wing-stroke

This was plainly not the wing-stroke of a nocturnal bird; for no bird, big or little, could advertise its flight in such perfect pulsation.

World's War Events, Vol. I 1902

Love is the world's maker, master and destroyer, the magician whose word can change water to blood, and blood to fire, the dove to a serpent, and the serpent to a dove -- ay, and can make of that same dove an eagle, with an eagle's beak, and talons, and air-cleaving wing-stroke.

The Witch of Prague 1881

It was peculiar to see the number of fire-flies flying in every direction, and at every wing-stroke emiting a bright flash.

The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II Alexander Leslie 1866

The mania for miracles is the constant companion of enlightenment; it is always a powerful factor in the mental life, only the manifestations are different now and then; and it must be doubtful whether among people who were educated after the pattern of the wisdom of the synagogue, or who had at least felt the breath of the wind from the wing-stroke of that great wisdom, that the disposition to believe in miracles had been exceptionally great.

The Miracles of Jesus 1872-1959 1907

If you would but break the tie that binds you, if, with one happy wing-stroke, you could soar up to the summits where lives last forever, where hearts vanish united in the bosom of God, I should be delivered, it seems to me, in the same upward impulse; for, in heaven or in the abyss, I am inseparable from you.”

Frederic Mistral Downer, Charles A 1901