties of breeding."—Id. "To fill his head with suitable ideas."—Id. "The Burgusdisciuses and the Scheiblers did not swarm in those days, as they do now."—Id. "To see the various ways ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... like a younger brother to Sarah, for he had boarded at Madame Torvestad's ever since his school days. His own home at Flekkefjord was not a happy one; his father drank, and there was a swarm of small children. ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland

... ready for new usefulness. It would be dreary for the great logs to see new verdure springing all around them, while they lay idly rotting or sprouting with uncouth funguses, not unsuspect of poison. But they will not be wasted. Lumbermen, foes to idleness and inutility, swarm again about their winter's trophies. They imprint certain cabalistic tokens of ownership on the logs,—crosses, xs, stars, crescents, alphabetical letters,—marks respected all along the rivers and lakes down to the boom where the sticks are garnered for market. The marked logs are ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... government existed, headed by a bishop appointed by the church authorities in Salt Lake, the then incumbent of this office being an excellent man, Bishop Stewart. I rode to the fort, where I found Clem and Beaman domiciled with their photographic outfit, with a swarm of children peeping through every chink and crevice of the logs to get a view of the "Gentiles," a kind of animal they had seldom seen. Every one was cordial. Beaman even offered me a drink made with sugar-water ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... impossible. Doubting how I should act, I stood watching the man with the swathed head whilst he threw the end of the ladder over the side, crept past the bow of the boat, and swung his gaunt body over the rail, exhibiting the agility of an ape. One quick glance fore and aft he gave, then began to swarm down the ladder; in which instant I knew ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... will. For this I wakened thee. And fair is he. See, from my window I can watch him come. He scales the ramparts like a hero born. This trumpet I will blow and wake the guards. Ho! warders of the gates and walls! to arms! A foe is near!... List to the clash of swords! How my deluded vassals swarm the walls To guard my castle and the maidens here— Bewitching creatures fashioned by my art! Behold! the guileless lad is not afraid! He fights with bold Sir Ferris, wrests a sword, And flashes it ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel

... years, of a chivalrous spirit which made him beloved of his soldiers. He had great personal courage, and, as says one who had often seen him, "when mounted on his favourite charger, made no more account of a squadron of Indians than of a swarm of flies." He was soon acclaimed as governor by the Spaniards, and was actually supreme in Peru. But in the following year, 1545, the Spanish government selected an envoy who was to bring the now ascendant star of Pizarro to eclipse. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... a dream, the dream of a prosperous comfortable man who had never come to the cutting edge of life. Everywhere cunning, everywhere small feuds and hatreds, distrusts, dishonesties, timidities, feebleness of purpose, dwarfish imaginations, swarm over the great and simple issues.... It is a war now like any other of the mobbing, many-aimed cataclysms that have shattered empires and devastated the world; it is a war without point, a war that has lost its soul, it ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... of bees in May Is worth a load of hay; A swarm of bees in June Is worth a silver spoon; A swarm of bees in July Is not worth ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens

... roughshod over the rights of the commoners, confound them! And I've closed the wood where the Fernworthy folk used to picnic. These infernal people seem to think that there are no rights of property, and that they can swarm where they like with their papers and their bottles. Both cases decided, Dr. Watson, and both in my favour. I haven't had such a day since I had Sir John Morland for trespass because he ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle

... all day trying to swarm the bees and secure my honey. The previous day had been February 29th, a date which doesn't often happen, and which I had especial reason to remember, for it had been the most successful of my business career. I had made a long guess at the shaky condition of the great ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass

... felt it was not that which these people needed. They did not pity themselves. They accepted their fate. It was the natural order of things. Otherwise, good heavens! otherwise they would swarm over the river in their multitude to the side where those great buildings were, secure and stately, and they would pillage, burn, and sack. But the day, tender and pale, had broken now, and the mist was tenuous; ...
— Of Human Bondage • W. Somerset Maugham

... and cupboard. In the morning they are given a pitcher of water, some thin soup, and a ration of army bread which they have to eat immediately, or it becomes the prey of the enormous water rats who swarm in those dreadful abodes. Usually the wretches condemned to The Wells are imprisoned there for life, and there have been prisoners who have attained a great age. A villain who died whilst I was under the Leads had passed thirty-seven years in The Wells, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... the people will follow," observed one of the burgomasters to the Margrave. "Let all the doors be closed, except the one out of which we go, and the people will swarm out ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston

