"Owl" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... place had a desolate air; the night breeze rustled through grass and weeds flaunting out of the crevices of the walls, or from the shattered columns; the bat flitted about the vaulted passages, and the owl hooted from the ruined belfry. Never was any scene more completely fitted for a ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... the winter-tam most all the animals in the wood he'll go white. Those hare, he'll get white just same color as the snow. Those picheu, those lynx, he'll get gray, almost white. The ptarmigan, he'll get white, too, so those owl won' see heem on the snow; an' the owl he'll get white, so nothing will see heem when he goes on the snow. Some tam up north the wolf he'll be white all over, an' some fox he'll also be white all ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Trail • Emerson Hough
... Francisco Mountain. They did not move up to Chukubi, but built a large village on the summit, at the south end of the mesa, close to the site of the present Mashongnavi. Soon afterward came the Burrowing Owl, and the Coyote, from the vicinity of Navajo Mountains in the north, but they were not very numerous. They also ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... watched him disappear round the knoll. The curlews went on wailing, and as if in answer a night owl sent forth his portentous HOOT—HOOT!... Apparently nothing was much amiss with the horses; they had quieted down again. Lady Bridget picked up the strip of bark and carried it in her arms into the tent, laughing to herself as ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... physical shock for him. He believed that Bram and his pack would come up quietly; that he would not hear the man's footsteps or the soft pads of his beasts until they were very near. Twice a great snow owl fluttered over his head. A third time it pounced down upon a white hare back in the shrub, and for an instant Philip thought the time had come. The little white foxes, curious as children, startled him most. Half a dozen ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... enemies the rest of you have," replied Old Mother Nature. "But the one he has most reason to fear is Hooty the Owl, and that is the one you have least reason to fear, because Hooty seldom hunts ...
— The Burgess Animal Book for Children • Thornton W. Burgess
... my aid, How would thy weary days have flown? Thee of thy foolish whims I've cured, Thy vain imaginations banished, And but for me, be well assured, Thou from this sphere must soon have vanished. In rocky hollows and in caverns drear, Why like an owl sit moping here? Wherefore from dripping stones and moss with ooze embued, Dost suck, like any toad, thy food? A rare, sweet pastime. Verily! The doctor ...
— Faust Part 1 • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... think about when lounging around the fire at night? Not much,—of the sport of the day, of the big fish he lost and might have saved, of the distant settlement, of to-morrow's plans. An owl hoots off in the mountain and he thinks of him; if a wolf were to howl or a panther to scream, he would think of him the rest of the night. As it is, things flicker and hover through his mind, and he ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... of various sorts, which continued all night long. First, there was a drum perpetually beating, announcing rudely enough the approaching nuptials; then there was a cricket singing shrill notes at my head; and then there was the screech-owl making the valley of Tintalous ring again with its hideous shriek. Add to all, between the roll of the big noisy drum, the cries and uproar of the people. This morning there are groups of people squatting all about. Two maharees are riding round and round one group. Before another is a ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... Lydian coin of about 700 B.C.; the material is electrum, a compound of gold and silver. 2. Gold daric; a Persian coin worth about $5. 3. Hebrew silver shekel. 4. Athenian silver tetradrachm showing Athena, her olive branch and sacred owl. 5. Roman bronze as (2 cents) of about 217 B.C.; the symbols are the head of Janus and the prow of a ship. 6. Bronze sestertius (5 cents) struck in Nero's reign; the emperor, who carries a spear, is followed by a second ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... frequented parts of Warwickshire to-day. The halcyon or kingfisher, the white-breasted water-ouzel, the skylark, the "ruddock" or robin-redbreast, the wren, the green plover, the woodcock—these serve for some of his moods; but he mentions eagle, kite, hawk, buzzard, owl, falcon, cormorant, and a number of others, always with discretion and with the full measure of knowledge vouchsafed to his time. Classical lore and country superstitions are sometimes found in his references, ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... to bitterness, it was the choice which Saddletree made of a subject for his prosing harangues, being the trial of Effie Deans, and the probability of her being executed. Every word fell on Butler's ear like the knell of a death-bell, or the note of a screech-owl. ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... too, five daughters bright In deathless glory sprang to light. Ennobling fame still keeps alive The titles of the lovely five: Immortal honour still she claims For Kraunchi, Bhasi, Syeni's names. And wills not that the world forget Suki or Dhritarashtri yet. Then Kraunchi bare the crane and owl, And Bhasi tribes of water fowl: Vultures and hawks that race through air With storm-fleet pinions Syeni bare. All swans and geese on mere and brook Their birth from Dhritarashtri took, And all the river-haunting brood Of ducks, a countless multitude. From Suki Nala sprang, who bare Dame ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... well just what every one of the sounds meant. An owl called mournfully to its mate from a hollow tree. Katydids and merry crickets added their shrill music to the chorus of that late summer night. Even a colony of tree frogs solemnly chanted their ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... the eaves of the house-tops you'll see her, In form of a vampire; 'tis then you must flee her; A crow of ill-omen she often is roaming, Or else as an owl that flits by ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... glass coated with iodized collodion rendered sensitive, exposed to faint light for a short time and developed. In this method, the glass should be heated; and the collodion burnished with the hand, to make it adhere well.[5] The owl (p. 22.) and the stork (p. 10.) are from a glass coated with iodized collodion "rendered sensitive" only, and not developed so as to be only semi-opaque. On this high lights were put with opaque white, and darks were ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 217, December 24, 1853 • Various
... inside my own caravan I've my wits about me. Outside and among folks—well, maybe you've seen an owl in the daylight with the small birds mobbin' him. . . . Now about yourself and the Mortimers—from this child's story there's no evidence yet to connect her or the boy with either of you. The man Hucks knows, and that carrier fellow at the wharf saw them for a minute, with Mortimer standin' by. But ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... owns all this; the stupidest owl that ever lived. I wish he could catch on like you. I'd like very well to work with you," ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885 • Various
... downrush. Candle and firelight filtered through frosty panes and glowed, dimly, under dark fathoms of the snow sheet now flying full of voices. Mrs. Vaughn opened her door a moment to peer out. A great horned owl flashed across the light beam with a snap and rustle of wings and a cry "oo-oo-oo," lonely, like that, as if it were the spirit of darkness and the cold wind. Mrs. Vaughn started, turning ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller
... owl," I replied, stammering; "I am sure you are drunk. Go to bed, ... but first help ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... grandfather, Thorn saw the old yellow moon go down. Around him he heard the noises of the great forest. Katydids and locusts and tree toads were singing, and from far away came the long howls of wolves. From a branch overhead a great snowy owl kept calling to his mate. That was the last the boy knew till the sun lighted ...
