Birds Of Prey Quotes

My jaw dropped open. “Holy crows…” “There’s a couple of eagles mixed in there,” Luke commented. "And a few hawks,” Aiden added. I rolled my eyes. “Okay. Holy birds of prey! Is that better?” “Much,” Aiden murmured.

With my sister perched on my arm, I walked to the elevator. A business man with a rolling suitcase was waiting by the doors. His eyes widened as he saw me. I must’ve looked pretty strange—a tall black kid in dirty, ragged Egyptian clothes, with a weird box tucked under one arm and a bird of prey perched on the other. “How’s it going?” I said. “I’ll take the stairs.” He hurried off.

It was good to see her laugh. Even if it was at me.

I'm Oracle, I know everybody.

You know why my wheelchair doesn't have handles, Grayson? I don't like to be pushed.

More like some small, fierce bird of prey, something with a sharp bite. An owl perhaps, that speaks only when the rest of the world sleeps. Jenny will do well enough.

Y'know, a lot of the time it's like you Batguys want me to hold onto the past because you can't get over it. Understand— I have. I have a new life now. One I like — one that fulfills me. It's not the same as the one I had before, but it's good. Maybe even better.

There is nothing very odd about lambs disliking birds of prey, but this is no reason for holding it against large birds of prey that they carry off lambs. And when the lambs whisper among themselves, 'These birds of prey are evil, and does this not give us a right to say that whatever of the opposite of a bird of prey must be good?', there is nothing intrinsically wrong with such an argument - though the birds of prey will look somewhat quizzically and say, 'Wehave nothing against these good lambs; in fact, we love them; nothing tastes better than a tender lamb.

Every time we take a step we're surrounded by the ideological birds of prey who feed on our possibilities, fill themselves with concepts of our desires and reenslave us with beautiful combinations of words which seem to depict the world we failed to realize.

Sing, goddess, of Achilles' ruinous anger Which brought ten thousand pains to the Achaeans, And cast the souls of many stalwart heroes To Hades, and their bodies to the dogs And birds of prey.

Staring at her face, she began to fancy her outer layer had begun to melt away while she wasn't paying attention, and something -- some new skeleton -- was emerging from beneath the softness of her accustomed self. With a deep, visceral ache, she wished her true form might prove to be a sleek and shining one, like a stiletto blade slicing free of an ungainly sheath. Like a bird of prey losing its hatchling fluff to hunt in cold, magnificent skies. That she might become something glittering, something startling, something dangerous.

It is the horrible texture of a fabric that should be woven of ships' cables and hawsers. A Polar wind blows through it, and birds of prey hover over it.

Life presents itself first and foremost as a task: the task of maintaining itself, the task of earning one's living. If this task is accomplished, what has been gained is a burden, and there then appears a second task: that of doing something with it so as to ward off boredom, which hovers over every secure life like a bird of prey. Thus the first task is to gain something and the second to become unconscious of what has been gained, which is otherwise a burden.

Every bird of prey looks over its shoulder before it goes in for the kill, even a hawk. Even they know to watch their backs – every single one but an eagle. It’s fearless.

A lark, caught in a hunter’s net Sang sweeter then than ever, As if the falling melody Might wing and net dissever At dusk the hunter took his prey, The lark his freedom never. All birds and men are sure to die But songs may live forever.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power. Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.

To His Coy Mistress Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime. We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pass our long love’s day. Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain. I would Love you ten years before the flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews. My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart. For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. Thy beauty shall no more be found; Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song; then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust; The grave’s a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power. Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetness up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.

Heat in her birds of prey fingertips, smoke of gilded flowers in her aureate gorging hair.

And, having killed him (Abhimanyu), your people danced round his dead body like savage hunters exulting over their prey. All good men in the army were grieved and tears rolled from their eyes. Even the birds of prey, that circled overhead making noises seemed to cry 'Not thus! Not thus!

Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapt power.

Like a primitive savage, who sets out to tame the wilderness armed with nothing but a knife and his indomitable will, I will persevere. I will wrestle victory from the greedy jaws of defeat. I shall rise like a bird of prey upon the current of the wind, my talons raised for the kill, and I shall strike true.” Oh wow. I hope the inn filmed that.

Do you think I like sending out agents to do my dirty work? Do you think I get my thrills living vicariously? Do you think I don't know hurt? Do you think I don't know hurt? You don't know hurt, sister! I can't get off the mat to take down Lynx on my own-- but you can, and by God, you will--

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

Any chick who carried around a bird of prey with a little helmet was cool in my book. Oh, man, I really hoped she didn’t intend to kill us all.

I took the liberty of designing your pennant,” said Rhy, resting his elbows on the gallery’s marble banister. “I hope you don’t mind.” Kell cringed. “Do I even want to know what’s on it?” Rhy tugged the folded piece of fabric from his pocket, and handed it over. The cloth was red, and when he unfolded it, he saw the image of a rose in black and white. The rose had been mirrored, folded along the center axis and reflected, so the design was actually two flowers, surrounded by a coil of thorns. “How subtle,” said Kell tonelessly. “You could at least pretend to be grateful.” “And you couldn’t have picked something a little more … I don’t know … imposing? A serpent? A great beast? A bird of prey?” “A bloody handprint?” retorted Rhy. “Oh, what about a glowing black eye?” Kell glowered. “You’re right,” continued Rhy, “I should have just drawn a frowning face. But then everyone would know it’s you. I thought this was rather fitting.

My eyes registered a shadow above our heads. A large black and white bird of prey with a red head. “Look,” I panted. “There’s your spirit animal. A vulture.” Remo stopped and laughed. A real laugh. Not dark, taunting, or cruel. “Good to know you find me that repulsive.

In the whole vast domain of living nature there reigns an open violence, a kind of prescriptive fury which arms all the creatures to their common doom. As soon as you leave the inanimate kingdom, you find the decree of violent death inscribed on the very frontiers of life. You feel it already in the vegetable kingdom: from the great catalpa to the humblest herb, how many plants die, and how many are killed. But from the moment you enter the animal kingdom, this law is suddenly in the most dreadful evidence. A power of violence at once hidden and palpable … has in each species appointed a certain number of animals to devour the others. Thus there are insects of prey, reptiles of prey, birds of prey, fishes of prey, quadrupeds of prey. There is no instant of time when one creature is not being devoured by another. Over all these numerous races of animals man is placed, and his destructive hand spares nothing that lives. He kills to obtain food and he kills to clothe himself. He kills to adorn himself, he kills in order to attack, and he kills in order to defend himself. He kills to instruct himself and he kills to amuse himself. He kills to kill. Proud and terrible king, he wants everything and nothing resists him. From the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound ... from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child - his table is covered with corpses ... And who in all of this will exterminate him who exterminates all others? Himself. It is man who is charged with the slaughter of man ... So it is accomplished ... the first law of the violent destruction of living creatures. The whole earth, perpetually steeped in blood, is nothing but a vast altar upon which all that is living must be sacrificed without end, without measure, without pause, until the consummation of things, until evil is extinct, until the death of death.

She was apt at hunting, a naturally trained bird of prey who would beat the game and always bring it back to the hunter. And speaking of the devil … It

Birds of prey and fierce piranha enter not into Nirvana, where are neither thorns nor nettles, only soft and fragrant petals.

Oh, it’s our pleasure,” Maryse told her son. She advanced on Alec, her hands out. She reminded Magnus of a bird of prey, talons outstretched, overcome by hunger. “What do you say,” she said in an alarmingly sweet voice, “you let me hold the baby? I’m the one in the room with the most experience with babies, after all.” “That’s not true, Alec,” said Robert. “That is not true! I was very involved with all of you when you were young. I’m excellent with babies.” Alec blinked at his father, who had appeared by Alec’s side with Shadowhunter speed. “As I recall,” Maryse said, “you bounce them.” “Babies love that,” Robert claimed. “Babies love bouncing.

Field studies have shown that ravens “call” wolves to large animals they find dead. Why invite wolves to dinner? Because, unlike birds of prey, the raven lacks a bill or talons designed to open a carcass. Someone else—wolf or human hunter or motor vehicle—needs to do the job. Magpies have been observed working with coyotes in much the same way as ravens work with wolves, and the canine hunters have learned to listen when corvids call.

The most famous lenders in nature are vampire bats. These bats congregate in the thousands inside caves, and every night fly out to look for prey. When they find a sleeping bird or careless mammal, they make a small incision in its skin, and suck its blood. But not all vampire bats find a victim every night. In order to cope with the uncertainty of their life, the vampires loan blood to each other. A vampire that fails to find prey will come home and ask a more fortunate friend to regurgitate some stolen blood. Vampires remember very well to whom they loaned blood, so at a later date if the friend returns home hungry, he will approach his debtor, who will reciprocate the favour. However, unlike human bankers, vampires never charge interest.

Birding is hunting without killing, preying without punishing, and collecting without clogging your home.

The feeling of solidarity is the leading characteristic of all animals living in society. The eagle devours the sparrow, the wolf devours the marmot. But the eagles and the wolves respectively aid each other in hunting, the sparrow and the marmot unite among themselves against the beasts and birds of prey so effectually that only the very clumsy ones are caught. In all animal societies solidarity is a natural law of far greater importance than that struggle for existence, the virtue of which is sung by the ruling classes in every strain that may best serve to stultify us.

as a bird swoops down on it's prey, and assumes this land bound wretch into heaven, so did romeo steal her lips before they fled him again. suspended somewhere between cherubs and devils, his quarry ceased to buck, and he spread his wings wide and let the rising wind carry them off across the sky, until even the predator himself had lost every hope of returning home. within that one embrace, [he] became aware of a feeling of certainty he had not thought possible for anyone - even the virtuous. with her in his arms, all other women, past, present, and future, simply ceased to exist.

On the eastern horizon there’s a greyish haze, lit now with a rosy, deadly glow. Strange how that colour still seems tender. He gazes at it with rapture; there is no other word for it. Rapture. The heart seized, carried away, as if by some large bird of prey. After everything that’s happened, how can the world still be so beautiful? Because it is.

You took nothing from me.

Like birds of prey, they will pick, pick, pick all night until they get the answers they want.

This was a face such as I had never seen before, even in the most fanciful of dreams, a face that was, in its way, a work of art. For it was light and dark, night and day, this world and the Otherworld. On the left side, the face of a youngish man, the skin weathered but fair, the eye gray and clear, the mouth well formed if unyielding in character. On all the right side, extending from an undrawn mark down the exact center, an etching of line and curve and feathery pattern, like the mask of some fierce bird of prey. An eagle? A goshawk? No, it was, I thought, a raven, even as far as the circles about the eye and the suggestion of predatory beak around the nostril. The mark of the raven. If I had not been so frightened, I might have laughed at the irony of it. The pattern extended down his neck and under the border of his leather jerkin and the linen shirt he wore beneath it. His head was completely shaven, and the skull, too, was colored the same, half-man, half-wild creature; some great artist of the inks and needle had wrought this over many days, and I imagined the pain must have been considerable.

The house-cat is a four-legged quadruped, the legs as usual being at the corners. It is what is sometimes called a tame animal, though it feeds on mice and birds of prey. Its colours are striped, it does not bark, but breathes through its nose instead of its mouth. Cats also mow, which you all have heard. Cats have nine liveses, but which is seldom wanted in this country, coz' of Christianity. Cats eat meat and most anythink speshuelly where you can't afford. That is all about cats." (From a schoolboy's essay, 1903.)

I jumped up and "casually" strolled a bit closer. I blinked my eyes in the sun. It couldn't be, could it? But it was. Gabe. ... "You know, if you're going to stalk someone, you should be less obvious." I wheeled around. It was Todd. He'd snuck up on me. He said, "For starters, try not to standing in the middle of a field, gawking at your prey." I kicked at a dusty clump of grass. "Gawking? I... I'm... not gawking. I was just watching your girlfired putting the moves on someone else. Jealous?" "Oh Gabe Webber?" Todd laughed. "Uh...no." I shielded my eyes from the sun. "Why? What's wrong with Gabe Webber?" "Nothing. As in, there's nothing there. He has the personality of dry toast." How dare he insult my Gabe? "Oh yes. I forgot. You prefer the company of assholes and jerks. As they say, 'Birds of a feather...'" "That must be why you hang around.

Like so much else, it was a carefully constructed lie. Rowan was no sparrow. She was a bird of prey.

There’s nothing like a compliment to turn any right-thinking American male into your basic monosyllabic kind of guy.

They entered our lives opportunistically, because our food attracted their prey (primarily rodents and birds) and because they enjoyed rooting through our garbage for edible bits.

Balance,” she answered, head tilting like a bird of prey. “To right terrible wrongs. To free Blunder from the Rowans.” Her yellow eyes narrowed, wicked and absolute. “To collect his due.