... removed his cap. He began filling it with handfuls of wheat from his pockets. In a swarm the grain-eaters arose around him as a flock of tame pigeons. They perched on his arms and the cap, and in the stress of hunger, forgetting all caution, a brilliant cock cardinal and an equally gaudy jay fought for a perching-place ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter

... sets himself to penetrate into the midst of the dwelling, and with his strong claws hollows out a passage which enables him to gain access. On the way he pierces walls, breaks down floors, gathering here and there some fugitives, and arrives at last at the centre, in which millions of animals swarm. He then swallows them in large mouthfuls and retires, leaving behind him a desert and a ruin in the spot before occupied by a veritable palace, full ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay

... down than the creek abreast which the yacht was moored began to swarm with boats of all shapes and sizes, which came hurrying out to receive and transfer to the shore the cases of arms, ammunition, dynamite, lead, and supplies of all kinds which lay snugly stowed away beneath the floors of the ship's saloons; while the entire strength of the yacht's crew ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood

... gods. I had a fancy of roofs of pearl below, turrets of milk-white coral, pavements of rainbow lustre like to the shootings and dartings of the hues of shells inclined and trembled to the sun. I thought I could behold the movements of shapes as indeterminable as the forms which swarm in dreams, human brows crowned with gold, the cold round emerald eyes of fish, the creamy breasts of women, large outlines slowly floating upwards, making a deeper blackness upon the blackness like the dye of the electric storm upon the velvet bosom of midnight. Often would I shrink from side to ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... was firm. He had bought the doll house and paid for it. It was his, and in spite of the protests of the entire committee which gathered round him like a swarm of bees he took it away, and an hour later it was safely deposited in the Colonel's room without Amy's ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes

... nothing else! The scene would have grown tiresome had it not been for a swarm of butterflies of the most beautiful and brilliant colors. They flew here and there, now letting themselves be carried by the wind, now hovering about in search of the flowers hidden in the thick foliage.From time to ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini

... or twenty, and others with thirty, or even forty, ships of various sizes. Many of them had from twenty to thirty banks for rowers, with crews of 100 or 150 men. There were also great numbers of cutters with ten or fifteen banks, and from thirty to fifty men in each, besides a swarm of lesser craft, about the size of ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne

... that the freed people will swarm forth and cover the whole land. Are they not already in the land? Will liberation make them any more numerous? Equally distributed among the whites of the whole country; and there would be but one colored to seven ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... should have had the journey only for that, mother. 'Twas so unlikely a morning, I never thought to hear of a swarm to-day. I'll start at once, and you go home quietly. You're sadly out of breath. Where ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts

... weakness that I believe the bear always indulges whenever he can, no matter in what clime he be found, and that is a love for sweets, especially honey. He will dare the sharp bayonets of the most angry swarm of bees or climb the worst tree, if he feels at all certain that there will be honey after his pains. In some countries, he damages a great many telephone and telegraph poles and wires by climbing the poles in search of that swarm of bees, ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes

... A.M. lying on the ground among the plantain stems, having by a reckless movement fallen out of the house. Thanks be there are no mosquitoes. I don't know how I escaped the rats which swarm here, running about among the huts and the inhabitants in the evening, with a tameness shocking to see. I turned in again until six o'clock, when we started getting things ready to go up river again, carefully providing ourselves with a new stock of poles, and subsidising a native to come ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... people wend.* *weened, thought But evermore their moste wonder was How that it coulde go, and was of brass; It was of Faerie, as the people seem'd. Diverse folk diversely they deem'd; As many heads, as many wittes been. They murmured, as doth a swarm of been,* *bees And made skills* after their fantasies, *reasons Rehearsing of the olde poetries, And said that it was like the Pegasee,* *Pegasus The horse that hadde winges for to flee;* *fly Or else it was the Greeke's horse ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... failed, could any but Isaaco win passports with the mere honey of his tongue. Nothing could swerve him from honesty or the performance of his task. He was tied to a tree and flogged in the presence of his local wife, set upon by the very white men he was serving, stung all over by a swarm of bees, and mauled in both thighs by a crocodile; but each time he turned up smiling and ready to go on. Nothing could stop him, for did he not keep the solemn ritual of the guides, sacrificing a black ram at the threshold ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various

