释义 |
rice-bird [rice n.2] †1. An East Indian bird (see quot.). Obs.
1704in Churchill's Voy. II. 357/1 The Rice-Bird is of the bigness of one of our Pullets,..with brown feathers on the Body, a red Head, and very large Claws; they live among the Rice. 2. The Paddy bird or Java sparrow.
1743Edwards Nat. Hist. Birds I. i. 41 The Cock Padda or Rice-Bird..is about the Size of a Green-Finch, or rather bigger. 1777Forster Voy. round World II. 568 Rice⁓birds, commonly called paddies (loxia oryzivora). 1841Penny Cycl. XIX. 500/2. 1904 Blackw. Mag. Jan. 243 Java sparrows, rice-birds, and those squawking mynahs. 3. U.S. Any of several small birds found in rice-fields, esp. the bobolink, Dolichonyx oryzivorus.
1731M. Catesby Nat. Hist. Carolina I. 14 The Rice-bird..[is] esteemed in Carolina the greatest delicacy of all other Birds. 1747Phil. Trans. XLIV. 438 Flights of Rice-Birds..go to Carolina annually at the time Rice begins to ripen; and, after growing fat with it, return South back again. 1769Bancroft Guiana 178 The Rice Bird of Guiana has a bill like the former,..and is of nearly the same size. 1832Veg. Subst. Food Man 94 The cultivators of rice in America..suffer..from the depredations of the rice-bird. 1884Harper's Mag. Mar. 620/1 The mouse-hawk..interrupts the flocks of bobolinks or rice-birds in their depredations. 1957O. Breland Animal Friends & Foes ii. 70 Robins, meadowlarks, bobolinks, and even flickers were often served in restaurants as ‘rice birds’. 1958S. A. Grau Hard Blue Sky 17 A yellow and black ricebird whizzed over his head. |