halcyons

• “[109] The birds called halcyons were said to build their nests on the water, and, while they were brooding, to keep it calm.”

  England's Antiphon

• “In the midst of this inextricable mass of plants and sea weed, I noticed some charming pink halcyons and actiniae, with their long tentacles trailing after them, and medusae, green, red, and blue.”

  Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

• “The birds were lank black clivers (Plotus), exceedingly wild; the African roller (Coracias); halcyons of several species, especially a white and black kingfisher, nimble and comely; many swallows, horn-bills, and wild pigeons which made the bush resound; ardeine birds, especially a heron, like the large Indian”

  Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo

• “Moreover, the family of the halcyons or kingfishers live by the waterside.”

  The History of Animals

• “These halcyons may be looked for with a little more assurance in that pure October weather which we distinguish by the name of Indian summer.”

  Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader Being Selections from the Chief American Writers

• “When we left Louisiana, near an hundred halcyons followed our vessel for near three days: they kept at the distance of about a stone-cast, and seemed to swim, yet I could never discover that their feet were webbed, and was therefore greatly surprised.”

  History of Louisisana Or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina: Containing

• “Broidered with halcyons, moons, and heavily thralled”

  The Hours of Fiammetta A Sonnet Sequence

• “The halcyons skim over the water and are common every where.”

  The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters

• “These halcyons may be looked for with a little more assurance in that pure October weather, which we distinguish by the name of the Indian Summer.”

  XIV. Essays. Nature. 1844

• “It was in this quarter, for a brief sweet time, that Love and Beauty made their strange home, as though a pair of halcyons should choose to nest in the masthead of a cattleship.”

  Prose Fancies (Second Series)

Show 10 more examples...