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Carnivorous   Listen
adjective
Carnivorous  adj.  Eating or feeding on flesh. The term is applied:
(a)
to animals which naturally seek flesh for food, as the tiger, dog, etc.;
(b)
to plants which are supposed to absorb animal food;
(c)
to substances which destroy animal tissue, as caustics.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Carnivorous" Quotes from Famous Books



... not capable of strong attachment to man, but that he is a selfish brute, for however kindly he may be treated, where is the horse that will stay, like the dog, at the side of his master to the last, although hunger and thirst are upon him, and who, though carnivorous himself, will yet guard the hand that has fed him and expire upon its post? but, turn the horse loose at night, and where will you find him in the morning, though your life depended on ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... circle, concealing his head upon his breast under his huge paws, and uttered a low growl, half menacing, half plaintive. Had we had powder to waste, we would certainly have rid the gramnivorous from many of their carnivorous neighbours, but we were now entering a tract of country celebrated for the depredations of the Texans and Buggles free bands, and every charge of powder thrown away was a chance the less, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... innumerable ills of the flesh known under the caption of "malarial," were due to causes hitherto unsuspected, though obvious when revealed,—to the existence in the atmosphere of a venomous insect, in comparison with the work of which the ravages on mankind of the entire carnivorous and reptile creation were of comparatively small account. The mosquito flew disclosed, the atmospheric viper,—a viper most venomous and deadly. How was the disclosure brought about? What was the remedy applied? ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams

... society we now have reached, it is difficult to conceive of a people subsisting merely on bread and vegetables. Such a nation if it existed would certainly be subjected by carnivorous enemies, as the Hindoos were, to all who ever chose to attack them. If not it would be converted by the cooks of its neighbors as the Beotiens were, after the ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin

... had paused, crouching suddenly like a carnivorous beast, balked of its prey. There of a truth was the pavilion, but on the steps three men were standing, talking volubly and in whispers. Two of these men carried stable lanterns, and were obviously guiding their companion up to the ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy

... canine teeth in the adult would seem to indicate a carnivorous propensity; but in no state save that of domestication do they manifest it. At first they reject flesh, but easily acquire a fondness for it. The canines are early developed, and evidently designed to act the important part of weapons of defence. ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various

... division, and the best contemporary British authority, Dr. Latham, also makes three groups, although he varies somewhat in details from Cuvier. In accordance with the nomenclature of Latham, the Eskimo may be spoken of as Hyperborean Mongolidae of essentially carnivorous and ichthyophagous habits, who have not yet emerged from the ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse

... from city to city, like a bag of wheat or a cask of wine. He would dwell in pretentious and monumental hotels, where he would be numbered like a convict; he would meet the same carnivorous English family, with whom he might have made a tour of the world without exchanging one word; swallowing every day the tasteless soup, old fish, tough vegetables, and insipid wine which have an international reputation, so to speak. But above all, he was to have the horror, every evening ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... papa's dog: you will recognize these teeth by their rather curved points. They are longer than the rest, and are called fangs. I do not know, after all, why they have chosen to name these teeth canine, as all carnivorous animals have the same fangs, and in the lion, the tiger, and many other species, they are much more developed and sharper than in the dog. In cats they are like little nails. However, the name is given, and we ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace

... and pick up all he could gather, when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his right ankle, and to his horror found that a tremendous shoal of the tiny carnivorous fish had come up the river, dimming the clear water like a cloud of silvery mud, and with a sharp cry he turned to escape to ...
— Old Gold - The Cruise of the "Jason" Brig • George Manville Fenn

... ourselves as living a maimed and imperfect life. Furthermore, we see that nature teaches us the same lesson.[747] For as she provides different kinds of beasts with different kinds of food, and has not made all carnivorous, or seed-pickers, or root-diggers, so she has given to mankind various means of getting a livelihood, "one by keeping sheep, another by ploughing, another by fowling,"[748] and another by catching the fish of the sea. We ought each therefore to select the calling appropriate for ourselves and ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch

... large quantities of animal food, however free from disease germs, has a tendency to develop the animal propensities to a greater or less degree, especially in the young, whose characters are unformed. Among animals we find the carnivorous the most vicious and destructive, while those which subsist upon vegetable foods are by nature gentle and tractable. There is little doubt that this law holds good among men as well as animals. If we study the character and lives ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... days, and sent forth the dove which returned not again unto him any more.' This narrative, though simple in its style, is expressive and beautiful. There is an eloquent charm which, while it touches the chords of truth, makes the heart respond to the tale. The raven would find sufficient for its carnivorous appetite in the floatage of the animal remains, on the briny flood, and would return to roost on the ark; but it was far different with Noah's bird, so long as the waters prevailed, there could be no pause for her weary wing, and the messenger would return to the ark. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various

... Europe, but now ornamented by the luxurious vegetation developed by the heat of a burning climate, the boundless pastures on which herds of great elephants, the active horse, the robust hippopotamus, and great carnivorous animals grazed and roamed, became covered with a ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... horrible monster. He saw every feature and every line of the face distinctly as it gazed on him with an intensity that was hardly brookable. Its eyes were fixed on him, in the same manner as those of some carnivorous animal fixed on its prey; and yet there was fear and trembling in these unearthly features, as plainly depicted as murderous malice. The giant apparition seemed sometimes to be cowering down as in terror, so that nothing but his brow and eyes were seen; still these never turned one ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg

... exposed not only to terrible fatigue, but to hunger, thirst, and fierce carnivorous animals. It appeared impossible that they could ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid

... the Grasshoppers. This is a legitimate acquisition on their part, not an illegal seizure of the food-stores of others. No one, as far as I am aware, had as yet suspected the true parasitism of a carnivorous Meloid. It is nevertheless very remarkable to find in the Blister-beetles, on both sides of the Atlantic, this weakness for the flavour of Locust: one devours her eggs; the other a representative of the order, in the shape of the Praying ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre

... soul is like; it is a face such as can be seen nowhere but on the racecourse or in the betting-club: the last trace of high thought has vanished, and, though the men may laugh and indulge in verbal horse-play, there is always something carnivorous about their aspect. They are sharp in a certain line, but true intelligence is rarely found among them. Strange to say, they are often generous with money if their sentimental side is fairly touched, ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman

... raised her hands and eyes in horror at our carnivorous propensities, to which she clearly attributed the disappearance of Lorna, I could scarce help laughing, even after that sad story. For though it is said at the present day, and will doubtless be said hereafter, that the Doones had devoured a baby once, ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... going back to any mycological or cryptogamic forms, to follow down an ever-changing vital plexus that is as likely to land in a buttonwood tree as an oak, or in a hemlock as a pine,—in fact, quite as likely to land in a carnivorous animal as in an insectivorous plant. "Let the earth bring forth," is still the eternal fiat,—just as implicitly obeyed to-day as it was in the world's primeval history, when an exuberance of endogenous ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright

... motives to those governing the Parsees actuated those of the North American Indians who deposit their dead on scaffolds and trees, but the theory becomes untenable when it is recollected that great care is taken to preserve the dead from the ravages of carnivorous birds, the corpse being carefully enveloped in skins and firmly tied up with ropes ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow

... even with millions or countless money at his command he could not purchase from this carnivorous brute the life and liberty of the son of King Louis. No amount of bribery would accomplish that; it would have to be ingenuity pitted against animal force, the wiliness of the fox against the power of ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy

... carnivorous friends be afraid of it. A good deal of nonsense is talked (by meat-eaters I mean, of course) about the properties of food, and they would have us believe that they eat a beef-steak mainly because it contains ...
— New Vegetarian Dishes • Mrs. Bowdich

... series of experiments was forthwith set on foot, with the result of proving that sun-dews and a number of other plants obtain the bulk of their nourishment by catching, killing, and digesting insects. They may be called truly carnivorous plants. What an unexpected reversal this was of the order of things hitherto believed to prevail universally. Animals live on other animals or on plants. Here were plants living on animals, and keeping down their number. Moreover, without a nervous system, the action of the ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany

... aware of the prices of things to eat, and was taught the relative virtues of nutriment. Perforce a vegetarian, he found that a vegetable diet was good for his health, and delivered to himself many a scornful speech on the habits of the carnivorous multitude. He of necessity abjured alcohols, and straightway longed to utter his testimony on a teetotal platform. These were his satisfactions. They compensate astonishingly for the loss of ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing

... left his insecure place, and crawled, with stoppages, along the poop. In the dark and on all fours he resembled some carnivorous animal prowling amongst corpses. At the break, propped to windward of a stanchion, he looked down on the main deck. It seemed to him that the ship had a tendency to stand up a little more. The wind had eased a little, ...
— The Nigger Of The "Narcissus" - A Tale Of The Forecastle • Joseph Conrad

... intervention of a dynamo—suppose them to lay up in this way a store of potential energy capable of heating the boilers of a second order of engines, representing the graminivorous animal. It is obvious without proceeding to a tertiary or carnivorous order, that the condition of energy in the animal world may be supposed fulfilled in these successive series of engines, and no violation of the principles governing the actions going on in our machines assumed. Organisms evolving on similar principles would experience loss at every transfer. ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... worked with an allotment of stenographers and clerks. She had an assistant, too; at least, she confiscated him from the press department—one Leon Greenberg, a young night student from New York University, with an enormous profile rendered positively carnivorous of thrust by his struggle up from First Street and Avenue A, which is mire with ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst

... limp, paralyzed, spider giant to her nest hole not far distant—a great hole twelve inches deep and with a side chamber at the bottom. There she would have thrust him down the throat of the burrow, and then crawled in and laid an egg on the helpless beast, from which in time would have hatched the carnivorous wasp grub. Pepsis has many close allies among the wasps, all black or steely blue with smoky or dull-bronze wings, and they all use spiders, stung and paralyzed, to store their ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... be part of the proof of the major premise. But if we have not examined all ruminants, having omitted most giraffes, most deer, most oxen, etc., how do we know that the unexamined (say, some camels) are not exceptional? Camels are vicious enough to be carnivorous; and indeed it is said that Bactrian camels will eat flesh rather than starve, though of course their habit ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... thing that grew there, a huge ball with a thousand stinging tentacles. A carnivorous plant. Even as the realization flashed across his mind he saw that the spiny sphere was opening. Split vertically, the two halves fell apart to disclose the steaming interior whose walls were lined with sharp dagger-like projections ...
— The Copper-Clad World • Harl Vincent

