"Dorsal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... believe, is undescribed: it is certainly not the one (Caretta imbricata) producing the greater part of the tortoise-shell of commerce, and which is not rare in Torres Strait, distinguished by having the posterior angle of each dorsal plate projecting, so as to give a serrated appearance to the margin of the carapace which, in the present species is quite smooth. The green turtle averaged 350 pounds each, and the hawksbills about 250 pounds. Although a strong prejudice existed against the hawksbill as an article of food, ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... and the Opossum, the Tiger and the Badger, the Tapir and the Rhinoceros, are respectively members of the same orders. These successive pairs of animals may, and some do, differ from one another immensely, in such matters as the proportions and structure of their limbs; the number of their dorsal and lumbar vertebrae; the adaptation of their frames to climbing, leaping, or running; the number and form of their teeth; and the characters of their skulls and of the contained brain. But, with all these differences, they are ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley
... mind, rather more doleful than the street. It was dark, it was dusty, and cobwebs hung from every corner. The few chairs upon the floor and the books upon a greasy table seemed to be afflicted with some dorsal epidemic, for their backs were either gone or broken. A little bedstead in the corner was covered with a spread made of New York Heralds, with their ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... the process is about as follows: Before skinning lay it flat on one side on a piece of soft wood board of the proper thickness and mark out its outline. Though only one side of the mounted fish shows, a little more than precisely one half is preserved in order to include the tail, the vertical and dorsal fins and also to give ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... below. You think, if you are accustomed to less experienced fish, that all is well. You throw your flies, two or three, a yard above the ripple, and wait to strike. But the ripples instantly cease, and on the surface of the water you see the long thin track of a broad back and huge dorsal fin. The trout has been, not frightened—he is in no hurry—but disgusted by your clumsy cast, which would readily have taken in a sea-trout or a loch-trout. They of Kennet and Test know a good deal better than to approach your wet flies. A few minutes ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... up all my courage, and being tired of holding on by the spar, resolved to mount upon his back, which I accomplished without difficulty, and I found the seat on his shoulders before the dorsal fin, not only secure but very comfortable. The animal, unaccustomed to carry weight, made several attempts to get rid of me, but not being able to sink I retained my seat. He then increased his velocity, and we ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... dorsal fin, and a brown back and white belly. On came the whale and the fish, twisting and turning as before. We all stood ready to try and send them off—though very little use that would have been, I own. Happily they floundered ...
— Old Jack • W.H.G. Kingston
... well. For half a mile beyond the grey Church and Vicarage of Bleakirk it extends, forming the northern arm of the small fishing-bay, and protecting it from the full set of the tides. Towards its end it breaks away sharply, and terminates in a dorsal ridge of slate-coloured rock that runs out for some two hundred feet between the sands we call the Twin Brothers. Of these, that to the south, and inside the bay, is motionless, and bears the name of ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which is a city quite peculiar in its appearance. One wide street runs the length of the town, with which narrow cross streets are connected, like the smaller bones with the dorsal vertebrae of a fish. There are handsome modern houses, which, as usual, have not the slightest character. But the more modest dwellings have a local stamp; they are one-story buildings, very low—not over seven or eight feet in height—capped ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... dorsal surface of the lungs of the ox, reduced to one-twelfth of the natural size: a, a', the right and left principal lobes. These are the largest and are situated posteriorly, resting upon the diaphragm; b, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... embryo their former position. But it is conceivable that the now utterly lost branchiae might have been gradually worked in by natural selection for some quite distinct purpose: in the same manner as, on the view entertained by some naturalists that the branchiae and dorsal scales of Annelids are homologous with the wings and wing-covers of insects, it is probable that organs which at a very ancient period served for respiration have been actually ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... relieves pain, as a tenet, is as old as the "back- straightening" process used in some shires by the British turnip-hoers who on coming to the end of their rows lie down and let the rest of the women in the field walk over their toil-bent spine and cramped dorsal muscles, while as a fact it is as ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... name given to a whale which has a dorsal fin. A Finner whale commonly measures from 60 to 90 feet ...
— Autobiography and Selected Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... discovered these, the police dammed the stream and pumped the pond dry, but no other bones were found; which is rather odd, as there should have been a pair of ribs belonging to the upper vertebra—the twelfth dorsal vertebra. It suggests some curious questions as to the method of dismemberment; but I mustn't go into unpleasant details. The point is that the cavity of the right hip-joint showed a patch of eburnation ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... flat, oily sea as it was then! So transparent that we saw great fish swimming about, full fathom five under us. A monstrous shark drifted lazily past, his dorsal fin now and then cutting the surface like a knife and glistening like polished steel, his brace of pilot-fish darting hither and thither, striped like ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... and the tropic bird comes near enough to let you have a fair view of the long feathers in his tail. On the line, when it is calm, sharks of a tremendous size make their appearance. They are descried from the ship by means of the dorsal fin, ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... and badly nourished, and the muscular system especially poorly developed and very lax in tone. The most striking feature is the extreme lordosis, accompanied usually by a secondary and compensatory curve in the cervico-dorsal region, so that the shoulders are rounded, with the head poked forward. Viewed from in front the abdomen is seen to be prominent, overhanging the symphysis pubis, while the shoulders have receded ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... bottom, and the stream is quick and clear, conditions such as this famous fish, described by Dr. Fleming as the "grey salmon," has a liking for. It has grey longitudinal lines—hence its name—and a violet-coloured dorsal fin barred with brown; it is best in the winter and early spring months, and spawns in those of April and May. The French, who denounce the chub as "un villain," pronounce the grayling "un chevalier." And Gesner says, that in his country, which is Switzerland, ...
