"Loon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the loon (Colymbus glacialis) came, as usual, to moult and bathe in the pond, making the woods ring with his wild laughter before I had risen. At rumor of his arrival all the Mill-dam sportsmen are on the alert, in ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... in his right mind when the Whipples offered, in so many words, to set him up in any business he wanted to name, and pay all expenses, and he spurned 'em like so much dirt beneath his heel. Acted like a crazy loon is what I say, and this Jack-of-all-trades is showing the strain. Mark my words, they'll both end their days in ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... worthy who on 23rd July 1637 immortalised herself by throwing her stool at the head of Laud's bishop as he proceeded from the desk of St. Giles's in the city to read the Collect for the day, exclaiming as she did so, "Deil colic the wame o' thee, fause loon, would you say Mass at my lug," which was followed by great uproar, and a shout, "A Pape, a Pape; stane him"; "a daring feat, and a great," thinks Carlyle, "the first act of an audacity which ended with the beheading ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... ilka Scot, that sells his conscience and his vote.' — He discharged a third sarcasm at a person very gaily dressed, who had risen from small beginnings, and made a considerable fortune at play. — Filling his glass, and calling him by name, 'Lang life (said he), to the wylie loon that gangs a-field with a toom poke at his lunzie, and comes hame with a sackful of siller.' — All these toasts being received with loud bursts of applause, Mr Fraser called for pint glasses, and filled his own to the brim: then standing up, and all his brethren ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... said, 'if you think you want onybody to darn your hose on the road, I'll gang wi' ye mysel'. As for that feckless loon Bombazo, the peer[13] body is ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... Nokomis Made a cloak for Hiawatha, From the red deer's flesh Nokomis Made a banquet in his honor. All the village came and feasted, All the guests praised Hiawatha, Called him Strong-heart, Soan-ge-taha! Called him Loon-Heart, Mahn-go-taysee! ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous
... saw several foxes of the species called Virginia fox: they were shy and yet fierce, barking like dogs and then flying precipitately. Penguins are also numerous on the Falkland Isles. These birds have a fine plumage, and resemble the loon: but they do not fly, having only little stumps of wings which they use to help themselves in waddling along. The rocks were covered with them. It being their sitting season we found them on their nests, from which they would not stir. They are not wild or timid: far from ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... a quarter of a mile but received a volley; not a loon that showed his distant head above water but went down under the fire of a platoon; and not a frightened duck darted overhead but heard the air behind him torn with whistling shot enough to have exterminated ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... Loon Lake the great saurians were basking themselves in the hot sun, and the appearance of the boys among them made a slight disturbance along the ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XII, Jan. 3, 1891 • Various
... lusty alto of frogs in the prime of life, were united in an unbroken, penetrating chant to the starless sky. The melancholy hoot of the owl, the blithesome chirp of the cricket, even the hideous yawp of the roaming loon, were lost in the din and clatter ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... Menekahnekah, adv. seedy Mejenahwayahdahkahmig, n. pity Mahmahdahwechegawenebun, it was a strange custom Menesenoo, n. a hero Mesquahsin, n. brick, which signifies, red stone Mesahowh, that is Moosay, n. a worm Moong, n. a loon Meene, n. a kind of fruit Mahjekewis, adj. the eldest Meskoodesemin, n. a bean Mategwahkezinekaid, n. a shoe-maker Menahwenahgowd, v. look pleasant Meneweyook, v. be fruitful Megeskun, n. a hook Mezesok, n. a horse-fly Mahwahdooskahegun, ...