— The Cave Boy of the Age of Stone • Margaret A. McIntyre
... reflecting their glow in the valley. Donald MacDonald had lifted his face to the sunrise; out from under his battered hat the morning breeze sweeping through the valley of the Frazer tossed his shaggy hair; his great owl-gray beard swept his breast; his broad, gaunt shoulders were hunched a little forward as he looked into the east. Again Aldous looked into ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... Rob got in, even if he had to run away and smouch a little about how old he was. But he wasn't through his training. And as for the other boys, Frank was solemn as an owl because the desk sergeant laughed at him and told him to go back to the Boy Scouts; and Jesse was almost in ...
— The Young Alaskans on the Missouri • Emerson Hough
... of the city. Some of the men have a way of leading the cattle by a peculiar call, a wild, pensive hoot, quite musical, prolong'd, indescribable, sounding something between the cooing of a pigeon and the hoot of an owl. I like to stand and look at the sight of one of these immense droves—a little way off—(as the dust is great.) There are always men on horseback, cracking their whips and shouting—the cattle low—some obstinate ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... like a river of molten tin; while on the other side was a black mass of trees, profiled on a stormy sky, invaded by large coppery clouds which created a sort of twilight amid the night. On the left was an old abandoned mill, with its motionless wings, from the ruins of which an owl threw out its shrill, periodical, and monotonous cry. On the right and on the left of the road, which the dismal procession pursued, appeared a few low, stunted trees, which looked like deformed dwarfs crouching down to watch men traveling ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... as good as a gift, though, with the cards you held," said Mr. Whitmore, and I heard the coins jingle in changing hands, when from the shrubbery, where the gravel sweep narrowed, there sounded the low hoot of an owl. Being town-bred and unused to owls, I took it for a human cry in the darkness and shrank closer against ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... He stared at her with great owl's eyes, offended, suspecting her this time of an ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... of Rome, This melancholy desert where we meet, Resembleth well young Marius' restless thoughts. Here dreadful silence, solitary caves, No chirping birds with solace singing sweetly, Are harbour'd for delight; but from the oak, Leafless and sapless through decaying age, The screech-owl chants her fatal-boding lays. Within my breast care, danger, sorrow dwell; Hope and revenge sit hammering in my heart: The baleful babes of angry Nemesis Disperse their furious fires ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... and if my cause be right? What, and if a knave do me beguile, Shall I stand crouching like an owl? No, no; then you might count me a very cow; I know what belongeth to God's ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Robert Dodsley
... where it frequents the streams and ponds, nesting in hollows of the largest trees. Sometimes a hole in a horizontal limb is chosen that seems too small to hold the Duck's plump body, and occasionally it makes use of the hole of an Owl or Woodpecker, the entrance to which ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... upon a wild Florida forest, and all was still save for the hooting of a distant owl and the occasional plaintive call of a whip-poor-will. In a little clearing by the side of a faint bridle-path a huge fire of fat pine knots roared and crackled, lighting up the small cleared space and throwing its flickering rays in ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... one of them practise the art of Wolner in England, to swallow all 's given thee: and yet let one purgation make thee as hungry again as fellows that work in a saw-pit. I 'll go hear the screech-owl. [Exit. ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... to be; and how good, if I can!" she thought, swaying the little gate lightly under her weight, and looking with glad eyes at the goats as they frisked with their young in the pasture on the other side of the big trees, whilst one by one the stars came out, and an owl hooted from the palace woods, and the frogs croaked good-nights in ...
— Bebee • Ouida
... quarrel with me?" he asked thickly, with a sort of amazement. He blinked like an owl. He was funny. Freya, like all women, had a keen sense of the ridiculous in ...
