Crawling

“ The trend of travel away from the site of disturbance is in an irregularly zig-zag course. The method of crawling, with lateral undulations of the body, supported against scattered pivot-points along the way, tends to prevent the snake from moving more than a short distance in a straight line. ”

“ His words gave me energy, and we set off, crawling slowly, now upwards, now downwards, feeling every foot of the way, lest some new peril should lie in our path. The roar of the torrent rose and fell as we crept away, till by slow degrees it became fainter, fading to quite a soft murmur; but still no new horror assailed us. The dread darkness was forgotten in the hope that shed a light into our hearts, as foot by foot we progressed through what was sometimes a narrow passage, sometimes a wide vault, as we could tell by the echoing of our voices from its arched roof. ”

“ On the other hand, these hind legs show none of those characters which naturally accompany a swimming function, such as a widening of the joints and an intricate articulation insuring rigidity of the legs, while the preceding legs, in some species as S. cestrotus, are provided with a dense fringe of contiguous spines or bristles well adapted to broaden the swimming surface of the limbs. To the first leg of S. excelsior which is the only one observed, paired flat spines are attached whose form suggests their adaptation to swimming. We are disposed to regard all legs as adapted for crawling. ”

“ The creature seems wroth to be disturbed in his solitude, and in his strong straight-forward flight aims at the head of another glen; but he wheels round at the iron barrier, and, alighting among the heather, folds his huge massy wings, and leaps about as if in anger, with the same savage croak—croak—croak! No other bird so like a demon—and should you chance to break a leg in the desert, and be unable to crawl to a hut, your life is not worth twenty-four hours' purchase. ”

“ Now the cliffs were like wings uplifted, and the morning was coming dimly through them. She felt the wings of all the world upraised against the morning in a flashing, multitudinous flight. The world itself was flying. Sunlight poured on the large round world till she fancied it a heavy bee humming on its iridescent atmosphere across a vast air of sunshine. ”

“ In the deep sleep that had come upon the crawler, arms and legs kept raising in a deliberate, dreadful climbing motion. It was as though they had a life of their own—they kept their movement independently of the motionless body. ”

“ I try to crawl. My legs are useless; my enfeebled hands scarcely serve to move my helpless body. It is only twelve or fourteen feet to the body, but for me it is more—no, not more but worse—than ten miles. Nevertheless, it is necessary to crawl. My throat burns as if it were on fire. And without water, death would come all the sooner. Yet perchance. . . .
And I drag myself along. My legs catch on the ground and every slightest motion causes insufferable anguish. I scream, I scream and wail, and yet I continue to crawl. At last I attain to it. Here is the canteen. ”

“ How the feeble and fearful creatures would crawl on their hands and knees, faint and giddy, and shrieking out for help to the heather stalks, if forced to face one of thy cliffs, and foot its flinty bosom! ”

“ That wild men with arms in their hands, had been among them,—had struck down several persons present, then rushed over the whole house, as if in search of some object of prey whom they expected, but found not, among the guests below, and then had betaken themselves to flight, without doing further mischief—was all that was at first known ”

“ On all the skeleton branches of this forest of desolation were sitting large sea-birds of foul appearance, who raised discordant cries, as if to repel the intruders, and did not take to flight, but fought savagely with any of the men who came near to them. ”

“ A heavy clap of thunder, a flash of lightning, the breaking of a stick, the howl of a wolf, will start the herd off in a blind rush in any direction, heedless of cliffs over which they may tumble, or of rivers whose current will sweep hundreds of the frightened beasts to death. ”

“ If they were able to crawl they crawled, dropping flat and still while the lights burned, hitching themselves painfully towards the parapet under cover of the darkness. If they could not crawl they lay still, dragging themselves perhaps behind the cover of a dead body or lying quiet in the open till the time would come when helpers would seek them. ”