— Handbook to the Severn Valley Railway - Illustrative and Descriptive of Places along the Line from - Worcester to Shrewsbury • J. Randall
... coming toward the swimmer like an arrow at its mark, was a great black dorsal fin which bespoke the presence of the pirate ...
— Baseball Joe Around the World - Pitching on a Grand Tour • Lester Chadwick
... term for boat or vessel. Also a broad-bodied thoracic fish, with a small head, and distinguished by its large triangular dorsal and anal fins, which exceed the length of the body. It is the Chaetodon ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... these spaces, or flues, are enclosed either by lath and plaster, or by smooth boards, quite to the highest part of the roof, whether your rooms are finished to the top or not,—and provided with an abundant outlet at the top. This may also be as simple as the dorsal breathing-holes of a tobacco barn, gorgeously imposing as an Oriental pinnacle, or it may be a part of the chimney; only let it be at the very summit, ample, and so arranged that an adverse wind shall not prevent the egress of the rising currents of air. Mind this, too; it is by no ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... abounds to such a degree, that, as they are not much esteemed, I have known them sold at thirty for a penny. It keeps near the bottom commonly, at no great distance from land; but sometimes multitudes will mount together to the surface; and move along with the first dorsal fin above the water: they will even quit their native element, and spring to the distance of a yard; thus imitating the flying gurnard, though not to the same extent. In summer they are found basking in the sun, perhaps asleep, as they will at times display no signs of animation, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... position—that of the typical bicycle "scorcher,"—making each particular vertebra stand out sharply under the tight drawn skin. Dr. Jonnesco quickly ran his finger along the protuberances, and finally selected the space between the twelfth dorsal and the first lumbar vertebrae—in other words, the space just above the small of the back. He then took an ordinary hypodermic needle, and slowly pushed it through the skin and tissues until it entered the small opening between the lower and upper vertebrae, ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... across the petals and a foot across the dorsal sepal!" said the young man in a kind of gasp, "and a Cypripedium! ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... of the formation of the enteron is seen in the very early embryo shown, from the dorsal aspect, in figure 1. The medullary folds and notochord are evident at this stage, but no mesoblastic somites are to ...
— Development of the Digestive Canal of the American Alligator • Albert M. Reese
... days' incubation inject that amount of the culture corresponding to 1 per cent. of the body-weight of a healthy frog, into the reptile's dorsal ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... its course, a bidarka was heading in for the beach. Its occupant was paddling with more strength than dexterity, and made his approach along the zigzag line of most resistance. Koogah's head dropped to his work again, and on the ivory tusk between his knees he scratched the dorsal fin of a fish the like of which never ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... submerged banks, for which purpose the upper lip is very large, thick, and as it turns down suddenly at right angles with the head, it much resembles an elephant's trunk shorn off at the mouth. Its length averages from eight to fourteen feet; there is no dorsal fin, and the tail is horizontal; colour blue, and white beneath. Its means of propulsion are two paddles, with which it also crawls along the bottom, and beneath which are situated the udders, with teats exactly like a cow's. Its flesh is far from bad, resembling ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... stages, and this, it is well known, is not the case. Moreover, the fact established by me ("Die Hautfarbe des Menschen", "Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien", Vol. XXXIV. pages 331-352.), that in all races the ventral side of the trunk is paler than the dorsal side, and the inner surface of the extremities paler than the outer side, cannot be explained by sexual selection ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... aged 18 years, single, a native of Switzerland, was admitted to the Santa Clara County Hospital with incipient spinal disease. He was of that peculiar temperament which indicates a scrofulous cachexia. The fifth dorsal vertebra was sufficiently prominent to indicate the sight where the attack was being made by the enemy. There was considerable tenderness on pressure; slightly accelerated pulse, and elevated temperature;—in other words, ...
— Report on Surgery to the Santa Clara County Medical Society • Joseph Bradford Cox
... pertinacious enemy still maintained his hold, and was evidently getting the advantage of him. Much alarm seemed to be felt by the many other whales around. These "killers," as they are called, are of a brownish colour on the back, and white on the belly, with a long dorsal fin. Such was the turbulence with which they passed, that a good view could not be had of them to make out more nearly the description. These fish attack a whale in the same way as dogs bait a bull, and worry him to death. They are armed with strong sharp teeth, and generally seize the ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... what Sims or Bateman ever imagined weirder caricature than the grotesque larva of the Oniticella, with its extravagant dorsal hump; or the fantastic and alarming silhouette of the Empusa, with its scaly belly raised crozierwise and mounted on four long stilts, its pointed face, turned-up moustaches, great prominent eyes, and a "stupendous mitre": the most grotesque, the most fantastic freaks ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... behind the hummocks, and then fired. The walrus rolled over, still full of strength; he crushed the ice in his attempts to get away; but Altamont attacked him with his hatchet, and succeeded in cutting his dorsal fins. The walrus made a desperate resistance; new shots finished him, and he remained stretched lifeless on the ice-field stained with his blood. He was a good-sized animal, being nearly fifteen feet long from his muzzle to the end of his tail, and he would certainly ...
