"Perch" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... taken in the Meleetas, and they are treated with much gentleness, each having a small house to itself, lined with soft down, and furnished with a perch. ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... tired brain like the coming of darkness, and she fell into sleep—the first rest that had visited her since she learnt of Charles's arrest. But her slumber was disturbed by dreams. She dreamt that she was back in Cornwall, sitting on her old perch at the foot of the cliffs, looking at the Moon Rock. The face in the Rock was watching her, as it had always watched her, but this time with a dreadful sneer which she had never seen before. It frightened her so that she moaned and tossed uneasily, ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... afraid of fire. And when he looked down from his perch in the tree and saw, through the hole in the stranger's crown, that all was aglow inside his big, round head, Solomon couldn't help voicing his horror. He "whoo-whooed" so loudly that Tommy Fox, at the foot of the tree, asked him what on earth ...
— The Tale of Solomon Owl • Arthur Scott Bailey
... have much to say; he didn't climb up on a perch an' call her names, he just sat there by her side like they was both children together; an' then he took some of her books an' explained things she didn't understand an' pointed out things 'at other scientists didn't believe in, an' he actually said 'at he believed that after they ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... flatly refused by the King, who swore that no one of the House of Austria should ever perch in any part of those provinces. If Leopold did not withdraw at once, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the distance of half a mile. The gladiators were disposed in four long, parallel rows of cages, open cane-work, measuring three feet square. Each had a short wooden trestle placed outside during the day and serving by night as a perch. They were fed and watered at 2 P.M. The fattening maize was first given, and then wheat, with an occasional cram of bread-crumb and water by way of physic. The masala and multifarious spices of the Hindostani trainer ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... painted hussy with red hair, wearing a tiny little hat with broad ribbons, who, from her perch on her leather cushion, was driving the horse with her hands, her eyes, her whole made-up person, stiffly erect, yet leaning forward, sat Moessard, Moessard the dandy, pink-cheeked and painted like his companion, raised on the same dung-heap, fattened on the same vices. The strumpet and the ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... Reaching his perch again, Jack cast his despairing eyes toward the fatal hill. It was now clear of smoke, and there wasn't a regiment left on it. His heart leaped for an instant, the next it was lead, for the ranks that had disappeared were down on the brow of the hill—in the valley— ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to have been that part of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn's Quay ward and parish of Saint Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods and one square pole or perch. All the lordly residences in the vicinity of the palace of justice were demolished and that noble edifice itself, in which at the time of the catastrophe important legal debates were in progress, is literally a mass of ruins beneath which it is to be feared all the occupants have ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... starling that had tumbled out of a nest," said Prissie, "and it was always perfectly tame, and would let me stroke it, and would perch on my hand. I had it for years. Do you think we ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... not my winged neighbors picked up the crumbs I have scattered for them before my window? I see them fly away, come back, perch upon the ledges of the windows, and chirp at the sight of the feast they are usually so ready to devour! It is not my presence that frightens them; I have accustomed them to eat out of my hand. Then, why this fearful suspense? In vain I look ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... this, Clement was determined to wait no longer. He would go to the Abbey at once, and ascertain the cause of Margaret's delay. He rang the bell, went into the park, and ran along the avenue to the perch. Lights were shining in Mr. Dunbar's windows, but the ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the Mistress remained moveless, Lad did not. Seeing her peril even more swiftly than did she, he made one lightning dive from his perch on the car seat. ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... Into the court, my Friend, and perch yourself Aloft upon the elm-tree. Pretty Maids, Garlands and flowers, and cakes and merry thoughts, Are here, to send the sun into the west More speedily than you belike ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... and caught the unmistakable sound of some large animal pushing its way through the overgrown cow path, but instead of an antlered head, Molly's white nose showed, and Piney called to them gaily from her perch on the old ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... had leaped down from her high perch, and was now taking a drink from a little sparkling mountain rill which flowed through ...