— Sketch of Grammar of the Chippeway Languages - To Which is Added a Vocabulary of some of the Most Common Words • John Summerfield
... to live on the poor-farm! Aaron Boynton was a disrep'table hound; Lois Boynton is as crazy as a loon; the boy is a no-body's child, an' Ivory's no ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Billy Loon, a jolly little negro, tricked out in a soiled blue jacket, studded all over with rusty bell buttons, and garnished with shabby gold lace, is the royal drummer and pounder of the tambourine. Joe, a wooden-legged Portuguese who lost his leg by a whale, is violinist; and Mordecai, as he is called, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... were rid of his grim pranks, Moaning from banks Of pine trees in the moon, Startling the silence like a demoniac loon ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... that when morning began to dawn through the eastern mist, he found himself no farther than about ten miles distant from Cumnor. "Now, a plague upon all smooth-spoken hosts!" said Wayland, unable longer to suppress his mortification and uneasiness. "Had the false loon, Giles Gosling, but told me plainly two days since that I was to reckon nought upon him, I had shifted better for myself. But your hosts have such a custom of promising whatever is called for that it is not till the steed is to be shod you find they are out of iron. Had I but known, I could ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... with it into the Lancet where they are keen on glands, and forgot us altogether. But Sir Thomas Ingell was of sterner stuff. He must have spent a happy week-end too. The letter which we received from him on Monday proved him to be a kinless loon of upright life, for no woman, however remotely interested in a man would have let it pass the home wastepaper-basket. He objected to our references to his own herd, to his own labours in his own village, which he said was a Model Village, ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... make a body sick, such mullet-headed ignorance! If either of you'd read anything about history, you'd know that Richard Cur de Loon, and the Pope, and Godfrey de Bulleyn, and lots more of the most noble-hearted and pious people in the world, hacked and hammered at the paynims for more than two hundred years trying to take their land away from them, and swum neck-deep in blood the whole time—and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... midnight, but far from dark. In the northern heavens a rosy glow proclaimed the midnight sun. Somewhere in the willows a robin was chirping, and from the wide bosom of the river, like the thin howl of a wolf, came the mocking cry of a loon still pursuing its finny prey. And in his little canvas tent, sitting just inside, so as to catch the smoke of the fire that afforded protection from the mosquitoes, Hubert Stane still watched and ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns
... Vienna Congress; and we have been expecting, every day, that this political old hen had hatched out her various sort of eggs. We expected that her motley brood would afford us some fun. Here we expected to see a young hawk, and there a goslin, and next a strutting turkey, and then a dodo, a loon, an ostrich, a wren, a magpie, a cuckoo, and a wag-tail. But the old continental hen has now set so long, that we conclude that her eggs are addled, and incubation frustrated. During all this time, the Gallick cock is on his roost at Elba, with ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... from a peddler loon," he said. "It is bonnie and soft, and it sets you well, and I hope you will ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... the Inverness on too many Sunday-school picnics to forget your lessons, Captain. There's the Pine Point shoal next, and after you round that, you head her for the Cedars on the tip of Loon Island, and then straight as the crow flies for the Gates and then ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... S.—The loon is found in all the Northern States. It is a very awkward bird on land, but a graceful and rapid swimmer. It is a remarkable diver, and it is thought that no other feathered creature can dive so far beneath the surface or remain so long a time ...
— Harper's Young People, June 29, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... while I live!" said Bjoern; "thou art a landless loon, a brawler, and an outlaw. Get thee gone, Eric, with ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... could only see three trees, as they thought, resembling trees in a pinery that had been burnt. The wind, which had been off the sea, now died away into a perfect calm. They saw something leaving the fancied island and approaching the shore, throwing and flapping its wings, like a loon when he attempts to fly in calm weather. It entered the mouth of the river. They were on the point of running away, but the eldest dissuaded them. "Let us hide in this hollow," he said, "and we will see what it can be." They did so. They soon heard the sounds of chopping, and quickly after they ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... prefer to keep out of his way, if they do; fevers and congestions were the surgeon's business, and I always kept people to their own department; cramp and exhaustion