— The Voyages and Adventures of Captain Hatteras • Jules Verne
... the wild ass (Equus Onager, Khar-gadh, in Pers. Gor-khar) still breeds. This would explain the "stallions of the sea" and we find traces of the ass blood in the true Kathiawar horse, with his dun colour, barred legs and dorsal stripe. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... Aunt Rachel," said Jack, penitently, eyeing his aunt, who was rocking to and fro in her chair. "Besides, I hurt myself like thunder," rubbing vigorously the lower part of the dorsal-region. ...
— Timothy Crump's Ward - A Story of American Life • Horatio Alger
... and elsewhere, to the present day. But for its large size—it grows to a length of eleven inches—it is a nearly exact image of the British newt larvae. It has the same moderately long, plump body, with a low dorsal crest, the continuation of the membrane bordering the strongly compressed tail; a large thick head with small eyes without lids and with a large pendent upper lip; two pairs of well-developed limbs, with free digits; ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... a finer development, as a rule, than the white woman. We may, in part, discover the cause for this in the prevalence of the custom, already alluded to, of the mother carrying her offspring on her back, which, with its not undue strain on the dorsal muscles, no doubt, promotes and conserves muscular strength. The Indian woman being commonly a wife and mother before a really full maturity has been reached, or any absolute unyieldingness of form been contracted, ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... caterpillars, is longitudinal, a little to one side of the dorsal and between it and the ...
— Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology • John. B. Smith
... mortification. In the second place, he rejoiced in the full complement of limbs; he was whole and sound, had no mote in his eyes, no false hair, no artificial calves; he was neither knock-kneed nor bandy-legged, his dorsal column was straight, his waist slender, his hands white and shapely. His hair was black; he was of a complexion neither too pink, like a grocer's assistant, nor yet too brown, like a Calabrese. Finally, and this is an essential point, Beaudenord ...
— The Firm of Nucingen • Honore de Balzac
... — N. rear, back, posteriority; rear rank, rear guard; background, hinterland. occiput [Anat.], nape, chine; heels; tail, rump, croup, buttock, posteriors, backside scut^, breech, dorsum, loin; dorsal region, lumbar region; hind quarters; aitchbone^; natch, natch bone. stern, poop, afterpart^, heelpiece^, crupper. wake; train &c (sequence) 281. reverse; other side of the shield. V. be behind &c adv.; fall astern; bend backwards; bring up the rear. Adj. back, rear; hind, hinder, hindmost, hindermost^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... overlook a fracture—for example, if there is no displacement, or if the line of fracture is crossed by the shadow of an adjacent bone. In deeply placed bones such as those about the hip, or in bones related to dense, solid viscera—for example, ribs, sternum, or dorsal vertebrae—it is sometimes difficult to obtain conclusive evidence of fracture ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... a new and creative shaping to multitudinous generations of animal life. Nature yields to its suggestion and leading, and co- works, with all her best and busiest activities, to realise the human ideal; to put muscle there, to straighten that vertebra, to parallel more perfectly those dorsal and ventral lines, to lengthen or shorten those bones; to flesh the leg only to such a joint, and wool or unwool it below; to horn or unhorn the head, to blacken or blanch the face, to put on the whole body a ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... follow embolism or any mechanical obstruction, either purposely or accidentally applied. Of the latter he gives a number of quoted instances; he only admits seeing one case, that of an aged man in the Pennsylvania Hospital, in whom the disease was caused by embolism of the dorsal artery. ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... word of Russian origin, signifying white. The Beluga (Delphinapterus leucas), is a real whale with its most striking characteristic the white, or rather cream-coloured, skin described by some writers as very beautiful. Like the narwhal it has no dorsal fin. Though the smallest member of the whale family it is sometimes more than twenty feet long; but usually ranges from thirteen to sixteen feet. The young are bluish black in colour and may be seen swimming beside their mother who feeds them with a very ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... through almost every shade of colour, to the emerald-like eye-specks of the pecten, and the still more rudimentary red eye-specks of the star-fish. After examining the eyes, I next laid open, in all its length, from the neck to the point of the sack, the dorsal bone of the creature—its internal shell, I should rather say, for bone it has none. The form of the shell in this species is that of a feather, equally developed in the web on both sides. It gives rigidity to the body, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... which have a narrow black stripe down the back he selected for a narrower stripe in one direction and for a broader stripe in the other. As the diagram shows (fig. 88) Castle has succeeded in producing in one direction a race in which the dorsal stripe has disappeared and in the other direction a race in which the black has extended over the back and sides, leaving only a white mark on the belly. Neither of these extremes occurs, he believes, in the ordinary hooded race of domesticated rats. In other words no matter how many of them ...