— The Swiss Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... islands, but refulgent and revolving lights began to stud the darkness; lighthouses of the mind or of the wearied optic nerve, solemnly shining and winking as we passed. At length the mate himself despaired, scrambled on board again from his unrestful perch, and announced that we had missed our destination. He was the only man of practice in these waters, our sole pilot, shipped for that end at Tai-o-hae. If he declared we had missed Takaroa, it was not for us to quarrel with the fact, but, if we could, to explain it. ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "It was awful for you to perch on one toe for a hundred million mile ride! And I reclined at ease on a Roman trident, or whatever you call it!" "Tripod, you mean," said Adele, ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... which projects beyond the posts and frequently curves upwards at both ends. The whole, as is often the case, was painted a dull red. This torii, or "birds' rest," is said to be so called because the fowls, which were formerly offered but not sacrificed, were accustomed to perch upon it. A straw rope, with straw tassels and strips of paper hanging from it, the special emblem of Shinto, hung across the gateway. In the paved court there were several handsome granite lanterns on fine granite pedestals, such as are the ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... eating up young ducklings on a certain pond; how he had baited for this fellow with a live duckling, the hook through the tips of its wings, got him in twenty minutes, and he turned the scale at four-and-twenty pounds. Roach and perch were afterwards discussed. In Mr. Sparkes' opinion the best bait for these fish was a bit of dough kneaded up with loose wool. Chaffey's—at all events, Chaffey's of to-day—would not have known its head waiter could it have seen and heard him as ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... the mouth, but also in the fact that the tail was of considerable length. With regard to its habits and mode of life, Professor Phillips remarks that, "gifted with ample means of flight, able at least to perch on rocks and scuffle along the shore, perhaps competent to dive, though not so well as a Palmiped bird, many fishes must have yielded to the cruel beak and sharp teeth of Rhamphorhynchus. If we ask to which of the many families of Birds the analogy of structure and ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... on the same course until abreast of the perch, which was only a forked stick. The men came aft and hauled in the mizzen sheer. Chambers put up the helm. The mizzen came across with a jerk, and the sheet was again allowed to run out. The jib came over with a report ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... resolutions, we shall here insert them for his satisfaction. The committee resolved, that the ell ought to contain one yard and one quarter, according to the yard mentioned in the third resolution of the former committee upon the subject of weights and measures; that the pole, or perch, should contain in length five such yards and a half; the furlong two hundred and twenty; and the mile one thousand seven hundred and sixty: that the superficial perch should contain thirty square yards and a quarter; the rood one thousand two hundred and ten; and the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the dingles of April flowers Shine with the earliest daffodils, When, before sunrise, the cold clear hours Gleam with a promise that noon fulfils,— Deep in the leafage the cuckoo cried, Perch'd on a spray by a rivulet-side, "Swallows, O Swallows, come back again To swoop and herald the ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... something firm and say nothing, while impenitent sinners often express themselves in terms that cannot properly be published. The acute trouble takes place just after mounting the beast and just before leaving the lofty perch occupied by passengers on his back. A saddle is placed upon his upper deck, a sort of saw-horse, and the lower legs stretch at an angle sufficiently obtuse to encompass his breadth of beam. This saw-horse is lashed to the hull with numerous ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... the tinkling of the streams, and the sighing of the autumn leaves, and the cooing of the sleepy doves; while the ice-bird, as the Germans call the water-ouzel, sat on a rock in the river below, and warbled his low sweet song, and then flitted up the grassy reach to perch and sing again ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... fancy that the difference between the top of Mount Everest and the gorge through which the Jordan runs would scarcely be perceptible if you were standing on the sun. Thus, 'without respect of persons,' great men and little, rich men and poor, educated men and illiterate, people that perch themselves on their little stools and think themselves high above their fellows: they are all on one dead level in the eye of the Judge. And this question is as to the quality of the work and not as to the dignity of the doer. 'Without respect of persons' implies universality ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... your perch!" says I. "Ain't you makin' extra money on this? And when you fetch up at the club, do it like you was used to stoppin' ...
— Torchy • Sewell Ford
... out, blushing like a rose peony. "I am ten to-day, too! What were your presents? Mine were the pony phaeton and this gold watch (she held it out to me on a chain about her neck) and a macaw from South America from my Uncle Mather, on an ebony perch. And a French doll from my aunty in New York, but I don't care for dolls any more. What ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... to its different significations, often has a different origin; as, to bear a burden, from fero; but to bear, whence birth, born, bairn, comes from pario; and a bear, at least if it be of Latin original, from fera. Thus perch, a fish, from perca; but perch, a measure, from pertica, and likewise to perch. To spell is from syllaba; but spell, an inchantment, by which it is believed that the boundaries are so fixed in lands that none can pass them against the master's will, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... "Everywhere it takes its perch on some conspicuous branch or on the top of a rock, where it can see and be seen. The bare tops of the fig trees, before they put forth their leaves, are in the cultivated terraces, a particularly favorite resort. In the barren Ghor I have often watched it perched unconcernedly ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous
... great ocean was but a Spanish lake, as much the king's private property as his fish-ponds at the Escorial with their carp and perch. No subjects but his dared to navigate those sacred waters. Not a common highway of the world's commerce, but a private path for the gratification of one human being's vanity, had thus been laid out by the bold navigators ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in and out of his father's office, interrupting his gravest labors. Mr. Lincoln was never too busy to hear him, or to answer his bright, rapid, imperfect speech, for he was not able to speak plainly until he was nearly grown. "He would perch upon his father's knee, and sometimes even on his shoulder, while the most weighty conferences were going on. Sometimes, escaping from the domestic authorities, he would take refuge in that sanctuary for the whole evening, dropping to sleep at last on the floor, when the President would pick ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... come the sweet songs of the oriole and robin. Upon a low bush sits a black-headed grosbeak that never seems to weary of his refrain. From various hidden places in the dense foliage come the notes of the song sparrow and the lazuli bunting. From its perch upon some fence post the meadow lark adds to the cheerfulness of the morning. If your home is far enough south, you may hear the mocking bird pouring forth its ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... please. Tom, hold Ted; he's got my book, and I will have it,' called Josie from her perch, not at all daunted by the appearance of ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... new blissful golden melody. 280 A living death was in each gush of sounds, Each family of rapturous hurried notes, That fell, one after one, yet all at once, Like pearl beads dropping sudden from their string: And then another, then another strain, Each like a dove leaving its olive perch, With music wing'd instead of silent plumes, To hover round my head, and make me sick Of joy and grief at once. Grief overcame, And I was stopping up my frantic ears, 290 When, past all hindrance of ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats
... he was leading, return East, and find another calling. This was precisely what Will himself had in mind, and persuasion was not needed. In his reply he asked that the wedding-day be set, and then he handed Trotter his resignation from the lofty perch of a stage-driver. ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... Brady, "you're all trying to be clever. This is only talk. I think a picnic is great fun, especially a tea-picnic, where you boil coffee, and light a camp-fire, and perch about on the rocks over the water. You would appreciate that last privilege, if you lived out on the prairies, where there is no water, and the ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... and keeping the porter busy standing by with a cork-screw. Thorn took his story and the ten thousand back to his uncle in the East, and after a pretty solemn interview with the old man, he went around and paid Castle in full and resumed his perch on top of the high stool he'd left a few years before. He never got as far as explaining to the girl in person, because Castle told him that while he didn't doubt his honesty, he was afraid he was too easy a mark ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... she whispered to Laura, across Cornet Perch's shell-jacket, as Pen was performing cavalier seul before them, drawling through that figure with a thumb in ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it was for the sky was overcast; the sleepy cocks at Dubechnia were crowing, and the corncrakes were trilling in the meadow; it was very, very early.... My wife and I walked down to the pool and drew up the bow-net that Stiepan had put out in our presence the day before. There was one large perch in it and a crayfish ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... Polly Adams in a vigorous crescendo, as she watched the retreating figure of her guest. Then climbing down from her perch on the front gate, she added to herself, "Mean old thing! I s'pose she thinks I care because she's gone home; but I'm glad of it, so there!" And with an emphatic shake of her curly head, she ran into ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... set himself to give Selifan some directions as to the way, a necessary proceeding in view of the fact that Selifan could hardly maintain his seat on the box. Twice Petrushka, too, had fallen headlong, and this necessitated being tied to his perch with a piece of rope. "What a clown!" had been Chichikov's ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... to by Arthur Wilson as "monstrous satires against the king's own person, that haunted both court and country," when, in the wantonness of the times, "every little miscarriage, exuberantly branched, so that evil report did often perch on them." Fuller has designated these suspicious scribes as "a generation of the people who, like moths, have lurked under the carpets of the council-table, and even like fleas, have leaped into pillows of the prince's bed-chamber; and, to ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... When they are scared away by what is called exact intelligence from the tall forest of great personalities, they contrive to live humbly clinging to such bare plain stocks and poles (Tis and Jack and Cinderella) as enable them to find a precarious perch. ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... where they pulled up at the chief inn, and changed horses; all being done so readily that their advent had plainly been expected. The journey was resumed immediately. Her companion never descended to speak to her; whenever she looked out there he sat upright on his perch, with the mien of a person who had a difficult duty to perform, and who meant to perform it properly at all costs. But Margery could not help feeling a certain dread at her situation—almost, indeed, a wish ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... was it all about? The greatest noise seemed to be going on round one perch, where a big Macaw, with a blue and green head, was talking very loud and very fast to a group of other birds close by, and he seemed to be very angry about something. In one claw he held a large ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... she stretched her hands towards him; she was dressed in wretched tattered garments that yet became her mightily; rue and vervain twined about her temples; her eyes glittered with unholy light. He only just controlled the wild impulse to take her in his arms and leap with her from their giddy perch into the ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... and then they sat round the hearth, and the mother took her spectacles and read aloud out of a large book, and the two girls listened as they sat and spun. And close by them lay a lamb upon the floor, and behind them upon a perch sat a white dove with its head hidden beneath ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... little voice stopped with a suddenness that made the woman in the door fear for Elly Precious; it seemed that he must be jolted from his narrow perch. ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... was arranged that we should go home with the Salters to spend the night. Sister Salter was the woman who had received the blessing. Brother Salter was not a brother at all—he was still in the world, a little, twopenny man with a thin black beard, sad black eyes and a perch mouth. But he was not proud of his godless state, especially as it compared with his wife's radiant experience; he was literally an humble sinner and showed it. We took our places behind them in split-bottom chairs in the one-horse wagon. Sister ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... spent its time somewhere in the forest, but at mealtime when the Chief came home all he had to do was step outside the door and whistle. Out of the sky a diminutive atom would hurl itself downward to light on his outstretched palm. While we ate it would perch on White Mountain's shoulder and twitter and make soft little noises in its throat, now and then coming across to me but soon returning to its idol. There was something so touching in the confidence of the helpless bird, it brought a ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... boulder, I began to study the geography of the farm. In imagination I stripped it of stock, crops, buildings, and fences, and saw it as bald as the palm of my hand. I recited the table of long measure: Sixteen and a half feet, one rod, perch, or pole; forty rods, one furlong; eight furlongs, one mile. Eight times 40 is 320; there are 320 rods in a mile, but how much is 16-1/2. times 320? "Polly, how much ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... down the imaginary waves, circling higher and higher, his sweet notes growing more rapturous until finally they reach their climax as he goes abruptly skyward. Then his fluttering wings close, and he drops from a height of perhaps forty or fifty feet, to alight again on his original perch and resume his tender serenade, singing now in a sweet, dreamy way, sounding just like a ripple of moonlit water looks. This love-song of the goldfinch is the climax of the summer's bird-song. If there were none other, the summer would ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... which it sank out of sight in the mountain to reappear at some point far removed. The wood and undergrowth that surrounded the camp of the Sauk were very close and dense, so that the view in every direction was shut off, unless one should climb the tallest tree and take his survey from that perch. ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... paper kite we looked long and intently. It was the moral of the picture; it appeared to gather in to itself the sympathies of the whole beautiful world; and as it hung there, herding with the things of heaven, our spirit seemed to ascend and perch upon its pale bosom like a wearied dove. Presently we knew the nature of the influence it exercised upon our imagination; for a cord, not visible at first to the external organs, though doubtless felt by the ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal Vol. XVII. No. 418. New Series. - January 3, 1852. • William and Robert Chambers
... true if nothing else was that the man had said; and after holding up his feet and examining his boots with his head a-one-side, as if considering their probable efficiency against flesh and blood, he slid from his perch, and "loafed" slowly up the street, whistling and kicking the stones as he went along. As to Beauty Bill, he fled home as fast as his legs would carry him. By the door stood Bessy, washing some clothes, who turned her pretty face ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... which tenant the surface of the leaves,—larva, pupa, and perfect insect, forty feeding like one, and each leading its whole earthly career on this floating island of perishable verdure. The "beautiful blue damsel-flies" alight also in multitudes among them, so fearless that they perch with equal readiness on our boat or paddle, and so various that two adjacent ponds will sometimes be haunted by two distinct sets of species. In the water, among the leaves, little shining whirlwigs wheel round and round, fifty joining in the dance, till, at the slightest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable non-descript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter's Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... congratulate. At last he took the trap from the fox's leg, and stretched him out on the doorstep to gloat over the treasure and stroke the glossy fur to his heart's content. His attention was taken away for a moment; then he had a dazed vision of a flying black animal that seemed to perch an instant on the log fence and vanish ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... seems to be the fish noticed by Izaak Walton, called the Ruffe, or Pope, "a fish," says he, "that is not known in some rivers. He is much like the perch for his shape, and taken to be better than the perch, but will grow to be bigger than a gudgeon. He is an excellent fish, no fish that swims is of a pleasanter taste, and he is also excellent to enter a young angler, for he is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... away, and don't miss!" cried Seth, hastily following Sol, who had climbed to the top of the dresser as a good perch from which to view ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... mistress's eyes; The steed is dreaming, in his stall, Of one long breathless leap and fall; The hawk hath dreamed him thrice of wings Wide as the skies he may not cleave; But waking, feels them clipped, and clings Mad to the perch 'twere mad to leave: The child is dreaming of its toys; The murderer, of calm home joys; The weak are dreaming endless fears; The proud of how their pride appears; The poor enthusiast who dies, Of his life-dreams the sacrifice, Sees, as enthusiast only can, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... remember the time when "father" used to come home at eventide to the small but cosy cottage in that green lane, far, far away in the pleasant country; and she used to stand at the gate to watch for his coming, sometimes running half-way up the lane to meet him, and he would perch her on his shoulder, where she felt, oh! so safe, and bring her home to mother. Or she would climb his knee as he sat by the fire, and watch dear mother get the nice supper; but father was dead now. She had seen the pretty daisies growing above his grassy grave in that distant churchyard; and ...
— Little Pollie - A Bunch of Violets • Gertrude P. Dyer
... gone a perch when the click of a pistol was heard, but no report; the fact having been, that the pistol missed fire, and did not ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... thinking, hour after hour, where he would hang it, and in the early morning an inspiration came to him—he would try the pump! So he rose softly and fixed the handle of the pump high in the air, so that it stuck out like a gallows, and tied a rope with a noose to the end of it. Then he got Tricky to perch on the top of the pump, tied the rope round his neck, and all was ready. The shepherd had heard that the object of hanging was to break the neck of the criminal by a sudden 'drop,' but as he could not give ...