“ I had not advanced more than two hundred yards when I felt oppressed by a most sickening stench, and saw the trees swarming with birds of prey, buzzards perched upon their branches, ravens sailing amongst their boughs, and clouds of carrion crows flitting about, and poising themselves in the air in a stationary position, after the manner of that most nauseous of all birds, when it perceives, or thinks it perceives, some object of prey. ”

“ Those who have crouched at night by the side of pools in the desert, in order to have a shot at the beasts that frequent them, see strange scenes of animal life; how the creatures gambol at one moment and fight at another; how a herd suddenly halts in strained attention, and then breaks into a maddened rush, as one of them becomes conscious of the stealthy movements or rank scent of a beast of prey. ”

“ At last the sun came rising up out of his place, like a fire spreading far and wide over the mountains and forests; he rises up, his head passes through the noose, and it takes in more and more of his body, until his fore-paws pass through; then the ropes are pulled tight, and the monster begins to struggle and roll himself about, whilst the snare jerks backward and forward as he struggles. ”

“ They were now very near us, sporting on the surface of the water, or plunging into its abysses, and forcing out columns of water through their nostrils to a great height, which occasionally fell on us, and wetted us. Sometimes they raised themselves on their huge tail, and looked like giants ready to fall on us and crush us ”

“ We cannot go far into the fields without sighting the hawk and the snake, the very shapes of Death. The dread Thing, in one form or another, moves everywhere, down every wood-path and pasture-lane, through the black close waters of the mill-pond, out under the open of the winter sky, night and day, and every day, the four seasons through. ”

“ Some had climbed, for refuge from their bloodthirsty pursuers, to the rafters of the roof, and hung there, with their wild eyes gleaming, through their long black hair, down upon events below, and their white teeth chattering for fear. ”

“ The unfortunate creatures still crawled on, shivering, till the snow, gathering like balls under their feet, or the fragment of some broken article, a branch of a tree, or the body of one of their comrades, caused them to stumble and fall. ”

“ They run with great celerity over the stony ravines or grassy plains, but they often squat or creep away from intruders; when flushed they rise sharply with twisting flight like the Snipe, and utter a similar cry. ”

“ When an animal is caught—generally by the leg, as he digs in the snow for the hidden morsels—he carries off the trap for a short distance, but is soon brought up by the stake getting entangled across the trees and fallen timber, and is rarely able to travel any great distance before being discovered by the trapper. ”

“ The suddenness of the break, over which the cascade tumbles, leads many an innocent victim to a painful termination of its existence, and the gloomy character of the picture is generally increased by the shattered remains of some poor animal numbered amongst the rocks at the foot of the great fall. ”

“ As soon as the birds had again filled the grave with the earth, they flew away, and a short time after returned, holding in their beaks, one by the wing and the other by a claw, the criminal bird, who uttered dreadful screams, and made violent efforts to escape. ”

“ The animal conducted by the tall, thin gentlemen before described, started as his fellow quadruped rushed by him, and, freeing himself from control, dashed after him at an alarming pace, leaving his late master, with eyes starting out of their sockets, and mouth wide open with affright, his arms spread out, and his whole frame in convulsions of terror, upon the top of a large stone, ludicrously bewildered. ”

“ If hunters think while on a stalk—which matter I doubt considerably—they think about the lay of the land, or the aspect of it, of the habits and possibilities of their quarry, of their labor and chances, and particularly of the vague unrealized sense of comfort, pleasure, satisfaction in the moment. Tight muscles, alert eyes, stealthy steps, stalk and run and crawl and climb, breathlessness, a hot close-pressed chest, thrill on thrill, and sheer bursting riot of nerve and vein—these are the ordinary sensations and actions of a hunter. ”

“ Hundreds of thousands of eyes looked down upon us intruders. From every hole and corner, from every peak and ledge, out of every cleft, burrow, or opening, they hurried forth, right, left, above, beneath; the air, like the ground, teemed with birds. ”

“ The trampling of the animals sounds like the loudest thunder; and such is the rapidity and impetuosity of their advance, that it seems to threaten instant destruction. Suddenly, however, they sometimes stop short, utter a loud and piercing neighing, and, with a rapid wheel in an opposite course, altogether disappear. ”

