Such protection as vultures give to lambs.
The reason of this is that small birds being without down cannot support the intense cold of the high altitudes in which the vultures and eagles or and other great birds, well supplied with down and clothed with many kinds of feathers, [fly]. Again, the small birds, having delicate and thin wings, support themselves in the low air, which is denser, and they could not bear up in the rarer air, which affords slighter resistance.
The Great Movie Posters: SEE rebel guerrillas torn apart by trucks! SEE corpses cut to pieces and fed to dogs and vultures! SEE the monkey trained to perform nursing duties for her paralyzed owner! -- Sweet and Savage (1983) What a Guy! What a Gal! What a Pair! -- Stroker Ace (1983) It's always better when you come again! -- Porky's II: The Next Day (1983) You Don't Have to Go to Texas for a Chainsaw Massacre! -- Pieces (1983)
Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time they dipped in the water; and in this way accompanied the boat with their bites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats in those swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them in the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of marching regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried; and whether it was that Ahab's crew were all such tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the sharks--a matter sometimes well known to affect them,--however it was, they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others.
He said, and with his arms leap'd to the ground. On the other side, Patroclus at that sight Sprang from his chariot. As two vultures clash Bow-beak'd, crook-talon'd, on some lofty rock Clamoring both, so they together rush'd With clamors loud; whom when the son observed Of wily Saturn, with compassion moved His sister and his spouse he thus bespake.
Brainless and big, what means this boast of thine, Earth-cumberer Ajax? Would I were the son As sure, for ever, of almighty Jove And Juno, and such honor might receive Henceforth as Pallas and Apollo share, As comes this day with universal wo Fraught for the Grecians, among whom thyself Shalt also perish if thou dare abide My massy spear, which shall thy pamper'd flesh Disfigure, and amid the barks of Greece Falling, thou shalt the vultures with thy bulk Enormous satiate, and the dogs of Troy.
My friends! weigh well the occasion. Back to Troy By my advice, nor wait the sacred morn Here, on the plain, from Ilium's walls remote So long as yet the anger of this Chief 'Gainst noble Agamemnon burn'd, so long We found the Greeks less formidable foes, And I rejoiced, myself, spending the night Beside their oary barks, for that I hoped To seize them; but I now tremble at thought Of Peleus' rapid son again in arms. A spirit proud as his will scorn to fight Here, on the plain, where Greeks and Trojans take Their common share of danger and of toil, And will at once strike at your citadel, Impatient till he make your wives his prey. Haste--let us home--else thus shall it befall; Night's balmy influence in his tent detains Achilles now, but rushing arm'd abroad To-morrow, should he find us lingering here, None shall mistake him then; happy the man Who soonest, then, shall 'scape to sacred Troy! Then, dogs shall make and vultures on our flesh Plenteous repast. Oh spare mine ears the tale! But if, though troubled, ye can yet receive My counsel, thus assembled we will keep Strict guard to-night; meantime, her gates and towers With all their mass of solid timbers, smooth And cramp'd with bolts of steel, will keep the town. But early on the morrow we will stand All arm'd on Ilium's towers. Then, if he choose, His galleys left, to compass Troy about, He shall be task'd enough; his lofty steeds Shall have their fill of coursing to and fro Beneath, and gladly shall to camp return. But waste the town he shall not, nor attempt With all the utmost valor that he boasts To force a pass; dogs shall devour him first.
Argives! abate no spark of all your fire. Jove will not prosper traitors. Them who first Transgress'd the truce the vultures shall devour, But we (their city taken) shall their wives Lead captive, and their children home to Greece.
So gloried he; then, grasping still his spear, Ulysses pierced Damastor's son, and, next, Telemachus, enforcing his long beam Sheer through his bowels and his back, transpierced Leiocritus, he prostrate smote the floor. Then, Pallas from the lofty roof held forth Her host-confounding Ægis o'er their heads, With'ring their souls with fear. They through the hall Fled, scatter'd as an herd, which rapid-wing'd The gad-fly dissipates, infester fell Of beeves, when vernal suns shine hot and long. But, as when bow-beak'd vultures crooked-claw'd Stoop from the mountains on the smaller fowl; Terrified at the toils that spread the plain The flocks take wing, they, darting from above, Strike, seize, and slay, resistance or escape Is none, the fowler's heart leaps with delight, So they, pursuing through the spacious hall The suitors, smote them on all sides, their heads Sounded beneath the sword, with hideous groans The palace rang, and the floor foamed with blood. Then flew Leiodes to Ulysses' knees, Which clasping, in wing'd accents thus he cried.