— The Monkey That Would Not Kill • Henry Drummond
... fire-breathing German dragon from laying this garden waste when he was forced out of his stolen lair in the convent! Little remains of the house, and in the rubbish heap of fallen walls and beams and plaster, narrow iron bedsteads, where nuns slept or young girls dreamed, perch timidly among stones and blackened bricks. But in the garden all is flowery peace: and the chapel, though ruined, is a strange vision of ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... watercourses, gliding with a glassy current over swaying reeds. Through this we pass, and leave Bevagna to the right, and ascend one of those long gradual roads which climb the hills where all the cities of the Umbrians perch. The view expands, revealing Spello, Assisi, Perugia on its mountain buttress, and the far reaches northward of the Tiber valley. Then Trevi and Spoleto came into sight, and the severe hill-country above Gubbio in part disclosed itself. Over Spoleto the fierce witch-haunted ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... which one can obtain a definite image on the ground glass where the plate or film is to be. Focus the camera on some spot where it is expected the bird will come; usually this is on the nest or young, sometimes it is the food, a favorite perch, or some form of decoy. The next requisite is patience. If the coveted opportunity arrives, set off the shutter by hand in the {90} blind, or, where this is not possible, by means of a long thread, after carefully hiding the camera with boughs, ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... watched the old Martian as she lit the oven and gathered the necessary ingredients for the cobbler. As she bent over to get a bowl from the shelf beneath Marilou's perch, her hair brushed against the child's knee. Her hair was soft, soft and white as a puppy's, soft and white like the down from a dandelion. She smiled at Marilou. She always smiled; her pencil-thin mouth was ...
— One Martian Afternoon • Tom Leahy
... boy orator, and hauled him from his perch with such hearty thumps that he feared they would ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... bending down from his perch on the back of her chair to peep into Jo's face, with such a comical air of impertinent inquiry that it was ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... houses at the head of the street, and every window was flung open, and lights appeared, and voices clamored in terror and amaze. The village was roused; and now—now, the glimmering skeleton was seen to loose its hold. It dropped from its perch, and turning that awful face toward her once more, came loping back, silent as a shadow. But when she saw that, Mira Pitkin, for the first and last time in ...
— The Green Satin Gown • Laura E. Richards
... 1820 and 1920 had given what we call civilization a chance to make many changes in the wild world of birds. During that time lifeless hummingbirds had been made to perch upon the hats of fashionable women; herring gulls had been robbed of their eggs and killed for their feathers; shooting movements had been organized to kill crows with shotgun or rifle, in order that ...
— Bird Stories • Edith M. Patch
... FROM my perch over the bay window of the library, I had heard Tom Thornton express his savage determination to crush out of me the information he wanted. Being forewarned, I was in a measure forearmed, and I did not intend to be caught in a vulnerable position. I decided to do a little light skirmishing before ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... An intuitive perception of suffering made him see in the boy—(rather too simply)—a little bird wounded by life, like himself, seeking consolation with his head under his wing, sadly huddled up on his perch, dreaming of wild flights into the light. A feeling that was something akin to instinctive confidence brought the boy closer to him: he felt the attraction of the silent soul, which made no moan and used no harsh words, ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... go away in a body?" asked the Baroness, descending from her social perch by the inviting ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... way towards the hut, perhaps to fetch the lamp, when suddenly the skies behind were illumined in a blaze of light, a broad slow blaze that endured for several seconds. By it the eyes of Rachel, made quick with madness, saw many things. From her perch on the top of the hut she saw the town of Mafooti. On the plain to the west she saw a number of black dots, which she took to be people and cattle travelling away from the town. In the nek to the east she saw more dots, ...
— The Ghost Kings • H. Rider Haggard
... catch the rustle of the maple-leaves, I see their breathing branches rise and fall, And hear, from their high perch along the eaves, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... black bass, cod steaks, flounder fillet, perch, pickerel, pompano, smelts, whitefish steak, pike, ...
— Foods That Will Win The War And How To Cook Them (1918) • C. Houston Goudiss and Alberta M. Goudiss
... as he walked. He declared "that an officer should look like an officer, and comport himself accordingly." In his person he was very clean, wore rings on his great fingers, and a large frill to his bosom, which stuck out like the back fin of a perch, and the collar of his shirt was always pulled up to a level with his cheek-bones. He never appeared on deck without his "persuader," which was three rattans twisted into one, like a cable; sometimes he called it his Order of the Bath, or his Trio juncto in Uno; and this persuader ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... his claws at the bark as if in a tremendous state of excitement, ready to bound down again, and race about till he was tired, after which I had only to stoop down and say, "Come on," when he would leap on to my back and perch himself upon my shoulder, purring softly as I carried him ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... Shade came back to us, brought thither by an irresistible force which condemned him to perch on the verge of Hell. My divine Guide, guessing my curiosity, touched the unhappy Shade with his palm-branch. He, who was perhaps trying to measure the age of sorrow that divided him from that ever-vanishing 'To-morrow,' started and gave a look ...