— 'Twixt Land & Sea • Joseph Conrad
... Euripides, The Captain crowed out, "Euoi, praise the God! Ooep, boys, bring our owl-shield to the fore! Out with our Sacred Anchor! Here she stands, Balaustion! Strangers, greet the lyric girl! Euripides? Babai! what a word there 'scaped Your teeth's enclosure, quoth my grandsire's song Why, fast as snow in Thrace, the voyage through, Has she been falling thick in flakes ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... in her guardian, set out on the expedition. The passages wound through the walls of the modern part of the palace and abutted in effect at the old Owl Tower, as it was called, on the outer wall: the tower was pulled down ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... deliberate clown Can never beat love's barriers down: 'Tis better to be like the owl, Comic because so grave a fowl. From him we well may take our cue— By him be taught, ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... was quite dark. Near us behind the curtain of tendrils was a small green cave in the rock, and at its mouth a pool two yards wide, a black and limpid water that leisurely wheeled, discharging a little rivulet from the cave: and in it I saw three owl-eyed fish, a finger long, loiter, and spur themselves, and gaze. Leda, who cannot be still in tongue or limb, chattered in her glib baby manner as we ate, and then, after smoking a cigarette, said that she would go and 'lun,' and went, and left me darkling, for she is the sun and the moon ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... in the darkened sky one or two pale-gold stars were gleaming. The air was full of sweet, moist scents; and a big white owl flew by the window, looking weird and ghostly in the dusk. A moment later they heard him hoot from his eyrie in one of the tall tree-tops, ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... seen me standing up in the boat, hollerin' at Sartoris, and laffin' so as I couldn't hardly keep me feet. 'Sartoris,' I says, 'when do the animals feed?' An' he looks over the rail, just like a stuffed owl in a glass case, and says nothing. I took a bottle from the boat's locker, and held it up. 'What wouldn't you give for a drop o' that!' I shouts. But he shook his fist, and said something disrespectful about ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... lightning when aware of our approach. Two splendid eagles from an eyrie on the crags above hovered and wheeled, observing us, their shadows like two moving spots of ink upon the mountain-side. A drowsy owl was put up from a cave, and one of our adherents swore he heard a partridge calling. No other living creature larger than a beetle did we come across ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... really useful art: to play the fiddle, to know a good cigar, or to speak with ease and opportunity to all varieties of men. Many who have "plied their book diligently," and know all about some one branch or another of accepted lore, come out of the study with an ancient and owl- like demeanour, and prove dry, stockish, and dyspeptic in all the better and brighter parts of life. Many make a large fortune, who remain underbred and pathetically stupid to the last. And meantime there goes the idler, who began life along with them - by your leave, a different ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sleep four hours, Gertrude, but my owl-visit to the steamer was highly instructive, and when we get to sea, you all will be delighted to help me complete the study of the marine engines ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... the dark like an owl," sang back Eleanor, her good-humor restored the instant her paddle touched water,—for boating was ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... large amount of study we gave to our chosen subjects; but, my child, philosophy without love, or disguised under a sham love, is the most hideous of conjugal hypocrisies. I should imagine that even the biggest of fools might detect now and again the owl of wisdom squatting in your bower of roses—a ghastly phantom sufficient to put to flight the most promising of passions. You make your own fate, instead of waiting, a plaything in ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... step. Does the powerful and kingly eagle not resemble the noble and generous lion?—the cruel vulture, the ferocious tiger?—the kite, buzzard, and crow preying upon carrion, hyenas, jackals, and wolves? Are not falcons, hawks, and other birds used in the chase, types of foxes and dogs? Is the owl, which prowls about only at night, not a type of the cat? The cormorants and herons, that live upon fish, are they not the otters and beavers of the air? Do not peacocks, turkeys, and the common barn-door fowl bear a striking affinity to oxen, cows, ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... suddenly by the creaking of a door. It was an extraordinary thing at that hour. The whole house hold was asleep. Nothing could be heard save the footsteps of the watch-dogs on the sand, or their scratching at the foot of a tree in which an owl was screeching. An excellent opportunity to use his listening-tube! Upon putting it to his ear, M. Gardinois was assured that he had made no mistake. The sounds continued. One door was opened, then another. The bolt of the front door ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... more than we have," Rob asserted, "because he always has been a timid sort of chap with regard to seeing blood when any of us got hurt. I remember how ghastly white Tubby grew that time one of the scouts in the Owl Patrol cut his foot with the ax. I thought for a while we'd have two patients on our hands. He had to sit down so as to ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... the wise doctor, who knew other than owls and owlets, knew the tempter in that form. Faustus was not your man for fancies and figments; and he tells us that, to his certain knowledge, it was verily an owl's face that whispered so much mischief in the ear ...
— Citation and Examination of William Shakspeare • Walter Savage Landor
... of Athens may have furnished the original for the olive-wreath so common on American coins. They were issued under the auspices of Athene, and bore upon the obverse the head of the goddess. The reverse regularly bore the owl and the olive-bough. These coins were familiarly called owls, just as we speak of eagles in our currency, and just as the English talked of angels and crosses in the time of Elizabeth. Aristophanes jocosely calls the Athenian pieces owls ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... secret societies, Jeekie went the round of the camp to see that everyone was at his post. Then he did what most people would have thought a very curious and strange thing, namely climbed the fence and vanished into the forest, where presently a sound was heard as of an owl hooting. ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... way down the great stair, "the Corridors of Time," where the white owl glared his glassy wisdom on the passings and counter-passings, she was haunted with the thought that Harry had seen the extraordinary Kerr before; not shaken hands with him, perhaps—perhaps not even heard his name; but somewhere, across some distance, once glimpsed him, and had never quite shaken ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... Aberford's in Stomich Alley, Chalmers's in Nairve Court, Short's niver stirs out o' Liver Lane, Paul's is stuck fast in Kidney Close, Kinyon's in Mookis Membrin Mews, and Hibbard's in Lung Passage. Look see! nixt time y' are out of sorts, stid o' consultin' three bats an' a n'owl at a guinea the piece, send direct to me, and I'll give y' all their opinions, and all their prescriptions, gratis. And deevilich dear ye'll find 'em at the ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... at Danny Grin, smiling quietly. The imitation note of the screech owl was a signal from Dick that Dodge and Bayliss had arrived, and ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... La Mascotte together with the waltz from La Diva rose in confusion upon the air; the Superman and Celia danced a couple of waltzes and the party wound up with everybody singing a habanera, until they wearied and each owl flew off to ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... Spirit asked all the animals that he had made to come to his lodge. Those that could fly came first: the robin, the bluebird, the owl, the butterfly, the wasp, and the firefly. Behind them came the chicken, fluttering its wings and trying hard to keep up. Then came the deer, the squirrel, the serpent, the cat, and the rabbit. Last of all came the bear, the beaver, and the hedgehog. Every one traveled as swiftly ...
