Thrips

“ In the case of those insects not involved by a metamorphosis, as discussed above, the structure and habit of both adult and the immature stages differ but little, the development of wings being the principal change, except in the case of the thrips, where there is a definite tendency toward a pupa. ”

“ One day's neglect in watering, one night's frost unforeseen, may ruin hundreds of pounds' worth of goods. The thrip, the mealy bug, the scale, are enemies to be grappled with and fought with incessant vigilance, and the green fly with its legions coming none know whence, appearing at all seasons, must be combated with smoke and Gishurst's compound without intermission.
One day, about noon, or a little after, a stranger came into the nursery gardens, and entering one of the conservatories where was Richard, asked if he could see Mr. Kewe. ”

“ Many a time in my life I have had to do with trifles. When that English gentleman, my father left us, and poor mama broke her heart, a trifle perhaps to him,—and little sister and I lived on a few handfuls of rice a day, given by the poor out of their scanty store, it was a mere trifle, and when the good old faqir gave us a few handfuls of parched grain, it was only a trifle, but life to us, and when Mr. Percy found us in the serai, only a trifle, but what would I have been if that trifling incident had never occurred? ”

“ Then Tibby sits and feasts her eyes on the strange lady’s costume, a poem of harmony in color and fit,—though Tibby does not name it thus,—and feels the contrast between this lady’s attire and her own, marvels at the glittering jewels on her white fingers, and alas, in the girl’s heart, a dormant wild desire springs into active growth. She longs to go with this city-bred woman and have dainty boots and beautiful gowns.
Does the cry which she feels within herself reach the heart of the lady? ”

“ Gruddle, Shody, & Co. got him cheap too.
"What's their charity now?" asked Thripp scornfully.
"It begins at home as usual," replied the skipper. "They have cut you and me down thirty bob a month and Cade a quid."
Thripp sighed, and then swore.
"Well, we have both had our certificates suspended," said Jordan bitterly, "so what can we expect? Men like us are every owner's dogs, and they know it. I'm half a mind to quit."
"I've got a wife," said Thripp, "and I can't put the poor old girl in the workhouse." ”

“ To-day he had claimed Tibby for a ride to the post, and as they came cantering slowly along the soft gray turf, Tibby with her riding-hat tipped back from her wide, smooth forehead, her feline eyes half closed from the sun’s bright rays, her dark hair partly escaped from comb and pin, and fluttering in curled rings about her face, her red lips half parted above the white teeth, she looked to the man a disheveled Hebe, too adorable, too incomprehensible to withstand. ”

“ A very instructive case is the behaviour of the song-thrush when it takes a wood-snail in its beak and hammers it against a stone, its so-called anvil. To a young thrush, which she had brought up by hand, Miss Frances Pitt offered some wood-snails, but it took no interest in them until one put out its head and began to move about. The bird then pecked at the snail's horns, but was evidently puzzled when the creature retreated within the shelter of the shell. ”

“ But old Jordan sighed.
"What's the good of thinking of pure enjoyment when one ain't in the least likely to get the chance of havin' it? We must put up with 'em, Thripp. After all it's only to Gibraltar, and after that we are by ourselves. I hope I shan't explode before then."
And Thripp went away to talk to the engineer, and to try to remember the name of the book in which someone got his deserts. While he was doing that the partners played cards and drank more than was good for them, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. ”

“ One of the shatterings of childish impressions that age too often brings is when we learn by the books that our "merry brown thrush" is no thrush at all, but a thrasher — first cousin to the wrens, in spite of his speckled breast, large size, and certain thrush-like instincts, such as never singing near the nest and shunning mankind in the nesting season, to mention only two. ”

“ Making marks on people's doors,
That's Tibby.
Little shirt-front, snowy-white,
Two green eyes so round and bright,
Velvet body strong and light,
That's Tibby.
Pinky tongue that washes fur,
Every part except his purr,
Sometimes much too bored to stir,
That's Tibby.
Walking so he won't be heard,
Hiding 'neath the ferns preferred,
Watching for a dicky-bird,
Oh, Tibby!
Stretching on the kitchen mat,
Long and lovely, sleek and fat,
Quite a yard of pussy-cat,
My Tibby!
Take what pretty things you see—
Take the cake I've made for tea—
Take my doll, but leave to me
My Tibby! ”

