Cowl

“ The cowl at the top outside would keep the rain off its head, and, as the wind blew it round and round, the giraffe, from its sweep’s eminence, would be gratified by a gyroscopic view of the surrounding country. It is the only animal that lives on the earth and never thinks about the ground it walks on. ”

“ As my study is built out to the back of this house, it is parallel with your property at 15, Poynings Road. I am within fifty yards of the offending cowl. The noise it makes rises and falls in shrillness according to the speed at which the cowl revolves under the pressure of the wind. We are not disturbed at all by any cowl on Hathaway Mansions, but by this one of yours, about which I wrote you first so long ago as January 3. ”

“ May I remind you that in your letter of 6th January you were good enough to promise that the noisy cowl at 15, Poynings Road would have your immediate attention? Of course I know that it is difficult to get tradesmen to work so soon after the New Year holidays, but they should now be available, and the cowl is having a very serious effect on the health and nerves of the residents here. ”

“ At night, however, the weaver would be seen walking forth with his pipe in his mouth, his Kilmarnock cowl brushed back from his forehead, and his clothes loose at the knees, to observe the growth of the berries, or pull a bunch of lily-oak for his children, who came prattling behind him; or to hold converse through the evening stillness with a neighbour perhaps four gardens off, respecting the last proceedings of “that dreedfu’ fallow, Bonyparty.” When standing in the centre of the village, you might have almost been persuaded that there was no other place in the world. ”

“ The friar, for whatever reason, had his cowl drawn close, so that his face was invisible; but, through the small eyelets of the cowl, one could see a spark of gentleness in his eyes, that at once recommended him to favour. He carried a lighted lamp in his [290] hand, and, on passing through the doorway, he held it out before him, and glanced rapidly round the limits of the dungeon. ”

“ In those days the master, strolling in the little churchyard of a Sabbath afternoon, was sometimes surprised to find a few wild flowers plucked from the damp pine forests scattered there, and oftener rude wreaths hung upon the little pine cross. Most of these wreaths were formed of a sweet-scented grass, which the children loved to keep in their desks, intertwined with the plumes of the buckeye, the syringa, and the wood anemone, and here and there the master noticed the dark-blue cowl of the monkshood, or deadly aconite. ”

“ If you'll sit in the car, I'll put your shoes up by the engine. It's pretty well heated from racing it in the mud. You can get your stockings dry under the cowl. She was amused by the elaborateness with which he didn't glance at her while she took off her low shoes and slipped her quite too thin black stockings under the protecting tin cowl. She reflected, "He has such a nice, awkward gentleness. But such bad taste! They're really quite good ankles. Apparently ankles are not done, in Teal bug circles. His sisters don't even have limbs. But do fairies have sisters? He is a fairy. ”

“ About one hour afterward a man arrayed in the cowl and frock of a hermit, and having his knotted cord twisted around his middle, stood before the portal of the castle of Front-de-Boeuf. The warder demanded of him his name and errand. ”

“ No variety of pigeon excels the little Jacobin in its quaint prettiness. The tiny little head is half concealed in a recurved cowl of feathers which runs down at the sides of the neck, and nearly meets in front. ”

“ A. To fix a cowl on the chimney top, to turn like a weather-cock, and present its back to the wind.
Q. Why will not a cowl always prevent a chimney smoking?
A. If the wind be strong, it will keep the opening of the cowl towards the steeple or hill; and then the reflected wind will blow into the cowl, and down the chimney.
Q. As a cowl is such a poor remedy, can any other be devised?
A. If the chimney flue can be carried higher than the steeple or hills, no wind can enter the flue.
Q. Why cannot the wind enter a chimney flue, if it be carried up higher than the steeple or hills? ”

“ In the 14th century the cowl and the frock were frequently confounded, but the council of Vienne defined the former as “a habit long and full without sleeves,” and the latter as “a long habit with long and wide sleeves.” While the term thus seems strictly to imply a hooded gown it is often applied to the hood alone. ”