— The Exiles • Honore de Balzac
... servants, had been neglected by them and had died of starvation. She was almost heart-broken at the event, and in writing her Recollections, seventy years after, she mentioned it and said that, as she wrote, she felt deep pain. Her chief pet in her old age was a mountain sparrow, which used to perch on her arm and go to sleep there while she was writing. One day the sparrow fell into the water-jug and was drowned, to the great grief of its mistress who could hardly be consoled for its loss, though ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... they would be liable to continual falls, and they are able to do this by means of their long finger-like toes and large opposable thumbs, which grasp a branch almost as securely as a bird grasps its perch. The true hands, on the contrary, are used chiefly to climb with, and to swing the whole weight of the body from one branch or one tree to another, and for this purpose the fingers are very long and strong, and in many species they are further strengthened by being partially joined together, as ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... the most interesting aspect of this familiar bird is its tameness, not to say attachment to ourselves, and so marked is its complete absence of fear that it is a wild bird in name only, and indeed few cage birds are ever so bold as to perch on the gardener's spade on the look-out for the worms as he turns them up from the damp soil. The robin might, in fact, furnish the text of a lay-sermon on the fruits of kindness to animals, and those dialectical people who ask whether we are kind to the robin because it trusts ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo
... behind the ear where a curl curves and neck and garments meet, there comes a little fragrance born of sweet flesh and new flannel, and the only motion is that of the half-open hand that seems to recognize and closes about your fingers as a vine to its trellis, or as a sleeping bird clings to its perch. ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... the limes saw her, and condescending at last to break his song, described a flashing streak of wine-red breast and white wing-bars in the sun. He appeared to recognize her sinister yellow shield in time, however, and returned to his perch with a flourish, leaving the wasp to go on and begin dancing up the wall of the house till she came to the open window. ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... fowl was thin, and covered with one of those thick, bristly skins through which the teeth cannot penetrate with all their efforts. The fowl must have been sought for a long time on the perch, to which it had retired to die of ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... my eyes to a rose-coloured dawn. We had stopped before a little village inn. A row of pigeons with burnished necks looked down on me from their perch on the signboard above the door; a half-dressed, curly-headed child peeped out of a window from under the eaves, and clapped his hands at the steaming horses: and a young man walked out of the inn with a whip in his hand, and asked if there might be a lady ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... the Brenta Where the statues, white as snow, All along the water-terrace Perch like sea-gulls in ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... of three or four dead perch, floating belly up, round and round in an eddy, gave him no clue to the total destruction of all life. He did not understand even yet that the terrific conflagration, far more stupendous than any ever known in the old days, had ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... time—or as you-all says 'four o'clock.' The sun's still hot an' high over in the west. Thar's no game goin'; but bein' it's as convenient thar as elsewhere an' some cooler, Cherokee's settin' back of his layout with Faro Nell as usual on her lookout perch. Dan Boggs is across the street in the dancehall door, an' his pet best bronco is waitin' saddled in front. Hot an' drowsy; the street save ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... abounding with swamps; here they turn in their fat cattle, or such as they intend to stall-feed, for their winter's provisions. It is on the shores of this part of the island, near Pochick Rip, where they catch their best fish, such as sea bass, tew-tag, or black fish, cod, smelt, perch, shadine, pike, etc. They have erected a few fishing houses on this shore, as well as at Sankate's Head, and Suffakatche Beach, where the fishermen dwell in the fishing season. Many red cedar bushes and beach grass grow on the peninsula ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... Mrs Major Negus—abandoning any expectation of making Maurice descend from his perch in the shrouds, where, however, she could see that he was in no imminent danger, for he had one of the sailors on either side of him who would catch him should he slip—was obliged perforce to do as all the rest ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... now appeared with a few perch, but plenty of catfish. They went to work with zeal, and soon had enough brush for the fire, which they built at a good distance. And while Graham fed it, Joe skinned his catfish, salted the perch, and laid them on ...
— Prince Lazybones and Other Stories • Mrs. W. J. Hays
... said at once, as any child would, "I smell candy!" She picked a cherry and ate it. Oh, how good it was!—all sugar and no stone. The next discovery was such a delightful one that she nearly fell off her perch; for by touching her tongue here and there, she found that the whole tree was made of candy. Think what fun to sit and break off twigs of barley sugar, candied cherries, and leaves that tasted ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott
... their father had taught them, and soon Jan had landed a good-sized sunfish. A little later Ted caught a perch which had stripes on its sides, "like a zebra," as Jan said. After that Jan and Ted each caught two fish, and they soon had ...
