Puff adder

“ Puff′-bird, a South American bird resembling the kingfisher in form, but living on insects; Puff′-box, a box for holding powder for the toilet, and a puff for applying it.—adj. Puffed, gathered up into rounded ridges, as a sleeve.—ns. Puff′er, one who puffs: one who raises the prices at an auction in order to excite the eagerness of the bidders to the advantage of the seller ”

“ The puffin, like the partridge and other birds that progress by a succession of quick strokes with the wings, flies with great rapidity. He is so small and light that perhaps one ought not to be surprised at this, so I reserve my wonder for the guillemot. How this solid and weighty-looking bird can, with wings that are small out of all proportion to its bulk, narrow to a degree, and by no means long, get through the air at the rate it does, how it can even stay in it at all and not come plump down like the wooden bird that it looks, is to me a mystery. ”

“ The soil, too, is honeycombed with their burrows, and in each of these, as well as in the nooks and chambers of rocks that lie closely together, there is a young fluffy black puffin, which increases the population by about a third, to say nothing of those parent birds which may also be underground. A million of puffins, I should think, must be standing, flying, or swimming in the more or less immediate vicinity; the air, especially, if it be a sunny day—or, rather, for a sunny minute or so—is like one great sunbeam full of little dancing bird-motes. ”

“ Last night she had failed. To-night she would not fail. Before morning came, if it were humanly within her power, she and Danglar would have played out their game—to the end.
And now a pucker came and gathered her forehead into little furrows, and anxiety and perplexity crept into her eyes. Another thought tormented her. In the exposure that was to come the Adventurer, alias the Pug, was involved. Was there any way to save the man to whom she owed so much, the splendidly chivalrous, high-couraged gentleman she loved, the thief she abhorred? ”

“ Puff.—Few of us is cap’ens—puff. Very few of us is admirals—puff; and what with admiralty and the gov’ment—puff, puff, and the people’s opinion—puff, and the queen—puff; they can’t do so much as they like, as a regular tar. Puff, puff.”
The way in which the ex-purser distributed his tobacco smoke during this oracular lecture to his brother’s orphan son was something astounding; and he had smoked so heavily that it seemed at last as if he were trying to veil himself from the lad’s gaze lest he should see the weakness exhibited with regard to Mrs Marion’s rule ”

“ They saw at once what was the matter. He was out of humour. All their radiant faces fell immediately; and they were silent. Guy, who was nearest to him, poured him out a glass of wine, without a word. Addie drank down the wine. His eyes glanced up wearily from under their lashes; his gestures were nervous and jerky. When Addie was out of humour, they were silent, subduing the sound of their voices and the light in their eyes. Nobody knew what to say. And it cost Constance an effort to ask:
"How were things in Amsterdam?" ”

“ In proportion 95 as the fangs penetrate the body of the animal the poison flows into the canal, which again conducts it to the fangs under the influence of the contracting muscles, by which they are raised and made to press upon the gland; but this movement causes the Adder to close its mouth, and the venom is injected into the wound.
Adders bite in much the same manner when seized by the tail or middle of the body; but when they think themselves attacked and become irritated, they strike rather than bite. ”

“ The parents have the strongest affection for them; and if layed hold of by the wings will give themselves most cruel bites on any part of the body they can reach, as if actuated by despair." Now the puffin, which possesses a brightly coloured and very powerful beak, certainly can bite when "layed hold of," but it generally manages to seize the hand or clothes of the aggressor, and leaves its mark. ”

“ I may be mistaken, but I hope that it is so; no one can become intimate with the puffin without wishing him well. It is most interesting to see things in their beginnings, and to speculate on what, if they continue, they are likely, in time, to become.
The puffin has other and far more fatal enemies than the skua. ”

“ Van der Welcke, strolling along the paths, found pleasure in watching Klaasje, the big girl of thirteen, tearing round the water, pursued by Jack, the new terrier, who barked and barked incessantly with his sharp, throaty bark.
"She is still just like a child," thought Van der Welcke, "and she is developing like a little woman. It is strange, the influence which Addie has over her . . . and the way the child is perking up now that the fine days have come. But it is not only the fine days, it is Addie above all that gives her this balance: what's it through, I wonder? ”