were dangers I could measure, as I had often done; bullets were a more substantial danger, and I must take the chance,—if a loon could dive at the flash, why not I? If I were once ashore, I should have to cope with the Rebels on their own ground, which they knew better than I; but the water was my ground, where I, too, had been at home ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... bicolor) skim over it, and the peetweets (Totanus macularius) "teter" along its stony shores all summer. I have sometimes disturbed a fishhawk sitting on a white-pine over the water; but I doubt if it is ever profaned by the wing of a gull, like Fair-Haven. At most, it tolerates one annual loon. These are all the animals of consequence which frequent ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... themselves by racing close to the shore, he swam ahead of them, but no further out. Rounding a wooded point that jutted out into the lake, he found, to his surprise, that he was facing Loon Island. He had no idea that he had come so far. The boys were not in sight, but their shouts and laughter assured him that they were all right, obeying his instructions; so he struck out toward the little island. A ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... a e-a. To dive and then come up to take breath, as one does in swimming out to sea against the incoming breakers, or as one might do in escaping from a pursuer, or in avoiding detection, after the manner of a loon.] ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... up the mere With opiates for idleness to quaff, And while she ministers, far off I hear The owl's uncanny cry, the wild loon's laugh. ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... him with his skinny hand, 'There was a ship,' quoth he. 10 'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' Eftsoons his hand ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... against that of another—the science of civilization against that of the wilderness. Howland was trained in his art. For sport Jean had played with wounded lynx; his was the quickness of sight, of instinct—the quickness of the great north loon that had often played this same game with his rifle-fire, of the sledge-dog whose ripping fangs carried death so quickly that eyes could not follow. A third and a fourth time he came within distance ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... not see her eyes, but she looked somewhere off into the untraveled west,—the west that was the portal of my enterprise. What was her thought? I must not let myself trap it unaware. I gave a long, low call; the call of the loon as he skirts the ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... entered and inquired if Gustavus Vasa had been seen to pass that way. Another moment and they might have become curious about the stranger sitting at the hearth, when the woman hastily turned round, and struck him on the shoulder with the huge spoon she held in her hand. 'Lazy loon!' she cried. 'Have you no work to do? Off with you at once and see to your threshing.' The Danes only saw before them a common Swedish servant bullied by his mistress, and it never entered their heads to ask any questions; so once ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... made us welcome to her home; Old hearths grew wide to give us room; We stole with her a frightened look At the gray wizard's conjuring-book, The fame whereof went far and wide Through all the simple country-side; We heard the hawks at twilight play, The boat-horn on Piscataqua, The loon's ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... replied the boy, smiling. "You make me feel like the laughing loon bird, when you tell your tales and smile and laugh yourselves. But I must leave you. I am to drive the missionary to-day. He goes to the Delaware ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... but I am prisent, as has been ripresinted, to jine wid yez in a stupendeous waste of gun-powder, and duck-shot, and 'high-wines,' and ham sand-witches, upon the silvonian banks of the ragin' Kankakee, where the 'di-dipper' tips ye good-bye wid his tail, and the wild loon skoots like a sky-rocket for his exiled home in the alien dunes of the wild morass—or, as Tommy Moore so illegantly ...
— Pipes O'Pan at Zekesbury • James Whitcomb Riley
... "Ye ill-faured loon, stan' awa'," yelled Scoodrach, as Max laid his hand on Kenneth's shoulder; and they went down together to the boat, while the bailiff and his man walked muttering ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... nucleus of a very promising settlement, now, of course, at its wits' end for gristing. Vermilion seemed to be a very favourable supply point in starting other settlements, being in touch by water with Loon River, Hay River, and other points east and north, where there is abundance of excellent land. For the present, and pending railway development, it was plain that the great and pressing requirement of the region was a good waggon road by way of Wahpooskow to Athabasca ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... ago, and fancies that he has been in a trance since the time of Noah and the Ark. He has a strange hallucination that he can be awakened from his protracted nap by a kiss from a certain female, whom he describes as Arletta the Beautiful. Although