These virgins were even more heavily burdened than the convicts. A cold, harsh wind, that wind which had chilled his youth, traversed the barred and padlocked grating of the vultures; a still harsher and more biting breeze blew in the cage of these doves.
My Hector! wait not, oh my son! the approach Of this dread Chief, alone, lest premature Thou die, this moment by Achilles slain, For he is strongest far. Oh that the Gods Him loved as I! then, soon should vultures rend And dogs his carcase, and my grief should cease. He hath unchilded me of many a son, All valiant youths, whom he hath slain or sold To distant isles, and even now, I miss Two sons, whom since the shutting of the gates I find not, Polydorus and Lycaon, My children by Laothöe the fair. If they survive prisoners in yonder camp, I will redeem them with gold and brass By noble Eltes to his daughter given, Large store, and still reserved. But should they both, Already slain, have journey'd to the shades, We, then, from whom they sprang have cause to mourn And mourn them long, but shorter shall the grief Of Ilium prove, if thou escape and live. Come then, my son! enter the city-gate That thou may'st save us all, nor in thy bloom Of life cut off, enhance Achilles' fame. Commiserate also thy unhappy sire Ere yet distracted, whom Saturnian Jove Ordains to a sad death, and ere I die To woes innumerable; to behold Sons slaughter'd, daughters ravish'd, torn and stripp'd The matrimonial chamber, infants dash'd Against the ground in dire hostility, And matrons dragg'd by ruthless Grecian hands. Me, haply, last of all, dogs shall devour In my own vestibule, when once the spear Or falchion of some Greek hath laid me low. The very dogs fed at my table-side, My portal-guards, drinking their master's blood To drunkenness, shall wallow in my courts. Fair falls the warlike youth in battle slain, And when he lies torn by the pointed steel, His death becomes him well; he is secure, Though dead, from shame, whatever next befalls: But when the silver locks and silver beard Of an old man slain by the sword, from dogs Receive dishonor, of all ills that wait On miserable man, that sure is worst.
Thy arrow, stranger, was ill-aimed; a man Is no just mark. Thou never shalt dispute Prize more. Inevitable death is thine. For thou hast slain a Prince noblest of all In Ithaca, and shalt be vultures' food.
Christmas of the year 1823 was particularly brilliant at Montfermeil. The beginning of the winter had been mild; there had been neither snow nor frost up to that time. Some mountebanks from Paris had obtained permission of the mayor to erect their booths in the principal street of the village, and a band of itinerant merchants, under protection of the same tolerance, had constructed their stalls on the Church Square, and even extended them into Boulanger Alley, where, as the reader will perhaps remember, the Thenardiers' hostelry was situated. These people filled the inns and drinking-shops, and communicated to that tranquil little district a noisy and joyous life. In order to play the part of a faithful historian, we ought even to add that, among the curiosities displayed in the square, there was a menagerie, in which frightful clowns, clad in rags and coming no one knew whence, exhibited to the peasants of Montfermeil in 1823 one of those horrible Brazilian vultures, such as our Royal Museum did not possess until 1845, and which have a tricolored cockade for an eye. I believe that naturalists call this bird Caracara Polyborus; it belongs to the order of the Apicides, and to the family of the vultures. Some good old Bonapartist soldiers, who had retired to the village, went to see this creature with great devotion. The mountebanks gave out that the tricolored cockade was a unique phenomenon made by God expressly for their menagerie.
He spake, whom Hector heard with joy elate. Before his van striding into the space Both hosts between, he with his spear transverse Press'd back the Trojans, and they sat. Down sat The well-greaved Grecians also at command Of Agamemnon; and in shape assumed Of vultures, Pallas and Apollo perch'd High on the lofty beech sacred to Jove The father Ægis-arm'd; delighted thence They view'd the peopled plain horrent around With shields and helms and glittering spears erect. As when fresh-blowing Zephyrus the flood Sweeps first, the ocean blackens at the blast, Such seem'd the plain whereon the Achaians sat And Trojans, whom between thus Hector spake.