— The Book of Nature Myths • Florence Holbrook
... was bound to marry: he was bound to take to himself one of them: and whichever one he selected would cast a lustre on his reputation. At least she would rescue him from the claws of Lady Busshe, and her owl's hoot of "Willow Pattern", and her hag's shriek of "twice jilted". That flying infant Willoughby—his unprotected little incorporeal omnipresent Self (not thought of so much as passionately felt for)—would not be scoffed at as the luckless with women. A fall indeed ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... kind and blew the rafts over to the island on which the Big Chestnut Tree stood. Then all the squirrels went ashore and commenced to fill their sacks with nuts, when, all of a sudden, Old Barney Owl looked out ...
— Little Jack Rabbit and the Squirrel Brothers • David Cory
... their mother said that, and Ben gave a faint giggle, as if he would like to join in if he only had the strength to do it. But his legs shook under him, and he felt a queer dizziness; so he could only hold on to Sancho, and blink at the light like a young owl. ...
— Under the Lilacs • Louisa May Alcott
... wisdom of an old owl, "mark the curl of his lip, and the bold, defiant stare of the eye. Mark the covert smile on that face, as if he were really laughing at us now. All those things are significant—mighty significant. You do not dream of the treachery hidden beneath that boyish exterior; but I, sir, can see ...
— Frank Merriwell's Bravery • Burt L. Standish
... as a piper, drunk as an owl, drunk as David's sow, drunk as a lord, fuddled as an ape, merry as a ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... neither seen nor heard a human being, nor were there save here and there remote traces of man's hand. No men dwell there: nothing invites men there. A few birds and fewer animals hold absolute dominion. Wandering there, one's senses become intensely alert. But for the hoot of the owl, the caw of the crow, the scream of the eagle, the infrequent twitter of small birds, the mighty but subdued roar of insects, the rush of water over the rocks and the sigh and sough of the wind among the pines, the lonely wanderer has no sign of aught but the rank ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... spectral shadow-land and moved slowly on as before. The silence was most impressive. Now and then the faint yeap of some traveling bird would come from the air overhead, or the wings of a bat whisp quickly by, or an owl hoot off in the mountains, giving to the silence and loneliness a tongue. At short intervals some noise in-shore would startle me, and cause me to turn inquiringly to the silent ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... lively set, apt to keep up their fun late, and the secondary school girls often talked persistently, to the annoyance of their neighbours. At last, however, all lights were out, and a profound silence reigned. Not even an owl hooted to-night, and, as Dandy had been banished from the field, even his crunching of the grass was absent. Raymonde crept from her blankets and listened. Her companions, to judge from their breathing, were sound asleep. She felt much tempted to awaken only Morvyth, but she knew that if she omitted ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... I had remarked on entering, some wolftraps were suspended, and to one of them still hung the mangled remains of a wolf's paw, which they had not yet taken off from the iron teeth. The blackened chimneypiece was ornamented by an owl and a raven nailed on the wall, their wings extended, and their throats with a huge nail through each; a fox's skin, freshly flayed, was spread before the window; and a larder hook, fixed into the principal beam, held a headless goose, whose body swayed about ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... her like a downy young owl. She wasn't sure but she thought that he muttered, "I'm damned if I will." She considered with wholesome fear the perils of meddling with other people's destinies, and she said timidly, "Hadn't we ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... glad to get rid of us," said Ditte harshly. "That's what they all are. At school they make a ring and sing about a crow and an owl and all ugly birds! and the crow and his young steal the farmer's chickens, but then the farmer takes a long stick and pulls down the Crow's Nest. Do you think I don't know ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... is Hamlet, but a hare in March? And what is Brutus, but a croaking owl? And what is Rolla? Cupid steeped in starch, Orlando's helmet in Augustin's cowl. Shakespeare, how true thine adage "fair is foul!" To him whose soul is with fruition fraught, The song of Braham is an Irish howl, Thinking is but an idle waste of thought, ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... midnight. The cottages were all dark. A single faint light gleamed out from the hallway of the house. There was no sound abroad except the hooting of an old owl in the top of a water-oak, and the everlasting voice of the sea, that was not uplifted at that soft hour. It broke like a mournful ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... she mopes apart, As owl mopes on a tree; Although she keenly feels the smart, She cannot tell what ails her heart, With its sad "Ah me!" 'Tis but a foolish sigh - "Ah me!" Born but to droop and die - "Ah me!" Yet all the sense Of eloquence Lies hidden in a ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... go on quarter-rations from now," said the Halfbreed, a few days later. He ranged far and wide, looking for game, but never a sign did he see. Once, indeed, we heard a shot. Eagerly we waited his return, but all he had got was a great, grey owl, which ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... looking down at him, the furry little face serious, like that of a very wise old owl. In the irregular light through the ports the tufted ears made the spacemonk look ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... who shared with him her corn-cakes, which, when she does not meet him at his accustomed spot, she places at the foot of a marked tree. Bob had added a few chips to his night fire, (his defence against tormenting mosquitoes), and made his moss bed. Having tamed an owl and a squirrel, they now make his rude camp their home, and share his crumbs. The squirrel nestles above his head, as the owl, moping about the camp entrance, suddenly hoots a warning and flutters its way into the thicket. Starting to ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... hang by the wall And Dick the shepherd blows his nail, And Tom bears logs into the hall, And milk comes frozen home in pail; When blood is nipt, and ways be foul, Then nightly sings the staring owl Tuwhoo! Tuwhit! Tuwhoo! A merry note! While greasy ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various