“ If he it was who stole and hid the treasure, and kept the secret all these years, hoping to enjoy the fruits of it alone, why, he was a knave and a villain, say I; and that old hag is little better. What do we care for her vow of vengeance? what is it to us? Tyrrel, now, wants the prisoner for a purpose. This lad knows where the treasure is, and he must give up the secret to us. Once we know where he found it, and if moved where he has stowed it, we shall speedily be rich for the rest of our days. You all know that the forest is getting something too hot for us. ”

“ It really seemed as if Tibby made him fall. You can imagine her delight at his mishap.”
“That is the way of womankind,” said Mr. Wylie, smiling. “They laugh at our downfalls, unless we drag them down with us, which we’re apt to do. Tibby is no exception; but seriously, do not pet her too much, or she may forget what is due to her position in life. She must not appear impertinent.” ”

“ Trix dabbed the stump of her cigarette on the table.
“Well, don’t let her know we think there’s anything wrong. If you want to remain wrapped up in the light-hearted cloak, nothing is more annoying than having any one prying to see what’s underneath,—unless it’s the right person, of course. And we’re not sure that we are—yet. We must just wait till she feels like giving us a peep, if she ever does.”
A silence fell. Miss Tibbutt took up her knitting again. Trix hummed a little air from a popular opera. Presently Miss Tibbutt sighed. Trix left off humming.
“What’s the matter, Tibby?” ”

“ Then one of them answered, after a pause, “I guess so.”
“Why did you do it?” asked Father Thrift.
“Well,” replied the other boy, “most of the birds are no good, anyway. They just eat everything we plant.”
“What of yours have they eaten?” asked Father Thrift.
“The robins have been stealing our cherries,” said the boy, “until we have hardly any left for ourselves. ”

“ And when I asked her if the cobweb were bothering her, she said both it and the bubble had vanished. So, you see!” This last on a note of triumph.
“Hmm,” said Trix ruminative, dubious. “Bubbles have a way of taking up more space than one would imagine, and their bursting sometimes leaves an unpleasant gap. The bursting of this one has left a gap in Pia’s life. You haven’t, by any chance, the remotest notion of its colour?”
“Its colour?” queried Miss Tibbutt.
Trix laughed. “Nonsense, Tibby, angel, nonsense pure and simple. ”

“ William Tyrwhitt came, and I met him at the station, six or seven miles away. He was all strained and springless, like a broken child's toy—"not like that William who, with lance in rest, shot through the lists in Fleet Street." A disputative galley-puller could have triumphed over him morally; a child physically.
The drive in the inn brake, by undulating roads and scented valleys, shamed his cheek to a little flush of self-assertion.
"I will sleep under the vines," he said, "and the grapes shall drop into my mouth."
"Beware," I answered, "lest in King's Cobb your repose should be everlasting. ”

“ Good creature! She tried to pat his neck with her numb fingers. His voice was stronger than hers. Hark! Is that an answering neigh borne to her? She cannot shout, for her voice is spent; but Tempest, good Tempest, is calling for her. She clings with desperate grip to his mane. Is that a voice coming out of the darkness of the snow-world? A roar, deeper than the roar of the storm, sounds in her ears, and she feels herself sinking, sinking, down, down.
“Tibby, Tibby!”
She hears a voice at her side and Donald is clasping 305her and enveloping her in something woolen and warm. ”

“ Yet can I not beleeved bee.”—Old Ballad.
“Do you take trifle?” said Lady Olivia to my poor friend Halloran.
“No, Ma’am, I am reading philosophy,” said Halloran; waking from a fit of abstraction, with about as much consciousness and perception as exists in a petrified oyster, or an alderman dying of a surfeit. Halloran is a fool.
A trifle is the one good thing, the sole and surpassing enjoyment. ”