Life has an uncanny way of tying up a host of loose ends. Not in the neat, all-creases-matching, hospital corner-to-corner kind of way, but in a cloudy, murky, uncertain mish-mash collection of what ifs, could haves, and a bus load of should haves kind of way. But what happens when all the magnificent stars in the heavens and all the resolute planets in the galaxy agree to simultaneously align? What happens when the glorious birds of prey in the sky and the steadfast worker ants of the ground all decide to ally? And more intriguingly, what happens when the settling of old hurts and scores becomes so alluring, so certain, with the whispered promise of everlasting, as to lure with it a collection of hardly surviving, barely functioning, scattered, and damaged souls together once again? As one door finally seemed to close tightly shut, two others flung wide open, and the darkness of life’s most protected secrets and haunts invited the crippling unknown to bask once again in the glaring, naked light.

Julien's eye mechanically followed the bird of prey, struck by its tranquil, mighty movements. He envied its force; he envied its isolation. It was the destiny of Napoleon. Would it some day be his?

The she-monster is hardly a new phenomenon. The idea of a female untamed nature which must be leashed or else will wreak havoc closely reflects mythological heroes’ struggles against monsters. Greek myth alone offers a host - of Ceres, Harpies, Sirens, Moirae. Associated with fate and death in various ways, they move swiftly, sometimes on wings; birds of prey are their closest kin - the Greeks didn’t know about dinosaurs - and they seize as in the word raptor. But seizure also describes the effect of the passions on the body; inner forces, looser, madness, arte, folly, personified in Homer and the tragedies as feminine, snatch and grab the interior of the human creature and take possession.

In after-years he would tell of an incident that took place at one of their encampments: "We were with the Prophet when a Companion brought in a fledgling that he had caught, and one of the parent birds came and threw itself into the hands of him who had taken its young. I saw men's faces full of wonderment, and the Prophet said: 'Do ye wonder at this bird? Ye have taken its young, and it hath thrown itself down in merciful tenderness unto its young. Yet I swear by God, Your Lord is more merciful unto you than is this bird unto its fledgling. And he told the man to put back the young bird where he had found it. He also said: "God hath a hundred mercies,and one of them hath He sent down amongst jinn and men and cattle and beasts of prey. Thereby they are kind and merciful unto one another, and thereby the wild creature inclineth in tenderness unto her offspring. And ninety-nine mercies hath God reserved unto Himself, that therewith He may show mercy unto His slaves on the day of the Resurrection.

Children at play, birds of prey," Lucien said, closing out his register, "and dogs may chase anything that moves. But in general, we are not pursued because we run; we run because we are pursued. Someone wanted something from this girl --love, money, her body, her mind. Find out what pursued your friend, and you find your friend.

The sound coming out of me is nothing like a cough, nothing even in the same category of a song, but some kind of bird of prey roar, shredding my throat, pulsating my fingers, and Milekt beneath it, singing inside my voice, amplifying me, and making me stronger.

If I could, I would choose every day another form, plant or animal, I would be all the flowers one by one: weed, thistle or rose; a tropical tree with a tangle of branches, seaweed cast by the shore, or mountain whipped by winds; bird of prey, a croaking bird, or a bird with a melodious song; beast of the forest or tame animal. Let me live the life of every species , wildly and un-self-consciously, let me try out the entire spectrum of nature, let me change gracefully, discreetly, as if it were the most natural procedure.

I didn't see it coming. That the great ospreys of the wetlands were after us. I was just basking in the sun, regurgitating with my offspring in our knitted nest. Ospreys said they were taking us under their wings. That we never had to worry about food ever again. Days went by, I realized they took our flying away." Birds of Prey--They Move Away Like Waves.

Untimely sent; they on the battle plain Unburied lay, a prey to rav'ning dogs, And carrion birds; but so had Jove decreed,

Ducks have eyes on the sides of their heads, which is the mark of a prey. Mainstream news viewers must also have the same eye placement, because they aren't even aware of their predators. Oh, and ducks eat bugs, as do most prey—including people who think you can VOTE for FREEDOM.

Those of us who are in tune with nature and animals know it is our way of life, Bram. There is a connection to all living things, a vibration of Life. Animals were not given a power of choice. A lion does not try and eat legumes, nor an elephant meat. We believe the best way to communicate with nature, God, is through a liaison: the animals..... Nature hears one voice and obeys it. That is why ten or ten thousand birds may rise from the surface of a lake at the same time and yet never touch one another. Man only hears his own voice. He constantly bumps into another. Even his voice mirrors his erratic walk, jealousy, hate, ego, pride, lying, cheating. He makes his own judgements and falls prey to his greed. Remember, the moon is reflected on one drop of water as is the entire ocean-- so it is with God. He is reflected ins each living thing-- in a grain of sand as the entire shore, one star as the whole universe. Each animal as in all creatures. -Jagrat

It was an odd group of austere-looking birds of prey who said they had something to show me. "We are going on a journey. You can tell no one," said the northern harrier with resting death face.

We are both caught in its tangles and knots, sometimes the hunter, sometimes the hunted. And sometimes, we are so lost in love's magic that we neither know nor care whether we are predator or prey.

As long as I'm between home and the clinic I do all right. But out in the real world, I feel like prey. I slink around and can feel people looking at me. I feel their eyes boring into me. I feel what they're thinking: Watch her, she could go off anytime. But within the walls of my farmhouse, I climb out of the protective shell, my arms slowly rise like a phoenix, and I dance, wail, fly around the room and then collapse, crying, in front of my mirrors. I start to see in the mirror what it is I really look like, instead of what I was trained from the womb to see. I do not write about it. I do not talk about it. I do not know what I am doing. But just like a baby bird, I am blinking once-sealed eyes and unfolding damp wings. I cannot articulate the past. A part of me knows it's there, lurking, just behind what I can acknowledge, but it is not within sight. And I am keeping it that way.

Tengo had a gift for such work. He was a born technician, possessing both the intense concentration of a bird sailing through the air in search of prey and the patience of a donkey hauling water, playing always by the rules of the game.

Sophie raised her head. Light filtering through the trees dappled her face. “Hawk.” Charlotte looked up as well. A bird of prey soared above the treetops, circling around them. “It’s dead,” Sophie said. “George is guiding it. He is very powerful.”The realization washed over Charlotte in a cold gush of embarrassment. “Is George spying on Richard and me?” “Always,” Sophie said. “All those perfect manners are a sham. He spies on everyone and everything. Declan hasn’t been able to conduct a single business meeting in the past year without George’s knowing all the details. He does let go when you make love. He is a prude.” “‘Prude’ is a coarse word. He has a sense of tact,” Charlotte corrected before she caught herself. “A sense of tact,” Sophie repeated, tasting the words. “Thank you. The other one is somewhere around here, too.” “The other one?” Sophie surveyed the woods. “I can smell you, Jack!” “No, you can’t,” a distant voice answered

The reason a falcon is hooded is exactly the reason a falconer is not: the birds can see so well that they would most likely be distracted by other prey much further away. The falconer hoods the bird and waits. He wants the falcon to only see what he sees.

I shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me, or be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched ... Some years ago, when the images which this world affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer, and heard the rustling of the leaves and the chirping of the birds, and these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only consolation.

This is a story of; light & dark – moon & stars – hurt & heart A human – A Woman – A bird A man – A key A friendship – A relationship – A sinking ship Anger – Hope – Grief – Dismay A cat – A plant – A knight – A dog stray love & hate A cage – A knife And endless preys Succumbed together, Suppressed below the layers Of skin & blood vessels turned black ‘t i s a story of a heart burnt to r o t !

With beat of systole and of diastole One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart, And mighty waves of single Being roll From nerveless germ to man, for we are part Of every rock and bird and beast and hill, One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill. From

It's because I dream of being accepted and respected, though I don't owe anything to anyone. Why do I need that? I waste my time on worries, regrets, and darkness - a darkness that only enslaves me, chaining me to a rock where I'm served up as food for birds of prey, a rock that I can no longer leave.

Dying, must I die without my mother’s tears and will no one’s fingers close my eyes? Must my sad soul travel the alien airs? Will no friendly hands arrange my limbs anointing them with spices and fragrant herbs? Are my bones to lie unburied, prey to the birds that are waiting here by the shore? Is this the tomb my kindness deserves?

A raptor is a fierce and formidable bird of prey, and the crow’s natural enemy. When a crow strays from its flock, that’s when it’s most vulnerable, when it exposes itself to the danger of the raptor’s lethal presence. “You’ve ruined me, Delilah. In this world of deception and power, where I’ve lived among a murder of crows, you have become the one person capable of breaking through my defenses. You’ve made me vulnerable, isolated me from the safety of the Order and from the founding families. You are my greatest weakness.

Men are easy to manipulate thanks to having fewer metrics by which they judge potential mates, and thus advertising has long been preying on their tendencies. Women will buy products in an attempt to become the impossible goal. Men will buy products in an attempt to mate with the impossible goal. Sexy and sexist advertising can kill two birds with one stone.

Every inch of you tastes delicious, my dove.

Jack Kilborn, author of Trapped, Afraid, and Endurance.

The woman has a beak,’ he thought, standing red and tongue-tied before her. ‘She’s a bird of prey. She has got her talons into my Catherine. Linked together! Good God.

She was so goddamn beautiful, the way things that could end you were. Guns. Knives. The tawny bird of prey she resembled.

Peregrine Falcon This is a large falcon about the size of a crow.

Some death is as silent as the flight of a bird, some prey as unprotesting as a knot of rags. The

Looking round upon those eager, friendly faces, I compared them with the cold face of the [christian] missionary, who suddenly appeared to me as a great bird of prey

The bird came after Lucas again and he swatted at it with his gun, smacked it hard, two or three small feathers flying.

Nocturnal birds gathered on the lawns like pious parishioners to eat noisily, their doomed prey screaming wildly into the dark.

At night nocturnal birds gathered on the lawns to eat noisily, the screams of their prey sounding much like my own mother in hard labor.

You have embraced silence. Your wings make no sound. Language is for prey, for what the wizard-nation hunts. You are not prey, not anymore.

The thought that a bird could one day build its home in my head was reassuring, a reminder that the natural world will always be heedless of human time, human history, human interest.

What are the fifty newspapers, which those precocious urchins are bawling down the street, and which are kept filed within, what are they but amusements? Not vapid, waterish amusements, but good strong stuff; dealing in round abuse and blackguard names; pulling off the roofs of private houses, as the Halting Devil did in Spain; pimping and pandering for all degrees of vicious taste, and gorging with coined lies the most voracious maw; imputing to every man in public life the coarsest and the vilest motives; scaring away from the stabbed and prostrate body-politic, every Samaritan of clear conscience and good deeds; and setting on, with yell and whistle and the clapping of foul hands, the vilest vermin and worst birds of prey.

Wrath, goddess, sing of Achilles Pēleus’s son’s calamitous wrath, which hit the Achaians with countless ills— many the valiant souls it saw off down to Hādēs, souls of heroes, their selves left as carrion for dogs and all birds of prey, and the plan of Zeus was fulfilled — from the first moment those two men parted in fury, Atreus’s son, king of men, and the godlike Achilles.

Wrath, goddess, sing of Achilles Pēleus’s son’s calamitous wrath, which hit the Achaians with countless ills— many the valiant souls it saw off down to Hādēs, souls of heroes, their selves left as carrion for dogs and all birds of prey, and the plan of Zeus was fulfilled — from the first moment those two men parted in fury, Atreus’s son, king of men, and the godlike Achilles.

One may be repelled by this law of nature which demands that all living things should mutually devour one another. The fly is snapped up by a dragon-fly, which itself is swallowed by a bird, which itself falls victim to a larger bird. This last, as it grows old, becomes a prey to microbes, which end by getting the better of it. These microbes, in their turn, find their predestined ends.

. . . to my surprise I began to know what The Language was about, not just the part we were singing now but the whole poem. It began with the praise and joy in all creation, copying the voice of the wind and the sea. It described sun and moon, stars and clouds, birth and death, winter and spring, the essence of fish, bird, animal, and man. It spoke in what seemed to be the language of each creature. . . . It spoke of well, spring, and stream, of the seed that comes from the loins of a male creature and of the embryo that grows in the womb of the female. It pictured the dry seed deep in the dark earth, feeling the rain and the warmth seeping down to it. It sang of the green shoot and of the tawny heads of harvest grain standing out in the field under the great moon. It described the chrysalis that turns into a golden butterfly, the eggs that break to let out the fluffy bird life within, the birth pangs of woman and of beast. It went on to speak of the dark ferocity of the creatures that pounce upon their prey and plunge their teeth into it--it spoke in the muffled voice of bear and wolf--it sang the song of the great hawks and eagles and owls until their wild faces seemed to be staring into mine, and I knew myself as wild as they. It sang the minor chords of pain and sickness, of injury and old age; for a few moments I felt I was an old woman with age heavy upon me.

You said I was like a bird of prey, caged by my captors and made to sing love songs to the sky. You said my sadness was like the sun, beautiful from a distance but it hurt you too much to come closer.

He was a born technician, possessing both the intense concentration of a bird sailing through the air in search of prey and the patience of a donkey hauling water, playing always by the rules of the game.

