The Gallery of Nature and Art: Or, a Tour Through Creation and Science, Volume 5

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Page 535 - I led her, blushing like the morn : all heaven, And happy constellations, on that hour Shed their selectest influence : the earth Gave sign of gratulation, and each hill ; Joyous the birds ; fresh gales and gentle airs Whisper'd it to the woods, and from their wings Flung rose, flung odours from the spicy shrub, Disporting, till the amorous bird of night Sung spousal, and bid haste the evening star, On his hill-top, to light the bridal lamp.
Page 537 - Wisely regardful of the embroiling sky, In joyless fields and thorny thickets leaves His shivering mates, and pays to trusted man His annual visit. Half afraid, he first Against the window beats; then brisk alights On the warm hearth; then hopping o'er the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs Attract his slender feet.
Page 28 - Decan spreads her arms Branching so broad and long, that in the ground The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade High over-arch'd, and echoing walks between : There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds At loop-holes cut through thickest shade.
Page 465 - Nothing can be more assiduous than this creature night and day in scooping the earth, and forcing its great body into the cavity; but, as the noons of that season proved unusually warm and sunny, it was continually interrupted and called forth by the heat in the middle of the day; and though I continued there till the thirteenth of November, yet the work remained unfinished.
Page 27 - But such as, at this day, to Indians known; In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms, Branching so broad and long, that in the ground The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow About the mother tree, a pillar'd shade, High overarch'd, and echoing walks between...
Page 404 - ... disturb them But though they thus strive to be formidable to man, they are much more so to each other for they are possessed of one most unsocial property, which is, that if any of them by accident is maimed in such a manner as to be incapable of proceeding, the rest fall upon and devour it on the spot, and then pursue their journey. When after a fatiguing march, and escaping a thousand dangers, (for they are sometimes three months in getting to the shore,) they have arrived at their destined...
Page 465 - This creature not only goes under the earth from the middle of November to the middle of April, but sleeps great part of the summer; for it goes to bed in the longest days at four in the afternoon, and often does not stir in the morning till late.
Page 465 - ... way. I was much taken with its sagacity in discerning those that do it kind offices ; for, as soon as the good old lady comes in sight who has waited on it for more than thirty years, it hobbles towards its benefactress with awkward alacrity ; but remains inattentive to strangers. Thus not only " the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib...
Page 465 - It scrapes out the ground with its fore feet, and throws it up over its back with its hind; but the motion of its legs is ridiculously slow, little exceeding the hour-hand of a clock...
Page 465 - ... rain as a lady dressed in all her best attire, shuffling away on the first sprinklings, and running its head up in a corner. If attended to, it becomes an excellent weather-glass; for as sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in a morning, so sure will it rain before night.

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