... the bay in their boats, and they knew that Henty's men were going to feed on fresh meat, while all the rest were eating such awful stuff as Yankee pork and salt horse. The very sight of the two sides of the heifer suspended at the flagstaff was an unendurable insult and mockery to the carnivorous whalers, and an incitement to larceny. Davy Fermaner was steering one of the boats, and he exclaimed: "There, they are flashing the fresh meat to us. They would look foolish if ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... found a preventative to their ascending the tree. This application, whenever ants appear, will have the desired effect; but whether these insects are injurious to the tree or not, is to be doubted upon this principle, namely, that the ant, being excessively carnivorous, is instinctively led to the orange tree in quest of the eggs, exuviae, larvae, etc. of some very minute insect, whose eggs are attached to the leaves by a glutinous substance, emitted by themselves in such quantity as to discolour the leaf, the pores ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... leucurus) and the Chinese badger (M. chinensis) occur in eastern Asia; and another (M. anacuma) is found in Japan. The American badger (Taxidea americana) ranges over the greater part of the United States, and in habits closely resembles the European species, but seems to be more carnivorous. When badgers were more abundant than they now are, their skins, dressed with the hair attached, were commonly used for pistol furniture. They are now chiefly valued for the hair, that of the European badger being used in the manufacture of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... the scout-master, quickly, "though I'll take a look myself to make sure. Scratches from carnivorous animals are very dangerous on account of the poison that may cling to their claws. It's always best to be on the safe side, and ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... turning-point in his career. Up to this time he had lived entirely on the provisions which his parents had left him, but henceforth he was independent and could take care of himself. He was no longer an embryo; he was a real fish, a genuine Salvelinus fontinalis, as carnivorous as the biggest and fiercest of all his relations. The cleft in his breast might close up now, and the last remnant of his yolk-sac vanish forever. He was done with it. He had graduated from the nursery, and had found his place on ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert

... infantum, or diarrhoea of infants, is generally owing to too great acidity in their bowels. Milk is found curdled in the stomachs of all animals, old as well as young, and even of carnivorous ones, as of hawks. (Spallanzani.) And it is the gastric juice of the calf, which is employed to curdle milk in the process of making cheese. Milk is the natural food for children, and must curdle in their stomachs ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... skin on the shoulder of the boar is a defence only against animals of his own species, who strike obliquely upwards, nor are his tushes for other purposes, except to defend himself, as he is not naturally a carnivorous animal. So the horns of the stag are sharp to offend his adversary, but are branched for the purpose of parrying or receiving the thrusts of horns similar to his own, and have therefore been formed for the purpose of combating other stags for the exclusive possession of the females, who are ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin

... carnivorous animal. This none but greengrocers will dispute. That he was formerly less vegetarian in his diet than at present, is clear from the fact that market-gardening increases in the ratio of civilization. So we may safely assume that at some remote period Man subsisted ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... have already seen, bears have the same dental formula as dogs, but as they are less carnivorous, their grinders have flatter surfaces and the sectorials are less sharp; in fact they have very little of the true sectorial character. It is unusual to find a full set of teeth in adult bears, as some of ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... conferred by which we hold The flesh of animals in fee, and claim, O'er all we feed on, power of life and death. But read the instrument, and mark it well; The oppression of a tyrannous control Can find no warrant there. Feed then, and yield Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through sin, Feed on the slain, but ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper

... acknowledge, but a man who writes for money does not always write for fame; rapid writing and much more rapid publishing is a vast evil, but one which is too often unavoidable. I have four or five drawings of fish, one of the spotted carnivorous carp, the most carnivorous type of all except Opsarion, and perhaps a new subgenus; {0b} one of the Sir-i-Chushme and Khyber Oreinus, and a Perilamp with two long cirrhi on the upper lip. I intend in my travels now I am alone, to stop ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... yes, I see. They are not lights, my unsophisticated youth, they are the eyes of an animal—a carnivorous animal, I judge, by the look of them—which has come down to the river to drink, and is doubtless wondering who and what the dickens ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... their more or less pronounced proclivities for seizing our domestic poultry, and consequently many people will fire upon a hawk or an owl who would probably fire upon no other bird. By living close to man the sparrow is largely saved from the danger of capture by these carnivorous creatures, and this is the first and a very important element of the advantage to the sparrow of living near man. But there is the additional advantage that man scatters about him, in one way or another, a very considerable amount of waste food. I have suggested that the seeds in the ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker

... Pope is more accurate than the poet he translates, for Homer writes "a prey to dogs and to all kinds of birds. But all kinds of birds are not carnivorous. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... walkers, with stout feet adapted for the purpose. Fond of shifting their residence at different seasons rather than strictly migratory, for, except at the northern limit of range, they remain resident all the year. Gregarious. Sexes alike. Omnivorous feeders, being partly carnivorous, as are also the jays. Both crows and jays inhabit wooded country. Their voices are harsh and clamorous; and their habits are boisterous and bold, particularly the jays. Devoted mates; unpleasant neighbors. Common Crow. Fish Crow. Northern Raven. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan

... always follow them, they station on their outposts, the old bulls. The age to which a buffalo may attain is not known; but, it is certain that they are generally long-lived when not prematurely cut off. When their powers of life begin to fade, they fall an easy prey to the small, carnivorous animals of the plains. The attempt has been made to domesticate and render them useful for agricultural purposes. Hitherto such efforts have invariably failed. When restrained of their freedom, they are reduced to mere objects ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters

... the actual condition of things that the young men and women find when they have burnt their boats, have left the country for the illusory joys of the town. There may be greater possibilities of enjoyment; but this huge, carnivorous plant—this gigantic city of London—has only displayed its attractions in order to gain its prey. They are drawn by the colours of the petals, they come to the honeyed perfume of its scent; but once caught in the prison of its embrace, ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston

... animals of the feathered tribe assemble round—I will not say round carrion or a carcass, for Mr Chuzzlewit is quite the contrary—but round their prey; their prey; to rifle and despoil; gorging their voracious maws, and staining their offensive beaks, with every description of carnivorous enjoyment!' ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens

... for the whole country. The Indians have no geographical terms for districts. They name a hill, a river, or a fall, but do not deal in generics. Some a priori reasoning seems constrained, where the facts are granted, as this: All animals at Nova Zembla, it is said, are carnivorous, ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... which she has loaded him, and in the slender means, which she affords to the relieving these necessities. In other creatures these two particulars generally compensate each other. If we consider the lion as a voracious and carnivorous animal, we shall easily discover him to be very necessitous; but if we turn our eye to his make and temper, his agility, his courage, his arms, and his force, we shall find, that his advantages hold proportion with his wants. The ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume

... Swiftwater, "you've killed the largest meat-eating critter, in the world—carnivorous I think ye call it. There's none bigger than the big brown bear of Alaska. Some say he isn't so fierce as the grizzly, but he is nearly twice as big, and there's certain seasons that he'll fight at the drop of the hat, as the sayin' goes. I never see one so far ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor

... [7] The cabinets of Europe can, as yet, boast only of the larger species from tropical climates. It is sufficient to disturb the composure of an entomologist's mind, to look forward to the future dimensions of a complete catalogue. The carnivorous beetles, or Carabidae, appear in extremely few numbers within the tropics: this is the more remarkable when compared to the case of the carnivorous quadrupeds, which are so abundant in hot countries. I was struck with this observation both on entering Brazil, and when I ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin

... owing to a plug of terra-cotta-coloured clay. Upon the spout being probed the gush of gas expelled a quantity of clay and thirty-five small spiders, representative of about six different species. The spout had been converted into a nursery and larder by a carnivorous wasp, for in addition to the moribund spiders stored for the sustenance of future grubs were several unhatched eggs. Such wasps are exceedingly common, some building "nests" as large as a tea-cup, the last compartment being fitted with an elegantly fashioned funnel, the purpose of which is not obvious. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield

... followed the brain storm in the kitchen put Belle, quite unsuspecting, to sleep. Laramie, with a tread creditable to a cat—and a stealth natural to most carnivorous animals—closed the door without breaking her heavy breathing. The shades, always drawn at nightfall, called for no attention. In the living-room, there was preliminary tiptoeing, and there were futile efforts on Kate's part to cool her rebellious cheeks by ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... facts of evolution is that each type of animal tends to multiply to such an extent as to occupy the whole earth and adapt itself to all possible conditions. In the Secondary period reptiles so adapted themselves: there were oceanic reptiles, flying reptiles, herbivorous reptiles, carnivorous reptiles. At the present day the Chelonia alone include oceanic, fresh-water, and terrestrial forms. Birds again have adapted themselves to oceanic conditions, to forests, plains, deserts, fresh waters. Mammals have repeated the process. The organs of ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... possibly the "musbilai" or mouse-cat of Behar, which preys upon birds and fish. Could it be the Urva of the Nepalese (Urva cancrivora, Hodgson), which Mr. Hodgson describes as dwelling in burrows, and being carnivorous and ranivorous?—Vide Journ. As. Soc. Beng., vol. vi. ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent

... the following day, he caused some negroes to come from the island of Babaguey, whom he joined with his own, and putting himself at their head, he thought he would soon return with the skin of the tiger. But the carnivorous animal did not appear during all that night; he contented himself with uttering dismal howlings in the midst of the woods. My father being called to Senegal by some of his friends, left us on the morrow. Before going, he strictly ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... highly creditable to the people, considering their uncivilised state; and the graves are frequently visited by the relatives of the deceased, to repair any injury, which they may have sustained from the violence of the rains, or the attacks of carnivorous animals. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... the fumes of incense full, With parasites tickled, with slaves begirt, He strutted, a cock, he bellowed, a bull, He rolled him, a dog, in dirt. And dog, bull, cook, was he, fanged, horned, plumed; Original man, as philosophers vouch; Carnivorous, cannibal; length-long exhumed, Frightfully living and armed to devour; The primitive weapons of prey in his pouch; The bait, the line and the hook: To feed on his fellows intent. God of the Danae shower, He had but to follow ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... as in duty bound, expressed the pity she felt for anybody placed in such a distressing situation; and the carnivorous Mrs. Bloss proceeded to arrange the various preliminaries with wonderful despatch. 'Now mind,' said that lady, after terms were arranged; 'I am to have the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens

... susceptible hearts might be crushed through conscientious compliance. It maddened Oswald that this lovely girl, with all her perfections of mind, face, and form, should be cast, like a common worm, into the great, vulgar, carnivorous mouth of human want. If Christ's ultimate aim were alleviation of physical suffering, why not feed and heal all earth's hungry, diseased millions, through diviner, broad-gauged philanthropy than lagging processes of ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee

... oxen had been confined for many years; which task he accomplished in one day, by turning the rivers Alpheus and Peneus through the stables. For certain reasons this exploit was not counted. His sixth was to destroy the carnivorous birds, with brazen wings, beaks, and claws, which ravaged the country near the lake Stymphalis, in Arcadia. The seventh was to bring alive to Peloponnesus a bull, remarkable for its beauty and strength, which Poseidon had given to ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... Eumenes, king of Pergamus, visited Rome after the war with Antiochus, and was received with honor by the Senate, and splendidly entertained by the nobles, Cato was indignant at the respect paid to the monarch, refused to go near him, and declared that "kings were naturally carnivorous animals." He had an antipathy to physicians, because they were mostly Greeks, and therefore unfit to be trusted with Roman lives. He loudly cautioned his eldest son against them, and dispensed with their attendance. When Athens sent three celebrated philosophers, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence

... F. R. S.: "The teeth of man have not the slightest resemblance to those of carnivorous animals; and, whether we consider the teeth, jaws, or digestive organs, the human structure closely resembles ...
— The Golden Age Cook Book • Henrietta Latham Dwight

... of late years, as innovations often precede a catastrophe, two new things were introduced, vegetables and women. Both were respectable and both were good, but it was felt, especially by the virtuous Smurthwaite, that they were 'de trop' in a place so masculine and so carnivorous." ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... twenty-six animals are peculiar to this small island, and have not yet been detected elsewhere. Amongst those thus limited in their geographical range are the tiger and devil of the colonists, the two largest indigenous Australian carnivorous quadrupeds. ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... details! Allow that the great duty of the insect tribe is to cleanse the earth and atmosphere from countless impurities noxious to the human race, how great a plague would our benefactors themselves become were it not for the various classes of carnivorous insects who prey upon them, and are in their turn the prey of others! It is a grand principle of continual strife, which keeps all and each ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... readily attracted by them; for he is not one of those egotistic geniuses whose thoughts are fixed on his own interests, nor has he one of those carnivorous minds that sees nothing, looks for nothing, and relishes nothing, unless it may be afterwards useful to it. His sympathies are readily with others, he is happy in giving homage to their greatness, and quick to appreciate their charm. He speaks somewhere ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... know him even attempt a jest. On hearing an intelligent but somewhat eccentric neighbour observe, that "all flesh is grass," in a strictly physical sense, seeing that all the flesh of the herbivorous animals is elaborated from vegetation, and all the flesh of the carnivorous animals from that of the herbivorous ones, Uncle Sandy remarked that, knowing, as he did, the piscivorous habits of the Cromarty folk, he should surely make an exception in his generalization, by admitting that in at ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... ark landed on Mount Ararat, and the animals went forth, how did they subsist? As they went down the mountains, the carnivorous animals would have devoured a large portion of the herbivorous animals saved in the ark. Beside the lions, tigers, leopards, ounces, and other carnivorous mammals, amounting to eight hundred and ninety-two, there were ...
— The Deluge in the Light of Modern Science - A Discourse • William Denton

... devoured by wild beasts haunted me, though in truth I had little of this fate to fear. The only carnivorous beasts on the desert are wolves, but as game is abundant, and can be caught with ordinary exertion, they have no occasion to feed upon men. About midnight my fears were roused by my pony taking alarm at the approach of some wild beast. He snorted and pulled at his rope, and had ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... a very formidable set of teeth suitable for his carnivorous diet. The Weddell, living on fish, has a more simple group, but these are liable to become very worn in old age, due to his habit of gnawing out holes in the ice for himself, so graphically displayed on Ponting's cinematograph. When he feels death approaching, the crab-eating ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... treacherous animal of the carnivorous order, a cross between a lynx and a fox. Along with a copious and easy flow of language, he had a veneer of education which helped his cunning. He made a point of excessive politeness, and had great powers of persuasion, even with the objects ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... this all fable, Mr. Tomkins most kindly produced, on the table, A sample of each of these species of creatures, Both tolerably human, in structure and features, Except that the Episcopus seems, Lord deliver us! To've been carnivorous as well as granivorous; And Tomkins, on searching its stomach, found there Large lumps, such as no modern stomach could bear, Of a substance called Tithe, upon which, as 'tis said, The whole Genus Clericum formerly fed; And which having lately himself decompounded, Just to see ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... feet to walk upon—which in many other animals, such as the horse, appear to form part of the legs. With the animal in question the feet were long, black, and armed with white curving claws. Its whole appearance was that of a carnivorous creature—in other words, it was a beast of prey. It was the Wolverene, the ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... leafless, and their branches were stripped of their bark. We could not help looking with painful amazement on the scene of desolation which those small animals had caused. Not only would they, as Ned Gale said, have eaten us up had they been carnivorous, but they might have devoured Pizarro and the army with which he conquered Peru in the course of a night. For miles in advance they had left traces of their visit. We congratulated ourselves on having brought water with us, as we could find none in the neighbourhood. What became of this vast flight ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston

... door of the hurry habit may also be laid the excessive use of flesh foods. Carnivorous animals bolt their food. Frugivorous animals, to which class the human race properly belongs, eat slowly. But when, through the perversions of civilized life, frugivorous man is forced to eat as fast ...
— How to Live - Rules for Healthful Living Based on Modern Science • Irving Fisher and Eugene Fisk

... country, and sick, as I see daily weapons of war about me and men slaughtered like altar-victims; drawing as I do breath infected by rotting corpses; expecting myself a similar fate, (for who can be hopeful when the very atmosphere is weighed down and dusky with the shadow of carnivorous birds?) yet do I cling to my country. For what else would my feeling be, born and bred as I am, and with the not ignoble tombs of my fathers before my eyes? For thee alone does it seem to me that I could neglect my country, and ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury

... with large legs and very large feet. A Spaniard living near Sagada says this animal eats his coffee berries. The other so-called "cat" is named "si'-le" by the Igorot. It is said to be a long-tailed, dark-colored animal, smaller than the in'-yao. It is claimed that this si'-le is both carnivorous and frugivorous. These two animals are trapped at times, and when caught ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... might meet with an adventure with a lion or a leopard in that dark belt of tall trees, under whose impenetrable shade grew the dense thicket that formed such admirable coverts for the carnivorous species, I took a stroll along the awesome place with the gunbearer, Kalulu, carrying an extra gun, and a further supply of ammunition. We crept cautiously along, looking keenly into the deep dark dens, the entrances of which were revealed to us, as we journeyed, expectant ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... and East African carnivorous mammal (Proteles cristatus), in general appearance like a small striped hyena, but with a more pointed muzzle, sharpe ears, and a long erectile mane down the middle line of the neck and back. It is of nocturnal and burrowing habits, and feeds on decomposed animal ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... in that convenient trick of blaming "the old Adam" for our misbehavior than some of us have thought. That most culpable sinner we no longer see as a white-souled adult baby, living on uncooked food in a newmade garden, but as a husky, hairy, highly carnivorous and bloodthirsty biped, just learning his giant strength, and exercising ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... conjectures have some foundation so far as the inaction of Louis XI. is concerned, it is not so as regards Cornelius Hoogworst. There was no inaction there. The silversmith spent the first days which succeeded that fatal night in ceaseless occupation. Like carnivorous animals confined in cages, he went and came, smelling for gold in every corner of his house; he studied the cracks and crevices, he sounded the walls, he besought the trees of the garden, the foundations ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac

... is thought to be comparatively modern. The ancients appear to have been a carnivorous race: they gorged themselves with meat; while the modern man makes larger and larger use of fruits and vegetables, until this generation is doubtless better fed than any that has preceded it. The strawberry and the apple, and such vegetables ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... and depravity, and taken to typify the degrading life of the mountebank. It may also be remembered that this carnivorous beast, which was supposed to carry its young in the mouth and give birth to them through the ear, is numbered among the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... shores, then you may, as the immortal bard exquisitely expresses it, "make a silken purse out of a sow's ear." But mutton, too, invites my Muse. It is calculated that fifteen hundred thousand sheep are annually sacrificed in London to the carnivorous taste of John Bull. "Of roast mutton (as Dr. Johnson says) what remains for me to say? It will be found sometimes succous, and sometimes defective of moisture; but what palate has ever failed to be pleased with a haunch which has ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various

... and happy-go-lucky with us. Little was ever planned, and less was executed. We ate when we were hungry, drank when we were thirsty, avoided our carnivorous enemies, took shelter in the caves at night, and for the rest just sort of played along ...
— Before Adam • Jack London

... differences in certain wild species of the genus. A much more important difference, according to Daubenton,[99] is that the intestines of domestic cats are wider, and a third longer, than in wild cats of the same size; and this apparently has been caused by their less strictly carnivorous diet. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin

... you are but showing a proper scientific reserve," said Challenger, with massive condescension. "I am not myself prepared to go farther than to say in general terms that we have almost certainly been in contact to-night with some form of carnivorous dinosaur. I have already expressed my anticipation that something of the sort might ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle

... density may throw light on the different behavior of gases and fluids and solids, but can it throw any light on the question of why a horse is a horse, and a dog a dog? or why one is an herbivorous feeder, and the other a carnivorous? ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... only carnivorous race we have found that was—civilized, that had a science and was going to come out into space," the doelike one interrupted ...
— The Carnivore • G. A. Morris

... animal murderers, by catching some fish which we broiled to satisfy our carnivorous appetites. It was delightful to float in that tiny boat, gazing through the green canopy of leaves at the great white clouds sailing over like ships upon the sea, listening to the ecstatic trilling of the orioles, and the flute-like melodies of the ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss

... continued to imitate the approved ornaments of its predecessors, till we trace in the productions of this contemporary pottery, the patterns used by the nations of antiquity when just emerging from barbarism. Hunting, the most necessary of arts to the vagrant and carnivorous savage, is the employment celebrated on all these vessels, A stag, followed by ferocious quadrupeds and hungry bipeds, forms their general ornament. I have picked up the same groups among Roman ruins, have often contemplated them in the cabinets ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips

... provision—to endeavour, if possible, to find its justification. Insects lured by the sweetness of the exudation are callously entrapped, and why so? Do the seeds require the presence of animal matter to ensure germination? In that case the tree is indirectly carnivorous, and therefore decidedly entitled to recognition among the curiosities of the island. Is the glutin secreted to secure the wide dispersal of the seeds? If so, the object is largely self-defeated, for seeds by the hundred cling as ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield

... of the infant is the simple stomach of the carnivorous animal, intended for food which shall not need to stay long in that receptacle, but shall be speedily digested; and it is only as the child grows older, and takes more varied food, that the stomach alters somewhat in form, that it assumes a more ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... those domestic breeds which have all been derived from the wild rabbit of Europe known to zoologists as Lepus Cuniculus. The island was a favourable spot for the rabbits, for there do not appear to have been any carnivorous beasts or birds to harry them, nor were there other land mammals competing with them for food; and, as a result, we are told that they had so far increased and multiplied in forty years as to be described as "innumerable." In four and a half centuries these ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle

... future, finding the fossil remains of the sunken 'Captain,' or the plated scales of the 'Comte de Grasse,' firmly embedded in the upheaved ooze of the existing Atlantic, may shake his head in solemn deprecation at the horrid sight, and thank heaven that such hideous carnivorous creatures no longer exist in ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... for diet. They are both carnivorous, and the squirrel, in addition, has its peculiar odorous gland like ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn

... here breaks off, at the moment when Pallil, whose help against the dragon had been invoked, begins to speak. Let us hope we shall recover the continuation of the narrative and learn what became of this carnivorous monster. ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King

... same Almighty Power that formed man from the dust, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, to call the eel into a new existence, with a knowledge of the treatment he had undergone, and he found that the instinctive disposition which man has in common with other carnivorous animals, which inclines him to cruelty, was not the sole cause of his torments; but that men did not attend to consider whether the sufferings of such insignificant creatures could be lessened: that eels were not ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... a drink of water; though with carnivorous eyes he saw the pretty speckled trout glide through the brown pool where he dipped his hand; and he crossed the creek over a fallen tree, ascending to the eastward. He could not be insensible to the beauty ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe

... fundamental role and constitute the nucleus of society. In the anthropoid ape we already find the family, but not the clan. This must also have been the case with the pithecanthropoids and other extinct transitory forms. In fact, the lowest savages still live as isolated families like the carnivorous mammals, rather than in clans or tribes. This is the case, for example, with the Weddas of Ceylon, the indigenes of Terra del Fuego, the aboriginal Australians, the Esquimaux and certain Indians of Brazil. In this way they ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... human race may sink through war, disease, or isolation. And if we are to draw inferences about the origin of marriage from the practice of barbarous nations, we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much right to argue from what ...
— The Republic • Plato

... to men if they drink it, is most agreeable and sweet to fishes. Swine also prefer to wash in vile filth rather than in pure clean water. Furthermore, some 56 animals eat grass and some eat herbs; some live in the woods, others eat seeds; some are carnivorous, and others lactivorous; some enjoy putrified food, and others fresh food; some raw food and others that which is prepared by cooking; and in general that which is agreeable to some is disagreeable and fatal to ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick

... only politely trifling hitherto with the wing of a fowl or so, to keep the ladies' company. But now, as old Captain Phillips, at the head of the table, cuts a slice and a joke alternately, and the Tiger at the bottom begins to let out his carnivorous propensities, one gets to have an idea what breakfast means. "Let me advise you, my dear Mr Dawson—as a friend—you'll excuse an old stager—if you have no particular wish to starve yourself—you've had nothing yet but two cups of tea—to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... from the table of my dining-room, I'll take away all tasty joints and entrees. All sorts of meat, all forms of animal diet That the carnivorous cook hath gathered there: And, by commandment, will entirely live Within the bounds of vegetable food, Unmixed with savoury matters. Yes, by heaven! O most pernicious Meat! O Mutton, beef, and pork, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various

