On the Habits and Instincts of Animals

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Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, 1840 - 375 pages
 

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Page 254 - From right to left as far as the eye could reach, the breadth of this vast procession extended ; seeming everywhere equally crowded. Curious to determine how long this appearance would continue, I took out my watch to note the time, and sat down to observe them. It was then half past one.
Page 175 - O Lord, how manifold are Thy works : in wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy riches. So is the great and wide sea also : wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.
Page 190 - Knowing, by instinct, that the person they intend to attack is in a sound slumber, they generally alight near the feet, where, while the creature continues fanning with his enormous wings, which keeps one cool, he bites a piece out of the tip of the great toe, so very small indeed, that the head of a pin could scarcely be received into the wound, which is consequently not painful ; yet through this orifice he continues to suck the blood, until he is obliged to disgorge.
Page 254 - It was then half-past one. I sat for more than an hour, but instead of a diminution of this prodigious procession, it seemed rather to increase both in numbers and rapidity; and anxious to reach Frankfort before night, I rose and went on. About four o'clock in the afternoon I crossed the Kentucky River, at the town of Frankfort, at which time the living torrent above my head seemed as numerous and as extensive as ever.
Page 70 - As she -was carrying away the last piece, they levelled their muskets at the cubs, and shot them both dead : and in her retreat, they wounded the dam, but not mortally. "It would have drawn tears of pity from any but unfeeling minds, to have marked the affectionate concern manifested by this poor beast, in the last moments of her expiring young.
Page 99 - There is a peculiarity belonging to ravens that must draw the attention even of the most incurious — they spend all their leisure time in striking and cuffing each other on the wing in a kind of playful skirmish ; and when they move from one place to another, frequently turn on their backs with a loud croak, and seem to be falling to the ground. When this odd gesture betides them, they are scratching themselves with one foot, and thus lose the centre of gravity.
Page 68 - Zoology (the stoparola of Ray), builds every year in the vines that grow on the walls of my house. A pair of these little birds had one year inadvertently placed their nest on a naked bough, perhaps in a shady time, not being aware of the inconvenience that followed. But...
Page 68 - But a hot sunny season coming on before the brood was half fledged, the reflection of the wall became insupportable, and must inevitably have destroyed the tender young, had not affection suggested an expedient, and prompted the parent birds to hover over the nest all the hotter hours, while, with wings expanded, and mouths gaping for breath, they screened off the heat from their suffering offspring.
Page 289 - I have seen a large beaver-house built in a small island, that had near a dozen apartments under one roof; and, two or three of these only excepted, none of them had any communication with each other but by water. As there were beavers enough to inhabit each apartment, it is more than probable that each family knew their own, and always entered at their own doors, without any further connection with their neighbours than a friendly intercourse, and to join their united labours in erecting their separate...

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