The truth is, the abyss lives in us. In our greed. In the way we look at things different to us, and see things lesser. In the way we see the smaller, or the weaker, and think them prey. It begins with the beasts of the land, the birds of the sky. And in a blinking, we find ourselves seeing our lessers in people with different colored skins. Different gods. Different creeds. We see them as lessers, and we hurt, and we kill, and we think nothing of it. Because they are different, we think ourselves just. Because we are stronger, we think ourselves righteous. That is the abyss in all of us. And we stand close to the edge still. Closer than any can dream. We need but stray for a moment and we will find ourselves back again, staring down into that black. And who will save us? When everything that was different to us is already gone?

Tall Shadow, your gift for stalking and guile; Clear Sky, your gift for bringing down birds from the air; Turtle Tail, your speed and sharp eyes; Rainswept Flower, your ability to track far-off prey by scent alone.

The birds sang in the dust in an elaborate weave, ambiguous, deafening, prey to existence poor passions lost between the modest summits of groves of mulberry and elder; and I, like them, in secluded places reserved for the lost and pure, would wait for evening to fall, for the silent smells of fire and joyous misery to fill the air, for the Angelus bell to toll, veiled in the new peasant mystery fulfilled in the ancient mystery.

When Gabriel was about Ivo's age," the duchess remarked almost dreamily, staring out at the plum-colored sky, "he found a pair of orphaned fox cubs in the woods, at a country manor we'd leased in Hampshire. Has he told you about that?" Pandora shook her head, her eyes wide. A reminiscent smile curved the duchess's full lips. "It was a pair of females, with big ears, and eyes like shiny black buttons. They made chirping sounds, like small birds. Their mother had been killed in a poacher's trap, so Gabriel wrapped the poor th-things in his coat and brought them home. They were too young to survive on their own. Naturally, he begged to be allowed to keep them. His father agreed to let him raise them under the gamekeeper's supervision, until they were old enough to return the f-forest. Gabriel spent weeks spoon-feeding them with a mixture of meat paste and milk. Later on, he taught them to stalk and catch prey in an outside pen." "How?" Pandora asked, fascinated. The older woman glanced at her with an unexpectedly mischievous grin. "He dragged dead mice through their pen on a string." "That's horrid," Pandora exclaimed, laughing. "It was," the duchess agreed with a chuckle. "Gabriel pretended not to mind, of course, but it was qu-quite disgusting. Still, the cubs had to learn." The duchess paused before continuing more thoughtfully. "I think for Gabriel, the most difficult part of raising them was having to keep his distance, no matter how he loved them. No p-petting or cuddling, or even giving them names. They couldn't lose their fear of humans, or they wouldn't survive. As the gamekeeper told him, he might as well murder them if he made them tame. It tortured Gabriel, he wanted to hold them so badly." "Poor boy." "Yes. But when Gabriel finally let them go, they scampered away and were able to live freely and hunt for themselves. It was a good lesson for him to learn." "What was the lesson?" Pandora asked soberly. "Not to love something he knew he would lose?" The duchess shook her head, her gaze warm and encouraging. "No, Pandora. He learned how to love them without changing them. To let them be what they were meant to be.

Hartwell’s subconscious was treated to a lengthy reel of the evolutionary tract of cetaceans – from their early days as hoofed creatures with triangular teeth like wolves, to cat-like creatures, to early variations of the hippopotamus, to bottlenose dolphins and Orca, the ‘killer whale’, which is the largest species of dolphin. The hybrid mammal also had the ability to convert to a smaller aquatic mammal, capable of diving into water and hiding beneath the surface to avoid birds of prey.

Geographically, Jess's backside was a mountain range. The sun rose over it -eventually. Huge birds of prey nested on its craggy heights and hunted in its shadows. It wouldn't have been so bad if Jess's bum had been balanced by a nice big bosom. Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, and Serena Williams were designed with this pleasing sense of balance. But geographically, Jess's boobs could not balance her bum at all. Her chest was the kind of featureless plain upon which airports are constructed.

Jodie had said that if a bird becomes different from the others -- disfigured or wounded -- it is more likely to attract a predator, so the rest of the flock will kill it, which is better than drawing in an eagle, who might take on of them in the bargain.

José Luis Peña, a neuroscientist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and his collaborators have discovered that the sound localization system in a barn owl’s brain performs sophisticated mathematical computations to execute this pinpointing of prey.

Many birds of prey, like eagles, falcons, and vultures, actually have two acute zones in each eye—one that looks forward, and another that looks out at a 45-degree angle. The side-facing one is sharper, and it’s the one that many raptors use when hunting. When a peregrine falcon dives after a pigeon, it doesn’t plunge straight at its prey. Instead, it flies along a descending spiral. That’s the only way it can keep the pigeon within its murderous side-eye, while also pointing its head down and maintaining a streamlined shape.[*20

Ravens form mating pairs, just like vampires and wolves,” Matthew replied. “They grieve when their mate is gone, and their social group often participates in the mourning. In Norway, I witnessed wolves howling along to the ravens’ lament when a member of their group passed.” I frowned. “You make it sound like ravens and wolves have some kind of relationship.” “They work together in the wild,” Matthew said, nodding. “They play together, help each other locate prey, and even share kills. It’s an unusual example of cross-species cooperation.

Wintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of times, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. Behind dingy blind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less under false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep. Gentlemen

Of all the passers-through, the species that means most to me, even more than geese and cranes, is the upland plover, the drab plump grassland bird that used to remind my gentle hunting uncle of the way things once had been, as it still reminds me. It flies from the far Northern prairies to the pampas of Argentina and then back again in spring, a miracle of navigation and a tremendous journey for six or eight ounces of flesh and feathers and entrails and hollow bones, fueled with bug meat. I see them sometimes in our pastures, standing still or dashing after prey in the grass, but mainly I know their presence through the mournful yet eager quavering whistles they cast down from the night sky in passing, and it makes me think of what the whistling must have been like when the American plains were virgin and their plover came through in millions. To grow up among tradition-minded people leads one often into backward yearnings and regrets, unprofitable feelings of which I was granted my share in youth-not having been born in time to get killed fighting Yankees, for one, or not having ridden up the cattle trails. But the only such regret that has strongly endured is not to have known the land when when it was whole and sprawling and rich and fresh, and the plover that whet one's edge every spring and every fall. In recent decades it has become customary- and right, I guess, and easy enough with hindsight- to damn the ancestral frame of mind that ravaged the world so fully and so soon. What I myself seem to damn mainly, though, is just not having seen it. Without any virtuous hindsight, I would likely have helped in the ravaging as did even most of those who loved it best. But God, to have viewed it entire, the soul and guts of what we had and gone forever now, except in books and such poignant remnants as small swift birds that journey to and from the distant Argentine and call at night in the sky.

An anonymous pamphleteer in Massachusetts, writing angrily after King George’s War, described the situation: “Poverty and Discontent appear in every Face (except the Countenances of the Rich) and dwell upon every Tongue.” He spoke of a few men, fed by “Lust of Power, Lust of Fame, Lust of Money,” who got rich during the war. “No Wonder such Men can build Ships, Houses, buy Farms, set up their Coaches, Chariots, live very splendidly, purchase Fame, Posts of Honour.” He called them “Birds of prey . . . Enemies to all Communities—wherever they live.

I do rather like birds,’ Abdullah Unul says. ‘They’re busy, active little things. They make do. Have you ever thought, if Istanbul were to have an official bird, what would it be? I bet you’d think stork straight away. Maybe a sparrow. Me, the official bird of Istanbul would have to be the seagull. What do you see dancing around the Ramazan lights, what’ s following the ships up and down the Bosphorus, what’s facing into the wind on the rocks down by the water side. The common or garden gull, that’s what. For all those reasons, the seagull for me is Istanbul, but mostly because it practises kleptoparasitism. You may not have heard of that. I’ll explain. It’s a behaviour when one animal takes prey from another that has the job of catching or killing it. In seagulls it’s letting some other bird do all the hard work of catching the fish or a bit of bread and then taking it off them as they’re about to eat it. It’s the reason they’re the success they are. So, I’ll have that Koran. Both parts. To be honest, I’d prefer cash, but I imagine there’s a market for that gadgetry you have out there in Fenerbahçe.

Last Night’s Moon," “When will we next walk together under last night’s moon?” - Tu Fu March aspens, mist forest. Green rain pins down the sea, early evening cyanotype. Silver saltlines, weedy toques of low tide, pillow lava’s black spill indelible in the sand. Unbroken broken sea. — Rain sharpens marsh-hair birth-green of the spring firs. In the bog where the dead never disappear, where river birch drown, the surface strewn with reflection. This is the acid-soaked moss that eats bones, keeps flesh; the fermented ground where time stops and doesn’t; dissolves the skull, preserves the brain, wrinkled pearl in black mud. — In the autumn that made love necessary, we stood in rubber boots on the sphagnum raft and learned love is soil–stronger than peat or sea– melting what it holds. The past is not our own. Mole’s ribbon of earth, termite house, soaked sponge. It rises, keloids of rain on wood; spreads, milkweed galaxy, broken pod scattering the debris of attention. Where you are while your body is here, remembering in the cold spring afternoon. The past is a long bone. — Time is like the painter’s lie, no line around apple or along thigh, though the apple aches to its sweet edge, strains to its skin, the seam of density. Invisible line closest to touch. Lines of wet grass on my arm, your tongue’s wet line across my back. All the history in the bone-embedded hills of your body. Everything your mouth remembers. Your hands manipullate in the darkness, silver bromide of desire darkening skin with light. — Disoriented at great depths, confused by the noise of shipping routes, whales hover, small eyes squinting as they consult the magnetic map of the ocean floor. They strain, a thousand miles through cold channels; clicking thrums of distant loneliness bounce off seamounts and abyssal plains. They look up from perpetual dusk to rods of sunlight, a solar forest at the surface. Transfixed in the dark summer kitchen: feet bare on humid linoleum, cilia listening. Feral as the infrared aura of the snake’s prey, the bees’ pointillism, the infrasonic hum of the desert heard by the birds. The nighthawk spans the ceiling; swoops. Hot kitchen air vibrates. I look up to the pattern of stars under its wings.

The lion is king of the beasts. When he leaves his den, he stretches and gazes out over all the directions. Before seeking his prey, he lets forth a mighty roar that causes the other creatures to tremble and flee. - Birds fly high, crocodiles dive beneath the water, foxes slip into their holes. Even village elephants, decked in fancy belts and ornaments and shaded by golden parasols, run away at the sound of that roar. -Community, the proclamation of the Way of Enlightenment is like that lion’s roar! …..False doctrines fear and tremble. When Impermanence, Non-self, and Dependent Co-arising are proclaimed, all those who have long sought false security in ignorance and forgetfulness must awaken, celestial beings as well as human beings. When a person sees the dazzling truth, he exclaims, ‘We embraced dangerous views for so long, taking the impermanent to be permanent, and believing in the existence of a separate self. We took suffering to be pleasure and look at the temporary as if it were eternal. We mistook the false for the true. Now the time has come to tear down all the walls of forgetfulness and false views.

Why didn't I know about Sedona before? Why did no one tell me? It's breathtaking. It's... indescribable. Well, all right, not literally indescribable. You can describe it. You can say, There are these huge red sandstone rocks everywhere, jutting up from the desert, making you feel all tiny and insignificant. You can say, There's a kind of rawness to the landscape which gives you goosebumps. You can say, There's a solitary bird of prey hanging above us, high in the sky, which seems to put all of humankind into perspective. You can say all that. But it's not the same as being there.

The two angels found her alone, reading. As they drew near she lifted her great eyes whose deeps of molten gold little sparks of light were forever a-dance. Her brows were contracted into that austere fold which we see on the Pythian Apollo; her nose was perfect and descended without a curve; her lips were compressed and imparted a disdainful and supercilious air to her whole countenance. Her tawny hair, with its gleaming lights, was carelessly adorned with the tattered remnants of a huge bird of prey, her garments lay about her in dark and shapeless folds. She was leaning her chin on an ill-tended hand.

If they wanted to know why she had tried to go, why were they asking about the “Islamic thoughts” in her head? Didn’t they realize a naïve, broken-bird of a girl might follow a beloved brother to the very ends of the earth? Didn’t they realize abused girls were easy prey for charismatic men with dubious intentions?

There was more in those eyes than any common triumph. They had been hooded like a bird of prey, and now they flamed with a hawk's pride. A white fanatic heat burned in them, and I realized for the first time the terrible thing I had been up against. This man was more than a spy; in his foul way he had been a patriot.

The patron goddess of Athens, the city in which the Lysis is set, is none other than Athena, goddess of wisdom, who sprang out from the skull of Zeus clad in full armour. Athena’s symbol, and the symbol of wisdom, is the owl, a bird of prey which can cleave through darkness. Indeed, the word ‘wisdom’ derives from the Proto-Indo-European root weid-, ‘to see’,

At the twilight, a moon appeared in the sky; Then it landed on earth to look at me. Like a hawk stealing a bird at the time of prey; That moon stole me and rushed back into the sky. I looked at myself, I did not see me anymore; For in that moon, my body turned as fine as soul. The nine spheres disappeared in that moon; The ship of my existence drowned in that sea.