“ The puffin, like others of the same genus, takes wing with great difficulty, and walks upon the whole length of the leg and foot, with a wriggling awkward gait. In tempestuous weather it takes shelter in caverns and holes in the nearest rocks, or in those made by the rabbit on the beach among the bent grass, in which it sits dozing, in snug security, till the return of the calm weather; for these birds cannot brave the storm, and it is not uncommon, when they have been overtaken by it, to find them drowned and cast on shore. ”

“ Although extremely [Pg 83] sluggish in nature, it lunges with amazing rapidity. When its warning hiss is heard a hasty retirement is expedient. Among the other dangerous adders are the Night adder, Causus rhombeatus, which lays eggs; the small Peringuey’s adder, Bitis Peringueyi; the queer Hornsman or Horned adder, Bitis cornuta, which has two or more erect horn-like scales over each eye, like little horns; the West African adder, Bitis gabonica, which will bury itself in the sand for hours, with only the head visible; the Berg adder, Bitis atropos, which keeps to the mountain regions ”

“ No, it would all be different in future; and, if nothing else could be done, well then, it must be like that. When Papa, later on, was tired or in the blues or anything, he would not lay his head on Addie's knees, just like a little brother, and go to sleep: Marianne would comfort him instead.
Addie tried to suppress that feeling of jealousy, but it kept on shooting through him, like a painful, smarting sting . . . But suddenly, in the dark room, in the silent house—the servant was no longer singing—Van der Welcke woke, drew himself up, rubbed his neck, which was stiff with lying down. ”

“ But Addie said:
"I ought really to be going out, Aunt.... Alex, can you go with me part of the way? Then we can talk things over as we walk. The roads are too wet for cycling."
Addie's eyes and voice set Adeline's mind at ease, as though he were telling her that it would be all right at the Merchants' School....
The cousins left the house together. The trees dripped with water; and the swift and angry wind chased the great clouds farther in one direction; but the sky remained grey and lowering. The far-stretching, straight country-roads vanished at last in a melancholy drab mist ”

“ Léonie did not know, did not care, indifferent to their passion and glad that Addie had remained beside her and that Theo was glaring at him jealously. Did he know, did he suspect anything? Would Oorip always hold her tongue? She enjoyed the emotion and she wanted them both; she wanted both white and brown; and the fact that Doddie was sitting on the other side of Addie and almost swooning as she rocked to and fro afforded her an acute and wicked delight. What else was there in life but to yield to one’s luxurious cravings? ”

“ Vainly he called upon them to leave their victims. He was seeking for a club when through the balsam thicket burst John Adare and Father George at the head of a dozen men. In response to Adare's roaring voice the pack slunk off. The beaten snow was crimson. Even Adare, as he faced Philip, could find no words in his horror. Philip pointed to the tepee.
"Josephine—is there—safe," he gasped. As Adare rushed into the tepee Philip swayed up to Father George. ”

“ After this we come to bigger birds—ducks and puffins. Puffins have beaks like poll parrots, and are about the size of a rook; they have neat white shirt-fronts, and their beaks are red and yellow and blue, but they have silly faces, as if they thought of nothing but their own fine clothes. They live near water on cliffs, and sometimes use an old rabbit burrow for a nest, in which they lay one pure white egg, and one only. When the young one is hatched the parent birds feed it on tiny fish and minnows. You can see here the puffin bringing up a minnow in his beak for supper. ”

“ Handsome—or, at any rate, outré—as the puffin's beak is, it is hardly, if at all, more striking to the eye than is this vivid gleam of one bright colour, revealed suddenly in a flash-light by this distension of the mandibles. It is like the sword gleaming out of the scabbard, whose brightness comes as a surprise, whereas the latter, however rich and ornate, is a permanent quantity, and so lacks the charm of novelty. The fact that the puffin's beak is a superlative ornament does not, in my opinion, render it unlikely that there should be another one lying within it. ”