— The Curlytops on Star Island - or Camping out with Grandpa • Howard R. Garis
... as trout, perch, smelts, &c.—may simply be rolled in Indian meal or flour, and fried either in the fat of salt pork, or in boiling lard or drippings. A nicer method, however, with fish, whether small or in slices, is to dip them first in flour ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... the pair, teacher and pupil, to take what is called in German "second breakfast." The Prince always had a piece of white bread and butter, with an apple, a pear, or other fruit, while the teacher was as regularly provided with something warm—chop, a cutlet, a slice of fish, salmon, perch, trout, or whatever was in season, accompanied by salad and potatoes. The smell of the meat never failed to appeal to the olfactory nerves of the Prince, and he often looked, longingly enough, at the luxuries served to his tutor. The latter noticed it and felt sorry for him; but there was ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... gathered up his reins and shouted a good-natured farewell to the crowd. A quick and vigorous application of the whip awakened the dozing horses so suddenly that they started up with a spasmodic jerk which nearly threw the old fellow from his perch. By a desperate effort, however, he maintained his seat, but his broad-brimmed hat went flying from his bald head and rolled to the ground, scattering in its fall his snuff-box, spectacles and a monstrous red bandanna handkerchief. This little episode called forth a peal of laughter ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... door-jamb. It was not to be denied, however, that he had barked; and the strange sound—it was part bark, part growl, and in part a bloodhound's bay—brought Finn from the near-by orchard, and Betty Murdoch from the morning-room, and the Master from his study, and the Persian cat from her perch on the hall mantelshelf; so Master Black-and-Gray had no lack of audience, and, indeed, received an almost embarrassing amount of congratulation, in the course of which he made shift to get a good sniff at Desdemona's legs and satisfy ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... satisfied that the portion of the conversation which had taken place between the aspirant for the position of captain's clerk and the second lieutenant and which had been finished before the steward had reached his perch on the foremast, related to this matter. Mulgrum had heard the conversation between the first lieutenant and himself, which was intended to blind the listener, and he had reported it to his confederate. It was only another confirmation, ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... favourite perch, the music-stool, and swung himself gently to and fro while he mildly upheld the virtues of ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... out and float away in the spring," Mary said. "It may be a perch for a sea-gull or a buoy for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, being supported in a horizontal position by their branches. The islands and the swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless water-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... I was sitting on a rock, down at the ferry, with this rod in my hand, fishing for perch, when a thundering big catfish, as long as I am, took hold. I dreamt he pulled and I pulled—sometimes he had me in the water up to my knees, and sometimes I got him out on dry land. But he always flounced and kicked back again. Yet he ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... be recognised that, in time, prosperity had its usual corrupting effects. The Aukenleck MS. (temp. Ed. II.) says, “these Abbots and Priors do again their rights. They ride with hawk and hounds, and counterfeit knights.” As the Bishop of Ely attended divine service, leaving his hawk on its perch in the cloister, where it was stolen, and he solemnly excommunicated the thief; or as the Bishop of Salisbury was reprimanded for hunting the King’s deer; or as Bishop Juxon was so keen a sportsman that he was said to have the finest pack of hounds in the ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... giant perch, king, bonito, rhoombah, sweet-lips, parrot-fish, sea-mullet, and the sting-rays (brown and grey)—a harpoon and long line are used. When iron is not available a point is made of one of the black palms, the barb being strapped on with fibre, the binding being made impervious ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... guided them across the treacherous surface as fearlessly as a king-fisher, lighting instinctively on every grass-tussock and submerged tree-stump of the uncertain path. Now and then she paused, her feet drawn close on their narrow perch, and her slender body swaying over as she reached down for some rare growth detected among the withered reeds and grasses; then she would right herself again by a backward movement as natural as the upward spring of a branch—so free and ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... immensity and the solitude would creep in upon his spirit and oppress him. Then, at last, a shrill yelp, far off and faint, but sinister, would come from the pine-top; and the eagle, launching himself on open wings from his perch, would either wheel upward into the blue, or flap away over the serried fir-tops to some ravine in the cliffs that ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... shall faithfully keep the commanded Post, Notwithstanding the hectoring words and hard blows of the proud and boisterous ocean; As long as any Salmon or Sturgeon shall swim in the streams of Merrimack, or any Perch or Pickeril in Crane Pond; As long as the Sea Fowl shall know the time of their coming, and not neglect seasonably to visit the places of their acquaintance; As long as any Cattel shall be fed with Grass growing ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... loading, unloading, etc., including delavs, averages 35 minutes per trip. The cost of loading and unloading a cart, using a horse cram at the quarry, and unloading by hand, when labor is $1.25 per day, and a horse 75 cents, is 25 cents per perch—24.75 cubic feet. The work done by an animal is greatest when the velocity with which he moves is 1/8 of the greatest with which he can move when not impeded, and the force then exerted .45 of the utmost force the animal can exert at ...
