I can compare it to nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an Indian moccasin.
Orville, as he saw my bare feet, "the quills are lying thick around here.
Aaron was puzzled to know how long-parted friends could embrace, when it was suggested that the quills could be depressed or elevated at pleasure.
After amusing ourselves by repeatedly springing his tail and receiving the quills in a rotten stick, we made a slip-noose out of a spruce root, and, after much manoeuvring, got it over his head and led him forth.
Panthers and lynxes have essayed it, but have invariably left off at the first course, and have afterwards been found dead, or nearly so, with their heads puffed up like a pincushion, and the quills protruding on all sides.
It seems to be a set-lock; and you no sooner touch with the weight of a hair one of the quills than the tail leaps up in a most surprising manner, and the laugh is not on your side.
The quills were quickly removed from my hand, when we gave chase.
The heaviestquills are, generally speaking, the best.
The quillsplucked from well-fed living birds have most elasticity, and are least subject to be moth-eaten.
Quills are dressed by the London dealers in two ways; by the one, they remain of their natural colour; by the other, they acquire a yellow tint.
Crow quills for draughtsmen, as well as swan quills, are prepared in the same way.
The yellow tint which gives quills the air of age, is produced by dipping them for a little in dilute muriatic acid, and then making them perfectly dry.
The negroes transport the gold in quills of the ostrich or vulture.
The northern glens pour forth the Vulture-race; Brown tufts of quills their shaded foreheads grace; The claws branch wide, the beak expands for blood, And all the armor imitates the god.
The artist smiled as he sketched in the jaunty quills of the hat, perked at just the right angle to make an effective picture.
So she sat with her eyes closed, because riding backward always made her dizzy, and her head so close to the back of Mary's that the bronze quills would have touched her ear had Mary turned an inch or two farther around in her seat.
A robe with the hair on served as a cloak or as a bed-covering; the shirts were ornamented with porcupine quills of different colors and sometimes by beads, also the moccasins.
The Wild Swans of Hudson's Bay furnish the finest quills used for writing.
They are plucked, poor things, for their feathers as often as five times a year, and for their quills once.
The goose is to be found in almost every country, and its flesh is very good eating; but it is principally for its feathers and quillsthat it is valued here.
Reaching the ground, Quills stopped and stood chattering his defiance.
Swimming was no task to him, for his coat of hollow quills made it impossible for him to sink.
Quick as a flash Quillswhisked around and lashed at the impertinent weapon with his tail.
Being interested in all the kindred of the wild, the man reeled in his line, stood his rod carefully in a bush, and went and shook the tree as hard as he could, to see what Quills would do.
As the long and bitter winter drew on, burying the wilderness under five or six feet of snow and scourging it with storm and iron frost, Quills had many more or less similar encounters with the lynxes, and twice with a surly old black-bear.
Quills glared after him, till his long form had vanished through the trees.
But the healthy flesh, being unpoisoned, soon healed, and Quillswas himself again, except for a certain unaccustomed watchfulness.
While his mother was away feeding, Quills had slept, soundly and silently, for perhaps an hour or more.
He was magnanimous, and Quills never knew that he held on to his little lease of life by favour.
No prowler was prepared to pay the price which Quills would have exacted for his carcase.
This did not trouble Quills directly--a strict vegetarian, he was assured of plenty so long as the forest stood.
Quills was by this time more than half grown up, and, moreover, thanks to his happily selected parentage and his ample nourishment when a baby, he was as big and strong as many a less favoured porcupine achieves to be at maturity.
The quill nibs they sell to fit into ordinary pen-holders are no true quills at all, lacking dignity, and may even lead you into the New Humour if you trust overmuch to their use.
There are quills that would quote you Montaigne and Horace in the hands of a trades-union delegate.
Give soft words," said the old huntsman, who rode on the right hand of our friend Ralph, "or we shall be stuck with quills like porcupines.
Just then Hubert caught his father's glance, and it made each separate hair erect itself: Like quills upon the fretful porcupine.
Should a dog or hungry wolf then snap at it, the quillsget into his mouth, and stick there.
The porcupine can also throw up its back or strike a heavy blow with its tail, driving the quills into the flesh of its enemies.
When the porcupine is feeding or going about, thesequills lie back flat, like hair; but when there is any danger, they stand out straight.
Not a great while ago pens were made of the quills that come out of the wings of the goose, and everybody who wrote used them.
The quills easily break off at their blunt end, and they grow like the hair; so the porcupine has a plenty for use at all times.
Each quill has barbs like a fish-hook, and many an animal has died from the quills working into its flesh after having tried to bite a porcupine.
The birds should be taken before they are really feathered, just when the young quills begin to show, as at that stage they will not notice the change in their diet and manner of feeding.
The little blue quills began to tell of coming feathers, his vigorous chirpings betokened plenty of vocal power, and in due time he grew into a young greenfinch of the most irrepressible and enterprising character.
The writing equipment in Revolutionary days consisted of ink which was of home manufacture from an ink powder, quills and a pen knife, cutting pens from goose quills being an art.
Our American species hasquills about three inches in length.
In European porcupines, the spines or quills attain a length of from ten to twelve inches.
The saints' monopoly, the zealous cluster Which like a porcupine presents a muster And shoots his quills at bishops and their sees, A devout litter of young Maccabees!
His quills and ink-horn and roll of parchment were gone but he still wore the same curious grin that I had noticed earlier in the day.
Beside this lay a handful of quillsand a horn in which he carried his ink.
I once lost a fine Irish greyhound, who was stuck full of quills in this way, although I pulled out hundreds of them from his mouth, head, and different parts of his body, with a pair of pincers.
Nor does she seem to have reserved all her quills for obdurate creditors.
The base of the quills is covered by a series of large feathers, called the wing coverts; and the feathers of the tail are furnished with numerous muscles, by which they can be spread out and folded up like a fan.
A porcupine you mean," said Mary, "the animal those quills come from.
The Strawberry pointed to her moccasins, and then put her finger on the porcupine-quills with which they were embroidered.
They amused themselves selecting all the best of the quills for the Strawberry, and then they went back again to the coolers, to see the sugar which had been made.
The porcupine in its struggles whisked about its tail, sending several of its quills through the blanket, but the rest of its body being unarmed, we managed to press it down until we had tied the blanket tightly round it.
The country people at that time imagined that the quills of the porcupine were weapons which the animal could shoot at those who hunted it.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "quills" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