... is very bad. Whenever it comes to a house and screeches, somebody falls ill. If it calls three times, in three consecutive nights, the sick person will die. The owl is also very smart. It knows when the Tarahumare's blanket (in which he is wrapped when sleeping along the fire) is going to be burned. When the owl hoots near a home it says, "Chu-i, chu-i, chu-i,"—"dead, dead, dead." Owls ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... with that fiend-like shape in her cupboard the one ambition of Mistress Croale's life was henceforth inextricably bound up: she would turn that bottle into a witness for her against the judgment she had deserved. Close by the cupboard door, like a kite or an owl nailed up against a barn, she hung her soiled and dishonoured satin gown; and the dusk having now gathered, took the jug, and fetched herself water. Then, having set her kettle on the fire, she went out with her basket, and bought bread, and butter. After a good cup of ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... his lady move to the deed under a law which—for a while—has usurped the true moral order and reversed it, he not without misgivings: the spectators all the while knowing the true order, yet held silent, watching the event. Outside the castle an owl hoots as Duncan is slain. The guilty man and woman creep back, whispering; and thereupon—what happens? A knocking on the door—a knocking followed by the growls of a drowsy if not drunken porter: "Here's a ...
— Poetry • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... in vain, Shutting away the moonlight from her view; Darkness and moonlight wore the same dread hue, Flooding the universe with crimson stain. She clasped her bosom with her hands to still The throbbing of her heart that seemed to fill With tell-tale echoes all the air; an owl The secret with unearthly shrieks confessed, And Gray Cloud's dog sent forth a doleful howl At intervals; but worse than all the rest, That dreadful drum still beating in her breast, As furious war-drums in the scalp-dance beat To the mad circling ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... an owl in the sudden glare. "Good even to you, comrades! Hola! a woman, by my soul!" and in an instant he had clipped Dame Eliza round the waist and was kissing her violently. His eye happening to wander upon the maid, however, he instantly abandoned ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... paused in his shaving long enough to glance keenly at Phil. There was a twinkle in his eyes. He knew that his Circus Boys had been up to some mischief. Phil was as solemn as an owl. ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... It is unfortunate that I am so often compelled to corroborate your statements, when all the acumen with which you credit my mind is turned towards the task of proving you a purse-proud fool, puffed up in your own conceit, and as short-sighted as an owl in the summer sunlight. However, let us stick to our text. If what I said had been true, although of course you know it isn't, you have nevertheless enough common sense to be aware that I would certainly show a pardonable reluctance about visiting my father's ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr
... long, melancholy hoot of the owl, and he did it so well that he was surprised at his own skill. The note, full of desolation and menace, seemed to come back in many echoes. He saw the swart leader and the men with him start and look fearfully toward the forest that curved so ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... at Lissa. She was standin' by de wash pot lookin' down in de water, an' de firelight from de burnin' lightwood knots showed de tears droppin' off her cheeks. Cleve went outside. 'Bout dat time a scritch owl come an' set on de roof an' scritched. Lissa run out to skeer it away, but Cleve caught her arm. He say, 'Don't do dat, Lissa, leave him alone. Dat's de death bird, he knows what he's doin'. So Lissa didn' do nothin', she let de bird ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... ladders of withies or saplings," said the prisoner, "drawn up by an accomplice and clansman, who had served six months in the castle to enjoy that one night of unlimited vengeance. The owl whooped around us as we hung betwixt heaven and earth; the tide roared against the foot of the rock, and dashed asunder our skiff, yet no man's heart failed him. In the morning there was blood and ashes, where there had been peace and joy ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... listening to the far-away mournful call of an owl to its mate, and noted the flood of soft moonlight, it was no wonder he said ...
— With Trapper Jim in the North Woods • Lawrence J. Leslie
... steps that he might know the distance travelled. He walked stealthily, expecting every moment to hear the challenge of the Rebel pickets. He was startled by the cry, "Who! Who! Who!" He came to a sudden halt, and then laughed to think that he had been challenged by an owl. ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... provinces, elsewhere a doe. The Athene of the Acropolis is a serpent. Apollo is sometimes connected with the mouse. Along with these identifications of the gods with animals we may mention the animal emblems with which they are generally represented. The eagle is the bird of Zeus, the owl of Athene, the peacock of Hera, the dove of Aphrodite. In this connection we cannot help thinking of the sacred animals of the Egyptian nomes; and the question may be asked whether such animals must be taken to be in Greece also the ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... "I never had the Quaker gift of gathering into the stillness, that's a fact. But I reckon even that 'pothecary's owl wouldn't be silent if he could hear and understand all that Betsey has told me about the goings-on down South. Before I married her, she went there to teach; but she's a woman o' feeling, and she couldn't stand it long. But, dear me, if I believed Deacon Steal'em's talk, I should think ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... the woods on one side and the bright moonlight flooding a field of young cotton on the other. Now they heard the distant baying of house-dogs, now the doleful call of the chuck-will's-widow; and once Mary's blood turned, for an instant, to ice, at the unearthly shriek of the hoot-owl just above her head. At length they found themselves in a dim, narrow ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... don't you see that Stalky isn't here, you owl!" said McTurk. "Take down the key, and look sorrowful. King'll only jaw you for half an hour. I'm going to read ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... should not do it. Again, these unwarrantable Marriages, are, as I may so say, condemned by irrational creatures, who will not couple but with their own sort: Will the Sheep couple with a Dog, the Partridge with a Crow, or the Feasant with an Owl? No, they will strictly tye up themselves to those of their own sort only: Yea, it sets all the world a wondring, when they see or hear the contrary. Man only is most subject to wink at, and allow of these unlawful mixtures of men ...