What crime was this, that lived incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled nor subdued by the owner? — what mystery, that broke out, now in fire and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice, now of a mocking demon and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?

... A lobotomy involved some kind of rod or probe inserted through the eyesocket,the term was always "frontal" lobotomy;but was there any other kind?Knowing that internal stress could cause failure on the exam merely set up internal stress about the prospect of internal stress. There must be some other way to deal with the knowledge of the disastrous consequences fear and stress could bring about.Some answer or trick of the will:the ability not to think about it.What if everyone knew this trick but Claude Sylvanshine?He tended to conceptualize some ultimate,platonic-level Terror as a bird of prey in whose mere aloft shadow the prey was stricken and paralyzed,tembling as the shadow enlarged and became inevitability.He frequently had this feeling:What if there was something essentially wrong with Claude Sylvanshine that wasn't wrong with other people?What if he was simply ill-suited,the way some people are born without limbs or certain organs?The neurology of failure.What if he was simply born and destined to live in the shadow of Total Fear and Despair,and all his so called activities were pathetic attempts to distract him from the inevitable?...

...Whoever said that pain healed with time was just making it up for something to say. Pain circled around up high like a bird of prey, and you were a tiny mouse on the ground. At times you didn't even know the bird was up there, but then you might fall under its shadow again.You could either stay inside your hole and never go out, or you could run the risk and see what else was outside.

In a jungle when you hear the cacophony of crows, you know a lion has come. If there were no crows how would we know about the lion. Do you think a lion goes out there, runs after a deer and kills it? Do you know that when a lion walks, all birds are chirping and circling above, monkeys and other animals are continuously taking positions while making war cries. In this cacophony, a lion has to find a prey. LIONS CANNOT WAIT FOR THE NOISE TO END. शेर शांति होने का इंतज़ार नहीं कर सकता जंगल में जब हम कौवों का शोर सुनते हैं तो मालूम पड़ जाता है कि शेर आ गया। अगर कौवे शोर न मचाएं तो शेर का पता कैसे चलेगा? क्या आप सोचते हैं कि एक शेर सिर्फ हिरण के पीछे दौड़कर उसे मार लेता है? सोचिए कि इस चिड़ियों के अंतर्नाद के बीच, बंदरों और तमाम जानवरों के हाहाकार के बीच एक शेर को अपना शिकार करना पड़ता है। शेर शांति होने का इंतज़ार नहीं कर सकता!

There is a man in China who gathers stones, without ceasing. He sheds abundant tears, and as the tears fall on the ground they change into stones, which again he gathers. If the clouds were to weep tears like these it would be a . matter for sorrow and sighing. Real knowledge becomes the possession of the true seeker. If it is necessary to seek knowledge in China, then go. But when knowledge is distorted by the formal mind, it becomes petrified, like stones. How long must real knowledge continue to be misunderstood? This world, this house of sorrows, is in darkness; but true knowledge is a jewel, it will burn like a lamp and guide you in this gloomy place. If you spurn this jewel, you will ever be a prey to regret. If you lag behind, you will weep bitter tears. But if you sleep little by night, and fast by day, you may find what you seek. Seek, then, and be lost in the quest.

Witchcraft is part of a living web of species and relationships, a world which we have forgotten to observe, understand or inhabit. Many people reading this paragraph will not know even the current phase of the moon, and if asked for it will not instinctively look up to the current quarter of the sky, but down to their computers. Neither will they be able to name the plants, birds or animals within a metre or mile radius of their door. Witchcraft asks that we do these first things, this is presence. Animism is not embedded in the natural world, it is the natural world. Our witchcraft is that spirit of place, which is made from a convergence of elements and inhabitants. Here I include animals, both living and dead, human and inhuman. Our helpers are mammals, reptiles, fish, birds and insects. Some can be counted allies, others are more ambivalent. Predator and prey are interdependent. These all have the same origin and ancestry, they from from plants, from copper green life. Bones become soil. The plants have been nourished on the minerals drawn up from the bowels of the earth. These are the living tools of the witch's craft. The cycle of the elements and seasons is read in this way. Flux, life and death are part of this, as are extinctions, catastrophe, fire and flood. We avail ourselves of these, and ultimately a balance is sought. Our ritual space is written in starlight, watched over by sun and moon. So this leaves us with a simple question. How can there be any Witchcraft if this is all destroyed? It is not a rhetorical question. Our land, our trees, animals and elements hold spirit. Will we let our familiars, literally our family be destroyed? If we hold any real belief and experience of spirit, then it does not ask, it demands us to fight for it.

For my own part, I liked Lady Warminster, although at the same time never wholly at ease in her presence. She was immaculately free from any of the traditional blemishes of a mother-in-law; agreeable always; entertaining; even, in her own way, affectionate; but always a little alarming: an elegant, deeply experienced bird – perhaps a bird of prey – ready to sweep down and attack from the frozen mountain peaks upon which she preferred herself to live apart.

A short lightning flash of white snow flew into the woods frightening the animals there a hare hops around the bird-cherry there a bobcat lies in wait for an underwater mouse puffed out its muzzle raised its tasseled tail mangy beast of prey to you woodpeckers and rabbits are as scrambled eggs to us only the oak stands paying no attention to anyone itself just recently fallen from the sky the pain not yet abated the branches had not drawn apart not a reproach nor an answer did I deserve oh my spurs seize me chop me and beat me right in the back right in the back oh he’s fast I thought I see before me the torah but no the lun a tic the lunatic of my words one thing I won’t repeat will not repeat my whole life through this is ladies and gentlemen ladies and gentlemen my attentive audience that leap the leap from the heights of treesongers down on to the boards of stone the tables of stone tables of oh giant Numbers.

Like all hunters, the peregrine is inhibited by a code of behaviour. It seldom chases prey on the ground or pursues it into cover, in the manner of other hawks, though it is quite capable of doing so. Many adults take only birds in flight, but juveniles are less particular. Peregrines perfect their killing power by endless practice, like knights or sportsmen. Those most adaptable, within the limits of the code, survive. If the code is persistently broken, the hawk is probably sick or insane.

The now pregnant Isis returns to her home in the underworld and gives birth, in due time, to Horus, rightful son of the long-lost king, alienated as he matures from his now corrupted kingdom (something we all experience during our maturation). His primary attribute is the eye—the famous Egyptian single eye—while his avatar is the falcon, a bird that takes precise aim at its prey, strikes the target with deadly accuracy, and possesses an acuity of vision unparalleled in the kingdom of living things.

And if Magdalen was waiting for her at the balcony, then she must already be with Lord Thornbeck. A pang of jealousy attacked her like a bird of prey, its talons gripping her heart. No. She stomped her foot to force her heart to listen. I will not allow jealousy to get hold of me. Magdalen was her friend, and Avelina could never have Lord Thornbeck anyway. She hurried toward the balcony. She would be joyful for Lord Thornbeck and Magdalen. So why did she have to blink away tears as she walked? When

The main entrance was off a closed court, not the street Perennius had been following. He paused on the corner, sighed and cinched up his equipment belt. The agent was used to palaces, to great houses, to headquarters of many sorts; but he had never felt comfortable in this one. It occurred to him that it was because he had no real business there. There were Imperial agents and informers throughout Rome, and no doubt the Emperor had as much need for them here as he did for them anywhere else in the Empire.

Saddle horses lined the hitching-rails as far as Brite could see. Canvas-covered wagons, chuck-wagons, buckboards, vehicles of all Western types, stood outside the saddle horses. And up one side and down the other a procession ambled in the dust. On the wide sidewalk a throng of booted, belted, spurred men wended their way up or down. The saloons roared. Black-sombreroed, pale-faced, tight-lipped men stood beside the wide portals of the gaming-dens. Beautiful wrecks of womanhood, girls with havoc in their faces and the look of birds of prey in their eyes, waited in bare-armed splendor to be accosted. Laughter without mirth ran down the walk. The stores were full. Cowboys in twos and threes and sixes trooped by, young, lithe, keen of eye, bold of aspect, gay and reckless. Hundreds of cowboys passed Brite in that long block from the hotel to the intersecting street. And every boy gave him a pang. These were the toll of the trail and of Dodge. It might have been the march of empire, the tragedy of progress, but it was heinous to Brite. He would never send another boy to his death.

Ducking beneath the low-hanging limbs of giant trees, she churned slowly through thicket for more than a hundred yards, as easy turtles slid from water-logs. A floating mat of duckweed colored the water as green as the leafy ceiling, creating an emerald tunnel. Finally, the trees parted, and she glided into a place of wide sky and reaching grasses, and the sounds of cawing birds. The view a chick gets, she reckoned, when it finally breaks its shell. Kya tooled along, a tiny speck of a girl in a boat, turning this way and that as endless estuaries branched and braided before her. Keep left at all the turns going out, Jodie had said. She barely touched the throttle, easing the boat through the current, keeping the noise low. As she broke around a stand of reeds, a whitetail doe with last spring's fawn stood lapping water. Their heads jerked up, slinging droplets through the air. Kya didn't stop or they would bolt, a lesson she'd learned from watching wild turkeys: if you act like a predator, they act like prey. Just ignore them, keep going slow. She drifted by, and the deer stood as still as a pine until Kya disappeared beyond the salt grass.

The captain regarded his bridge and its people and their task with the stateliness of a bird on a bough. Not a bird of prey, though, this captain. This one could soar in any direction, whichever way duty demanded. Not a large man or even an imposing one—a task he left to his first officer—the captain was at times unobtrusive, the bird hiding in the foliage, watching, never seen until those great wings suddenly spread. Those around him knew this could happen at any moment, this sudden peeling off across the bridge panorama like a lean sky thing. Even in repose, his presence kept them alert.

How absurd those words are, such as beast and beast of prey. One should not speak of animals in that way. They may be terrible sometimes, but they're much more right than men." "How do you mean--right?" "Well, look at an animal, a cat, a dog, or a bird, or one of those beautiful great beasts in the zoo, a puma or a giraffe. You can't help seeing that all of them are right. They're never in any embarrassment. They always know what to do and how to behave themselves. They don't flatter and they don't intrude. They don't pretend. They are as they are, like stones or flowers or stars in the sky. Don't you agree?" I did.

The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, ocean, and all the living things that dwell within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, the torpor of the year when feeble dreams visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep holds every future leaf and flower; the bound with which from that detested trance they leap; the works and ways of man, their death and birth, and that of him and all that his may be; all things that move and breathe with toil and sound are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell. Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, remote, serene, and inaccessible: and this, the naked countenance of earth, on which I gaze, even these primeval mountains teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, slow rolling on; there, many a precipice frost and the sun in scorn of mortal power have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, a city of death, distinct with many a tower and wall impregnable of beaming ice. Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin is there, that from the boundaries of the sky rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down from yon remotest waste, have overthrown the limits of the dead and living world, never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; their food and their retreat for ever gone, so much of life and joy is lost. The race of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, and their place is not known. Below, vast caves shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, which from those secret chasms in tumult welling meet in the vale, and one majestic river, the breath and blood of distant lands, for ever rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves, breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.

Even if Mme Verdurin had decided, after reflection, that it would be wiser to postpone the revelations to be made to Morel, it was now too late to turn back. We can allow certain desires, sometimes purely oral in nature, to become so strong that they must be satisfied, whatever the consequences: we simply must plant a kiss on a bare shoulder that we have been looking at for too long, and our lips fall on it like a bird of prey on a snake; we cannot resist the impulse, stronger than hunger, to sink our teeth in a cake, or forgo the astonishment, the alarm, the sorrow or the gaiety which we can unleash in a human soul by saying something unexpected.

The accident which had conducted to this encounter, leading to a fatal entanglement, had been caused by a creature which is the common prey of both,—the little flying-fish, that for once had escaped from his enemies of both elements,—the air and the water. In dashing down upon the flying-fish, the curving talons of the bird, missing the object for which they had been braced, entered the eye of the albacore. Partly because they fitted exactly into the socket, and partly becoming imbedded among the fibrous sutures of the skull, they remained fixed; so that neither bird nor fish—equally desirous of undoing the irksome yoke—was able to put an end to the partnership!

The most famous lenders in nature are vampire bats. These bats congregate in the thousands inside caves, and every night fly out to look for prey. When they find a sleeping bird or careless mammal, they make a small incision in its skin, and suck its blood. But not all vampire bats find a victim every night. In order to cope with the uncertainty of their life, the vampires loan blood to each other. A vampire that fails to find prey will come home and ask a more fortunate friend to regurgitate some stolen blood. Vampires remember very well to whom they loaned blood, so at a later date if the friend returns home hungry, he will approach his debtor, who will reciprocate the favour.