— A Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Thomas Hunt Morgan
... the science of man's origin in illustration of this important distinction, I may instance the following processes in the embryology of man, and of all the higher vertebrates, as palingenetic: the formation of the two primary germinal layers and of the primitive gut, the undivided structure of the dorsal nerve-tube, the appearance of a simple axial rod between the medullary tube and the gut, the temporary formation of the gill-clefts and arches, the primitive kidneys, and so on.* (* All these, and the following structures, will be fully described in later chapters.—Translator.) All these, ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... continuous current from the storage-batteries of the cab below. Doctor, hold his mouth open. So. Now, have you a pair of forceps handy? Good. Can you catch hold of the tip of his tongue? There. Do just as I tell you. I apply this cathode to his skin in the dorsal region; under the back of the neck, and this anode in the lumbar region at the base of the spine—just pieces of cotton soaked in salt solution and covering the metal electrodes, to give me a good ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... which have now come upon the scene for the first time, or which have now a special development, are Spirifera and Pentamerus. In the first of these (fig. 69. b, c), one of the valves of the shell (the dorsal) is furnished in its interior with a pair of great calcareous spires, which served for the support of the long and fringed fleshy processes or "arms" which were attached to the sides of the mouth.[16] In the genus Pentamerus (fig. 70) the shell ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... the lower extremities will be efficiently forced into the general circulation. After from three to five minutes of this faradization, the surface board may be successively applied for a minute or two each to the arms, abdomen, pectoral and dorsal muscles. I believe the best results can be obtained by first going through the faradic process, then subjecting the patient to general galvanization, as above indicated, and concluding by another ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... trident and a fall beard. He loves the sea, the lone, blue sea, and those who have seen him turning handsprings on a sponge lawn, or riding in his water-tight chariot with his feet over the dash-board, beside a slim young mermaid with Paris green hair, and dressed in a tight-fitting, low-neck dorsal fin, say he is a ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... every meal," urged X-Ray Tyson, "or we'll all be sprouting gills and dorsal fins and scales. Once a day after this ought to satisfy the trout hunger. Now it seems to me that's a bully good fire ...
— Phil Bradley's Mountain Boys - The Birch Bark Lodge • Silas K. Boone
... The two latter are more substantial, are hollowed out like the sides of a groove and, when uniting, form a complete groove in which the filament is sheathed. This bivalvular scabbard adheres loosely to the dorsal part; but, farther on, at the tip of the abdomen and under the belly, it can no longer be detached, as its valves are welded to the abdominal wall. Here, therefore, we find, between the two joined protecting parts, a simple trench in which the filament lies covered ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... all disguise, bounded towards the pool, which was about a foot square, and plunged in. No mortal blenny could witness this unwarrantable invasion of its hearth and home without being stirred to indignant wrath. With eyes that seemed to flash fire, and dorsal fin bristling up with rage, Little Blenny made five tremendous leaps of full three inches each, and disappeared. Another moment and a miniature storm ruffled the pool: for a few seconds the heavings of the deep were awful; then, out jumped Big Blenny and tried to flee, but ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... bidding the girl farewell, was wrought to aching thoughts and quivering lips. But his sorrow was not for Izz. That evening he was within a feather-weight's turn of abandoning his road to the nearest station, and driving across that elevated dorsal line of South Wessex which divided him from his Tess's home. It was neither a contempt for her nature, nor the probable state of ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... thing to do is to discover what the Arabs are afraid of. And very little investigation will reveal the simple truth that they are very much afraid of sharks; and that in their book of symbolic or heraldic zoology it is the Jew who is adorned with the dorsal fin and the crescent of cruel teeth. This may be a fairy-tale about a fabulous animal; but it is one which all sorts of races believe, and certainly one ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... the thorax, one on the abdomen, two on the thighs, one near the patella; turn, please." Alfred turned in the water. "A slight dorsal abrasion; also of the wrists; a severe excoriation of the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... last ring, at the tip of the abdomen, on the dorsal surface. If your capture be an Halictus, there will be here a smooth and shiny line, a narrow groove along which the sting slides up and down when the insect is on the defensive. This slide for the unsheathed weapon denotes some member of the Halictus tribe, without ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... brown, darker along the dorsal line; nose, upper lip, and forehead, with two inches of the end of the tail black-brown; mere edge of upper lip and whole of lower jaw hoary; a short longitudinal white stripe occasionally on the front of the neck, and some ...
— Natural History of the Mammalia of India and Ceylon • Robert A. Sterndale
... few whimpers would suffice to explain—they would come to a halt at once,—they would gather around him, and assist both with hoofs and teeth to get "shed" of the ugly two-legged thing that clung so tightly to his dorsal vertebras. ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... of Captain Poke relieved my mind considerably; and laying aside the bison-skin, I asked him to have the goodness to examine the localities, with some particularity, about the termination of the dorsal bone, in order to ascertain if there were any encouraging signs to be discovered. Captain Poke put on his spectacles, for time had brought the worthy mariner to their use, as he said, "whenever he had occasion to read fine print"; ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a fish of the family Gadidae, which differs from the ling in the dorsal and anal fins reaching the caudal, and in the small size of all the teeth. It exceeds a length of 3 ft. and is a freshwater fish, although examples are exceptionally taken in British estuaries and in the Baltic; some specimens ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... the surface, looked around him, saw young Jesse W. just coming up and shouting for help while he swam, and then, not far behind, what had caused him to take the knife with him, the sharp dorsal fin of a good-sized shark moving rapidly ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... natural curvatures of the spinal column diminish the shock produced by falling, running or leaping, which would otherwise be more directly transmitted to the brain. The ribs at the sides, the sternum in front, and the twelve dorsal bones of the spinal column behind, bound the thoracic cavity, which contains the lungs, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... lily-pads, and would harmonize admirably with the eel in the pies and other gross preparations which delight the British palate. He hath, moreover, a John Bull-like air in his broad and burly shape, his smooth and unscaly superficies and the noli-me-tangere character of his dorsal fin. Pity he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... He extended his observations to the effects of grape sugar, and obtained the same results. He found that he could induce the cataractic condition invariably by this experiment, or by injecting a solution of sugar with a fine needle, subcutaneously, into the dorsal sac of the frog. The discovery was one of singular importance in the history of medical science, and explained immediately a number of obscure phenomena. The co-existence of the two diseases, diabetes and cataract, in man had been observed by France, Cohen, Hasner, Mackenzie, Duncan, ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... and simmering surface which had been frothed up by the descent of the vessels; the next moment it turned over and gave us a view of its whole length—a sixty to seventy-foot whale, if the carcass was an inch, with here and there the black scythe-like dorsal fin of a shark ...