he is as crazy as a loon, yet some of his utterances are really remarkable for the depth of logic they contain. The case has its amusing side also, for every woman by the name of Arletta who visits this hospital cannot resist the temptation of kissing the man, in order to ascertain whether they possess the secret ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... and thunk, and scratched my head and sighed and wunk, and groaned, There still are boobs, alack, who'd like the old-time gin-mill back; that den that makes a sage a loon, the vile and smelly old saloon! I'll never miss their poison booze, whilst I the bubbling spring can use, that leaves my head at merry morn as ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... mad—a stork staring loon!" retorted Mr Macdougall, in the most irritating way; "ye'd better gang awa' to ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... a beaten game trail, ye follow that an it'll bring ye to water—that is, if ye go the right way, an' that ye know by its gettin' stronger. If it's peterin' out, ye'r goin' in the wrong direction. A flock of Ducks or a Loon going over is sure to be pointing for water. ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... right before they got any further, Mr. Rose. It sounded nasty, for a while. The mechanician struck his head in the upset, I fancy; I've seen a man run half a mile across country, crazy as a loon, after being pitched out on his head in a sand-bank. They'd better get Jack Rupert into bed and keep him quiet; he'll wake up to-morrow sane as ever. Nice ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... "He's a fause loon that Sakelde," she said, "and I'd walk to Carlisle any day to see him hanged. 'Twas he who stole our sheep, two years past at Martinmas, and 'twas your father brought them back again. But keep up your heart, my man; if you can get to the Bold Buccleuch he'll put things ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... been workin' there this week. So it disna belong tae neen o' the gair'ners, if it's there ye fund't," repeated Malcolm. "There's been nae work deen on that bed for the last fortnicht or mair. I was thinkin' o' sendin' a loon ower't wie a hoe in a day or twa. Ye see, wie the murrder it's been impossible tae get ony work done; apairt fay that we've been busy wie the fruit and ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... exactly sure, sir," returned the keeper; "there's Ian Anderson an' Tonal' from Cove, an' Mister Archie an' Eddie, an' Roderick—that's five. Oo, ay, I forgot, there's that queer English loon, Robin Tips— he's no' o' much use, but he can mak' a noise—besides ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... First, I passed through a beautiful country; the forest-trees were larger than any you have ever seen. Birds of all colors filled them, and their music was as loud as when our medicine men play for us to celebrate the scalp dance. The broad river was full of fish, and the loon screamed as she swam across the lakes. I had no difficulty in finding my way, for there was a road through this country. It seemed as if there must have been many travellers there, though I ...
— Dahcotah - Life and Legends of the Sioux Around Fort Snelling • Mary Eastman
... said, sadly, "there's no use in tryin' to conceal it from you any longer. Your pa was crazy—as crazy as a loon. What with buyin' books so steady and readin' of 'em so continual, his mind got unhinged. I've always suspected ...
— Flower of the Dusk • Myrtle Reed
... the streets or fields of a region in which they are ordinarily unknown. These birds have become exhausted during the storm of the night before, or have been injured by striking telephone or telegraph wires, an accident which often happens. Once I picked up a Loon after a stormy night. Apparently it had recovered its strength after a few hours' rest, but, as this bird can rise on the wing only from a body of water, over the surface of which it can paddle and flap for many rods, and as {78} there was ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... once more. The cliffs rose to a distorted height in the dimness; sprays of withered grass nodded along the edge, like Ossian's spectres. Light seemed to be vanishing from the universe, leaving them alone with the sea. And when a solitary loon uttered his wild cry, and rising, sped away into the distance, it was as if life were following light into an equal annihilation. That sense of vague terror, with which the ocean sometimes controls the ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... pocket, while the countryman was struck all of a heap, not knowing what would be the end of it; and the more so when Menechella added, "This is the man! Ah, you dog of a countryman, a pretty trick you have played me!" When the King heard this, he took the crown from the head of that false loon and placed it on that of Cienzo; and he was on the point of sending the imposter to the galleys, but Cienzo begged the King to have mercy on him and to confound his wickedness with courtesy. Then he married Menechella, and the tables were spread and ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... little bed that counts with you just now," said the doctor. "You come with me at once, or I'll throw up the case. 'You're as loony as a loon." ...