“ When the flight has passed, the women, girls, boys, and even the children, rush forth from their hiding-places; and, seizing the struggling birds, put a quick termination to their fruitless efforts, by biting each of them in the neck. ”

“ These clouds of insects, and other brilliant objects that flit with such rapidity across the sky, have all been stirred, and are leaping they know not whither, for the tread of a monster’s feet is heard through the forest, mailed in plated horn thicker than Ajax’s shield, and, pursued by another, presses and plunges onward in reckless haste. ”

“ Climbing.—In certain respects the power of climbing supplies the want of wings, and even exists often in house-flies among which there is shown a many-sided motion that is quite unheard of in other groups of insects. ”

“ And as he fled, the forest beasts as well,
In general terror, through the brakes a-head
Crashed scattering, or with maddening speed athwart
His course came frequent. On — still on he flies —
Flies for dear life! ”

“ In the mean time a violent quarrel arises amongst the fishing men about a piece of timber, and they scream, and threaten, and gesticulate, as if they were ready to murder one another, but they do not come to blows, the quarrel evaporates in fierce words and gestures. ”

“ And these cripples form a race; they spend the bad season underground; they wake up in the spring, return to the surface and take part, for a second, sometimes even for a third time, in life’s great festival. ”

“ He shall make the ground to open under thy feet, and the creeper to twist about thy neck, and the tree-trunks to grow together about thee higher than thou canst leap, and at the last he shall take thy hide to wrap his cubs when they are cold. ”

“ We crawled up the rigging, and, swinging ourselves on to the rocks, made our way up the precipice on our hands and feet, and, reaching the summit, at once sought, in holes in the rock, shelter from the tempest, which still continued so violent that no one could stand upon his feet. ”

“ The man set out along the path, and the boy followed through the grass. And sometimes, in his desire to see what would come to pass, the boy crept too near, and the rustling of his body made the man look round, and even cast a spear into the grass to kill the beast which he thought made the rustling sound. ”

“ Now every one who lives in the country is perfectly familiar with those little disturbances that often arise all of a sudden among sparrows, when about half a dozen go flying into a bush together, squabbling, bickering, and fighting with fearful ferocity. ”

“ The trampled grass and broken branches were caused by the constant movement of animals, ruminants or beasts of prey, but it was impossible to be under any misapprehension when they came upon the traces of encampments. ”

“ The birds of prey, which always gather in large swarms round such places, fall upon the bodies ravenously, and in a few minutes devour the flesh and skin; the bones are gathered up and thrown into the cave. ”

“ “He pursued the female monster, whose tail undulated over the dead leaves like a silver brook, into the forest, and came to a plain where women with dragon-croups were round a great fire, standing erect on the points of their tails. ”

“ It seems not impossible, or even improbable, that in these violent whizzings of a great number of rooks together, amongst closely growing trees, and in the gloom of evening fading slowly into night, accidents may, sometimes, occur. ”

“ Hundreds of terrified creatures, flying in disorder up some narrow, steep, winding street, intent only on escaping from the hungry fiend in their rear, would at some sudden turn be confronted by a whirlwind of smoke and flame bearing relentlessly down upon them, and turn shrieking back to seek wildly for some other road90 of escape ”

“ The crabbers are now working more systematically. They build pens, or cars, out in the water, the top being opened to the light, and the sides being latticed, or made of laths, which admit the water freely. ”

“ Though compelled by nature to keep to the ground and go along on two stumps, he will sometimes climb trees if he can but see a chance of doing us a mischief. You hear the awkward creature crashing through the branches; you are forced to fly for your life, and to leave your young and eggs to the monster’s mercy! ”

“ They are careful, too, to place this trap in the neighborhood of some rushing river or some stilly pool where in the moonlight or at earliest flush of dawn the great creature must go to lap the cooling water. Then, when it has crashed through into helpless captivity, the small cunning enemy may work their will upon it. ”