— The Life and Death of Mr. Badman • John Bunyan
... their spools of gossamer, To dangle and to dry, And scurried home to the hollow fir Where the white owl winks an eye. ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... the old warrior, as he pointed out the blackened ruins, "here stood our home, where now the screech owl haunts, and the wolf has its den. There, where the broken shaft yet remains, was the chamber in which thou first sawest the light, and wherein thy mother died there, where snake and toad have their home, was the great hall. Surely the moonbeams fall more peacefully on the spot now all ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... to man I thought it must be breakin' out in blisters. 'Never see anybody that looked just like me, did you, Sis?' I says to her, when I couldn't stand it any longer. 'No, sir,' she says, solemn as an owl. She was right out and honest, I'll say that for her. That's the only time Marcellus laughed while we was inside that house. I didn't blame him much. Ho, ho! Well, he ain't laughin' now and neither are we—or we hadn't ought to be. Neither is the child, I cal'late, poor thing. I wonder what ...
— Mary-'Gusta • Joseph C. Lincoln
... fighting is an ascertainment, who has the right to rule over whom; that out of such waste-bickering Saxondom a peacefully cooeperating England may arise. Seek through this Universe; if with other than owl's eyes, thou wilt find nothing nourished there, nothing kept in life, but what has right to nourishment and life. The rest, look at it with other than owl's eyes, is not living; is all dying, all as good as dead! Justice was ordained from the foundations ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... similar cases ever since English jurisprudence advanced to the stage of not executing people on suspicion. There was the same dank, solemn atmosphere of the morgue, the same density of intellect and understanding, the same owl-like gaze of stupidity that passed muster for wisdom, the same perfervid desire to get a certificate on the public treasury without undue mental or physical effort, the same ambition to give a duly impressive but harmless verdict, that must have ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... followed,—miles and miles beside roaring brooks and mist-filled ravines, through gloomy woods where no light entered, and over bare ridges where the big stars sparkled just over his ears as he hung, limp as a rabbit skin, from his mother's great jaws. An owl hooted dismally, whoo-hooo! and though he knew the sound well in his peaceful nights, it brought now a certain shiver. The wind went sniffing suspiciously among the spruce branches; a startled bird chirped and whirred away out of their path; the brook roared among the rocks; a ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... over the snow fence along the line. Not a sign of life was visible. The tiny mounds in the villages of the prairie-dogs seemed blocked and frozen; even the trusty sentinel had "deserted post" and huddled with his fellows for warmth and shelter in the bowels of the earth. Fluttering owl and skulking coyote, too, had vanished from the face of nature. Timid antelope—fleetest coursers of the prairie—and stolid horned cattle had gone, none knew whither, nor cared to know until the "blizzard" had subsided. Two heavy engines fought their way, panting, into the very ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... big owl in one of the trees began to call. I knew what it was for Mustagan had taught me. At first Roddy said it was somebody ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... devote themselves to skinning the public—they are at the head of the bar. They are made judges. They are promoted to supreme courts. A damn nice howdy-do we're coming to when the quacks run a whole profession. And Tom Van Dorn is a quack—a hair-splitting, owl-eyed, venal quack—who doles out the bread pills of injustice, and the strychnine stimulants of injustice and the deadening laudanum of injustice, and falls back on the body of the decisions to uphold him in his quackery. Justice demands that he take that fake corporation, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... pomp of royalty. A melancholy reflection on the vicissitudes of human greatness forced itself on his mind; and he repeated an elegant distich of Persian poetry: "The spider has wove his web in the Imperial palace; and the owl hath sung her watch-song on ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... through the grove before reaching the house it was quite dark, and they heard an owl hooting in one ...