... that you will eat the horse," answered the Frenchman, who was a bit of a naturalist. "He is graminivorous; you are carnivorous. He can't eat you, but you ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... the hog for this species of food proves that in a state of nature it is partially a carnivorous animal. The peccary, which is the true representative of the wild hog in America—has the very same habit, and is well-known to be one of the most fatal enemies of the serpent tribe to be found ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... the Madagascar squib (A description of a carnivorous plant supposed to subsist on human beings.) quite gravely, and when I found it stated that Felis and Bos inhabited Madagascar, I thought it was a false story, and did not perceive it was a hoax till ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin

... which the plant-eating kangaroo and the carnivorous opossum (Figure 2.272) are the best known, differ a good deal in structure, shape, and size, and correspond in many respects to the various orders of Placentals. Most of them live in Australia, and a small part of the Australian and East Malayan islands. There is now not a single living Marsupial ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel

... American deer: "Our common American deer, in winter-time, is half-starved for lack of vegetation in the woods; the low temperature, snow, and ice, make his conditions of life harder for lack of the proper amount of food, whereby he becomes an easier prey to carnivorous animals. He has difficulty even in preserving life. In spring he sheds his winter coat, and is provided with a suit of lighter hair, and while this is going on the male grows antlers for defence. The female about this time is far along ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... study would at once convince us that, among the orders of placental mammals, neither the Whales, nor the hoofed creatures, nor the Sloths and Ant-eaters, nor the carnivorous Cats, Dogs, and Bears, still less the Rodent Rats and Rabbits, or the Insectivorous Moles and Hedgehogs, or the Bats, could claim our 'Homo', ...
— On the Relations of Man to the Lower Animals • Thomas H. Huxley

... enemies the two men were menaced by peril from wild beasts as well. Panthers prowled among the hills, great Himalayan bears, a blow from the paw of one of which would crack a man's skull, wandered on the jungle-clad slopes and, though not carnivorous, were always ready to attack human beings. Herds of wild elephants, which had scaled the mountains into Bhutan at the beginning of the Monsoon to reach the northern face of the Himalayas and escape the heavy rains that deluge the southern slopes ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly

... cave. He seated himself grimly at the opening to wait for daybreak. He was not easy in his mind. There had been two Tubes to the Fifth-Dimension world. One had been made by Jacaro for his gunmen. That was now held by the men of the Golden City, as was proved by carnivorous lizards and the Death Mist that had come down it. The other was now blown up or, worse, in the hands of the Ragged Men. In any case Tommy and Evelyn were isolated upon a strange planet in a strange universe. ...
— The Fifth-Dimension Tube • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... principles already laid down be true, it cannot reasonably be maintained that a child's mouth without teeth, and that of an adult, furnished with the teeth of carnivorous and graminivorous animals, are designed by the Creator for the same sort of food. If the mastication of solid food, whether animal or vegetable, and a due admixture of saliva, be necessary for digestion, then solid ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.

... the crouching panther. M. Delegorgue observes that the feeble bird probably seeks aid in removing carrion for the purpose of picking up flies and worms; he acquits him of malice prepense, believing that where the prey is, there carnivorous beasts may ...
— First footsteps in East Africa • Richard F. Burton

... delicate and dangerous thing is the art of eating in these carnivorous larvae supplied with a single victim, which they have to spend a fortnight in consuming, on the express condition of not killing it until the very end! Could our physiological science, of which, with good reason, we are so proud, describe, without ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre

... he had beaten off the Hyena-swine with the handle of his whip, and he and Montgomery were keeping away the excited carnivorous Beast People, and particularly M'ling, from the still quivering body. The hairy-grey Thing came sniffing at the corpse under my arm. The other animals, in their animal ardour, jostled me to get a ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... may come as something of a shock if I say that the bird that is selected for the comparison is not really the eagle, but one which, in our estimation, is of a very much lower order—viz. the carnivorous vulture. But a poetical emblem is not the less fitting, though, besides the points of resemblance, the thing which is so used has others less noble. Our modern repugnance to the vulture as feeding ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Another, probably a very dangerous animal, was related to our present hog, but stood nearly seven feet high. Others resembled the rhinoceros, camel, tapir, or peccary. All but the peccary are now extinct upon this continent. Of the carnivorous animals there were wolves ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks

... disputed by M. Rene Quinton, who regards the carnivorous and ruminant mammals, as well as certain birds, as subsequent to man (R. Quinton, L'Eau de mer milieu organique, Paris, 1904, p. 435). We may say here that our general conclusions, although very different from ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson

... the anterior extremity of a rib of the right side; and the same part of a rib of the left side; the hinder part of a rib of the right side; and lastly, two hinder portions and one middle portion of ribs, which from their unusually rounded shape, and abrupt curvature, more resemble the ribs of a carnivorous animal than those of a man. Dr. H. v. Meyer, however, to whose judgment I defer, will not venture to declare them to be ribs of any animal; and it only remains to suppose that this abnormal condition has arisen from an unusually powerful development ...
— On Some Fossil Remains of Man • Thomas H. Huxley



Words linked to "Carnivorous" :   predaceous, herbivorous, flora, predacious, insectivorous, carnivorous bat, flesh-eating, zoophagous, carnivore, meat-eating, carnivorous plant, plant, piscivorous



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