Lake Natron resided in northern Tanzania near an active volcano known as Ol Doinyo Lengai. It was part of the reason the lake had such unique characteristics. The mud had a curious dark grey color over where Jack had been set up for observation, and he noted that there was now an odd-looking mound of it to the right of one of the flamingo’s nests. He zoomed in further and further, peering at it, and then realized what he was actually seeing. The dragon had crouched down beside the nests and blended into the mud. From snout to tail, Jack calculated it had to be twelve to fourteen feet long. Its wings were folded against its back, which had small spines running down the length to a spiky tail. It had a fin with three prongs along the base of the skull and webbed feet tipped with sharp black talons. He estimated the dragon was about the size of a large hyena. It peered up at its prey with beady red eyes, its black forked tongue darting out every few seconds. Its shoulder muscles bunched and its hind legs tensed. Then it pounced. The dark grey dragon leapt onto one of flamingoes atop its nest and seized it by the throat. The bird squawked in distress and immediately beat its wings, trying to free itself. The others around them took to the skies in panic. The dragon slammed it into the mud and closed its jaws around the animal’s throat, blood spilling everywhere. The flamingo yelped out its last breaths and then finally stilled. The dragon dropped the limp carcass and sniffed the eggs before beginning to swallow them whole one at a time. “Holy shit,” Jack muttered. “Have we got a visual?” “Oh, yeah. Based on the size, the natives and the conservationists were right to be concerned. It can probably wipe out a serious number of wildlife in a short amount of time based on what I’m seeing. There’s only a handful of fauna that can survive in these conditions and it could make mincemeat out of them.” “Alright, so what’s the plan?” “They told me it’s very agile, which is why their attempts to capture it haven’t worked. I’m going to see if it responds to any of the usual stimuli. So far, they said it doesn’t appear to be aggressive.” “Copy that. Be careful, cowboy.” “Ten-four.” Jack glanced down at his utility belt and opened the pocket on his left side, withdrawing a thin silver whistle. He put it to his lips and blew for several seconds. Much like a dog whistle, Jack couldn’t hear anything. But the dragon’s head creaked around and those beady red eyes locked onto him. Jack lowered the whistle and licked his dry lips. “If I were in a movie, this would be the part where I said, ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’” The dragon roared, its grey wings extending out from its body, and then flew straight at him.

The tablet had been sealed with the general Bureau signet, a seated woman holding a small sheaf of wheat. It was a hold-over from the days a century before when the organization had officially been the Bureau of Grain Supply. The seal within, at the close of the brusk orders, was a personal one. It impressed in the wax a low relief of a man gripping the steering oar of a ship. Though the guards might never have seen the seal in use before, they knew it for that of Marcus Optatius Navigatus. Navigatus was head of the Bureau, formally the equal of a provincial fiscal officer in authority and informally more powerful than most governors … because he directed men like Aulus Perennius.

It was spring, and the long months of desolation melted into running water, with streamlets pouring from every hill and miniature waterfalls leaping from stone to stone to stone. The air was filled with the racket of birds, a cacophony of melody that replaced the lonely calling of geese passing by far overhead. Birds go one by one in the winter, a single raven hunched brooding in a barren tree, an owl fluffed against the cold in the high, dark shadows of a barn. Or they go in flocks, a massed thunder of wings to bear them up and away, wheeling through the sky like handsful of pepper grains thrown aloft, calling their way in Vs of mournful courage toward the promise of a distant and problematic survival. In winter, the raptors draw apart unto themselves; the songbirds flee away, all the color of the feathered world reduced to the brutal simplification of predator and prey, gray shadows passing overhead, with no more than a small bright drop of blood fallen back to earth here and there to mark the passing of life, leaving a drift of scattered feathers, borne on the wind. But as spring blooms, the birds grow drunk with love and the bushes riot with their songs. Far, far into the night, darkness mutes but does not silence them, and small melodious conversations break out at all hours, invisible and strangely intimate in the dead of night, as though one overheard the lovemaking of strangers in the room next door.

He remembered an old tale which his father was fond of telling him—the story of Eos Amherawdur (the Emperor Nightingale). Very long ago, the story began, the greatest and the finest court in all the realms of faery was the court of the Emperor Eos, who was above all the kings of the Tylwydd Têg, as the Emperor of Rome is head over all the kings of the earth. So that even Gwyn ap Nudd, whom they now call lord over all the fair folk of the Isle of Britain, was but the man of Eos, and no splendour such as his was ever seen in all the regions of enchantment and faery. Eos had his court in a vast forest, called Wentwood, in the deepest depths of the green-wood between Caerwent and Caermaen, which is also called the City of the Legions; though some men say that we should rather name it the city of the Waterfloods. Here, then, was the Palace of Eos, built of the finest stones after the Roman manner, and within it were the most glorious chambers that eye has ever seen, and there was no end to the number of them, for they could not be counted. For the stones of the palace being immortal, they were at the pleasure of the Emperor. If he had willed, all the hosts of the world could stand in his greatest hall, and, if he had willed, not so much as an ant could enter into it, since it could not be discerned. But on common days they spread the Emperor's banquet in nine great halls, each nine times larger than any that are in the lands of the men of Normandi. And Sir Caw was the seneschal who marshalled the feast; and if you would count those under his command—go, count the drops of water that are in the Uske River. But if you would learn the splendour of this castle it is an easy matter, for Eos hung the walls of it with Dawn and Sunset. He lit it with the sun and moon. There was a well in it called Ocean. And nine churches of twisted boughs were set apart in which Eos might hear Mass; and when his clerks sang before him all the jewels rose shining out of the earth, and all the stars bent shining down from heaven, so enchanting was the melody. Then was great bliss in all the regions of the fair folk. But Eos was grieved because mortal ears could not hear nor comprehend the enchantment of their song. What, then, did he do? Nothing less than this. He divested himself of all his glories and of his kingdom, and transformed himself into the shape of a little brown bird, and went flying about the woods, desirous of teaching men the sweetness of the faery melody. And all the other birds said: "This is a contemptible stranger." The eagle found him not even worthy to be a prey; the raven and the magpie called him simpleton; the pheasant asked where he had got that ugly livery; the lark wondered why he hid himself in the darkness of the wood; the peacock would not suffer his name to be uttered. In short never was anyone so despised as was Eos by all the chorus of the birds. But wise men heard that song from the faery regions and listened all night beneath the bough, and these were the first who were bards in the Isle of Britain.

The two of them had fallen into the habit of bartering knowledge whenever she visited. He schooled her in jazz, in bebop and exotic bossa nova, playing his favorites for her while he painted- Slim Gaillard, Rita Reys, King Pleasure, and Jimmy Giuffre- stabbing the air with his brush when there was a particular passage he wanted her to note. In turn, she showed him the latest additions to her birding diary- her sketches of the short-eared owl and American wigeon, the cedar waxwing and late warblers. She explained how the innocent-looking loggerhead shrike killed its prey by biting it in the back of the neck, severing the spinal cord before impaling the victim on thorns or barbed wire and tearing it apart. "Good grief," he'd said, shuddering. "I'm in the clutches of an avian Vincent Price.

I am a puny part of the great whole. Yes; but all animals condemned to live, All sentient things, born by the same stern law, Suffer like me, and like me also die. The vulture fastens on his timid prey, And stabs with bloody beak the quivering limbs: All’s well, it seems, for it. But in a while An eagle tears the vulture into shreds; The eagle is transfixed by shafts of man; The man, prone in the dust of battlefields, Mingling his blood with dying fellow men, Becomes in turn the food of ravenous birds. Thus the whole world in every member groans, All born for torment and for mutual death. And o’er this ghastly chaos you would say The ills of each make up the good of all! What blessedness! And as, with quaking voice, Mortal and pitiful ye cry, “All’s well,” The universe belies you, and your heart Refutes a hundred times your mind’s conceit. . . . What is the verdict of the vastest mind? Silence: the book of fate is closed to us. Man is a stranger to his own research; He knows not whence he comes, nor whither goes. Tormented atoms in a bed of mud, Devoured by death, a mockery of fate; But thinking atoms, whose far-seeing eyes, Guided by thoughts, have measured the faint stars. Our being mingles with the infinite; Ourselves we never see, or come to know. This world, this theatre of pride and wrong, Swarms with sick fools who talk of happiness. . . . Once did I sing, in less lugubrious tone, The sunny ways of pleasure’s general rule; The times have changed, and, taught by growing age, And sharing of the frailty of mankind, Seeking a light amid the deepening gloom, I can but suffer, and will not repine.50

The silvery sheen of translucent wings, as they glittered under the bright sunbeams, proclaimed the creatures to be a “flock” of flying-fish, of which the albacores—of all their many enemies the most dangerous—were now in pursuit. There may have been several of the flying-fish that did not rise into the air, but fell a prey to their pursuers under the water; and of those that did succeed in springing above the surface there were two that never came down again,—at least not in the shape of flying-fish. The sea-hawks, wheeling above both pursuers and pursued, had been watching their opportunity; and as the pretty creatures made their appearance above water, both the birds swooped straight down among the prinkling cohort, each selecting a victim. Both made a successful swoop; for they were observed to turn and fly with a slant upwards, each with a flying-fish in its beak.

No, child,” Nona said. “We were victims of the faeries’ pride and greed.” “Victims? Sorry, but most of you don’t seem very victimish to me. What about hags, and fossegrims, and redcaps, and all the other sharp-toothed nasties”—I looked pointedly at the dragon—“in your group? I don’t feel very bad for anything that’s spent all those centuries preying on innocent people.” “It makes sense,” Arianna said, her voice soft but thoughtful. “What?” “When you introduce an alien species into a new environment, it has to adapt or die out. And usually the way it adapts it by preying on the native species. Look at the dodo birds. They were fine until people came to their island with cats and dogs and pigs, then they became prey.” “You do realize you just compared our entire race to dodo birds.” She shrugged. “If they were never meant to be here in the first place, it’s not their fault they had to become predators.” “Thank you, Animal Planet.

It was one of those rare moments where one has a vision of the scope of the wild ocean. Not just small cylinders firing to keep a tiny engine running, but rather the giant, massive gears of nature, each one with its own reasoning, its own meta-logic, spinning in its particular circle in competition or in confluence with the gear below it. We zeroed in on the school, but our progress was painfully slow, It would have been foolish to speed into the tumult-we would have ruined our baits in the process and doomed our chances of hooking a tuna. But luckily, the commotion did not subside. If anything it only grew more frantic and exhuberant on our approach. Beneath the birds, beneath the dolphins, beneath the menhaden, there should have been an equally vast school of giant bluefin tuna, collaborating with vertebrates of the so-called higher orders of life to form the floor of the prey trap, sealing the baitfish in from below, while the dolphins and birds made up the trap's walls and ceiling. A strike from a giant tuna seemed inevitable.....as the boat moved forward, I saw seabirds gathering up ahead into a cloud, the size and violence of which I had never seen before. Gannets - big, albatross-like pelagic birds - flew hundreds of feet above the churning surface of the water. In a flock of many thousands, they whirled in unison and then, as if on command from some brigadier general of bird life, dropped in an arc, bird after bird, into the water beneath. The gyre of gannets turned in a clockwise direction, and down below, spinning counterclockwise, was the largest school of dolphins I'd ever seen. There in the angry blue-green sea, the dolphins had corralled a vast school of menhaden-small herringlike creatures that, when bitten, release globules of oil that float on the surface. Oil slicks flattened the water everywhere as the dolphins swirled around, using their exceptional intelligence and wolf-pack cooperation to befuddle and surround the fish, which in turn whirled in a clockwise direction.

Lodged in the stump and sticking straight up was a thin black feather about five or six inches long. To most it would have looked ordinary, maybe a crow's wing feather. But she knew it was extraordinary for it was the "eyebrow" of a great blue heron, the feather that bows gracefully above the eye, extending back beyond her elegant head. One of the most exquisite fragments of the coastal marsh, right here. She had never found one but knew instantly what it was, having squatted eye to eye with herons all her life. A great blue heron is the color of gray mist reflecting in blue water. And like mist, she can fade into the backdrop, all of her disappearing except the concentric circles of her lock-and-load eyes. She is a patient, solitary hunter, standing alone as long as it takes to snatch her prey. Or, eyeing her catch, she will stride forward one slow step at a time, like a predacious bridesmaid. And yet, on rare occasions she hunts on the wing, darting and diving sharply, swordlike beak in the lead.

