A Quote by David Lack

On consideration, it is not surprising that Darwin's finches should recognize their own kind primarily by beak characters. The beak is the only prominent specific distinction, and it features conspicuously both in attacking behaviour, when the birds face each other and grip beaks, and also in courtship, when food is passed from the beak of the male to the beak of the female. Hence though the beak differences are primarily correlated with differences in food, secondarily they serve as specific recognition marks, and the birds have evolved behaviour patterns to this end.

David Lack

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Also Attacking Beaks Behaviour Birds Both Characters Consideration Courtship Darwin Differences Distinction Each End Evolved Face Features Female Finches Food Grip Hence Kind Male Marks Only Other Own Passed Patterns Primarily Prominent Recognition Recognize Serve Should Specific Surprising Though

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David Lack
July 16, 1910 - March 12, 1973

Night was falling. Birds were singing. Birds were, it occurred to me to say, enacting a frantic celebration of day's end. They were manifesting as the earth's bright-colored nerve endings, the sun's descent urging them into activity, filling them individually with life nectar, the life nectar then being passed into the world, out of each beak, in the form of that bird's distinctive song, which was, in turn, an accident of beak shape, throat shape, breast configuration, brain chemistry: some birds blessed in voice, others cursed; some squeaking, others rapturous.

George Saunders

The Mercy of Allah is an Ocean, Our sins are a lump of clay clenched between the beak of a pigeon. The pigeon is perched on the branch of a tree at the edge of that ocean.It only has to open it's beak

Leila Aboulela

I sit in my tree I sing like the birds My beak is my pen My songs are my poems.

David Almond

A water snake glided smoothly up the pool, twisting its periscope head from side to side; and it swam the length of the pool and came to the legs of a motionless heron that stood in the shadows. A silent head and beak lanced down and plucked it out by the head, and the beak swallowed the little snake while its tail waved frantically.

John Steinbeck

Old birds like Orlovius are wonderfully easy to lead by the beak, because a combination of decency and sentimentality is exactly equal to being a fool.

Vladimir Nabokov

Can you imagine any better example of divine creative accomplishment that the consummate flying machine that is a bird? The skeleton, very flexible and strong, is also largely pneumatic - especially in the bigger birds. The beak, skull, feet, and all the other bones of a 25-pound pelican have been found to weigh but 23 ounces.

Guy Murchie

Birds are flyin' south for winter. Here's the Weird-Bird headin' north, Wings a-flappin', beak a-chatterin', Cold head bobbin' back 'n' forth. He says, "It's not that I like ice Or freezin' winds and snowy ground. It's just sometimes it's kind of nice To be the only bird in town.

Shel Silverstein

The child is born speaking the languages of birds; the child has horns and scales and wings; it has a beak; it has a cloven hoof. He is the sum of all creatures: the ones that swim, the ones that soar, the ones that leap, the ones that maze the earth with burrows.

Rikki Ducornet

That particular octopus committed suicide, didn't he? He stabbed himself with his own beak.

Richard Madeley

A pen is to me as a beak is to a hen.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Sharp is the kiss of the falcon's beak.

Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

The hawk's cry is as sharp as its beak.

Edward Abbey

Jealousy is not contemptible, real love has a beak and claws.

Simone de Beauvoir

Thoth's beak! You are impossibley stubborn." "Yeah, it's a gift.

Rick Riordan

A wonderful bird is a pelican, His bill will hold more than his belican. He can take in his beak Food enough for a week; But I'm damned if I see how the helican.

Dixon Lanier Merritt

The Florida Gator head - It's not only heavy, it's kind of awkward in the front. It had that long beak. I put it on, and it rubbed the top of my head raw.

Lee Corso

A Quote by David Lack

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