"Precisely so," cried Monte Cristo--"precisely so; and this is what I said to my worthy Adelmonte. He reflected, smiled, and replied to me by a Sicilian proverb, which I believe is also a French proverb, 'My son, the world was not made in a day--but in seven. Return on Sunday.' On the Sunday following I did return to him. Instead of having watered his cabbage with arsenic, he had watered it this time with a solution of salts, having their basis in strychnine, strychnos colubrina, as the learned term it. Now, the cabbage had not the slightest appearance of disease in the world, and the rabbit had not the smallest distrust; yet, five minutes afterwards, the rabbit was dead. The fowl pecked at the rabbit, and the next day was a dead hen. This time we were the vultures; so we opened the bird, and this time all special symptoms had disappeared, there were only general symptoms. There was no peculiar indication in any organ--an excitement of the nervous system--that was it; a case of cerebral congestion--nothing more. The fowl had not been poisoned--she had died of apoplexy. Apoplexy is a rare disease among fowls, I believe, but very common among men." Madame de Villefort appeared more and more thoughtful.
There also Tityus on the ground I saw Extended, offspring of the glorious earth; Nine acres he o'erspread, and, at his side Station'd, two vultures on his liver prey'd, Scooping his entrails; nor sufficed his hands To fray them thence; for he had sought to force Latona, illustrious concubine of Jove, What time the Goddess journey'd o'er the rocks Of Pytho into pleasant Panopeus.
He said, and from his chariot to the plain Thrust down Pisandrus, piercing with keen lance His bosom, and supine he smote the field. Down leap'd Hippolochus, whom on the ground He slew, cut sheer his hands, and lopp'd his head, And roll'd it like a mortar through the ranks. He left the slain, and where he saw the field With thickest battle cover'd, thither flew By all the Grecians follow'd bright in arms. The scatter'd infantry constrained to fly, Fell by the infantry; the charioteers, While with loud hoofs their steeds the dusty soil Excited, o'er the charioteers their wheels Drove brazen-fellied, and the King of men Incessant slaughtering, called his Argives on. As when fierce flames some ancient forest seize, From side to side in flakes the various wind Rolls them, and to the roots devour'd, the trunks Fall prostrate under fury of the fire, So under Agamemnon fell the heads Of flying Trojans. Many a courser proud The empty chariots through the paths of war Whirl'd rattling, of their charioteers deprived; They breathless press'd the plain, now fitter far To feed the vultures than to cheer their wives.
There's a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The sea-vultures all in pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in black or speckled. In life but few of them would have helped the whale, I ween, if peradventure he had needed it; but upon the banquet of his funeral they most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vultureism of earth! from which not the mightiest whale is free.
"Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the blood, he and all his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for the forecastle. In a few minutes the scuttle was opened, and, bound hand and foot, the still struggling ringleader was shoved up into the air by his perfidious allies, who at once claimed the honour of securing a man who had been fully ripe for murder. But all these were collared, and dragged along the deck like dead cattle; and, side by side, were seized up into the mizzen rigging, like three quarters of meat, and there they hung till morning. 'Damn ye,' cried the Captain, pacing to and fro before them, 'the vultures would not touch ye, ye villains!'
