The Natural History of Selborne: With Observations on Various Parts of Nature, and the Naturalist's Calendar

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Fraser, 1836 - 356 стор.

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Сторінка 82 - Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? Or wings and feathers unto the ostrich? Which leaveth her eggs in the earth, And warmeth them in the dust, And forgetteth that the foot may crush them, Or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, As though they were not hers...
Сторінка 19 - On the grassy bank Some ruminating lie ; while others stand Half in the flood, and often bending sip The circling surface.
Сторінка 280 - Less than archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured ; as when the sun, new risen, Looks through the horizontal misty air Shorn of his beams, or from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.
Сторінка 153 - ... unable to take their own food ; therefore they play about near the place where the dams are hawking for flies ; and when a mouthful is collected, at a certain signal given, the dam and the nestling advance, rising towards each other, and meeting at an angle ; the young one all the while uttering such a little quick note of gratitude and complacency, that a person must have paid very little regard to the wonders of Nature that has not often remarked this feat.
Сторінка 279 - July 20 inclusive, during which period the wind varied to every quarter without making any alteration in the air. The sun, at noon, looked as blank as a clouded moon, and shed a rust-coloured, ferruginous light on the ground, and floors of rooms ; but was particularly lurid and blood-coloured at rising and setting. All the time the heat was so intense, that butchers...
Сторінка 63 - When the still owl skims round the grassy mead, What time the timorous hare limps forth to feed ; Then be the time to steal adown the vale, And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's tale; To hear the clamorous...
Сторінка 224 - The language of birds is very ancient, and, like other ancient modes . of speech, very elliptical ; little is said, but much is meant and understood.
Сторінка 206 - ... would proceed but lamely without them ; by boring, perforating, and loosening the soil, and rendering it pervious to rains and the fibres of plants ; by drawing straws and stalks of leaves and twigs into it ; and, most of all, by throwing up such infinite numbers of lumps of earth called worm-casts, which, being their excrement, is a fine manure for grain and grass.
Сторінка 6 - So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle or mallet, the tree nodded to its fall ; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest; and, though her parental affection deserved a better fate,...
Сторінка 6 - Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry ; the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazardous. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived on which the wood was to be levelled.

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