"Proboscis" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... true kings of the nation than gadflies are the kings of a horse; they suck it, and may drive it wild, but do not guide it. They, and their courts, and their armies are, if one could see clearly, only a large species of marsh mosquito, with bayonet proboscis and melodious, band-mastered trumpeting, in the summer air; the twilight being, perhaps, sometimes fairer, but hardly more wholesome, for its glittering mists of midge companies. The true kings, meanwhile, rule quietly, if at all, and hate ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... But to be just and thankful, both to offend, (Yet Nature hath given him no knees to bend,) Himself he up-props, on himself relies, And, foe to none, suspects no enemies, Still sleeping stood; vexed not his fantasy Black dreams; like an unbent bow carelessly His sinewy proboscis did ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... and shoes. His friends being trusted with more active steeds, soon outstripped him. Jogging on leisurely he was met by a long-nosed knowing-looking man, attired in a 'sporting' dress, and an excellent equestrian. Seeing this whimsical horseman in shoes, he writhed, as Coleridge observed, his lithe proboscis, and thus accosted him: ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... father had much to occupy him. But the little man—who, to do him justice, cared no more (in his own phrase) for imminent danger or death, than he did for the puncture of a flea's proboscis—did not so easily renounce the secret object of his ambition, which was to acquire the notice of the large and lofty Sir Geoffrey Peveril, who, being at least three inches taller than his son, was in so far possessed of that superior excellence, which the ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... the spur of this orchid, one of the handsomest and most striking of its clan, and the heavy perfume of the flower, would seem to indicate that only a moth with a long proboscis could reach the nectar secreted at the base of the thread-like passage. Butterflies, attracted by the conspicuous color, sometimes hover about the showy spikes of bloom, but it is probable that, to secure a sip, all but possibly the very largest ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
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