_Fauna._--The wild animals of Arabia are all of the desert-loving type: antelopes and gazelles are found in small numbers throughout the peninsula; the latter are similar to the _chikara_ or ravine deer of India. The larger antelopes, so common on the African side of the Gulf of Aden, are not found, except one variety, the _Oryx beatrix_ (called by the Arabs, wild cow), which is an inhabitant of the Nafud between Tema and Hail; it is about the size of a donkey, white, and with long straight horns. Hares are numerous both in the desert and in cultivated tracts. In the Yemen mountains the _wal_, a wild goat with massive horns, similar to the Kashmir ibex, is found; monkeys also abound. Among smaller animals the jerboa and other descriptions of rat, and the _wabar_ or cony are common; lizards and snakes are numerous, most of the latter being venomous. Hyenas, wolves and panthers are found in most parts of the country, and in the mountains the leopard and wild cat. Of birds the ostrich is found in the Nafud and in the W. Dawasir. Among game birds the bustard, guinea fowl, sand grouse (_kata_), blue rock, green pigeon, partridge, including a large chikor (_akb_) and a small species similar to the Punjab sisi; quail and several kinds of duck and snipe are met with. In the cultivated parts of Yemen and Tehama small birds are very numerous, so also are birds of prey, vultures, kites and hawks. Entry: A
HAWK (O. Eng. _hafoc_ or _heafoc_, a common Teutonic word, cf. Dutch _havik_, Ger. _Habicht_; the root is _hab_-, _haf_-, to hold, cf. Lat. _accipiter_, from _capere_), a word of somewhat indefinite meaning, being often used to signify all diurnal birds-of-prey which are neither vultures nor eagles, and again more exclusively for those of the remainder which are not buzzards, falcons, harriers or kites. Even with this restriction it is comprehensive enough, and will include more than a hundred species, which have been arrayed in genera varying in number from a dozen to above a score, according to the fancy of the systematizer. Speaking generally, hawks may be characterized by possessing comparatively short wings and long legs, a bill which begins to decurve directly from the cere (or soft bare skin that covers its base), and has the cutting edges of its maxilla (or upper mandible) sinuated[1] but never notched. To these may be added as characters, structurally perhaps of less value, but in other respects quite as important, that the sexes differ very greatly in size, that in most species the irides are yellow, deepening with age into orange or even red, and that the immature plumage is almost invariably more or less striped or mottled with heart-shaped spots beneath, while that of the adults is generally much barred, though the old males have in many instances the breast and belly quite free from markings. Nearly all are of small or moderate size--the largest among them being the gos-hawk (q.v.) and its immediate allies, and the male of the smallest, _Accipiter tinus_, is not bigger than a song-thrush. They are all birds of great boldness in attacking a quarry, but if foiled in the first attempts they are apt to leave the pursuit. Thoroughly arboreal in their habits, they seek their prey, chiefly consisting of birds (though reptiles and small mammals are also taken), among trees or bushes, patiently waiting for a victim to shew itself, and gliding upon it when it appears to be unwary with a rapid swoop, clutching it in their talons, and bearing it away to eat it in some convenient spot. Entry: HAWK
_Early Princes_.--The earliest monuments that can be approximately dynasty.] dated come from Lagash (Tello). Here we hear of a "king of Kengi," as well as of a certain Me-silim, king of Kis, who had dealings with Lugal-suggur, high-priest of Lagash, and the high-priest of a neighbouring town, the name of which is provisionally transcribed Gis-ukh (formerly written Gis-ban and confounded with the name of Opis). According to Scheil, Gis-ukh is represented by Jokha, south of F[=a]ra and west of the Shatt el-Hai, and since two of its rulers are called kings of T[=e] on a seal-cylinder, this may have been the pronunciation of the name.[3] At a later date the high-priests of Lagash made themselves kings, and a dynasty was founded there by Ur-Nin[=a]. In the ruins of a building, attached by him to the temple of Nin[=a], terra-cotta bas-reliefs of the king and his sons have been found, as well as the heads of lions in onyx, which remind us of Egyptian work and onyx plates. These were "booty" dedicated to the goddess Bau. E-anna-du, the grandson of Ur-Nin[=a], made himself master of the whole of southern Babylonia, including "the district of Sumer" together with the cities of Erech, Ur and Larsa (?). He also annexed the kingdom of Kis, which, however, recovered its independence after his death. Gis-ukh was made tributary, a certain amount of grain being levied upon each person in it, which had to be paid into the treasury of the goddess Nin[=a] and the god Ingurisa. The so-called "Stele of the Vultures," now in the Louvre, was erected as a monument of the victory. On this various incidents in the war are represented. In one scene the king stands in his chariot with a curved weapon in his right hand formed of three bars of metal bound together by rings (similar, as M. L. Heuzey has pointed out, to one carried by the chief of an Asiatic tribe in a tomb of the 12th dynasty at Beni-Hasan in Egypt), while his kilted followers with helmets on their heads and lances in their hands march behind him. In another a flock of vultures is feeding on the bodies of the fallen enemy; in a third a tumulus is being heaped up over those who had been slain on the side of Lagash. Elsewhere we see the victorious prince beating down a vanquished enemy, and superintending the execution of other prisoners who are being sacrificed to the gods, while in one curious scene he is striking with his mace a sort of wicker-work cage filled with naked men. In his hand he holds the crest of Lagash and its god--a lion-headed eagle with outstretched wings, supported by two lions which are set heraldically back to back. The sculptures belong to a primitive period of art. Entry: V
