The Architecture of Birds

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Charles Knight, 1833 - Animal behavior - 392 pages

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Page 288 - Tis the merry Nightingale That crowds, and hurries, and precipitates With fast thick warble his delicious notes, As he were fearful that an April night Would be too short for him to utter forth His love-chant, and disburthen his full soul Of all its music...
Page 287 - And hark ! the Nightingale begins its song, " Most musical, most melancholy"* bird ! A melancholy bird ? Oh ! idle thought ! In nature there is nothing melancholy. But some night-wandering man, whose heart was pierced With the remembrance of a grievous wrong, Or slow distemper, or neglected love, (And so, poor wretch ! filled all things with himself And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he, First named these notes a melancholy strain...
Page 48 - Son of man, put forth a riddle, and speak a parable unto the house of Israel ; and say, Thus saith the Lord God; A great eagle with great wings, longwinged, full of feathers, which had divers colours, came unto Lebanon, and took the highest branch of the cedar...
Page 17 - 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.
Page 288 - But never elsewhere in one place I knew So many nightingales ; and far and near, In wood and thicket, over the wide grove, They answer and provoke each other's song, With skirmish and capricious passagings, And murmurs musical and swift jug jug, And one low piping sound more sweet than all...
Page 330 - ... together on a trial of skill, each striving to produce his utmost effect, so perfect are his imitations. He many times deceives the sportsman, and sends him in search of birds that perhaps are not within miles of him, but whose notes he exactly imitates ; even birds themselves are frequently imposed on by this admirable mimic, and are decoyed by the fancied calls of their mates, or dive with precipitation into the depths of thickets, at the scream of what they suppose to be the sparrow-hawk.
Page 329 - ... dewy morning, while the woods are already vocal with a multitude of warblers, his admirable song rises pre-eminent over every competitor. The ear can listen to his music alone, to which that of all the others seems a mere accompaniment.
Page 212 - As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him.
Page 287 - Or slow distemper, or neglected love, (And so, poor wretch! fill'd all things with himself, And made all gentle sounds tell back the tale Of his own sorrow) he, and such as he, First named these notes a melancholy strain. And many a poet echoes the conceit; Poet who hath been building up the rhyme When he had better far have...
Page 214 - The acquitted parents see their soaring race, And, once rejoicing, never know them more. High from the summit of a craggy cliff. Hung o'er the deep, such as amazing frowns On utmost Hilda's shore, whose lonely race Resign the setting sun to Indian worlds, The royal eagle draws his vigorous young.

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