“ Far down a white avenue she saw Tibby, rapt, and, he thought, unobserved, stealing about from curly trunk to trunk, chewing strange spicy compounds whose properties did not concern him, his ink-stained hands filled with sweet-smelling stems, and she saw him suddenly lie at full length on the springing sod, kicking up his shabby heels luxuriously, hat off, head pressed deep in the rustling colored leaves. ”

“ Persons in Sweden afflicted with epilepsy carry with them a knife having a handle of oak mistletoe, which plant they call Thunder-besom, connecting it with lightning and fire. The thrush is the great disseminator of the parasite. He devours the berries eagerly, and soils, or "missels" his feet with their viscid seeds, conveying them thus from tree to tree, and getting thence the name of missel thrush. ”

“ Tibby, blinded by the storm, and forced to ride with her head bent forward and down, felt her faithful beast stop and whirl half around as a furious blast, chill as the arctic snows, struck them. The icy flakes cut into her flesh like splinters of steel as she lifted her face to look about her. She could see nothing except the whirling deluge of white enveloping her. She was lost, lost.
“O Tempest, good Tempest!” she wailed, “can you see the path no longer? Will not your instincts guide you home? Try again, Tempest! Alas, I 302know not which way to turn you! But go, Tempest, go! ”

“ But the χαλκεὺς is different from the χαλκὶς; and the χαλκεὺς is mentioned by Heraclides, in his Cookery Book; and by Euthydemus, in his book on Cured Fish, who says that they are bred in the country of the Cyzicenes, being a round and circular fish.
But the thrissa is mentioned by Aristotle in his book on Animals and Fishes, in these words—"The following are stationary fish: the thrissa, the encrasicholus, the membras anchovy, the coracinus, the erythrinus, and the trichis." ”

“ Tibby hears the detonation answered by a fainter sound at their left.
“We are all right, child. Alice is signaling us. Try and hold out a little longer.” And Tibby feels the motion of the horse as it sways beneath her, and is dimly conscious of a sense of warmth and relief unutterable. And she forgets the storm, the danger, the oppression of death which was upon her, and sinks away into a half-sleeping state, from which she is aroused only when, at the door of Mark’s home, Donald lifts her from the saddle and carries her into shelter somewhere. ”

“ Meanwhile the thrush is with us, year in year out, singing whenever it can, and persecuting snails in the intervals. For though it is fond of worms, and dotes on the berries of the mountain-ash, it has a perfect passion for snails. If a thrush is in a bush in a garden, and you throw a snail on to the garden path close by it, the thrush is promptly out. ”

“ The Thrush often watched the Cotton-carder at work. Every day after dinner, she went to the cotton tree, and plucked out a fluff of cotton in her beak and hid it away. She went on doing this till at last she had quite a little heap of cotton all of her own. At least, it was not really her own, because she stole it; but then you cannot get policemen to take up a Thrush for stealing, and as men catch Thrushes and put them in a cage all for nothing, it is only fair the birds should have their turn. ”

“ Dirkius had always told us was the sure way to kill him, when he was losing so much blood already. Then the friar turned out Tryphena, on the plea that he must have a nurse who understood his language. As if poor Tryphena, after living thirteen years in France, could not understand the tongue quite enough for any purpose, and as if she did not know better how to take care of Eustace than any one else! ”

“ Children like a pretty companion. Robbie never obeyed Mrs. Harbeck as he does Tibby. But she has remarkable eyes. For some reason she has taken a great dislike to that 31young man with the eye-glasses, on the third floor. It’s amusing to see the look with which she regards him. Yesterday Tibby was waiting at the head of the stairs for Robbie and that man came along and stared at her rather insolently through his glasses. You should have seen Tibby. Her eyes began to dilate like those of a tigress at bay, and she returned his stare. ”

“ Then all the thrushes hopped for joy, and that very day was begun the celebrated Building of the Boat. All their ordinary business fell into arrears. It was the time of year when they should have been pairing, but not a thrush's nest was built except this big one, and so Solomon soon ran short of thrushes with which to supply the demand from the mainland. The stout, rather greedy children, who look so well in perambulators but get puffed easily when they walk, were all young thrushes once, and ladies often ask specially for them. ”