— Diddie, Dumps, and Tot • Louise-Clarke Pyrnelle
... night, which gathered around me dark and dismal. With night came new voices—the hideous voices of the nocturnal swamp; the qua-qua of the night-heron, the screech of the swamp-owl, the cry of the bittern, the cl-l-uk of the great water-toad, the tinkling of the bell-frog, and the chirp of the savanna-cricket—all fell upon my ear. Sounds still harsher and more, hideous were heard around me—the plashing of the alligator, and the roaring of his voice; these reminded ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... waiting for the utter dark. The doctor's little square satchel of instruments, vials, and bandages lay open on the table; he had changed the apartment as utterly as he had changed his face by putting on great, horn-rimmed spectacles. They gave an owl-like look to him, an air of omniscience. It seemed as if no mortal ailment could persist in the ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... is repugnant to his habits. Work without hope of profits! That cannot be, for it would be self-destruction. He would like to, perhaps; he has not the courage. Video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor. The retired proprietor is really the owl of the fable gathering beech-nuts for its mutilated mice until it is ready to devour them. Is society also to be blamed for these effects of a passion so long, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... inch and the fairies had peeped out from behind azaleas, yet both of these late loiterers felt fairies were surely there: it seemed to be Nature's own most secret hour, upon which man trespasses if he venture forth from his house: an owl from his hidden haunt flew nearer the garden and uttered a clear call once to remind Rodriguez of this: and Rodriguez did not heed, but walked ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... was yours! I think it will be rather fun! Cheer up, Bevis! Don't look such a scared owl! Here's old Clive absolutely ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... would glimmer white in the wind at times. The tree was full of giant birds. Every now and then, one would sweep through, with a great noise. But, except an occasional chirp, sounding like a shrill pipe in a great organ, they made no noise. All at once an owl began to hoot. He thought he was singing. As soon as he began, other birds replied, making rare game of him. To their astonishment, the children found they could understand every word they sang. And what they ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... always loved the heights. From the time he had first sighted this range he had never failed to experience a peculiar exaltation as he mounted above the ranch and the mine. Gambler and night-owl though he had been, he had often spent his afternoons on horseback riding high above the camps, and now some small part of his love of the upper air came back to lead him towards his grave. With face turned to the solitudes ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... step upon the steep, and cheerful shout for his Sylvia, to come and ease down his basket, and say—"Well done, father!" But the shadows of the trees grew darker, and the song of the gray-bird died out among them, and the silent wings of the owl swept by, and all the mysterious sounds of night in the depth of forest loneliness, and the glimmer of a star through the leaves here and there, to tell us that there still was light in heaven—but of an earthly ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore
... the other. "You closed these doors, and you butted in about the 'Blue Boy' just as that Central Office owl produced his jewelry. Yes, and you stumbled against the chest and knew that I was ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... owl outside made Joyce start nervously. She was unstrung and superstitious—the fun of the game died in her, and she felt weak and nauseated. She spoke as if she wanted to finish the matter and have done ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... silence like the inquiries of an owl. But his ideas had all taken wings again and left him, as on the occasion when he attempted to preach ...
— In The Boyhood of Lincoln - A Tale of the Tunker Schoolmaster and the Times of Black Hawk • Hezekiah Butterworth
... told me one day I was a miserable young idiot, and that I thought about nothing but birds and butterflies. Can't help it. I like to. I say, we'll go egging as soon as we've seen the owls. Wonder whether I can get an owl's egg for my collection. ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... Doug! You old owl! What's the matter with you? After all, it's good to be alive! I wish I had a horse as good as Buster and I wouldn't ask for much more ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie
... falling in the coldest hour of the night, and the earth smelled sweetly: the whole habitation was asleep now, and there was no sound to be known as the sound of any creature, save that from the distant meadow came the lowing of a cow that had lost her calf, and that a white owl was flitting about near the eaves of the Roof with her wild cry that sounded like the mocking ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... natural that I can't believe Alice is really dead. I guess you must be pretty dog-goned crazy about birds yourself to have done such a lovely job on Alice, and I guess you know how perfectly sick I was over her death. Honestly, Mr. Epps, she was such a PEACH of an owl. But I suppose it had to be, and anyway, thanks just heaps for having done such a really perfectly gorgeous bit of taxidermy. Gratefully, FLORENCE CHASE. 593 Fifth Avenue, ...
— Perfect Behavior - A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in all Social Crises • Donald Ogden Stewart
... was that inclosed between Owl and Lick creeks, which run nearly parallel with each other, and empty into the Tennessee river. The flanks of the two armies rested upon these little streams, and the front of each was just the distances, ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... memorials," "with uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked;" there "the name, the years, spelt by the unlettered muse;" and the holy texts strewn round "that teach the rustic moralist to die." There is still "the ivy-mantled tower," tho the "moping owl" that evening did not "to the moon complain," partly because there was no moon to complain to, and possibly because there was no moping owl in the tower. But there was one little circumstance which I may be pardoned for mentioning. Gray, somehow, ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... crosses his path, he stops, and either throws three pebbles into the road, or, with the innate selfishness of fear, lets someone else go before him, and attract to himself the harm which may ensue. He has a similar dread of a screech-owl, whom he compliments in the name of its mistress, Pallas Athene. If he finds a serpent in his house, he sets up an altar to it. If he pass at a four-cross-way an anointed stone, he pours oil on it, kneels ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... The owl he has eyes that are big for his size, And the night like a book he deciphers; "Too-woop!" he asserts, and "Hoo-woo-ip!" he cries, And he means to remark he is awfully wise; But he lags behind us, who are "on" to the lies Of the hairy ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... events moved swiftly. First Helen and Mary appeared, their faces shining and solemn and mysterious—Helen self-conscious and Mary staring through her spectacles like a profound owl. ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... rapacious fox; On rapid pinions cleave the fields above, The hawk descending, and escaping dove; With nicer nostril track the tainted ground, The hungry vulture, and the prowling hound; Converge reflected light with nicer eye, The midnight owl, and microscopic fly; ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... poplar, many an elm tree, while close at hand the sacred water from the nymphs' own cave welled forth with murmurs musical. On shadowy boughs the burnt cicalas kept their chattering toil, far off the little owl cried in the thick thorn brake, the larks and finches were singing, the ring-dove moaned, the yellow bees were flitting about the springs. All breathed the scent of the opulent summer, of the season of fruits; ...