— Burroughs' Encyclopaedia of Astounding Facts and Useful Information, 1889 • Barkham Burroughs
... fetch him from his lofty perch; I'd dash him on the stones; I'd serve the lifeless bronze the same as I'd have served his bones; And on the empty stance I would in radiant metal show, A bolder and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the perches, also predatory fishes. The European perch (Perca fluviatilis) has a place by itself in the affections of anglers. When young it is easy to catch by almost any method of fishing, and a large number of Walton's disciples have been initiated into the art with ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... river should exist at such a distance from the capital as to be unavailable. During our stay on the Pondebadgery Plain, the men caught a number of codfish, as they are generally termed, but which are, in reality, a species of perch. The largest weighed 40lb. but the majority of the others were small, not exceeding from six to eight. M'Leay and I walked to the N.W. extremity of the plain, in order to ascertain how we should debouche ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... he caught sight of Osches lying straight ahead of them, its few poor hovels climbing in straggling fashion up the hillside, and the yellow church, embowered in trees, looking down on them from its perch ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... tapping the parrot on the back with the perch which he used as a baton. Blinking and muttering, the bird performed his tricks, and was duly rewarded and returned to his home of iron. "She'll be wanting to take you home with her, ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... necessary, he undertook to prove the possibility of draining the lake, and "giving to plough and harrow many hundred, ay, many a thousand acres, from whilk no man could get earthly gude e'enow, unless it were a gedd,* or a dish of perch now and then." ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... could do that day was to make one more attempt to communicate with the unhappy madman. Again he was visible on his perch; again he fled in silence. But food and a great cloak were at least left for his comfort; the rain, besides, had cleared away, and the night promised to be even warm. We might compose ourselves, we thought, until the morrow; rest was the chief requisite, that we might be strengthened ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and bodies, however, although not displeased with the result, clamorously disclaimed responsibility for the deed. Men were appalled at the audacity of the transaction, and dreaded the vengeance of the King: The Abbot Van Perch, one of the secret instigators of the act, actually died of anxiety for its possible consequences. There was a mystery concerning the affair. They in whose name it had been accomplished, denied having given any authority to the perpetrators. Men asked ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... have thought that the species should follow; consequently, the regular plurals of some very common names of fishes are scarcely known at all. Hence some grammarians affirm, that salmon, mackerel, herring, perch, tench, and several others, are alike in both numbers, and ought never to be used in the plural form. I am not so fond of honouring these anomalies. Usage is here as unsettled, as it is arbitrary; and, if the expression of plurality is to be limited to either form exclusively, the regular plural ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... that he would 'look round.' He looked round, appeared in the doorway of the room, and slightly cocked up his evil eye at the goldfinch. Instantly a raging thirst beset the bird, and when it was appeased he still drew several unnecessary buckets of water, leaping about the perch and sharpening his bill with ...
— My Father as I Recall Him • Mamie Dickens
... exalt you above my other wives, and will set you nearer to me than them all." Then she said to him, "Take a greenish dove with a ring about its neck, and write something on its foot with the menstruous blood of a blue-eyed maid; then let the bird loose, and it will perch on the walls of the city, and they will fall down." For that, says the Arab historian, was the talisman of the city, which could not be destroyed in any other way. And Sapor did as she bade him, and the city fell down ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... sooner cast into the water, than the hook was seized, and many were the brilliant specimens of sun-fish that our eager fishermen cast at Catharine's feet, all gleaming with gold and azure scales. Nor was there any lack of perch, or that delicate fish commonly known in these waters as the ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... chatting concerning the former's dinner, another eager personality was taking a marked interest in a portion of that dinner. Cherub, the Taylor cat, abroad on a foraging expedition, had scented from his perch upon a nearby fence a delicious and appetizing odor. Following his nose, literally, Cherub descended from the fence and advanced, sniffing as he came. The odor was fish, fresh fish. Cherub's green eyes blazed, ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... some vindictive pouter to survive his less lucky comrades, and, escaping among the birds who are duly chronicled as "getting away," to perch, full of resentment at the probable extinction of his species, in the fashionable quarter of London. He would there witness a grand act of retaliation. He would learn how Belgravia avenges Hornsey and Shepherd's Bush. ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... From his perch on the blacksmith's anvil he spoke between the puffs of his post-prandial pipe. The fire in the forge was out and the day was going slowly, through the open door of the shop and the narrow windows, westward to the mountains. In the advancing ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... 'Is not thy hawke upon a perch, Thy steed eats oats and hay, And thou a fair lady in thine armes, And wouldst thou ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... the hill at a run, and when the horses dropped to a walk Farmer Tossell explained to Arthur Miles, who had been thrust forward into a seat—or rather perch—beside him, that this bringing home of the sheep from Holmness was a great annual event, and that he was lucky, in a way, to ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hey?" said the lady. "I expected as much. Well, Daisy I will take you. I might perch you up on a foot- cushion to give you a little more altitude. However I don't know but it will do. Theresa will be letting down ...
— Melbourne House • Elizabeth Wetherell
... as his word, for, expanding himself to the utmost limit, he gave a tremendous wheeze, which nearly blew Tom from his perch, sent his cap flying off into space and smashed the cloud into four separate pieces, one of which, bearing the Poker, floated rapidly off to the north, while the other three sped south, east and ...
— Andiron Tales • John Kendrick Bangs |