... them walked officers, looking foolish and fierce, and before them went little boys, turning somersaults in time with the band. The tramcar became entangled in their ranks, and moved on painfully, like a caterpillar in a swarm of ants. One of the little boys fell down, and some white bullocks came out of an archway. Indeed, if it had not been for the good advice of an old man who was selling button-hooks, the road might never ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... miscellany, collectanea^; museum, menagerie &c (store) 636; museology^. crowd, throng, group; flood, rush, deluge; rabble, mob, press, crush, cohue^, horde, body, tribe; crew, gang, knot, squad, band, party; swarm, shoal, school, covey, flock, herd, drove; atajo^; bunch, drive, force, mulada [U.S.]; remuda^; roundup [U.S.]; array, bevy, galaxy; corps, company, troop, troupe, task force; army, regiment &c (combatants) 726; host &c (multitude) 102; populousness. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... but Howard, Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh, and other noted captains, were ready to receive them. With their fast-sailing cruisers they sailed around the unwieldy Spanish warships, firing four shots to the enemy's one, and "harassing them as a swarm of wasps worry a bear." Several of the Spanish vessels were captured and one blown up. At last the commander sailed for Calais to repair damages and take a fresh start. The English followed. When night came on, Drake ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... big ore boats along the docks, gangs of big, brawny workmen strained and sweated, filling the iron buckets that traveled up the wire cables to the ore dumps. Others were trucking the ore to the furnaces, while a swarm of little switch engines panted and puffed back and forth over the ...
— Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts • Roy Rutherford Bailey

... joyous barking of Skye terriers. We have added a nursery wing already to one side of the house, and have balanced it on the other by a vinery, built after the model of those which adorn the mansion of my senior. The Misses Balderby have taken what they call a 'great fancy' to my wife, and they swarm over our drawing-room carpets in blue or pink flounces very often, on what they call 'social evenings for a little music.' I find that a little music is only a synonym with the Misses Balderby for a great ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... but not till after the false news of the mining of the battle-cruisers has been carried to Holland. But how shall we make certain that the sleepless English Navy will not butt in and catch the boat at sea before it gets across to Holland. The Narrow Seas swarm ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... and unanswerable questions, so blotted the face of the universe and withered the heart of hope, that he could not but doubt whether, in such a world of rogues and false women, it was worth his while to slay one villain out of the swarm. ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... meantime all the others, to whom he paid no more attention than as if they were not there, seeing absolutely nothing before him but the eyes of Chamu that were starting from his head, fell upon him all together in a body, like a swarm of bees, and stung him, as it were, to death, exactly as they chose, cutting him to pieces with swords and knives. But for all that they did, they could not loose his hands, which remained just as they were, locked like an iron ring around the throat to which they clung, as if his will ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown

... a unit in an army, drilled and kept under by the bureaucracy and the police. It surprises you to see an unmanageable crowd in a train or on a steamer, much as it would surprise you to see soldiers swarm at will into a troopship. You expect them to march precisely, each man to his place. And in Germany this nearly always happens in civil life; while even on a Sunday or a public holiday the mob behaves itself. ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... thus recalled The parting vessels. So when bees in swarm Desert their waxen cells, forget the hive Ceasing to cling together, and with wings Untrammelled seek the air, nor slothful light On thyme to taste its bitterness — then rings The Phrygian gong — at once they pause aloft Astonied; and ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... the waves. Now and then one would give the water a good round slap, the noise of which smote sharply upon the ear, like the crack of a pistol in an alley. It was a novel sight to watch them in their play, or labor, rather; for they were feeding upon the caplin, pretty little fishes that swarm along these shores at this particular season. We could track them beneath the surface about as well as upon it. In the sunshine, and in contrast with the fog, the sea was a very dark blue or deep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. VI.,October, 1860.—No. XXXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... away by that time, Rosemary McClean pressed on through the hot, dinning swarm of humanity, missing no opportunity to slip her pony through an opening, but trying, too, to seem unaware that she was followed. She chose narrow, winding ways, where the awnings almost met above the middle of the street, and where a cavalcade ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... unbiased Opinion that London consisted of a vast swarm of melancholy Members of the Middle and Lower Classes of the Animal Kingdom who ate Sponge Cake with Clinkers in it, drank Tea, smoked Pipes and rode by Bus, ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade

... forgives, the orders are seldom disobeyed. On the twenty-sixth of March, the appointed spot of Asomaton was covered with an active swarm of Turkish artificers; and the materials by sea and land were diligently transported from Europe and Asia. [15] The lime had been burnt in Cataphrygia; the timber was cut down in the woods of Heraclea and Nicomedia; and the stones were dug from the Anatolian quarries. Each of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... either side were full of stragglers, many of whom had dropped down on the wet ground and slept the sleep of complete exhaustion. Some, indeed, sick and helpless, died where they lay. Everything eatable and drinkable in Sezanne had vanished as a green field before a swarm of locusts when Marmont's division had come ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... cat: neither mouse nor chitmunk has dared intrude within our log-walls since she made her appearance; the very crickets, that used to distract us with their chirping from morning till night, have forsaken their old haunts. Besides the crickets, which often swarm so as to become intolerable nuisances, destroying your clothes and woollens, we are pestered by large black ants, that gallop about, eating up sugar preserves, cakes, anything nice they can gain access to; these insects are three times ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill

... and then give it to your wife." This affair of the ring had made him more intent than ever. After that he heard that Isabel Boncassen would also be at Killancodlem, having been induced to join Mrs. Montacute Jones's swarm of visitors. Though he was dangerously devoid of experience, still he felt that this was unfortunate. He intended to marry Mabel Grex. And he could assure himself that he thoroughly loved her. Nevertheless ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope

... settlers. The trees have been cut down, and the fresh, green forest converted into a dry, dusty street, cheered all through the hot afternoon by the dreary chirp of a grasshopper, or the buzz of countless millions of healthy flies that swarm around the very doors and surroundings of provision depots. Outside of this, in any direction one chooses to go, the scenery is attractive and beautiful; the trees are tall and thick and abundant, meeting overhead, and enclosing cool, shady avenues, which ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera

... mouth was all smiles, cried, "Lieber Gott! is it not good-life?" It was not a question Swithin could undertake to answer. The band began to play a waltz. "Now they will dance. Lieber Gott! and are the lights not wonderful?" Lamps were flickering beneath the trees like a swarm of fireflies. There was a hum as from a gigantic beehive. Passers-by lifted their faces, then vanished into the crowd; Rozsi stood gazing at them spellbound, as if their very going ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... to trade in Gani and Chopi, but were killed by the natives. I now assured Rumanika that in two or three years he would have a greater trade with Egypt than he ever could have with Zanzibar; for when I opened the road, all those men he heard of would swarm up here to visit him. He, however, only laughed at my folly in proposing to go to a place of which all I heard was merely that every stranger who went there was killed. He began to show a disinclination to allow my going there, and though from the most friendly intention, ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... the wheel down, Martin stopped the engine, and the Snark rounded to and the anchor rumbled down in three fathoms. Before we could catch our breaths a swarm of black Tannese was alongside and aboard—grinning, apelike creatures, with kinky hair and troubled eyes, wearing safety-pins and clay-pipes in their slitted ears: and as for the rest, wearing nothing behind and less than that before. And I don't mind telling that that night, when everybody was ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... came fiddling A dillar, a dollar As I was going to St. Ives As I was going up Pippen Hill A swarm of ...
— Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading - Selected from English and American Literature • Horace Elisha Scudder, editor

... sombreness in the lustre of the half-transparent dome covering the flat disc of an opaque sea. The ship moved so smoothly that her onward motion was imperceptible to the senses of men, as though she had been a crowded planet speeding through the dark spaces of ether behind the swarm of suns, in the appalling and calm solitudes awaiting the breath of future creations. 'Hot is no name for it down below,' said ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad

... this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm Like the wild bees heard in the tree-tops, or the gusts of a gathering storm; In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen, Yet we all say, "Whence is the message, and what ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman

... talked with great animation and success. He attacked Swift, as he used to do upon all occasions. The Tale of a Tub is so much superiour to his other writings, that one can hardly believe he was the authour of it[934]: 'there is in it such a vigour of mind, such a swarm of thoughts, so much of nature, and art, and life[935].' I wondered to hear him say of Gulliver's Travels, 'When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest.' I endeavoured to make a stand for Swift, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... no good to them, but the brutes could not help stealing them; so here we are, and the settlement is like a swarm of angry bees, and this plan of handing over most of their horses to the military will end in all of us being hunted down if we stay here. Two were shot yesterday, and in another week we shall all either be killed or caught. There is nothing for it but to ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... very often, is also washed; but I have not observed that St. Elizabeth has anything like the attention paid her that is given to St. Anne. What, however, is wanting here at Oropa in meat and drink is made up in Cupids; they swarm like flies on the walls, clouds, cornices, and ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler

... river we called Granville's River, and to the westward of it is a point, to which we gave the name of Ferrer's Point. From this point the land forms a large bay, and near it is a town of great extent, which seemed to swarm like a bee-hive: An incredible multitude came out of it as the ship passed by, holding something in their hands which looked like a wisp of green grass, with which they seemed to stroke each other, at the same time dancing, or running ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr

... branch from Pict-land did succeed, With troops of Scots and scabs from north of Tweed; The seven first years of his pacific reign, Made him and half his nation Englishmen. Scots from the northern frozen banks of Tay, With packs and plods came whigging all away, Thick as the locusts which in Egypt swarm'd, With pride and hungry hopes completely arm'd; With native truth, diseases, and no money, Plunder'd our Canaan of the milk and honey; Here they grew quickly lords and gentlemen, And all their race ...
— The True-Born Englishman - A Satire • Daniel Defoe

... view of the hunt, as it commanded a prospect of almost the entire wood, and even part of the sea. Attached to this scaffolding was a ladder, up which Bruin was anxiously trying to ascend, in order to visit the young ladies, who were now assailed by two dangers—the bear from below, and a swarm of bees above, for myriads of these insects were tormenting them, trying to settle upon their golden hair-nets; and the young ladies, screaming as if the last day had come, were vainly trying to beat them off with their girdles, or trample them under their feet. A huntsman ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... in the evening, for when I attempted to occupy myself in my apartments the lamplight brought in a swarm of noxious insects, and it was too hot for closed windows. Accordingly I spent the late hours either on the water (the moonlight of Venice is famous), or in the splendid square which serves as a vast forecourt to the strange old basilica of Saint Mark. I sat in front of Florian's ...
— The Aspern Papers • Henry James

... swarm of hungry Roaches was satisfied, and, according to Neale's report, the dinner went off very well indeed, save that his mother feared she would have to grease and roll Patrick Sarsfield before the fire to keep him from bursting, ...
— The Corner House Girls at School • Grace Brooks Hill

... on the look-out for you some time. Come in. I have been told the Gipsies are the worst folks in all the world.' The Gipsy had not been long in hell before the Devil perceived that he was too bad for his place, and the place began to swarm with young imps to such a degree that the Devil called the Gipsy to him one day, and said, 'Of all the people that have ever come to this place you are the worst. You are too bad for us. Here is your passport. Be off back again!' The Devil opened the door, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... the nautch-girls with the gods, which is generally accepted, cleanses them from every sin and makes them in every one's eyes irreproachable and infallible. A nautcha cannot sin, in spite of the crowd of the "celestial musicians" who swarm in every pagoda, in the form of baby-vestals and their little brothers. No virtuous Roman matron was ever so respected as the pretty little nautcha. This great reverence for the happy "brides of the gods" is especially striking in the purely native towns of Central India, where the population ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky

... winters in Baltimore and New York. He laughs when you ask him if he regrets slavery. Nothing would induce him to take care of one hundred and fifty men, women, and children, furnishing perhaps thirty able-bodied men, littering the house with a swarm of lazy servants, and making heavy drafts on the meat-house and corn-crib, and running ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... from falling, they had to hold fast to the iron posts supporting the ceiling. After their eyes had grown accustomed to the twilight always reigning in the steerage, they saw a swarm of human beings rolling on the floor, groaning, whimpering, wailing, shrieking. The weather did not permit of the opening of the port-holes, and the exhalations of about twenty Russian-Jewish families, with bag ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... sun in a vast swarm, every individual member of which pursues an orbit in accordance with the well-known laws of Kepler. In order to understand the movements of these objects, to account satisfactorily for their periodic recurrence, ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball

... of fish is one of the means by which nature aids their necessities. In the rainy season, all the creeks and ravines are full of water and fish. The very rice fields swarm with eels, shrimps, and a species of fish called dalag, which is about two palmos long and more than two inches thick. It is especially interesting for an European to see a crowd of people in the month of October on the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... with Mosquitoes one day, Said old Fox, "pray don't send them away, For a hungrier swarm Would work me more harm; I had rather the full ones ...
— The Baby's Own Aesop • Aesop and Walter Crane

... none of the redskins with 'em, and there'll be no great difficulty in finding out all about 'em. Besides, we've got Jake with us, and jest about here Jake can do better nor we can. Niggers swarm all over the country and are as ready to work for one side as the other, jest as their masters go. All Jake has got to do is to dress himself as a plantation nigger and stroll into their camp. No question will be asked him, as he will naturally ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty

... As the swarthy swarm approached, it spread out until it covered the front of the train and overlapped its flanks, ready to sweep completely around it and fasten upon any point which should seem feebly or timorously defended. The first man endangered was the lonely officer who sat his horse in front of the line ...
— Overland • John William De Forest



Words linked to "Swarm" :   crowd, hum, pour out, insect, crowd together, spill out, seethe, group, grouping, crawl, spill over, infestation, buzz, plague



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