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Birds-Pelican: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations
Like as a feareful partridge, that is fledd From the sharpe hauke which her attacked neare, And falls to ground to seeke for succor theare, Whereas the hungry spaniells she does spye, With greedy jawes her ready for to teare.— SPENSER — Faerie Queene. Bk. III. Canto VIII. St. 33.
Peacock. For everything seemed resting on his nod, As they could read in all eyes. Now to them, Who were accustomed, as a sort of god, To see the sultan, rich in many a gem, Like an imperial peacock stalk abroad (That royal bird, whose tail's a diadem,) With all the pomp of power, it was a doubt How power could condescend to do without.— BYRON — Don Juan. Canto VII. St. 74.
To frame the little animal, provide All the gay hues that wait on female pride: Let Nature guide thee; sometimes golden wire The shining bellies of the fly require; The peacock's plumes thy tackle must not fail, Nor the dear purchase of the sable's tail.— GAY — Rural Sports. Canto I. L. 177.
To Paradise, the Arabs say, Satan could never find the way Until the peacock led him in.— LELAND — The Peacock.
"Fly pride," says the peacock.— Shakespeare — The Comedy of Errors. Act IV. Sc. 3. L. 81.
Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while And like a peacock sweep along his tail.— Shakespeare — Henry VI. Pt. I. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 5.
Why, he stalks up and down like a peacock, -a stride and a stand.— Shakespeare — Troilus and Cressida. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 251.
And there they placed a peacock in his pride, Before the damsel. TENNYSON Gareth and Lynette. Pelican. What, wouldst thou have me turn pelican, and feed thee out of my own vitals?— CONGREVE — Love for Love. Act II. Sc. 1.
By them there sat the loving pelican, Whose young ones, poison'd by the serpent's sting, With her own blood to life again doth bring.— DRAYTON — Noah's Flood.
Nature's prime favourites were the Pelicans; High-fed, long-lived, and sociable and free.— MONTGOMERY — Pelican Island. Canto V. L. 144.
Nimbly they seized and secreted their prey, Alive and wriggling in the elastic net, Which Nature hung beneath their grasping beaks; Till, swoln with captures, the unwieldy burden Clogg'd their slow flight, as heavily to land, These mighty hunters of the deep return'd. There on the cragged cliffs they perch'd at ease, Gorging their hapless victims one by one; Then full and weary, side by side, they slept, Till evening roused them to the chase again.— MONTGOMERY — Pelican Island. Canto IV. L. 141.
The nursery of brooding Pelicans, The dormitory of their dead, had vanish'd, And all the minor spots of rock and verdure, The abodes of happy millions, were no more. C.— MONTGOMERY — Pelican Island. Canto VI. L. 74.
Petrel. The petrel's wing, though frail, Is set against the gale Which rounds the mariner's sail; And his it is to fly In a vortex of the sky.— RICHARD EDWIN DAY — The Petrel.
Pheasant. Fesaunt excedeth all fowles in sweetnesse and holsomnesse, and is equall to capon in nourishynge.— SIR T. ELYOT — The Castle of Helth. Ch. 8.
The fesant hens of Colchis, which have two ears as it were consisting of feathers, which they will set up and lay down as they list.— PLINY — Natural History. Bk. X. Ch. 48. Holland's trans.
See! from the brake the whirring pheasant springs, And mounts exulting on triumphant wings: Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound, Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground.— POPE — Windsor Forest. L. 111.
Pigeon. Wood-pigeons cooed there, stock-doves nestled there; My trees were full of songs and flowers and fruit, Their branches spread a city to the air.— CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI — From House to Home. St. 7.