— The Honour of the Flag • W. Clark Russell
... those of most flowers, around one main vertical axis; it was thus radiate in structure, having neither front nor rear, right nor left side. But our little turbellaria, while still without a head, has one end which goes first and can be called the front end. The upper or dorsal surface is usually more colored with pigment cells than the lower or ventral surface, on which is the mouth. It has also a right and left ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... us; but assuming they know more about the city than we, this does not exercise us much. They rattle us along over unevenly paved streets, and whiz us around corners with the rapidity of thought; an uncomfortable sensation in the region of the dorsal vertebrae, resulting from the unusual bumping process, and a fear lest, haply, we may be flying out of our carriage at a tangent into somebody's shop front, a pleasing reflection should we ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... but, failing this, had actually settled on snow-drifts, where they presented a peculiar sight, as the heat of their bodies having caused them to sink in the snow, their heads alone were visible above the surface. One bird was observed carrying an egg on the dorsal surface of his feet as the Emperor penguins do. Feathers were scattered broadcast around each rookery. These result from the numerous fights which occur and are also partly derived from the bare patch of skin at the lower part of the abdomen which provides the ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... irritation downward and backward over the region of the shoulder. These are superficial lymphatics, and are swollen and painful to the touch. In a day or two a swelling is noticed on one or both sides of the dorsal vertebrae, which is hot, painful, and rapidly enlarging. The stiffness of the limbs may disappear at this time, and the heat and soreness of the parts may become less noticeable, but the swelling remains and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... introductions—a long and tedious process, which she performed relentlessly, without haste and without scamping her work. With each member of the aristocracy of his new profession Ashe shook hands, and on each member he smiled, until his facial and dorsal muscles were like to crack under the strain. It was amazing that so many high-class domestics could be ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... Aplysia is very common. This sea-slug is about five inches long; and is of a dirty yellowish colour, veined with purple. On each side of the lower surface, or foot, there is a broad membrane, which appears sometimes to act as a ventilator, in causing a current of water to flow over the dorsal branchiae or lungs. It feeds on the delicate seaweeds which grow among the stones in muddy and shallow water; and I found in its stomach several small pebbles, as in the gizzard of a bird. This slug, ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... travel across that endless plain, which was forever the same, he saw before him a chain of mountains very high and blue, with white summits, which reminded him of the Alps, and gave him the feeling of having drawn near to his own country once more. They were the Andes, the dorsal spine of the American continent, that immense chain which extends from Tierra del Fuego to the glacial sea of the Arctic pole, through a hundred and ten degrees of latitude. And he was also comforted by the fact that the air seemed to him to grow constantly warmer; ...
— Cuore (Heart) - An Italian Schoolboy's Journal • Edmondo De Amicis
... supporting spines that seemed to terminate in retractile claws. In the water, these fins would undoubtedly be of tremendous value in swimming and in fighting, but on land they seemed rather useless. Aside from a rudimentary dorsal fin, a series of black, stubby spines, connected by a barely visible webbing, the thing had no other external evidences of its ...
— The Terror from the Depths • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... below. This body-cavity contains the viscera, breathing organs, and heart, with its prolongations into the main blood-vessels of the organism. Lastly, on either side of the central axis are to be found large masses of muscle—two on the dorsal and two on the ventral. As yet, however, there are no limbs, nor even any bony skeleton, for the primitive vertebral column is hitherto unossified cartilage. This ideal animal, therefore, is to all ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... lamp of the end segment. This luminous aspect of the stern is characteristic of the entire Glow-worm tribe, independently of sex and season. It appears upon the budding grub and continues throughout life unchanged. And we must not forget to add that it is visible on the dorsal as well as on the ventral surface, whereas the two large belts peculiar to the female shine ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... immensity of ocean, and to effect circulation in the cockchafer's few drops of blood. In the latter we find the moving agent to be a long tube, which runs the whole length of the back, and is called the dorsal vessel (from the Latin dorsum, back). I told you that the cockchafer had no heart under his cuirass, but I spoke too hastily. The dorsal vessel is a true heart, but a heart devoid of veins or arteries, and thrown into the midst of the blood. It dilates and ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... beginning to think about the matter. When asked, not long before his death, how it was that he had first thought of starting his extensive Car establishment, he answered, "It grew out of my back!" It was the hundred weight of pictures on his dorsal muscles that stimulated his thinking faculties. But the time for starting his great ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... day wonderful effects of clouds in filaments, one group stretching along the sky in an arc from north to east like the dorsal bone and ribs of ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Whale or Ka-Kow-in has a large dorsal fin shown in a conventional manner in the pictograph between the Thunder Bird and the face of the Indian girl, sister to Shewish. The Killer Whale was often used as a family emblem or crest and as a source from which personal names ...