— Theocritus, Bion and Moschus rendered into English Prose • Andrew Lang
... tame brown owl, I find that it casts up the fur of mice, and the feathers of birds in pellets, after the manner of hawks: when full, like a dog, it hides what it ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... trifle eccentric, I judge, but not a fool by any manner of means. The situation appeals to my imagination, Jack. I like the idea of it,— the lost treasure and the whole business. Lord, what a salad that is! Cheer up, comrade! You’re as grim as an owl!” ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... That was why Owl Eyes, the Wisest Medicine-man, invited two of his cronies to sit with him on the bluff overlooking the salt-marsh and watch ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... that I'd stay the night here. I didn't think ... Well, an owl's been sitting there! Children can't very well climb higher than that—not to recognize their own fathers! Anna is now taking the best way to become a fine lady, too.... I shall be wondering how long I shall know myself! Devil take it, Kalle Karlsen, I'm of good family, too, look ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... the apostolic succession. These two gentlemen had never seen each other, but they had been extremely bitter in print. Mr. Slope had endeavoured to strengthen his cause by calling Mr. Arabin an owl, and Mr. Arabin had retaliated by hinting that Mr. Slope was an infidel. This battle had been commenced in the columns of "The Jupiter," a powerful newspaper, the manager of which was very friendly to Mr. Slope's view of the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... cessation of spiritual life, as though the haunters of the glade were waiting for the resumption of their occupations until the interloping mortal should pass by. Nothing stirred, or, if so, it was motion without sound, as when the full-feathered owl slid softly through the midnight air above him. Not a dead leaf fell; and where the leaves had fallen there they lay. How was it, then, that a twig broke? The deer were couched; the pheasants sat at roost, their heads beneath that splendid coverlet, their wing; and though there were creeping ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... boy cried: "Let me go—let me go!" For a scared—scared boy was he! But the Thunder growled from a black cloud: "No!" And the Wind roared: "Follow me!" And an old gray Owl from a treetop flew, Saying: "Who are you-oo? Who are you-oo?" And the little boy sobbed: "I'm lost away, And I want to go home where my parents stay!" Oh, the awful day When ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... the owl both await daylight. "The light," says the cock, "brings me delight; but what in the world art thou ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... which once rang with the tramp of mighty hosts and echoed with the songs of jubilant multitudes welcoming them home from victory are buried under the drifting desert sands; in the ruins of thy holy temples the statues of the gods lie prone in the dust, and the owl rears her brood on thy crumbling altars, and hoots to the moon where once rose the solemn chant of priests and the sweet hymns of the Sacred Virgins; the jackal barks where once the mightiest monarchs of earth gave judgment and received tribute; ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... tramped across the dewy grass. As they drew closer to the building Roy had descried, he saw that it was a dilapidated looking affair. Shutters hung crazily from a single hinge, broken window-panes looked disconsolately out. In the roof was a yawning gap, from which a great owl flapped as they drew closer. Evidently the place had not been occupied as a dwelling for ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... the talking and laughing and the formless progress of the mob hushed the nearer night voices of the fields and woods; but from a distance the shuddering cry of a screech-owl could be heard; and the melancholy call of a killdee in a pasture beside the creek. The people, friends and foes together, made their way unlighted except by the tin lantern which some one had caught from where it stood on ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... is in good, but not in bad. My second is in sane, but not in mad. My third is in rooster, not in fowl. My fourth is in hawk, but not in owl. My fifth is in plant, but not in flower. My sixth is in rain, but not in shower. My seventh is in bluster, not in rant. My eighth is in emmet, not in ant. My whole is the name of a ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... of the head. For a moment I was so terrified that I nearly fell off the plank, as I thought that the lion had sprung on me from behind. Regaining my senses in a second or two, I realised that I had been hit by nothing more formidable than an owl, which had doubtless mistaken me for the branch of a tree—not a very alarming thing to happen in ordinary circumstances, I admit, but coming at the time it did, it almost paralysed me. The involuntary start which I ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... is reduced, by necessities of recent classification, to call a bird three feet and a half across the wings, a sparrow. I have no right to laugh at him, for I am just going, myself, to call the cheerfulest and brightest of birds of the air, an owl. All these architectural and sepulchral habits, these Egyptian manners of the sand-martin, digging caves in the sand, and border-trooper's habits of the chimney swallow, living in round towers instead of open air, ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... er dese yer ole hoot owls," she muttered querulously, "en ef'n 'tis, he des es well be a-hootin' along home, caze I ain' gwine be pestered wid his pranks. Dar ain' but one kind er somebody es will sass you at yo' ve'y do,' en dat's a hoot owl es is done loss count ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... have one more sweet draught of life before I die. You will learn a lesson that will give you strength for all the years to come, and will have, at least, a chance of winning the lady. It may be one chance in a million; but God favors the brave, and you have no chance if you remain perched owl-like upon this wilderness of rock. Max, you know not what awaits you. Rouse yourself from this sloth of a thousand years, and strike fire from the earth that shall illumine your name ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... faint. He tried to give vent to his complaints; but his tongue cleaved to the roof of his mouth: his spirits sunk within him. No sound now reached his ears but the baying of the shepherds dogs, and the drowsy tinklings of the distant folds. The owl, the solemn bird of night, sat buried among the branches of the aged oak, and with her melancholy hootings gave an additional serenity to the scene. At a small distance, on his right hand, he perceived a contiguous object that reflected the rays of the moon, through the willows and the hazels, ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... the books were not true in the case of this bird: she did not sit on a twig upright like an owl or a hawk, but held her body exactly as does a robin or sparrow; and she did fly backward and sideways, ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller |
