The Natural History of Selborne: With Observations on Various Parts of Nature, and the Naturalist's CalendarJames Blackwood, 1856 - 348 páginas |
Termos e frases comuns
abound Andalusia animals appear April April 14 autumn birds birds of prey breed brood called chaffinches cock cold colour common cuckoo curious DAINES BARRINGTON DEAR SIR discovered district eggs feed feet female fieldfare flies flocks frequently garden ground hard frost hatched haunt hirundines hirundo house-martens hundred inches insects January July July 13 July 20 June June 11 June 22 June 9 late legs LETTER Linnæus male manner March MARKWICK martens mentioned migration mild motacilla natural naturalist nest never night November observed owls plants pond prey quadrupeds rain remarkable rooks says season seems seen SELBORNE September shew shot showers sings snow soon species spring stone-curlew summer suppose swallow swift tail THOMAS PENNANT titmouse toads trees village weather wild wings winter woodcock woods wren young
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Página 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...
Página 205 - For, to say nothing of half the birds, and some quadrupeds which are almost entirely supported by them, worms seem to be the great promoters of vegetation, which 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...
Página 194 - ... it is supposed that a shrew-mouse is of so baneful and deleterious a nature, that wherever it creeps over a beast, be it horse, cow, or sheep, the suffering animal is afflicted with cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the limb.
Página 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...
Página 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.
Página 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...
Página 194 - ... cruel anguish, and threatened with the loss of the use of the limb. Against this accident, to which they were continually liable, our provident forefathers always kept a shrew-ash at hand, which, when once medicated, would maintain its virtue for ever. A shrew-ash was made thus: — Into the body of the tree a deep hole was bored with an auger, and a poor devoted shrew-mouse was thrust in alive, and plugged in, no doubt, with several quaint incantations long since forgotten.
Página 141 - These congregatings usually begin to take place about the first week in August ; and therefore we may conclude that by that time the first flight is pretty well over. The young of this species do not quit their abodes all together ; but the more forward birds get abroad some days before the rest. These, approaching the eaves of buildings, and playing about before them, make people think that several old ones attend one nest.
Página 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...
Página 263 - ... loud cawing, which, being blended and softened by the distance that we at the village are below them, becomes a confused noise or chiding ; or rather a pleasing murmur, very engaging to the imagination, and n'ot unlike the cry of a pack of hounds in hollow, echoing woods, or the rushing of the wind in tall trees, or the tumbling of the tide upon a pebbly shore. When this ceremony is over, with the last gleam of day, they retire for the night to the deep beechen woods of Tisted and Ropley.