LAGASH, or SIRPURLA, one of the oldest centres of Sumerian civilization in Babylonia. It is represented by a rather low, long line of ruin mounds, along the dry bed of an ancient canal, some 3 m. E. of the Shatt-el-Hai and a little less than 10 m. N. of the modern Turkish town of Shatra. These ruins were discovered in 1877 by Ernest de Sarzec, at that time French consul at Basra, who was allowed, by the Montefich chief, Nasir Pasha, the first Wali-Pasha, or governor-general, of Basra, to excavate at his pleasure in the territories subject to that official. At the outset on his own account, and later as a representative of the French government, under a Turkish firman, de Sarzec continued excavations at this site, with various intermissions, until his death in 1901, after which the work was continued under the supervision of the Commandant Cros. The principal excavations were made in two larger mounds, one of which proved to be the site of the temple, E-Ninnu, the shrine of the patron god of Lagash, Nin-girsu or Ninib. This temple had been razed and a fortress built upon its ruins, in the Greek or Seleucid period, some of the bricks found bearing the inscription in Aramaic and Greek of a certain Hadad-nadin-akhe, king of a small Babylonian kingdom. It was beneath this fortress that the numerous statues of Gudea were found, which constitute the gem of the Babylonian collections at the Louvre. These had been decapitated and otherwise mutilated, and thrown into the foundations of the new fortress. From this stratum came also various fragments of bas reliefs of high artistic excellence. The excavations in the other larger mound resulted in the discovery of the remains of buildings containing objects of all sorts in bronze and stone, dating from the earliest Sumerian period onward, and enabling us to trace the art history of Babylonia to a date some hundreds of years before the time of Gudea. Apparently this mound had been occupied largely by store houses, in which were stored not only grain, figs, &c., but also vessels, weapons, sculptures and every possible object connected with the use and administration of palace and temple. In a small outlying mound de Sarzec discovered the archives of the temple, about 30,000 inscribed clay tablets, containing the business records, and revealing with extraordinary minuteness the administration of an ancient Babylonian temple, the character of its property, the method of farming its lands, herding its flocks, and its commercial and industrial dealings and enterprises; for an ancient Babylonian temple was a great industrial, commercial, agricultural and stock-raising establishment. Unfortunately, before these archives could be removed, the galleries containing them were rifled by the Arabs, and large numbers of the tablets were sold to antiquity dealers, by whom they have been scattered all over Europe and America. From the inscriptions found at Tello, it appears that Lagash was a city of great importance in the Sumerian period, some time probably in the 4th millennium B.C. It was at that time ruled by independent kings, Ur-Nina and his successors, who were engaged in contests with the Elamites on the east and the kings of Kengi and Kish on the north. With the Semitic conquest it lost its independence, its rulers becoming _patesis_, dependent rulers, under Sargon and his successors; but it still remained Sumerian and continued to be a city of much importance, and, above all, a centre of artistic development. Indeed, it was in this period and under the immediately succeeding supremacy of the kings of Ur, Ur-Gur and Dungi, that it reached its highest artistic development. At this period, also, under its _patesis_, Ur-bau and Gudea, Lagash had extensive commercial communications with distant realms. According to his own records, Gudea brought cedars from the Amanus and Lebanon mountains in Syria, diorite or dolorite from eastern Arabia, copper and gold from central and southern Arabia and from Sinai, while his armies, presumably under his overlord, Ur-Gur, were engaged in battles in Elam on the east. His was especially the era of artistic development. Some of the earlier works of Ur-Nina, En-anna-tum, Entemena and others, before the Semitic conquest, are also extremely interesting, especially the famous stele of the vultures and a great silver vase ornamented with what may be called the coat of arms of Lagash, a lion-headed eagle with wings outspread, grasping a lion in each talon. After the time of Gudea, Lagash seems to have lost its importance; at least we know nothing more about it until the construction of the Seleucid fortress mentioned, when it seems to have become part of the Greek kingdom of Characene. The objects found at Tello are the most valuable art treasures up to this time discovered in Babylonia. Entry: LAGASH