According to Luke, far from denouncing the cult, like Stephen, they worshipped together every day in the temple.22 Indeed, the revered Pharisee Gamaliel, whose views were more liberal than Paul’s, is said to have advised the Sanhedrin to leave the Jesus movement alone: If it was of human origin, it would break up of its own accord like other recent protest groups.23 But for Paul, the Hellenistic followers of Jesus were insulting everything he believed to be most sacred, and he greatly feared that their devotion to a man executed so recently by the Roman authorities would put the entire community at risk. Paul himself had never had any dealings with Jesus before his death, but he would have been horrified to learn that Jesus had desecrated the temple and argued that some of God’s laws were more important than others. For a Pharisee with extreme views, like Paul, a Jew who did not observe every single one of the commandments was endangering the Jewish people, since God could punish such infidelity as severely as he had punished the ancient Israelites in the time of Moses. But above all, Paul was scandalized by the outrageous idea of a crucified Messiah.24 How could a convicted criminal possibly restore the dignity and liberty of Israel? This was an utter travesty, a scandalon or “stumbling block.” The Torah was adamant that such a man was hopelessly polluted: “If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and you hang him on a gibbet, his body must not remain on the tree overnight; you must bury him the same day, for the one who has been hanged is accursed of God, and you must not defile the land that Yahweh your God has given you.”25 True, his followers insisted that Jesus had been buried on the day of his death, but Paul was well aware that most Roman soldiers had little respect for Jewish sensibilities and might well have left Jesus’s body hanging on his cross to be consumed by birds of prey. Even though this was no fault of his own, such a man was an abomination and had defiled the Land of Israel.26 To imagine that these desecrated remains had been raised to the right hand of God was abhorrent, unthinkable, and blasphemous. It impugned the honor of God and his people and would delay the longed-for coming of the Messiah, so it was, Paul believed, his duty to eradicate this sect.

See how cruel the whites look. Their lips are thin, their noses sharp, their faces furrowed and dis­torted by folds. Their eyes have a staring expression; they are always seeking something. What are they seeking? The whites always want something; they are always uneasy and restless. We do not know what they want. We do not understand them. We think that they are mad." I asked him why he thought the whites were all mad. "They say that they think with their heads," he replied. "Why of course. What do you think with?" I asked him in surprise. "We think here," he said, indicating his heart. I fell into a long meditation. For the first time in my life, so it seemed to me, someone had drawn for me a picture of the real white man. It was as though until now I had seen nothing but sentimental, prettified color prints. This Indian had struck our vulnerable spot, unveiled a truth to which we are blind. I felt rising within me like a shapeless mist something unknown and yet deeply familiar. And out of this mist, image upon image detached itself: first Roman legions smashing into the cities of Gaul, and the keenly incised features of Julius Caesar, Scipio Africanus, and Pompey. I saw the Roman eagle on the North Sea and on the banks of the White Nile. Then I saw St. Augus­tine transmitting the Christian creed to the Britons on the tips of Roman lances, and Charlemagne's most glorious forced con­versions of the heathen; then the pillaging and murdering bands of the Crusading armies. With a secret stab I realized the hol­lowness of that old romanticism about the Crusades. Then fol­lowed Columbus, Cortes, and the other conquistadors who with fire, sword, torture, and Christianity came down upon even these remote pueblos dreaming peacefully in the Sun, their Father. I saw, too, the peoples of the Pacific islands decimated by firewater, syphilis, and scarlet fever carried in the clothes the missionaries forced on them. It was enough. What we from our point of view call coloniza­tion, missions to the heathen, spread of civilization, etc., has another face - the face of a bird of prey seeking with cruel in­tentness for distant quarry - a face worthy of a race of pirates and highwaymen. All the eagles and other predatory creatures that adorn our coats of arms seem to me apt psychological representatives of our true nature.

Who can say how long the eye of the vulture or the lynx requires to grasp the totality of a landscape, or whether in a comprehensive instant the seemingly inexhaustible confusion of detail falls upon their eyes in an ordered and intelligible series of distances and shapes, where the last detail is perceived in relation to the corporate mass? It may be that the hawk sees nothing but those grassy uplands, and among the coarse grasses, more plainly than the field itself, the rabbit or the rat, and that the landscape in its entirety is never seen, but only those areas lit, as it were with a torch, where the quarry slinks, the surrounding regions thickening into cloud and darkness on the yellow eyes. Whether the scouring, sexless eye of the bird or beast of prey disperses and sees all or concentrates and evades all saving that for which it searches, it is certain that the less powerful eye of the human cannot grasp, even after a life of training, a scene in its entirety. No eye may see dispassionately. There is no comprehension at a glance. Only the recognition of damsel, horse on fly and the assumption of damsel, horse or fly; and so with dreams and beyond, for what haunts the heart will, when it is found, leap foremost, blinding the eye and leaving the main of Life in darkness.

According to the [evolutionist explanation of the instinct of animals], instinct is the expression of the heredity of a species, of an accumulation of analogous experiences down the ages. This is how they explain, for example, the fact that a flock of sheep hastily gathers together around the lambs the moment it perceives the shadow of a bird of prey, or that a kitten while playing already employs all the tricks of a hunter, or that birds know how to build their nests. In fact, it is enough to watch animals to see that their instinct has nothing of an automatism about it. The formation of such a mechanism by a purely cumulative . . . process is highly improbable, to say the least. Instinct is a nonreflective modality of the intelligence; it is determined, not by a series of automatic reflexes, but by the “form”—the qualitative determination—of the species. This form is like a filter through which the universal intelligence is manifested. . . The same is also true for man: his intelligence too is determined by the subtle form of his species. This form, however, includes the reflective faculty, which allows of a singularization of the individual such as does not exist among the animals. Man alone is able to objectivize himself. He can say: “I am this or that.” He alone possesses this two-edged faculty. Man, by virtue of his own central position in the cosmos, is able to transcend his specific norm; he can also betray it, and sink lower; "The corruption of the best is corruption at its worst." A normal animal remains true to the form and genius of its species; if its intelligence is not reflective and objectifying, but in some sort existential, it is nonetheless spontaneous; it is assuredly a form of the universal intelligence even if it is not recognized as such by men who, from prejudice or ignorance, identify intelligence with discursive thought exclusively.

In any case the slave is nobler than his modern masters—the bourgeoisie. It is a sign of the inferiority of nineteenth century culture that the man of money should be the object of so much worship and envy. But these business men too are slaves, puppets of routine, victims of busy-ness; they have no time for new ideas; thinking is taboo among them, and the joys of the intellect are beyond their reach. Hence their restless and perpetual search for “happiness,” their great houses which are never homes, their vulgar luxury without taste, their picture-galleries of “originals,” with cost attached, their sensual amusements that dull rather than refresh or stimulate the mind. “Look at these superfluous! They acquire riches and become poorer thereby”; they accept all the restraints of aristocracy without its compensating access to the kingdom of the mind. “See how they climb, these swift apes! They climb over one another, and thus drag themselves into the mud and depths... The stench of shop-keepers, the wriggling of ambition, the evil breath.” There is no use in such men having wealth, for they cannot give it dignity by noble use, by the discriminating patronage of letters or the arts. “Only a man of intellect should hold property”; others think of property as an end in itself, and pursue it more and more recklessly,—look at “the present madness of nations, which desire above all to produce as much as possible, and to be as rich as possible.” At last man becomes a bird of prey: “they live in ambush for one another; they obtain things from each other by lying in wait. That is called by them good neighborliness... They seek the smallest profits out of every sort of rubbish.” “Today, mercantile morality is really nothing but a refinement on piratical morality—buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest.” And these men cry out for laissez-faire, to be let alone,—these very men who most need supervision and control.

You make springs gush forth in the valleys;         they flow between the hills;     11 they give drink to every beast of the field;         the wild donkeys quench their thirst.     12 Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell;         they sing among the branches.     13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains;         the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.     14 You cause the grass to grow for the livestock         and plants for man to cultivate,     that he may bring forth food from the earth         15 and wine to gladden the heart of man,     oil to make his face shine         and bread to strengthen man's heart.     16 The trees of the LORD are watered abundantly,         the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.     17 In them the birds build their nests;         the stork has her home in the fir trees.     18 The high mountains are for the wild goats;         the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers.     19 He made the moon to mark the seasons; [1]         the sun knows its time for setting.     20 You make darkness, and it is night,         when all the beasts of the forest creep about.     21 The young lions roar for their prey,         seeking their food from God.     22 When the sun rises, they steal away         and lie down in their dens.     23 Man goes out to his work         and to his labor until the evening.     24 O LORD, how manifold are your works!         In wisdom have you made them all;         the earth is full of your creatures.     25 Here is the sea, great and wide,         which teems with creatures innumerable,         living things both small and great.     26 There go the ships,         and Leviathan, which you formed to play in it. [2]     27 These all look to you,         to give them their food in due season.     28 When you give it to them, they gather it up;         when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.     29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed;         when you take away their breath, they die         and return to their dust.     30 When you send forth your Spirit, [3] they are created,         and you renew the face of the ground.     31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever;

We’re talking now of late August evenings in Minnesota. That world consists of the din of lawn mower blades turning in raucous slicing circles like buzzards over prey, the throb of a racing boat’s outboard motor on the Lake. Garden hoses run with cool water and wash over the last flowers of the year before the autumn turns all the green to brown. In the afternoons, children run through sprinklers on the lawn and men burn piles of last autumn’s leaves. Mothers prepare suppers and read novels under the shade of summer hats, carefully watching over their children from afar. All is safe and good in the summer. But Thom Algonquin can no longer hear the lawn mowers humming, boat motors churning, the hoses splashing or the children playing. He doesn’t smell the leaves burning or help his mother prepare supper. Thom Algonquin is seven years old and he has walked too far into the woods near his home on Lake Superior. He hears nothing save the sound of sunlight and trees, birds, and his own feet pattering along atop the underbrush. He is not so sure he can hear these things exactly though. It has now become clear to him that he has gone too far, too deep into the old woods. He is accustomed to going a little farther than his mother allowed, but he has walked miles past that line now. Though his heart races he does not scream or run or cry. He looks around for home but each direction is identical to the others. He remembers his Cub Scout manual saying that moss grows on the northern side of tree trunks because there is less sunlight. But the aspen trees have no moss on them at all, and the big white oaks have moss on every side of their trunks. He holds his breath and listens. He hears his heart beat, and somewhere behind that, he hears water, waves and lapping tides. The Lake. He can always find home from the Lake. His father told him to simply keep the water on his left hand and walk until he is home, should he ever get lost. Thom moves toward the sound of water. He walks quickly but doesn’t run, doesn’t panic. If he runs he will know that something is wrong and that he is scared. He does not want to know these things, does not want them to become real, so he walks quickly but calmly.

Not with more glories, in th' etherial plain, The sun first rises o'er the purpled main, Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams Launch'd on the bosom of the silver Thames. Fair nymphs, and well-dress'd youths around her shone, But ev'ry eye was fix'd on her alone. On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore. Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose, Quick as her eyes, and as unfix'd as those: Favours to none, to all she smiles extends; Oft she rejects, but never once offends. Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide: If to her share some female errors fall, Look on her face, and you'll forget 'em all. This nymph, to the destruction of mankind, Nourish'd two locks, which graceful hung behind In equal curls, and well conspir'd to deck With shining ringlets the smooth iv'ry neck. Love in these labyrinths his slaves detains, And mighty hearts are held in slender chains. With hairy springes we the birds betray, Slight lines of hair surprise the finney prey, Fair tresses man's imperial race ensnare, And beauty draws us with a single hair. - Erguvan deniz üstünde gökler katında, İhtişamla yükselir ya güneş, saltanatında Yoktur rahibesinden doğarak gümüş Renkli Thames'in göğsüne yayılan ışınlardaki cümbüş. Hoş giyimli delikanlılar, çok sayıda güzel kız Arasında tüm bakışlar onun üstünde yalnız. Ak gerdanından bir haç, öyle bir Haç ki Yahudi görse öper, hayran olur kafir. İşlek bir aklın işareti canlı bakışları Gözleri fıldır fıldır, uçarı mı uçarı: Kimseye iltifat yok, herkese gülümsüyor, Çoğunluk reddediyor ama kimse ona küsmüyor. Gözleri sanki güneş, değen gözün sahibi Çarpılıyor, herkese eşit parlıyor yine güneş gibi. Örtüyor kusurlarını o soylu rahatlık, O kibirsiz şirinlik, kızların kusurları olursa artık: Ama düşmüşse onun da payına bütün hanımlardan, Yüzüne bakın, hepsini unutursunuz o an. Bu perinin saçı insanlığın mahvı demek Olan iki zarif bukle halinde ve birbirine denk İki kavis çizerek dökülürdü, elbirliğiyle ışık oyunu İçinde halka halka süsleyerek fildişi boynu. Kölelerini Aşk işte bu labirentte bekletir, Dağ gibi kalpleri bağlar ip incesi bir zincir. Kuşları aldatmaya yarar kıldan tuzaklar, İncecik tüylere kanar kapılır balıklar, Bir kaküle teslim ederiz, erkekler, ülkemizi Ve güzellik tek bir saç teliyle boğar bizi.