— Options • O. Henry
... truly. Heralded by that long cry of the loon, the dawn began to reveal itself in clearness of perspective and a certain indefinable stir in the still, shrouded spaces of the woods. Details began to appear where heretofore all had been mass. Pearl tints proclaimed the east, and presently these were replaced by a flush ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... must be crazy as a loon. Send me fifty cold dollars as an evvidence of good fayth and I wull see what can be done. Old Hucks is livin on the place yit do you want him to git out or what? Yours fer a square deal Marshall ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... science of the forest man pitted against that of another world. For sport Jean had played with wounded lynx; his was the quickness of sight, of instinct—without the other's science; the quickness of the great loon that had often played this same game with his rifle-fire, of the sledge-dog whose ripping fangs carried death so quickly that ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... Quarry-holes, and the Gusedub, ye fause loon!" answered Master George, speaking Scotch with a strong and natural emphasis; "it is such land-loupers as you, that, with your falset and fair fashions, bring reproach on our ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... started nervously. Her brain-picture resolved into the formless dark. From the black waters, almost at her feet, sounded, raucous and loud, the voice of the great loon. Frenzied, maniacal, hideous, rang the night-shattering laughter. The uncouth mockery of the raw—the defiance of the ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... demanded Hazel. "It is of that we sing. Food, food! Isn't it good; a girl is a loon who can't eat what she could," sang Hazel, ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... tell you how I came there," Ronald said. "I was walking on the old wall, which, as you know, runs close by the house, when I saw an ill looking loon hiding himself as if watching the house, looking behind I saw another ruffianly looking man there." Two gasps of indignation were heard from the porch at the back of the court. "Thinking that there was mischief on hand I leapt from the wall to the dormer window to warn the ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... impudence!" [FN226] So the eunuch went up to him and said, "Give me the fish and I will pay thee their price." Replied the Fisherman, "Art thou little of wit? I will not sell them." Therewith the eunuch drew his mace upon him, and Khalifah cried out, saying, "Strike not, O loon! Better largesse than the mace." [FN227] So saying, he threw the two fishes to the eunuch, who took them and laid them in his kerchief. Then he put hand in pouch, but found not a single dirham and said to Khalifah, "O Fisherman, verily thou art out of luck for, by Allah, I have not ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... it back to the loon some gait or other; ye had better take it yoursell, I think, wi' peep o' light, up to Ringan Aikwood's. I wadna for a hundred pounds it was fund in ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... few days on the salt water set him all right, and strength, spirits and appetite returned. One evening on deck he told me a dream he had had shortly before I proposed for him to accompany me. "I thought I was working outside my house," he said, "when I heard the note of a loon. (The loon is a favourite bird among the Indians, and they regard it with superstitious reverence.) The sound came from the Western sky, and I gazed in that direction to try if I could see the bird. In another moment I heard the sweep of its wings over ...
— Missionary Work Among The Ojebway Indians • Edward Francis Wilson
... of the grim old mountains that so stubbornly held their secret of what lay beyond, we had a good supper of trout and were happy, though through the gulch the creek roared defiance at us, and off in the night somewhere a loon would break out at intervals in derisive laughter. At the base of the mountains the narrow lake reflected a million stars, and in their kindly light the snow and ice patches on the slopes above us gleamed ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... us! she's crazy as a loon. Run for the doctor, quick!" exclaimed Mrs. Aldergrass, and without boot or shoe, Jerry ran off in his stocking-feet, alarming the physician, who immediately hastened to the inn, pronouncing 'Lena's disease to be brain fever, as ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls. Let me suggest a few comparisons, that some one may convey an idea of my situation. I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden pond itself. What company has that lonely lake, I pray? And yet it has not the blue devils, but the blue angels in it, in the azure tint of its waters. The sun is alone, except in thick ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... red-deer and the rabbit, Brought the trout from Gitchee Gumee— Brought the mallard from the marshes— Royal feast for boy and mother: Brought the hides of fox and beaver, Brought the skins of mink and otter, Lured the loon and took his blanket, Took his blanket for the Raven. Winter swiftly followed winter, And again the tekenagun Held a babe—a tawny daughter, Held a dark-eyed, dimpled daughter; And they called her Waub-omee-mee— Thus they named her—the White-Pigeon. But as winter followed winter Cold ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... of that damned loon, Francy McCraw!" he cried, fiercely. "Give it to 'em, b'ys! Shoot hell into the ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... was not like some others. He had an idea, of course, that though I had collected and mounted birds, and knew their names and habits, I probably knew little about their anatomy. At any rate the first thing he did was to give me a badly mutilated old loon, from old alcohol, telling me to prepare the skeleton. This I did so well and so quickly that he expressed regret that he had not given me some better bird with unbroken bones. He gave me next a blue heron, but it being spring, I 'went collecting' ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... a disgusted face toward Agatha. "He's crazy as a loon! Isn't he?" he questioned glumly. But ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... bullets danced before them as they swept over the surface. All around the homeless shores the evergreen trees seemed to hunch their backs and crowd closer together in patient misery. Not a bird had the heart to sing; only the loon—storm-lover—laughed his crazy challenge to the elements, and mocked us with his long-drawn ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... fire, and walks out. The pigs didn't try to come in agin, you may depend, when they see'd me; they didn't like the curlin' tongs, as much as some folks do, and pigs' tails kinder curl naterally. But there was lawyer a-standin' up by the grove, lookin' as peeked and as forlorn, as an onmated loon. ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... thing, cases of them, fitting enough for museums, often being seen in private homes. I can remember taking lessons in taxidermy from Father, and of skinning and mounting wildfowl, and today there are a loon and a prairie chicken here in the house at Riverby that he mounted in those early years. The collections of birds he made are scattered far and wide or were destroyed long ago. All of them were shot with the little muzzle-loading cane gun or with a little muzzle-loading fowling piece: ...
