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

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J.J. Griffin, 1853 - 348 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 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 19 - Now scarcely moving through a reedy pool, Now starting to a sudden stream, and now Gently diffus'd into a limpid plain ; A various group the herds and flocks compose, Rural confusion ! on the grassy bank Some ruminating lie ; while others stand Half in the flood, and often bending, sip The circling surface.
Сторінка 192 - In a farm-yard near the middle of this village stands at this day, a row of pollard-ashes, which, by the seams and long cicatrices down their sides, manifestly show that in former times they have been cleft asunder. These trees, when young and flexible, were severed and held open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped naked, were pushed through the apertures, under a persuasion that, by such a process, the poor babes would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the operation was over, the...
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 241 - ... wonder, to find that Providence should bestow such a profusion of days, such a seeming waste of longevity, on a reptile that appears to relish it so little as to squander more than two-thirds of its existence in a joyless stupor, and be lost to all sensation for months together in the profoundest of slumbers. While I was writing this letter, a moist and warm afternoon, with the thermometer at 50, brought forth troops of shell-snails ; and at the same juncture, the tortoise heaved up the mould...
Сторінка 110 - Part loosely wing the region, part more wise In common, ranged in figure wedge their way, Intelligent of seasons, and set forth Their airy caravan high over seas Flying, and over lands with mutual wing Easing their flight...
Сторінка 152 - May, which consists, like that of the house-martin, of a crust or shell composed of dirt or mud, mixed with short pieces of straw, to render it tough and permanent ; with this difference, that whereas the shell of the martin is nearly hemispheric, that of the swallow is open at the top, and like half a deep dish : this nest is lined with fine grasses and feathers, which are often collected as they float in the air. Wonderful is the address which this adroit bird shows all day long in ascending and...
Сторінка 121 - I saw it distinctly, more than once, put out its short leg while on the wing, and by a bend of the head, deliver somewhat into its mouth. If it takes any part of its prey with its foot, as I have now the greatest reason to suppose it does these chafers, I no longer wonder at the use of its middle toe, which is curiously furnished with a serrated claw...
Сторінка 6 - ... sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest; and, though her parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to the ground.

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