The Journal of a Naturalist |
Common terms and phrases
actions admiration afford animal appears autumn beautiful become birds blackcap blossom body brood butterfly capture cause chaffinch colour common common shrew common snipe commonly copse crea crop decay delight DYER'S BROOM early earth eggs feeding field fieldfare flight flowers foliage frequently fruit gardens GHOST MOTH glowworm goat moth grass ground grub habits hatched hedge herbage injury insects JACK SNIPE labour land larvæ leaves lichens limestone manifest ment MIGRATION moisture mole morning moth nature nest notice numbers object observed obtain occasionally offspring parent pastures peculiar perfectly perhaps period phallus pileus places plant plumage plunder portion potato prey probably produce race remain render retire rook roost root season seeds seems soil species spring substance summer supply teazle things thrush tion TITMOUSE tomtit tree ture vegetable visits voice weather wild wings winter wood worms wych elm YELLOW WAGTAIL young
Popular passages
Page 224 - And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
Page 69 - O ! who can hold a fire in his hand By thinking on the frosty Caucasus? Or cloy the hungry edge of appetite By bare imagination of a feast?
Page 13 - ... raised, putting his burnt limb to the ground to support his body, the extremity of his legbone, the tibia, crumbled into fragments, having been calcined into lime. Still he expressed no sense of pain, and probably experienced none, from the gradual operation of the fire, and his own torpidity, during the hours his foot was consuming. This poor drover survived his misfortunes in the hospital about a fortnight ; but the fire having extended to other parts of his body, recovery was hopeless.
Page 43 - The head of the true teazle is composed of incorporated flowers, each separated by a long, rigid, chaffy substance, the terminating point of which is furnished with a fine hook. Many of these heads are fixed in a frame ; and with this the surface of the cloth is teased, or brushed, until all the ends are drawn out, the loose parts combed off, and the cloth ceases to yield impediments to the free passage of the wheel, or frame, of teazles. Should the hook of the chaff, when in use, become fixed in...
Page 31 - And he spake of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall : he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.
Page 111 - Rambling with unfettered grace, the tendrils of the briony (tamus communis) festoon with its brilliant berries, green, yellow, red, the slender sprigs of the hazel, or the thorn; it ornaments their plainness, and receives a support its own feebleness denies. The agaric, with all its hues, its shades, its elegant variety of forms, expands its cone sprinkled with the freshness of the morning ; a transient fair, a child of decay, that " sprang up in a night, and will perish in a night.
Page 350 - In the hot, dry, summer of 1825, it was abundant everywhere; in the spring of 1826, which was unusually fine and dry, it abounded in such incredible luxuriance, that many trees seemed at a short distance as if they had been whitewashed ; in the ensuing summer, which was a very dry and hot one, this cottony matter so entirely disappeared, that to superficial observation the malady was not in existence; and it did not become manifest again until September, when, after the rains of that season, it re-issued...
Page 347 - ... offspring. In this cottony substance we observe, as soon as the creature becomes animated in the spring, and as long as it remains in vigour, many round pellucid bodies, which, at the first sight, look like eggs, only that they are larger than we might suppose to be ejected by the animal. They consist of a sweet, glutinous fluid, and are probably the discharges of the aphis, and the first food of its young. That it...
Page 43 - I believe that the teazle affords a solitary instance of a natural production being applied to mechanical purposes in the state in which it is produced *. It appears, from many attempts, that the object designed to be effected by the teazle cannot be supplied by any contrivance — successive inventions having been abandoned as defective or injurious. The use of the teazle is to draw out the ends of the wool from the manufactured cloth, so as to bring a regular pile or nap upon the surface, free...
Page 209 - We have scarcely another bird, the appetite of which is so accommodating in all respects as that of the house- sparrow. It is, I believe, the only bird that is a voluntary inhabitant with man, lives in his society, and is his constant attendant, following him wherever he fixes his residence. It becomes immediately an inhabitant of the new farmhouse, in a lonely place or recent inclosure, or even in an island; will accompany him into the crowded city, and...