— My Boyhood • John Burroughs
... Carrigan loved that sort of sound, even when a pendulum was beating back and forth in his head. It was like medicine to him, and he lay with wide-open eyes, his ears picking up one after another the voices that marked the change from day to night. He heard the cry of a loon, its softer, chuckling note of honeymoon days. From across the river came a cry that was half howl, half bark. Carrigan knew that it was coyote, and not wolf, a coyote whose breed had wandered hundreds of miles north ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... in a place like this, matey. Yer can't breathe, nor you can't see, and—well now, that's queer. You seem to ha' set my head working again, Mr Dale, sir; and I recklect sittin' in the s'loon eating our dinner arter you gents had done, and then coming over all pleasant and comfble like, and then I don't seem to 'member no more till I woke ...
— Sail Ho! - A Boy at Sea • George Manville Fenn
... yours against a love which you thought was dishonest interested me very much, for I saw in it a wonderful test of the man who might become my brother if he chose wisely between love and what he thought was duty. I loved you for it, even when you sat me there on the sand like a silly loon. And now, even my Carmin loves you for bringing me out of the fire—But ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... sez, "gin me the daggurs—Ile let his bowels out," or wurds to that effeck—I say, this is awl, strickly, propper I spoze? That Jack Fawlstarf is likewise a immoral old cuss, take him how ye may, and Hamlick is as crazy as a loon. Thare's Richurd the Three, peple think heze grate things, but I look upon him in the lite of a monkster. He kills everybody he takes a noshun to in kold blud, and then goze to sleep in his tent. Bimeby he wakes up and yells ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... away, our little friend solemnly protesting, long after they were reduced to mere specks in the air, that he could still distinguish the white hat of Mr. Green. The gardens disgorged their multitudes, boys ran up and down screaming 'bal-loon;' and in all the crowded thoroughfares people rushed out of their shops into the middle of the road, and having stared up in the air at two little black objects till they almost dislocated their necks, walked slowly in again, ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... small wings they must get their first impetus from the water in order to rise; in case there is any wind blowing they also make use of this by starting their flight against it. They are very peculiar birds and the expression "crazy as a loon" is not a fanciful one, being formed from their early morning and evening antics when two or more of them will race over the top of the water, up and down the lake, all the while uttering their demoniacal laughter. They ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... "Ran over my child's b'loon," states the accuser, fixing him with a pitiless eye. For the moment the object of this serious charge is too taken aback to be capable ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... twilight of the primeval forest. The little lake lay enclosed in a border of gigantic trees. Over its waters hung the interlacing branches of mighty oaks and beeches and pines. Its surface was frequented by flocks of wild, aquatic birds,—the duck, the gull, and the loon. In this lofty valley among the hills were also to be found, then as now, in fullest perfection, the clear atmosphere, the cloudless skies, and the brilliant light of midsummer suns, that characterize ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... compelled to make an extra long run and he paddled to Arkansas City without leaving the water, a distance of one hundred and sixty miles in thirty one hours, which was the longest continuous run he ever made up to that time. That night on the lonesome stretches of the river, he frequently started a loon from its resting place and it would fly off into the darkness with a wild, unearthly shriek, so ghostly in its echoing cadences that with a nervous start, Paul would glance around for that "dead man ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... justified that fantastic method of choosing our route by the sound of the names of places, which I confessed to the reader on an earlier page: Wayland—Patchin's Mills—Blood's Depot—Cohocton. And to north and south of our route were names such as Ossian, Stony Brook Glen, Loon Lake, Rough & Ready, Doly's Corners, and Neil Creek. I confess that there was a Perkinsville to go through—a beautiful spot, too, for which one felt that sort of aesthetic pity one feels for a beautiful girl married to a man, say, of the name of Podgers. Perkinsville! It was as though you ...
— October Vagabonds • Richard Le Gallienne
... those gentle sounds died away as the little forms snuggled down beneath the blankets among the dogs and bales. Occasionally a loon called to us, or an owl swooped, ghost-like, overhead, and as we passed among pine-crested isles, those weather-beaten old monarchs just stood there, and whispering to one another, shook their heads as we ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... swept from the ridge top, where some great bare pines stood in the moonlight. A loon called in its strange, unearthly note from the lakeshore. As Hawker turned the boat toward the dock, the flashing rays from the boat fell upon the head of the girl in the rear seat, and he ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane
... place of rest, and explain to him the whole mistake they had both of them fallen into. But the Englishman continued indignant: "Thou hast been selling, hast thou? Ay, ay—thou is a cunning lad for kenning the hours of bargaining. Go to the devil with thyself, for I will ne'er see thy fause loon's visage again—thou should be ashamed to look me ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
... thou feckless kerl, A loon thou art," she said. "Am I a starving beggar girl? Shall ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... book to be owned by older boys and girls who like true tales of adventure. "A Short History of Discovery From the Earliest Times to the Founding of the Colonies on the American Continent," written and done into colour by Hendrik Willem van Loon. ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... flagitious deeds, Citing fore-cited names for that she never could fancy Ever a Door was endow'd either with earlet or tongue. Further she noted a wight whose name in public to mention 45 Nill I, lest he upraise eyebrows of carroty hue; Long is the loon and large the law-suit brought they against him Touching a child-bed false, claim ...
— The Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus • Caius Valerius Catullus
... measured by seconds, realization flashed all through him, and he threw his head still higher and opened wide his shapeless trap of a mouth, and out across the lake he sent skittering and rolling his cry. And in his cry was the laugh of a loon, and the croaking bellow of a frog, and the bay of a hound, all the compounded night noises of the lake. And in it, too, was a farewell and a defiance and an appeal. The heavy roar of ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb
... For to-morrow the priest shall awake, And the names be named of the victims to bleed for the nation's sake; And first of the numbered many that shall be slain ere noon, Rua the child of the dirt, Rua the kinless loon. For him shall the drum be beat, for him be raised the song, For him to the sacred High-place the chaunting people throng, For him the oven smoke as for a speechless beast, And the sire of my Taheia come greedy to the feast." "Rua, be silent, spare me. Taheia closes her ears. Pity my yearning ...
— Ballads • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mortal wound, feel his life ebbing away, perfectly calm and without concern, and give his dying messages with the composure of an every day occurrence; while others, if the tip of the finger is touched, or his shin-bone grazed, will "yell like a hyena or holler like a loon," and raise such a rumpus as to alarm the whole army. I saw a man running out of battle once (an officer) at such a gait as only fright could give, and when I asked him if he was wounded, he replied, "Yes, my leg is broken in two places," when, as a ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... beautiful sheet of placid water opened before them in a far-reaching vista to the northwest. On either side of the narrow lake rose towering cliffs of granite, their dark faces lighted at intervals by brooklets tumbling in cascades from the heights above. A loon laughed weirdly in the distance, and from the hills above a wolf sounded a dismal howl. It was a scene of rugged, primeval grandeur, and Shad, taken completely ...
— The Gaunt Gray Wolf - A Tale of Adventure With Ungava Bob • Dillon Wallace
... son, but was silent in satisfaction at his wife's explanation: "'Lias ain't bad; he jes' ca'less. Sometimes he stays at home, but right sma't o' de time he stays down at"—she looked at her husband and hesitated—"at de colo'ed s'loon. We don't lak dat. It ain't no fitten place fu' him. But 'Lias ain't bad, he jes' ca'less, an' me an' de ol' man we 'membahs him in ouah pra'ahs, an' I jes' t'ought I'd ax you to ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... sea-plants, as if it were some sea-monster's private garden. I saw a crab in one of them; five-fingers too. From the edge of the rocks, you may look off into deep, deep water, even at low tide. Among the rocks, I found a great bird, whether a wild-goose, a loon, or an albatross, I scarcely know. It was in such a position that I almost fancied it might be asleep, and therefore drew near softly, lest it should take flight; but it was dead, and stirred not when I touched it. Sometimes a dead fish was cast up. A ledge of rocks, with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... whitewashed and clean. The tables, chairs, and benches were all homemade. On the floor were magnificent skins of wolf, bear, musk ox, and mountain goat. The walls were decorated with heads and horns of deer and mountain sheep, eagle's wings, and a beautiful breast of a loon, which Gwen had shot and of which she was very proud. At one end of the room a huge stone fireplace stood radiant in its summer decorations of ferns and grasses and wildflowers. At the other end a door opened into another room, smaller, and richly ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... pink when he gets the news an' knows we've grabbed Oswald by the heels with evidence aplenty to send him to Atlanta for a term o' years. This night flight promises to be the happiest ever for the pair o' us. I know I'm actin' like a loon, partner, but I jest can't help it—such bully occasions are too few an' far between in our line. An' now I wonder where we'll be sent for the ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... birds, let us call them before us by classes, beginning with our sea-birds and those round the bays and on the coast. Some of these not only swim but dive in the salt waters, and to this class of divers belong the grebe, loon, murre, and puffin. They dive at the flash of a gun, and after what seems a long time, come up far away from the spot the hunter aimed at. These birds usually nest on bare, rocky cliffs near the ocean, or on islands like ...
— Stories of California • Ella M. Sexton
... seems since that mild April night, When, leaning from the window, you and I Heard, clearly ringing from the shadowy bight, The loon's unearthly cry! ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... marvellous shots quos nidi et quorum pars, etc. We have seen a bird no larger than a half-grown chicken killed off-hand at eighty rods (nearly fourteen hundred feet); have known a deer to be killed at a good half mile; have shot off the skull-cap of a duck at thirty rods; at twenty rods have shot a loon through the head, putting the ball in at one eye and out at the other, without breaking the skin;—but such shooting, ordinarily, is a physical impossibility, as any experienced rifleman knows. These were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... "Base loon!" cried the stranger, starting to his feet, "ye shall rue that blow." And he flung off his bonnet as if to ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... whose tops the beams of the descending sun lie like a mantle of silver and gold. Glad voices are ringing; sounds of merriment make the evening joyous with the music of the wild things around us. Hark! how from away off over the water, the voice of the loon comes clear and musical and shrill, like the sound of a clarion; and note how it is borne about by the echoes from hill to hill. Hark! again, to that clanking sound away up in the air; metallic ringing, like the tones of a bell. It is the call of the cock of the woods as he flies, rising ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... has given him a home here along with that first woman of Brother Tench's. The crazy loon has been bothering me all week to give ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... fearful mistake, and made a desperate attempt to dodge to one side, but though the loon may elude the bullet of the hunter's rifle, no man has ever yet been equal to the task. No screeching Indian was ever hit more fairly, surprised more suddenly, ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... Bailiff. "But two days since in ermined robe and chain of office, a notable man, I, courted by many, feared by more, right well be-seen by all, with goodly horse betwixt my knees and lusty men-at-arms at my beck and call. To-night, alas and woe! thou see'st me a ragged loon, a sorry wight the meanest rogue would scorn to bow to, and the very children jeer at—and all by reason of a lewd, black-avised clapper-claw that doth flourish him a mighty axe—O, a vile, seditious fellow ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... interrupted by wild, strange sounds from the middle of the Great River. It sounded like crazy laughter. Peter jumped at the sound, but Honker merely chuckled. "It's Dippy the Loon," said he. "He spent the summer in the Far North not far from us. He started south just before ...
— The Burgess Bird Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... shores seem never to have been marred by the axe of civilization. Here as the sun sinks to repose amid these purple mountains, and the last rays of light on their waters seem like sheets of fluid gold, and the lonely cry of the loon breaks the solitude, you too will feel that you do not need to go to Europe for natural mountain beauty when such glorious scenes lie ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... ago, but yet in the night the wild cry of Sinikielt answers the cry of the loon, and is echoed from the cliff far out across ...
— Thirty Indian Legends • Margaret Bemister |