“ Mosaic religion, rendered stricter by the Talmudic law, has invented a cowl to be used in the act of copulation. It wraps up the whole body of the husband, leaving in the middle of the gown but a tiny hole—like that in a little boy's pants—to pass the penis through, and thus enable him to squirt his sperm into his wife's ovaries, fecundating her in this way, but preventing as much as possible all carnal pleasure. ”

“ All, even to the very small girls, wear their hair in a kind of black cowl or cap, which covers only the back of the head, and is tied under the chin by a black ribbon. Also all, young as well as old, wear a small dark-colored shawl or handkerchief over the shoulders, and pinned very plainly across the breast. ”

“ Now, when one goes to a place and finds a horse there, that place is not uncommonly a stable; and, as a matter of fact, the basket-cowl would be much more likely to be found in use in a range of back stabling than anywhere else. Suppose, then, that after taking the direction indicated in the sketches—the direction of Fitzroy Square, in fact—one were to find a range of stabling with a basket-cowl visible about it? ”

“ A point of great emulation is, who shall salute the other first; because the one who does so is entitled to a gift from the person saluted. Breakfast, consisting of all procurable luxuries, is then served, the neighbours not engaged are invited to partake, and the day ends in festivity.
Riding stang, a custom that will be observed on hereafter, prevails in some parts of England on new year’s day to the present hour. The “stang” is a cowl-staff; the cowl is a water-vessel, borne by two persons on the cowl-staff, which is a stout pole whereon the vessel hangs. ”

“ The next instant the pulpit was no longer empty. A figure covered from head to foot in black cowl and mantle had entered it, and was kneeling with bent head and with face turned away. It seemed a weary time to the eager people while the black figure knelt and the monks chanted. But the stillness was not broken, for the Frate's audiences with Heaven were yet charged with electric awe for that mixed multitude, so that those who had already the will to stone him felt their arms unnerved. ”

“ Their gray cowls and robes, their scared and skeleton faces, their lights dimly glowing from the tapers in their hands, which are the only illumination of the room, and the dead prone in the midst the only calm one ”

“ No foreign evergreen can excel it for symmetry of form or winter garniture of leaf and fruit. Life is astir, too, in the brown twigs of the Hazel bushes. The infant [Pg 50] year is not more than a week or two old, yet already the tasselled catkins are swinging in the lightest rustle of the sighing wind, and begin to lift up their tiers of small woolly cowls to set free the yellow pollen-dust. ”

“ Some of these exhaust cowls are of the revolving class, made to various designs and dimensions and put in rotation by the force of the wind. Revolving cowls are liable to fail cf E" by sticking, and, generally speaking, fixed cowls are to be W ° preferred. ”

“ In appearance he is not as the dead woman might have expected. Bare-headed and bare-footed, his beard and hair are scrubby and tangled, and he is clothed in a soiled, sack-like, and much dirtied cowl. The story of how he was received by the relatives, the doctor, the parson, and the gathered guests may be read by those who turn to the following pages. It was first presented to American play-goers by the Washington Square Players under the direction of Mr. ”

“ For the fowl, like the dog, has become an extremely variable creature in the domestic state, in voice no less than in size, form, colour, and other particulars. At one end of the scale there was the raucous bronchial strain produced by the unwieldy Cochin. What a bird is that! Nature, in obedience to man's behests, and smiling with secret satire over her work, has made it ponderous and ungraceful as any clumsy mammalian, wombat, ardvaark, manatee, or hippopotamus. ”

“ The male cowbird looks like a well-dressed gentleman—and may have even a slightly clerical air—in his closely fitting suit of glossy black, with its greenish and purplish iridescence, and his hood of rich metallic brown covering his head, neck, and chest. ”

“ The quails, when migrating, fly so near the ground that they are very easily knocked down and secured. The nest of the quail is very simple. It consists merely of a few dried sticks in a wheat-field, and contains from twelve to eighteen pretty little green and brown eggs. The quail itself is very prettily coloured with black, chestnut, yellow, and white, and the males have a black collar round their throats. The old Romans would not eat the flesh of the quail, because it feeds on the grains of a poisonous plant. But we moderns are not so scrupulous, and find it very delicious food. ”