— Indian Legends of Vancouver Island • Alfred Carmichael
... cord in man extends only as far downwards as the last dorsal or first lumbar vertebra; but a thread-like structure (the filum terminale) runs down the axis of the sacral part of the spinal canal, and even along the back of the coccygeal bones. The upper part of this filament, as Prof. Turner informs me, is undoubtedly homologous ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... inferiorly, to the spinous processes of the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth dorsal vertebrae, and superiorly to the transverse processes of the first two or three ...
— Assimilative Memory - or, How to Attend and Never Forget • Marcus Dwight Larrowe (AKA Prof. A. Loisette)
... upwards, he carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in almost all latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose. When not more profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena whale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... and much sea. We had numerous birds hovering round the ship; principally fulmars (procellaria glacialis,) and shearwaters, (procellaria puffinus,) and not unfrequently saw shoals of grampusses sporting about, which the Greenland seamen term finners from their large dorsal fin. Some porpoises occasionally appeared, and whenever they did, the crew were sanguine in their expectation of having a speedy change in the wind, which had been so vexatiously contrary, but they ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... scramble. Her father and mother, who are no more than her chief ministers, walk before her out of the saloon, and then she—swims after them. But swimming is not the proper word. Fishes, in making their way through the water, assist, or rather impede, their motion with no dorsal wriggle. No animal taught to move directly by its Creator adopts a gait so useless, and at the same time so graceless. Many women, having received their lessons in walking from a less eligible instructor, ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... speculator have had precedence. Fortunes built on slaves and rum and cotton have brought more honor than those made in groceries and dry goods. Odd snobbery of trade! But in that broad, middle ground of the country, its great dorsal column, the merchant found his field, after the War, to develop and civilize. The character of those pioneers in trade, men from Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, was such as to make them leaders. They were brave and unselfish, faithful, and trusting ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... several minutes at a time. The effect of this second act, by injuring the cerebroid ganglia, is to render impossible the return of action; moreover, it permits the aggressor to satisfy personal gluttony, and to feed on the liquids of the organism of the vanquished, which is easy, because the dorsal blood-vessel passes at this level. It can thus satisfy a personal need while thinking of the future ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... afternoon, while some of the new-comers were fishing off the rocks, west of the hotel, a shark came close in shore. Hearing their outcries, I looked out of my chamber window, and saw the dorsal fin and the fluke of his tail stuck up out of the water, as he moved to and fro. He must have been eight or ten feet long. He had probably followed the small fish into the bay, and got bewildered, and, at one time, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... grilse soon after the conclusion of the spawning period. Taking his "net and coble," he fished the river for the special purpose, and all the spawned grilse of 4 lb. weight were marked by putting a peculiarly twisted piece of wire through the dorsal fin. They were immediately thrown into the river, and of course disappeared, making their way downwards with other spawned fish towards the sea. "In the course of the next summer we again caught several of those fish which we had thus marked with wire as 4 lb. grilse, grown in the short period ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... years while the old whaler held the gun raised and did not fire. It seemed to the boy as if he were never going to pull the trigger, but the old gunner knew the exact moment, and just as the whale was about to 'sound' the back heaved up slightly, revealing the absence of a dorsal fin, and thus determining that it was a devil-whale in truth; at that ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... distinguished chiefs) of the tiger-cat. The whole of the skin in one piece is used, except that the skin of the belly and of the lower parts of the forelimbs are cut away. A hole for the warrior's head is made in the mid-dorsal line a little behind the skin of the head, which is flattened out and hangs over the chest, descending to the level of the navel; while the skin of the back, flanks, and hind limbs in one large flap, ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... then, as regards the rest of the body, first brush up the hair, by help of all the ordinary implements for cleansing, and then beat out the dust, following the lie of the hair. The hair on the spine (and dorsal region) ought not to be touched with any instrument whatever; the hand alone should be used to rub and smooth it, and in the direction of its natural growth, so as to preserve from injury that part of the horse's back on which the ...
— On Horsemanship • Xenophon
... a full grown nymph of what is known as a palmicinctum. It is deeply interesting as a form; but for us its interest is that it is minute, being only a millimeter in length. But it repeatedly casts the dorsal skin of the abdomen. Each skin is bordered by a row of exquisite scales; and then successive rows of these scales persist, forming a protection to the entire organism. Mark then that we not only reveal the general form of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XIX, No. 470, Jan. 3, 1885 • Various
... to teach singing? I think the answer must ever be in the negative. You might as well talk to a gold-fish in a bowl-and say: 'If you desire to proceed laterally to the right, kindly oscillate gently your sinister dorsal fin, and you will achieve the desired result.' Oh, Art, what sins are committed in ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... through the telescope, while we were approaching her, my attention was arrested by a movement and occasional swirl in the water round about her; and, looking more intently, I presently descried the triangular dorsal fin of a shark in close proximity to the boat's side. Looking more closely still, I saw another, and another, and yet another, and still others; so that, as I looked, the boat seemed to be surrounded by sharks, hemmed in and fairly beset by them. ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... them, and, ascending to the surface, remain under the cool shade of the trees, watching for whatever tit-bit or delicacy the stream may bring with it, while others prefer a quiet saunter, or, with the dorsal fin above the water, lie so still and stationary near some lily or other aquatic plant, ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... valve, and swims or flies with the right valve lowermost. Here equalization to the right and left of the perpendicular line passing through the centre of gravity is very marked (especially in the Vola division of the group); but the induced right and left aspect corresponds to the dorsal and ventral sides of the animal, not the right and left sides, as in the former case. Lima, a near ally of Pecten, swims with the edges of the valves perpendicular. In this case the geomalic growth corresponds to the right and left sides of ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... from the tip of his nose. He was as handsome a youngster as you would wish to see, slender, gracefully tapering to the base of the broad, powerful tail, wide-finned, radiant in silver and blue-green, and with a splendid crest-like dorsal fin of vivid ultramarine extending almost the whole length of his back. His eyes were large, and blazed with a savage fire. Hanging poised a few feet above the tops of the waving, rose-and-purple sea-anemones and the bottle-green trailers of seaweed, every fin tense and quivering, he was ready ...
— Children of the Wild • Charles G. D. Roberts
... trap and basalt. Very old and dry grass only, could be had for the cattle. In the pond were small fishes of a different form from any we had seen, having a large forked tail, only two or three spikes in the dorsal fin, and a large jet-black eye within a broad silvery ring. Mr. Stephenson found three crabs, apparently identical with those about the inlets near Sydney. Latitude, 23 deg. 37' 51". S. Thermometer, at sunrise, 46 deg.; at noon, 73 deg.; at ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... discharge from the abscess wall subsides. As the cavity contracts the discharge becomes less, until at last the drainage tube can be removed and the external wound allowed to heal. The large collections of pus which form in connexion with disease of the spinal column in the cervical, dorsal and lumbar regions are now treated by free evacuation of the tuberculous pus, with careful antiseptic measures. The opening should be in as dependent a position as possible in order that the drainage may be thorough. If tension ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... or three small dark objects projecting above the surface of the water and moving slowly about. He had a very shrewd suspicion as to the nature of these objects, and his telescope soon demonstrated to him the fact that he was right in believing them to be the dorsal fins of so ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... Eve's daughters,—her back seems broad enough to bear the blame of all the peccadilloes that have been committed since Adam. She girdeth her waist—or what she is pleased to esteem as such—nearly up to her shoulders, from beneath which that huge dorsal expanse, in mountainous declivity, emergeth. Respect for her alone preventeth the idle boys, who follow her about in shoals, whenever she cometh abroad, from getting up and riding. But her presence infallibly ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... that inhalation anesthesia offers little or no protection to the brain-cells against trauma is derived from the following experiment: A dog whose spinal cord had been divided at the level of the first dorsal segment, and which had then been kept in good condition for two months, showed a recovery of the spinal reflexes, such as the scratch reflex, etc. Such an animal is known as a "spinal dog." Now, in this animal, the abdomen and hind extremities had no direct nerve ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... eyes; but it was useless, seeing that the breath had left the unfortunate's body. Nevertheless, I rested my hand a moment upon his head, and then glided it in a semi-professional manner along the line of dorsal elevation, until I came to a deep depression in his backbone, which corresponded exactly with the convexity of the bottle. Then I saw at once how it was; this missile, (in the heat of passion, being mistaken for an empty one, probably,) had been hurled ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 5, April 30, 1870 • Various
... some difficulty across Palace Yard, eyed suspiciously by the police-dogs on duty. One concentrated his attention on Mr. Punch's dorsal peculiarity. ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... a fin-back! There's another, and another; three of them with their dorsal fins five or six feet high. Just see them swimming between two waves, quietly, making no jumps. Ah! if I had a harpoon, I bet my head that I could send it into one of the four yellow spots they have on their bodies. But there's nothing to be done in this traffic-box; one cannot stretch one's arms. ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... get his hook where it seemed to catch upon the monster trout's exposed gill, and with a cry of triumph he started to pull in; but on one occasion the slender hold his hook had taken broke away; and the second time it chanced that Giraffe had managed to fasten his barb somewhere about the dorsal fin of the fish, so that there was an immediate struggle for supremacy, with the usual result in such cases that the anticipated prize fell back, and was lost to ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... the sun, to guide me when swimming. This done, I poised myself upon the spar preparatory to diving off the mast, and had raised my hands above my head, when not half-a-dozen fathoms away, and immediately between me and the spot for which I was bound, I saw the dorsal fins of two enormous sharks sculling quietly to and fro, as though to blockade me and cut me off from my only ...
