bright-plumaged

Updated: June 13, 2025

'Do not do that, answered the owl, 'but fill the jar from the spring which bubbles close by the fountain with the many-coloured water. Afterwards, go into the aviary opposite the great door, but be careful not to touch any of the bright-plumaged birds contained in it, which will cry to you, each one, that he is the Bird of Truth.

Andrew Lang - The Orange Fairy Book

Let us leave the subject of what Miss Mitford was to those of her day who knew her; a thousand lovely personalities pass away every year and in a little while are no more remembered than the bright-plumaged bird that falls in the tropical forest, or the vanished orchid bloom of which some one has said that the angels in heaven can look on no more beautiful thing.

W. H. (William Henry) Hudson - Afoot in England

Tangled masses of bracken rioted in wild abundance over a velvety green sod, overshadowed by waving magnolias. Through the trees bright-plumaged birds were flitting from branch to branch in songless flight, flashing their brilliant colours through the sunny leaves. In places the water splashed over moss-grown rocks into deep pools.

Robert Cromie - The Crack of Doom

I agreed to aid her desire of a refuge and hiding-place. Of course I could not lodge her in my own apartment, but I induced a female relation of her mother's, an old lady living at Versailles, to receive her, stating her birth, but of course concealing her illegal marriage. "From time to time I went to see her. But one day I found this restless bright-plumaged bird flown.

Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton - The Parisians — Complete

It was a close thing had the enemy been a little smarter they might have had us. As it was, we doubled away under cover of the bush, and were soon out of reach. Now followed a week of rapid trekking, varied with a little shooting now and then at the partridges and bright-plumaged birds that abound in the bushveld, and once relieved by the sight of a magnificent bush fire, a sea of roaring flame.

F. F. (Filippus Fourie) Pienaar - With Steyn and De Wet

Here the new custom of tobacco-smoking was practised, though only by a few sailors who had served on Spanish ships but Frau Van Aken could not endure the acrid smoke and opened the windows, which were filled with blooming pinks, slender stalks of balsam, and cages containing bright-plumaged goldfinches. On the side opposite to the entrance were two closed rooms.

Georg Ebers - The Burgomaster's Wife — Volume 04

Then, slightly swerving eastward on their course, but still in single file, they took the sea and scattered, like beautiful bright-plumaged birds, who from a streamlet float into a lake, and find their way at large according as each wills.

John Addington Symonds - Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, First Series

In another place was an enclosure containing gazelles, ostriches, young giraffes, and other grass-eating animals. Bright-plumaged birds and monkeys filled the tops of the trees, gay balls rose and fell on the jets of the fountains, and child genii and images of the gods in bronze and marble peered from the foliage.

Georg Ebers - Cleopatra — Volume 06

Here the new custom of tobacco-smoking was practised, though only by a few sailors who had served on Spanish ships but Frau Van Aken could not endure the acrid smoke and opened the windows, which were filled with blooming pinks, slender stalks of balsam, and cages containing bright-plumaged goldfinches. On the side opposite to the entrance were two closed rooms.

Georg Ebers - Complete Project Gutenberg Georg Ebers Works

All there were free, gathered to enjoy themselves, each man in his own way; and the natives in their gay colours added to the beauty, without disturbing the peace of the scene, much as the bright-plumaged birds that flitted from tree to tree absorbed in their own affairs.

Victoria Cross - Six Women