“ Considering how rarely we see the cow-bird in our walks, her merciless ubiquity is astonishing. It occasionally happens that almost every nest I meet in a day's walk will show the ominous speckled egg. In a single stroll in the country I have removed eight of these foreboding tokens of misery. Only last summer I discovered the nest of a wood-sparrow in a hazel-bush, my attention being attracted thither by the parent bird bearing food in her beak. ”

“ The cock koel is a jet black bird with a red eye and a green bill. When flying he looks like a slenderly built, long-tailed crow. The hen is speckled black and white. This cuckoo cuckolds crows.
The cock draws off the owners of the nest by placing himself near them and screaming. The crows, being short-tempered birds, rise to the bait and give chase. While they are absent the hen slips into the nest and lays her egg. If sufficient time be allowed she destroys one or more of the eggs already in the nest. ”

“ The fault of the Cochin-Chinas as table birds is, that they produce most meat on the inferior parts; thus, there is generally too little on the breast which is the prime part of a fowl, while the leg which is an inferior part, is unusually fleshy, but it must be admitted that the leg is more tender than in other breeds. A greater quantity of flesh may be raised within a given time, on a certain quantity of food, from these fowls than from any other breed. The cross with the Dorking is easily reared, and produces a very heavy and well-shaped fowl for the table, and a good layer. ”

“ Round two sides of the field, they have previously put fine nets, and at the apex they have a large cage with a decoy quail inside, or perhaps a pair. The quail is a running bird, disinclined for flight except at night; in the day-time they prefer running to using their wings. The idiotic looking old cow, as we will call the hunter, has all his wits about him. He proceeds very slowly and warily, his keen eye detects the coveys of quail, which way they are running; his ruse generally succeeds wonderfully. He is no more like a cow, than that respectable animal is like a cucumber ”

“ For the benefit of those unacquainted with the ways of the koel it is necessary to state that that bird spends much of its time fleeing before the wrath of crows. It lays its eggs in the nests of these. And, if one may judge from their behaviour, they suspect the koel. The other two calls are heard at all hours of the day and night, and it makes no difference to the koel whether it is the sun or the moon, or only the stars that are shining. He is always merry and bright. ”

“ And thus the American cow-bird outcuckoos the cuckoo as an "attendant on the spring," taking her pick among the nurseries of featherdom, now victimizing the oriole by a brief sojourn in the swinging hammock in the elm, here stopping a moment to leave her charge to the care of an indigo-bird, to-morrow creeping through the grass to the secreted nest of the Maryland yellow-throat, or Wilson's thrush, or chewink. ”

“ They never seem to notice the trick that has been played upon them. Even when the black-skinned young koels hatch out, the crows are apparently unable to distinguish them from their own pink-coloured young.
The young koel invariably emerges from the egg before his foster-brothers and thus begins life with a start. He develops much more quickly than they do, but, unlike the common cuckoo, ejects neither the other eggs in the nest, nor the young birds as they hatch out. He lives on good terms with the other occupants of the nest, and when fledged, makes laudable if ludicrous attempts to caw. ”

“ The crows continue feeding it long after it has left the nest, looking after it with the utmost solicitude. A young koel is somewhat lacking in intelligence; it seems unable to distinguish its foster-parents from any other crow, for it opens its mouth at the approach of every crow, evidently expecting to be fed.
The natives of the Punjab assert that the hen koel keeps her eye on the crow’s nest in which she has laid her egg or eggs during the whole of the time that the young cuckoo is in it, and takes charge of her babe after it leaves the nest. ”

“ The Quail can scarcely be called a common bird with us, although it may be found occasionally in various parts of both England and Ireland, and sometimes, though very rarely, in Scotland. It is migratory, generally arriving in May and departing in September; some few remain throughout the year, and scraping together a few bits of dry grass, clover, or straw, make a rude nest in a hollow place on the ground, and there deposit their eggs, which are of a yellowish, greenish, or reddish white, blotched and speckled with brown. ”