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Birds can be taught various tunes, and even the unmelodious sparrow has learnt to sing like a linnet. It is remarkable that only small birds properly sing. The Australian genus Menura, however, must be excepted; for the Menura Alberti, which is about the size of a half-grown turkey, not only mocks other birds, but "its own whistle is exceedingly beautiful and varied."

It had troubled him, that recitation, it had seemed to him harsh, unmelodious.... Somehow it seemed to have broken something within him, to have exerted some sort of violence. And those importunate, persistent, almost insolent glances what had caused them? What did they signify?

The house where the wherries were kept was wide open, and, better still, there was a skiff moored by the side of the steps, as if waiting for her; and she had but to take a pair of sculls from the rack and step into the boat, unmoor and away westward, with swiftly dipping oars, in the soft summer silence, broken now and then by sounds of singing a tipsy, unmelodious strain, perhaps, were it heard too near, but musical in the distance as the rise and fall of voices crept along a reach of running water.

A big four-by-five blackboard hung in the cabin, and Harvey never understood the need of it till, after some blinding thick days, they heard the unmelodious tooting of a foot-power fog-horn a machine whose note is as that of a consumptive elephant. They were making a short berth, towing the anchor under their foot to save trouble. "Square-rigger bellowin' fer his latitude," said Long Jack.

"Yet, if you take a little pains for their sake, you will find them as gentle as lambs. Give them a 'heitige striozts, or All Saints Day, and you will secure your object. Such is Mr. Dintenklek." At this point Márton could not refrain from breaking out into an unmelodious "Gassenhauer" the refrain of which was, "Alas! Mr. Dintenklek."

The bare grimy walls and the dim kerosene lamp, even Sam's unmelodious snore in the back room, sent no gloom to his soul. It had been a happy evening.

With difficulty, and sometimes, only after two or three failures, a hymn was raised, which, when in fullest tide, was only a dreary wail, how unmelodious to the ears of unreverential youth, gifted with a sense of the ludicrous! How long, how sad, how pointless the prayers!

I hear under my window the sprint of over-tired horses, the rattle of uncertain wheels as the street-sellers hasten south; the jangle of cab bells as the theatre-goers take their homeward way; the gruff altercation of weary men, the unmelodious song and clamorous laugh of women whose merriment is wearier still.

The Countess of Windsor was by nature full of energetic feeling; but she had very seldom in her life permitted the concentrated emotions of her heart to shew themselves on her features. The studied immovability of her countenance; her slow, equable manner, and soft but unmelodious voice, were a mask, hiding her fiery passions, and the impatience of her disposition.

Here, as he had again taken Sibyll's hand, with the passionate ardour of his bold nature, not to be lightly daunted by a maiden's first "No," a sudden shrill, wild burst of laughter, accompanied with a gusty fit of unmelodious music from the street below, made both maiden and youth start, and turn their eyes; there, weaving their immodest dance, tawdry in their tinsel attire, their naked arms glancing above their heads, as they waved on high their instruments, went the timbrel-girls.