Skiddy Cottontail—that was his name—and he defended LGBT equality. He was a flamboyant, colorful striped rabbit, with a headdress of a rainbow crown on his forehead. The radiance of his energy was violet, scarlet, and turquoise; as it represented his love for everyone. In the infancy years of his existence, he was abandoned—alone—unwanted—unloved; rejected by a world that disdains him. His father wished him deceased, his family exiled him from the warren, he was physically mistreated and preyed on by homophobic mobs in the surrounding community by Elephants—Hyenas—rats. They splashed spit at his face, advising him that God condemns homosexuality—as Christ did not. They would slam him on the pavement with their Bibles, strike him in the stomach with their feet, throw boulders of stone at his body: imploring—abusing—condemning him to a tyrannical sentence. Skiddy Cottontail thought that his existence would end with this case of cruelty—violence—assault that was perpetrated against him. He wanted to cease to exist— he wanted to commit the ultimate murder on himself—he no more desired to go on living— he realized hope is already deceased. He yearned to have the courage to emerge, to discover his bravery that would sever this spiral of sensations of oppression. Being a victim made him a slave to his opponent—as his adversaries have full leverage against him. Life has become a thread of light, which he longed to be liberated from its shackles. His demon—a voice that keeps blaming him for his crimes in the back of his mind—a glass that continually cracks in his heart—will keep breaking him if he does not devise a way out of this crisis. He was conscious by his innermost conviction that there was candlelight with a key that had the potential to illuminate a new chapter that will erase this trail of obscurity behind him. He sees a new horizon with greater comprehension, a journey that can give him the roses of affection than a handful of dead birds that his adversaries handed him along the way. The stunning blossoming trees did have a forest—beautiful greenery that was colorful like the rainbow in the Heavens. This home will embrace him with a warm embrace of open arms, where cruelty is forbidden; where adoration can forever abound. Dawn will know him when he arrives. No more hurricanes or strife will be here—no crying of a sad humanity are here—only a gift of harmony and devotion, beyond all explanation, will abide in the heart of Skiddy Cottontail—when he finds his way out from this opponent world for a beautiful existence that is called liberation. Skiddy Cottontail has found a happiness that can only bring him contentment like nothing in this hurtful world can. Find your own sense of balance like him, Skiddy Cottontail, and you will experience serenity as much as him.

experience, and to our consequent estrangement from the earthly world around us. So the ancient Hebrews, on the one hand, and the ancient Greeks on the other, are variously taken to task for providing the mental context that would foster civilization’s mistreatment of nonhuman nature. Each of these two ancient cultures seems to have sown the seeds of our contemporary estrangement—one seeming to establish the spiritual or religious ascendancy of humankind over nature, the other effecting a more philosophical or rational dissociation of the human intellect from the organic world. Long before the historical amalgamation of Hebraic religion and Hellenistic philosophy in the Christian New Testament, these two bodies of belief already shared—or seem to have shared—a similar intellectual distance from the nonhuman environment. In every other respect these two traditions, each one originating out of its own specific antecedents, and in its own terrain and time, were vastly different. In every other respect, that is, but one: they were both, from the start, profoundly informed by writing. Indeed, they both made use of the strange and potent technology which we have come to call “the alphabet.” — WRITING, LIKE HUMAN LANGUAGE, IS ENGENDERED NOT ONLY within the human community but between the human community and the animate landscape, born of the interplay and contact between the human and the more-than-human world. The earthly terrain in which we find ourselves, and upon which we depend for all our nourishment, is shot through with suggestive scrawls and traces, from the sinuous calligraphy of rivers winding across the land, inscribing arroyos and canyons into the parched earth of the desert, to the black slash burned by lightning into the trunk of an old elm. The swooping flight of birds is a kind of cursive script written on the wind; it is this script that was studied by the ancient “augurs,” who could read therein the course of the future. Leaf-miner insects make strange hieroglyphic tabloids of the leaves they consume. Wolves urinate on specific stumps and stones to mark off their territory. And today you read these printed words as tribal hunters once read the tracks of deer, moose, and bear printed in the soil of the forest floor. Archaeological evidence suggests that for more than a million years the subsistence of humankind has depended upon the acuity of such hunters, upon their ability to read the traces—a bit of scat here, a broken twig there—of these animal Others. These letters I print across the page, the scratches and scrawls you now focus upon, trailing off across the white surface, are hardly different from the footprints of prey left in the snow. We read these traces with organs honed over millennia by our tribal ancestors, moving instinctively from one track to the next, picking up the trail afresh whenever it leaves off, hunting the meaning, which would be the meeting with the Other.2

The translucent, golden punch tastes velvety, voluptuous and not off-puttingly milky. Under its influence, I stage a party for my heroines in my imagination, and in my flat. It's less like the glowering encounter I imagined between Cathy Earnshaw and Flora Poste, and more like the riotous bash in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Not everyone is going to like milk punch. So there are also dirty martinis, and bagels and baklava, and my mother's masafan, Iraqi marzipan. The Little Mermaid is in the bath, with her tail still on, singing because she never did give up her soaring voice. Anne Shirley and Jo March are having a furious argument about plot versus character, gesticulating with ink-stained hands. Scarlett is in the living room, her skirts taking up half the space, trying to show Lizzy how to bat her eyelashes. Lizzy is laughing her head off ut Scarlett has acquired a sense of humour, and doesn't mind a bit. Melanie is talking book with Esther Greenwood, who has brought her baby and also the proofs of her first poetry collection. Franny and Zooey have rolled back the rug and are doing a soft shoe shuffle in rhinestone hats. Lucy Honeychurch is hammering out some Beethoven (in this scenario I have a piano. A ground piano. Well, why not?) Marjorie Morningstar is gossiping about directors with Pauline and Posy Fossil. They've come straight from the shows they're in, till in stage make-up and full of stories. Petrova, in a leather aviator jacket, goggles pushed back, a chic scarf knotted around her neck, is telling the thrilling story of her latest flight and how she fixed an engine fault in mid-air. Mira, in her paint-stained jeans and poncho, is listening, fascinated, asking a thousand questions. Mildred has been persuaded to drink a tiny glass of sherry, then another tiny glass, then another and now she and Lolly are doing a wild, strange dance in the hallway, stamping their feet, their hair flying wild and electric. Lolly's cakes, in the shape of patriarchs she hates, are going down a treat. The Dolls from the Valley are telling Flora some truly scandalous and unrepeatable stories, and she is firmly advising them to get rid of their men and find worthier paramours. Celie is modelling trousers of her own design and taking orders from the Lace women; Judy is giving her a ten-point plan on how to expand her business to an international market. She is quite drunk but nevertheless the plan seems quite coherent, even if it is punctuated by her bellowing 'More leopard print, more leopard print!' Cathy looks tumultuous and on the edge of violent weeping and just as I think she's going to storm out or trash my flat, Jane arrives, late, with an unexpected guest. Cathy turns in anticipation: is it Heathcliff? Once I would have joined her but now I'm glad it isn't him. It's a better surprise. It's Emily's hawk. Hero or Nero. Jane's found him at last, and has him on her arm, perched on her glove; small for a bird of prey, he is dashing and patrician looking, brown and white, observing the room with dark, flinty eyes. When Cathy sees him, she looks at Jane and smiles. And in the kitchen is a heroine I probably should have had when I was four and sitting on my parents' carpet, wishing it would fly. In the kitchen is Scheherazade.

In the early 1680s, at just about the time that Edmond Halley and his friends Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke were settling down in a London coffee house and embarking on the casual wager that would result eventually in Isaac Newton’s Principia, Hemy Cavendish’s weighing of the Earth, and many of the other inspired and commendable undertakings that have occupied us for much of the past four hundred pages, a rather less desirable milestone was being passed on the island of Mauritius, far out in the Indian Ocean some eight hundred miles off the east coast of Madagascar. There, some forgotten sailor or sailor’s pet was harrying to death the last of the dodos, the famously flightless bird whose dim but trusting nature and lack of leggy zip made it a rather irresistible target for bored young tars on shore leave. Millions of years of peaceful isolation had not prepared it for the erratic and deeply unnerving behavior of human beings. We don’t know precisely the circumstances, or even year, attending the last moments of the last dodo, so we don’t know which arrived first a world that contained a Principia or one that had no dodos, but we do know that they happened at more or less the same time. You would be hard pressed, I would submit to find a better pairing of occurrences to illustrate the divine and felonious nature of the human being-a species of organism that is capable of unpicking the deepest secrets of the heavens while at the same time pounding into extinction, for no purpose at all, a creature that never did us any harm and wasn’t even remotely capable of understanding what we were doing to it as we did it. Indeed, dodos were so spectacularly short on insight it is reported, that if you wished to find all the dodos in a vicinity you had only to catch one and set it to squawking, and all the others would waddle along to see what was up. The indignities to the poor dodo didn’t end quite there. In 1755, some seventy years after the last dodo’s death, the director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford decided that the institution’s stuffed dodo was becoming unpleasantly musty and ordered it tossed on a bonfire. This was a surprising decision as it was by this time the only dodo in existence, stuffed or otherwise. A passing employee, aghast tried to rescue the bird but could save only its head and part of one limb. As a result of this and other departures from common sense, we are not now entirely sure what a living dodo was like. We possess much less information than most people suppose-a handful of crude descriptions by "unscientific voyagers, three or four oil paintings, and a few scattered osseous fragments," in the somewhat aggrieved words of the nineteenth century naturalist H. E. Strickland. As Strickland wistfully observed, we have more physical evidence of some ancient sea monsters and lumbering saurapods than we do of a bird that lived into modern times and required nothing of us to survive except our absence. So what is known of the dodo is this: it lived on Mauritius, was plump but not tasty, and was the biggest-ever member of the pigeon family, though by quite what margin is unknown as its weight was never accurately recorded. Extrapolations from Strickland’s "osseous fragments" and the Ashmolean’s modest remains show that it was a little over two and a half feet tall and about the same distance from beak tip to backside. Being flightless, it nested on the ground, leaving its eggs and chicks tragically easy prey for pigs, dogs, and monkeys brought to the island by outsiders. It was probably extinct by 1683 and was most certainly gone by 1693. Beyond that we know almost nothing except of course that we will not see its like again. We know nothing of its reproductive habits and diet, where it ranged, what sounds it made in tranquility or alarm. We don’t possess a single dodo egg. From beginning to end our acquaintance with animate dodos lasted just seventy years.

Black Studies guru Houston Baker has defended rap music in the same terms. “Rap is like a rich stock garnered from the sudden simmering of titanic B-boy/B-girl energies. Such energies were diffused over black cityscapes.” Baker also describes the same energy in “wilding,” and in the murderous mass rape of a white female jogger in Central Park in 1987, as the vital overthrow of the white man’s attempt to tame nature by constructing a park in the first place. Just as in The Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche’s blond beast emerges “from a disgusting procession of murder, arson, rape, and torture, exhilarated and undisturbed of soul, as if it were no more than a student’s prank,” so do young blacks joyfully bring the reality of terror to the white power structure (as Nietzsche wrote, “That lambs dislike great birds of prey does not seem strange”).56

The same month, the critic Julius Elias related that over a lunch in Berlin Ibsen told him that: he had met in the Tyrol … a Viennese girl of very remarkable character, who had at once made him her confidant … she was not interested in the idea of marrying some decently brought-up young man … What tempted, fascinated and delighted her was to lure other women’s husbands away from them. She was a demonic little wrecker … a little bird of prey, who would gladly have included him among her victims. He had studied her very very closely. But she had had no great success with him. ‘She did not get hold of me but I got hold of her – for my play.

Only a few generations earlier, Khubilai’s ancestors had used the hunt as the primary means of acquiring food. His great-grandfather Yesugei had been out hunting with his gyrfalcon when he saw the bride Hoelun, whom he seized to make his own wife. Khubilai’s grandfather Genghis Khan fed his family by hunting after his father’s death, and he had killed his half brother Begter in an argument ostensibly following a hunting quarrel about a bird and a fish. Later in life, Genghis Khan, with the aid of Subodei and other good hunters, adapted the extensive hunting strategies, techniques, and weapons to the task of warfare by treating his enemies as objects of prey to be trapped and stalked, and he thereby conquered his vast empire. The hunt combined a recreational pastime enjoyed by Khubilai with the imperial needs of ceremonial pomp and wasteful spectacle.

his enemies in chapter 19 as the “great supper of God” where the birds of prey eat the flesh of his defeated foes (19:17). While Leviathan is not included in this Revelation passage, it is the same kind of nature banquet motif as described in Psalm 74: creatures feasting on the flesh of the enemies of God. The “banquet of flesh” was a common way of symbolizing deliverance from and victory

The race across the mountain continued, but the mountains still glowed when it was their time to glow. They still cried when it was time for rain. And they still told you stories, if you only knew how to listen to them. But I was no longer one of those who knew how to listen … who knew how to laugh and cry with them … I was an athlete … I was an alpinist. I spoke of walls and overhangs. I ran and trained and counted my ascents. I fell prey to the folly of categorization, adding up points, comparing myself to others and making myself poorer and poorer. I was turning into a shallow and stupid craftsman. All I saw were numbers, summit heights, sizes of walls, estimations of difficulty. I only saw Roman and Arabic numerals, commas and plus and minus signs. My hands and legs were strong and unstoppable but my head became empty and my heart no longer beat faster because it was being overwhelmed by beauty – only because of physical effort. My path was rapidly turning downhill while the curve of my success continued to rise. One climb became indistinguishable from another. I functioned like a well-oiled machine that will continue to run on empty if no one stops it. And thus the wheels of my machine kept turning without purpose, faster and faster, until my children reminded me that the birds in the forest were still singing.” Excerpt From: Bernadette McDonald. “Alpine Warriors.

