The Aquarian Naturalist: A Manual for the Sea-side

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J. Van Voorst, 1858 - Marine animals - 524 pages

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Page 47 - Beyond the shadow of the ship I watched the water-snakes ; They moved in tracks of shining white ; And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes. Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire — Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam ; and every track Was a flash of golden fire.
Page 259 - Come on, sir; here's the place: stand still. How fearful And dizzy 'tis, to cast one's eyes so low! The crows and choughs that wing the midway air Show scarce so gross as beetles: halfway down Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade!
Page 361 - Keech, the butcher's wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly ? coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar ; telling us she had a good dish of prawns ; whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound...
Page 487 - Romeo ; and, when he shall die, Take him and cut him out in little stars, And he will make the face of heaven so fine, That all the world will be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun.
Page 401 - Upon the billows rising — all the deep Is restless change; the waves so swell'd and steep, Breaking and sinking, and the sunken swells, Nor one, one moment, in its station dwells: But nearer land you may the billows trace, As if contending in their watery chase; May watch the mightiest till the shoal they reach, Then break and hurry to their utmost stretch; Curl'd as they come, they strike with furious force, And then re-flowing, take their grating course, Raking the rounded flints, which ages...
Page 259 - tis, to cast one's eyes so low ! The crows and choughs that wing the midway air Show scarce so gross as beetles : half way down Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade! Methinks he seems no bigger than his head : The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, Appear like mice ; and yond...
Page 211 - ... gentle manner to introduce Luidia to the purer element. Whether the cold air was too much for him or the sight of the bucket too terrific I know not, but in a moment he proceeded to dissolve his corporation, and at every mesh of the dredge his fragments were seen escaping. In despair I grasped at the largest, and brought up the extremity of an arm with its terminating eye, the spinous eyelid of which opened and closed with something exceedingly like a wink of derision.
Page 519 - It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism ; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion...
Page 440 - As when fire is with water commix'd and contending, And the spray of its wrath to the welkin upsoars, And flood upon flood hurries on, never ending ; And it never will rest, nor from travail be free, Like a sea that is labouring the birth of a sea.
Page 386 - ... when it is perfectly formed, the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string : next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and, as it groweth greater, it openeth the shell by degrees, till at length it is all come forth, and hangeth onely by the bill : in short space after it commeth to full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowle bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a goose...

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