— A Middy of the King - A Romance of the Old British Navy • Harry Collingwood
... sacred, profane military, civil clergy, laity capital, labor ingress, egress element, compound horizontal, perpendicular competition, cooeperation predestination, freewill universal, particular extrinsic, intrinsic inflation, deflation dorsal, ventral acid, alkali synonym, antonym prologue, epilogue nadir, zenith amateur, connoisseur anterior, posterior stoic, epicure ordinal, cardinal centripetal, centrifugal stalagmite, stalactite orthodox, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... merriment of the crew for he cast many furious and malicious glances at the vessel. Once more he backed off fur a charge to swallow thim an' this toime succeeded in holdin' thim in be a nate trick. Instid av turnin' partly on his side an' showin' his dorsal fin afther he had swallowed he kept bottom up and swam slowly away waggin' av his tail with a gratified air while a huge grin spread over his ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... that the extremity of the dorsal part of the tail is prehensile. This portion is deprived of quills for a length of about ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... arrested either at the tarso-metatarsal or at the ankle joint. If these be passed, it usually spreads up the leg to just below the knee before signs of arrestment appear. Further, it is seen from pathological specimens that the spread is greater on the dorsal than on the plantar aspect, and that the death of skin and subcutaneous tissues extends higher than that ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... was not mistaken. Cavorting around the Nautilus was a school of triggerfish with flat bodies, grainy skins, armed with stings on their dorsal fins, and with four prickly rows of quills quivering on both sides of their tails. Nothing could have been more wonderful than the skin covering them: white underneath, gray above, with spots of gold sparkling in the dark eddies of the waves. Around ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... you need not at the same time bend the dorsal vertebr' of your body, unless you wish to be very reverential, as in saluting ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... adapted to the horizontal position of the original median plane of symmetry. The principal adaptive characters are: both eyes and the pigmentation on the side which is uppermost in the natural position, lower side without eyes and colourless; dorsal and ventral fins continuous and extending nearly the whole length of the dorsal and ventral edges; dorsal fin extending forwards on the head, not along the morphological median line, which is between the eyes, but between the more dorsal eye and the lower side of the body, in ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... charms. Conspicuous, daring colours here are as common as on the lawn of a race course. Occasionally on the edge of a reef there comes the fish of frosted silver, with hair like purple streamers floating from the dorsal fin a foot and more behind. Some call it the "lady" fish, because of its beauty and grace, and others the diamond trevally (ALECTIS CILIARIS). More frequently is seen "the sleepy fish," salmon-shaped, of resplendent copper, with bright blue blotches ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... twenty-five feet in length, and had a dorsal fin that stood up like the sail of a small boat. But even these dimensions cannot convey the feeling of alarm his presence gave me. His next leap brought him within forty feet of us. I recalled a score of accidents I had seen, read, and heard of; fishermen stabbed, boats rent, steel-clad ships ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... without a visible fulcrum (for the whole body moves at the same instant, and I have often seen even small snakes glide as fast as I could walk), seems to involve a vibration of the scales quite too rapid to be conceived. The motion of the crest and dorsal fin of the hippocampus, which is one of the intermediate types between serpent and fish, perhaps gives some resemblance of it, dimly visible, for the quivering turns the fin into a mere mist. The entrance of the two barbs of a bee's sting ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... its home, and especially the broad and open sea. Each species has its especial preference for this or that latitude,—for a certain zone of water, more or less cold. And it was that preference which traced out the great divisions of the Atlantic. The tribe of inferior whales, that have a dorsal fin, are to be found in the warmest and in the coldest seas,—under the line and ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... Mediterranean Muraenae (Muraena Helena). This fish attains a length of from 5 ft. to 6 ft., and has a smooth, scaleless body of a dark color, on which large light-yellow spots appear, which give the fish a very peculiar appearance. The pectoral fin is missing, but it has the dorsal and anal fins, which it uses with great ability. Its head is pointed, and its jaws are provided with extraordinarily sharp teeth, which are inclined toward the rear; and at each side of the head it is provided with a gill. The nostrils are on ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 • Various
... to leave our neighborhood, or in any other way showed displeasure at the trick we had played him. On the contrary, he drew nearer the vessel, and moved indolently and defiantly about, with his dorsal fin and a portion of his tail above the water. He was undoubtedly hungry as well as proud, and it is well known that sharks are not particular with regard to the quality of their food. Every thing that is edible, ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... as a stem, may be said to give off three branches, the epiarterial, upper- or superior-lobe bronchus; the middle-lobe bronchus; and the continuation downward, called the lower- or inferior-lobe bronchus, which gives off dorsal, ventral and lateral branches. The left main bronchus gives off first the upper-or superior-lobe bronchus, the continuation being the lower-or inferior-lobe bronchus, consisting of a stem with dorsal, ventral ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... altarage, mensa, retable, chancel, ciborium, pyx, dorsal, dossal, piscina, antependium, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... open his bowels at the moment when he turns on his side to give the deadly bite. But on that coast this dreaded fish appears singly; it is rare to see two of them together; while Santiago harbor seems to swarm with them, the dark dorsal fin of the threatening creatures just parting the surface of the sea, and betraying their presence. Lying at anchor between our ship and the shore was a trig Spanish corvette,—an American-built vessel, by the way, though belonging to ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... become mighty elements in history, revelling amid the wealthy energy of life, exhausting the forces of the intellect, clipping the tendrils of affection, becoming colossal in the architecture of society and dorsal in its traditions, and tyrannizing with the heedless power of an element, to the horror of the pious soul which called it into existence, over all departments of human activity. Such an art, having passed a period ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... giraffe, it is difficult to believe that the fore-legs are not longer than the hind-legs. They are not so, however, for the greater apparent length results from the remarkable depth of the chest, the great length of the processes of the anterior dorsal vertebrae, and the corresponding length and position of the shoulder blade, which is relatively the longest and narrowest of all mammalia. In the simple walk the neck is stretched out in a line with the back, which gives them an awkward appearance; ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various |