The communist can be a prey bird, but the capitalist is a scavenger only.

Elsewhere as Baker muses on the fluidity and apparent joyfulness of a seal’s motion at sea he speculates: It is a good life, a seal’s, here in these shallow waters. Like the lives of so many air and water creatures, it seems a better one than ours. We have no element. Nothing sustains us when we fall. Here Baker edges towards a remarkable revelation about the whole nature-writing genre. On reading the passage, one thinks of the specific creatures (as well as their most devoted author/admirers) that have made the deepest appeal to the modern British imagination: the otter (Henry Williamson, Gavin Maxwell), whales and dolphins (Heathcote Williams and the whole New-Age fixation with cetaceans) and birds, particularly birds of prey (W.H. Hudson, T.H. White and J.A. Baker himself). If we cannot move between the elements like these wonderful animals, then humans can at least imagine what it is like to be an otter or a peregrine. But no writer I know has taken us deeper into the life of another creature and allowed us to experience how that elemental mastery might possibly feel than John Alec Baker. Mark Cocker, March 2010

Am I resolved to believe that Hawk’s hooked beak will sometime be hammered into Hummingbird’s flute?

Hunting is always preceded by some form of play. The hawk may feint at partridges, harass jackdaws or lapwings, skirmish with crows. Sometimes, without warning, he will suddenly kill. Afterwards he seems baffled by what he has done, and he may leave the kill where it fell and return to it later when he is genuinely hunting. Even when he is hungry, and has killed in anger, he may sit beside his prey for ten to fifteen minutes before starting to feed. In these cases the dead bird is usually unmarked, and the hawk seems to be puzzled by it. He nudges it idly with his bill. When blood flows, he feeds at once.

Juvenile peregrines hover whenever the wind is too strong to allow them to circle sufficiently slowly above the area they are surveying. Such hovering usually lasts for ten to twenty seconds, but some birds are more addicted to the habit than others and will hover persistently for long periods. The hunting hawk uses every advantage he can. Height is the obvious one. He may stoop (stoop is another word for swoop) at prey from any height between three feet and three thousand. Ideally, prey is taken by surprise: by a hawk hidden by height and diving unseen to his victim, or by a hawk that rushes suddenly out from concealment in a tree or a dyke. Like a sparrowhawk, the peregrine will wait in ambush. The more spectacular methods of killing are used less often by juveniles than they are by adults. Some soaring peregrines deliberately stoop with the sun behind them. They do it too frequently for it to be merely a matter of chance.

A peregrine weighs between 1½ and 2½ lbs.; such a weight, falling from a hundred feet, will kill all but the largest birds. Shelduck, pheasants, or great black-backed gulls usually succumb to a stoop of five hundred feet or more. Sometimes the prey is seized and then released, so that it tumbles to the ground, stunned but still alive; or it may be clutched and carried off to a suitable feeding place. The hawk breaks its neck with his bill, either while he is carrying it or immediately he alights. No flesh-eating creature is more efficient, or more merciful, than the peregrine. It is not deliberately merciful; it simply does what it was designed to do.

Twice already I have mentioned that strayed chicks fall a prey to "hooligan" cocks. These hang about the rookery often in little bands. At the beginning of the season there are very few of them, but later they increase greatly, do much damage, and cause a great deal of annoyance to the peaceful inhabitants. The few to be found at first probably are cocks who have not succeeded in finding mates, and consequently are "at a loose end." Later on, as their numbers are so greatly increased, they must be widowers, whose mates have lost their lives in one way or another. Many of the colonies, especially those nearer the water, are plagued by little knots of "hooligans," who hang about their outskirts, and should a chick go astray it stands a good chance of losing its life at their hands. The crimes which they commit are such as to find no place in this book, but it is interesting indeed to note that, when nature intends them to find employment, these birds, like men degenerate in idleness.

The third most respected rank of the pack is of teachers. Sigma wolves teach the wolf pups about hunting and other important survival tricks. They are the mind of the pack. You are intelligent and wise. You are certainly brainier than brawny. You always understand and guide your friends in a way best for ◆◆◆ DELTA 451 to 600 Delta wolves, rank at the fourth position in a pack not because they are less capable, but because these are the lone wolves of the pack and value their freedom. They perform their duty to the pack as messengers to the Beta wolves protecting the pack from outer threat. You are a free bird and don’t like to be held responsible. You are fun and relaxed. You can also be careless, but at the end of the day you are always there for people whenever they need you. ◆◆◆ OMEGA 601 to 750 Omega wolves are the lowest ranking wolves. They take care of the wolf pups and nurture them. The male and female omega wolves are the last to eat the prey after the hunt. You have a caring and helpful nature. You are kind to people without asking anything in return. People might not know your value, but you do. So you have found your position

This is not a lament, it’s the cry of a bird of prey. An iridescent and restless bird. The kiss upon the dead face.

Kiksadi Club,

Quicksaudy Club.

Quicksaudy Club

Quixote Club

Quixote

You've learned to control your pain, but you've never let go of it. When you can do that, you'll be sensei in no time. Your journey is just beginning.

... but in nearly all those who through necessity of life till fields, herd beasts, and keep fowls, these remaining wildings of the moors have enemies who care nothing for their survival. The farmers would exterminate nearly every wild bird and animal of prey, were it not for the land-owners, among whom are some who care for the wildings, because they are sprung from the same land of England, and who would be unhappy if they thought they country would know them no more. For the animal they hunt to kill in its season, or those other animals or birds they cause to be destroyed for the continuance of their pleasure in sport - which they believe to be natural - they have no pity; and since they lack this incipient human instinct, they misunderstand and deride it in others. Pity acts through imagination, the higher light of the world, and imagination arises from the world of things, as a rainbow from the sun. A rainbow may be beautiful and heavenly, but it will not grow corn for bread.

There hasn’t been an actual condor seen in Mexican skies in over sixty years, longer in the States. But every operation has to have a name or we don’t believe it’s real, so Condor it is. Art’s done a little reading on the bird. It is (was) the largest bird of prey, although the term is a little misleading, as it preferred scavenging over hunting. A big condor, Art learned, could take out a small deer; but what it really liked was when something else killed the deer first so the bird could just swoop down and take it. We prey on the dead. Operation Condor.

My new step-grandfather also happens to be my AA sponsor.

But I’ll bet having a wailing newborn baby in the house, or better yet, a terrible-twos toddler, will wipe that smile off your face in a hell of a hurry.

without having her in attendance, everyone else seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely.

to be honest, no one else seated at the table appeared to miss her all that much, either.

For someone who lives in downtown Seattle, calling Juneau a city is using the term loosely.

expected the two latecomers to arrive together. Instead, Naomi showed up alone.

Atonement demanded by my psyche to re-live one of the handful of vivid memories I have with my mother. One of my last, when maman declared me her gentle little bird. What would she think of me now? What would she think of the fact that I’ve become a different bird entirely? A bird of prey. A bird fueled by retribution. A cunning bird capable of acts so vile, that boy is almost unrecognizable to me now—a liar, a thief, a master of deception. A bird capable of taking part in destroying an innocent girl in the name of vengeance.

In alto, lo sfavillio delle stelle cominciò a impallidire, appannandosi, e nel firmamento dilagò la promessa perlacea del nuovo giorno.

Henry treated his ungrateful children with generosity, but he had no illusions. The royal chamber at Westminster at this time was adorned with paintings done at the King’s command. One represented four eaglets preying upon the parent bird, the fourth one poised at the parent’s neck, ready to pick out the eyes. “The four eaglets,” the King is reported to have said, “are my four sons, who cease not to persecute me even unto death. The youngest of them, whom I now embrace with so much affection, will some time in the end insult me more grievously and more dangerously than any of the others.

THE BIRD, MFONISO Not with the eyes of an eagle, for it sees and preys But the eyes of a pelican has your nature be built The selfless blood to revive those dying even if it hurts Your elegance with the tweeting melodies Your lips with the news of hope Let the flowers bow as you make flaps to land Your eyes with the flashing flowers Roses beneath your print blossom For nature got envy when your cheeks part Your tears waters every soul from a distance Your feelings are theirs in reflection And Empathy bows to your glow Daniel amongst the lions Oh Mfoniso, bird speaks great tidings Poem by Victor Vote for Mfoniso Daniel ©️2021 - VVF

Birds of La Plata

the Hawk hailed from two peoples: angels, who had granted him his white wings, and hawk shifters, who’d granted him his ability to transform into a bird of prey.

A hag–old and powerful enough that the air around her seems to crackle with the force of her magic. Her fingers are twiggy, her hair the colour of smoke, and her nose like the blade of a scythe. Around her throat, she wears a necklace of rocks, each bead carved with whorls that seem to catch and puzzle the eye. When she moves, the heavy robes around her ripple, and I spy clawed feet, like those of a bird of prey.

We must not make a scarecrow of the law, 1 Setting it up to fear the birds of prey, 2 And let it keep one shape till custom make it 3 Their perch and not their terror.

The Hawk prowled closer, peering at the three of them with a close scrutiny that echoed his namesake. Like Baxian, the Hawk hailed from two peoples: angels, who had granted him his white wings, and hawk shifters, who’d granted him his ability to transform into a bird of prey. Those were about all the similarities between the two males. For starters, Baxian had a soul. The Hawk … The Hawk’s gaze lingered on Hunt. Nothing of life, of joy, lay in those eyes.

Love is a bird of prey,” she said. “While her feathers caress your face, her talons tear at your heart.

A hunter's unbridled passion for his victim pulsed in time with a swelled vein on his temple. Even when sated, a cat will pounce on a bird with a broken wing because that is how the cat and all her ancestors were made: the bird acts like a victim and the sweetness of harsh punish- ment for the victim is, for the hunter, stronger than hunger and more demanding than lust.

Men like Ian, his father, and now, Conrad, help remind us, my darling Demi, that we are not meant to live like a bird soaring through a sky alone. Those are the birds that become prey, and we are safest in the cages. We are safest when we do as we are told. Procreate, respect our men, serve their every need. We are creating the new generation of women who will raise the best men.

Wild places and wild things constitute a treasure to be protected and cherished for all time...The wonder, beauty and elemental force in which the least of them share suggest a higher right to exist - not granted to them by man, and not his to take away... The old notion that the only good predator is a dead one is no longer acceptable as we understand that even the animals and birds which sometimes prey on domesticated animals have their own value in maintaining the balance of nature.

As man diminishes,” he noted, “so the wildlife flourishes

Suddenly and unexpectedly the birds descended on the feeder in droves. Thirty minutes later, the snow began. And I thought that to anticipate something is far better than to fall prey to it.

In 1752, inspired by the mechanistic philosophy of René Descartes, the French scientist René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur set out to investigate one of these supposed vital activities, digestion, with an ingenious experiment. It was generally believed at the time that animals digested their food by a mechanical process brought about by pounding and churning within their digestive organs. This theory seemed especially pertinent to birds, whose gizzards contained small stones that were thought to macerate their food—a mechanical action consistent with René Descartes’s view (outlined in the previous chapter) that animals were mere machines. But de Réaumur was puzzled by how birds of prey, whose gizzards lacked digestive stones, also managed to digest their food. So he fed his pet falcon small pieces of meat enclosed in tiny metal capsules punctured by small holes. When he recovered the capsules he discovered that the meat was completely digested, despite the fact that, protected within the metal, it could not have been subject to any mechanical action.

From a low hill in this broad savanna, a magnificent prospect opened out to us.7 To the very brink of the horizon we saw gigantic herds of animals: gazelle, antelope, gnu, zebra, warthog, and so on. Grazing heads nodding, the herds moved forward like slow rivers. There was scarcely any sound save the melancholy cry of a bird of prey. This was the stillness of the eternal beginning, the world as it had always been, in the state of non-being … I walked away from my companions until I had put them out of sight, and savoured the feeling of being entirely alone.

My aunt, the downer. “Binding a child of the Koorgahn. A dangerous game you’re playing, squirrel.” “I was trying to save her. She was dying of loupism.” “Yes, they are susceptible. Wolves, horses, and birds of prey, those are her things.

The current fascination with Asian religions is a direct Grail quest. The Asia never fractured as we westerners did, and they never divided the secular and sacred worlds so tragically as we did. No traditional Asian ever strays far from the Grail castle. Asian teachers look at us and say, "What in the world is this great hurry and hunger in you people?" Someone spoke of us as "those aryan birds of prey." A people in the grips of so urgent a quest are indeed formidable.

The current fascination with Asian religions is a direct Grail quest. The Asia never fractured as we westerners did, and they never divided the secular and sacred worlds so tragically as we did. No traditional Asian ever strays far from the Grail castle. Asian teachers look at us and say, "What in the world is this great hurry and hunger in you people?" Someone spoke of us as "those aryan birds of prey." A people in the grips of so urgent a quest are indeed formidable.