“ She would have been shocked by it as by a never-suspected riddle, she would have turned giddy as at a never-suspected abyss down which she gazed without knowing where it ended, a bottomless depth to her ignorant eyes and quite insusceptible instincts. She would not have understood, she would have refused to understand that there was no blame but only self-insufficiency and inconsistency of soul, in silent antagonism and antipathy, because Addie felt himself to be two. ”

“ At the extreme left of the territory of the puffins, where the rocks broke abruptly, a tiny cleft-full of earth made room for just one nest. The pair of puffins who had their burrow here were comparatively isolated, being some eight or ten feet apart from the crowded ranks of their kin. Their one big egg had been safely hatched. The ridiculous chick, all gaping beak and naked belly, the one object of their passionate solicitude, was thriving and hungry according to the finest traditions of infant puffinhood. ”

“ It's the Pug!"
Rhoda Gray did not answer. It was growing dark here in the shed now—perhaps that was why the man's form blended suddenly into the doorway and wall, and blurred before her. She tried to think, but there seemed to have fallen upon her a numbed and agonized stupefaction. There was no confusing this issue. Danglar had found out that the Adventurer was the Pug. And it meant—oh, what did it mean? They would kill him. Of course, they would kill him! The Adventurer, discovered, would be safer at the mercy of a pack of starved pumas, and——
"I thought that would hold you !" ”

“ Fighting? What about, Addie? There’s always something with the three boys.”
“Oh, nothing!” said Addie, evasively.
“Come,” said Van der Welcke, “all boys have a fight now and again.”
But Addie did not speak, remained stiff and silent. He did not answer, would not say why he had fought with Jaap. And he was reasonable, tried to eat something, so as not to upset his mother; but the food stuck in his throat. They hurried through dinner. When Addie was gloomy, everything was gloomy, there was nothing left, life was not worth the dismal living, Constance’ new and gentle happiness was gone, gone. ”

“ They are stupid little fellows, sitting bolt upright on greenish, blotched eggs that are not unlike those of the crow, but larger. The flesh of the puffin is not bad eating when one is hungry, and the boys found these so tame that they hardly flew at a rifle-shot. In half an hour they had a dozen, and tramped back to camp, well satisfied that they need not starve. By the time two birds were cooked and eaten the sun was behind the cliffs, and the gray of the Arctic midnight was over all. ”

“ To have a dozen or twenty of these little painted puffins on a rock within three paces of you, in full view, with nothing whatever intervening, some standing up, others couched on their breasts, some preening, some shaking their wings, most of them unconscious of your presence, a few just looking at you, from time to time, with an expression of mild curiosity unmixed with fear, seeming to say "And who may you be, sir?" is almost a new sensation. ”

“ And Ernst just raised his eyelids and saw Addie stooping over him: blue eyes looking into black eyes. Then he closed his own again, breathed heavily, let Addie stroke his hair. The big tears trickled slowly. . . .
There was no need, thought Addie, to speak to the tired man. The hallucination had gone; it must have left him utterly fagged out. Round both of them, man and boy, hung the haze of the summer morning; a steady droning filled the sultry air. Overhead, clouds drifted endlessly, everlastingly, cloud after cloud, drifting on and on. . . . ”

“ Constant toddled to him on shaky legs; Addie held Jetje on his arm and rubbed his moustache against her milk-white little face, to make her laugh and crow. A soft feeling of bliss welled within him, because he was pressing against him a life that was his life, a small shrine of frail and tender child body in which flashed an atom of soul that laughed and crowed and lived. And the baby was so ordinary, a baby just like other babies, when he looked at it as a doctor; and the baby was so mystic when, as a father, he pressed it to himself. What was more mystic than a little child? ”

“ But, for this very reason, they did not see how Addie could care to go to Uncle Gerrit’s and play with all those babies there. They thought him a queer boy, they did not really like him; but his intimacy with Frans and Henri van Naghel gave Addie a sort of manly, grown-up air which they secretly envied. And so, in order, in their turn, to appear manly and grown-up before Addie, they could never, walking or bicycling, pass a woman without exchanging a coarse word or phrase or disapproval, like young men-about-town who know all about everything. ”