O the strange fascination of these half-known half-impassable swamps, infested by reptiles, resounding with the bellow of the alligator, the sad noises of the night-owl and the wild-cat, and the whirr of the rattlesnake, …

Let no comforter delight mine ear / But such a one whose wrongs do suit with mine.

The parrot was sitting on Steve's shoulder.

There are various ways of dealing with the fact that you are suddenly surrounded by creature who can see and would like to eat you, but one way, a molluscan specialty, is to grow a hard shell and live within or beneath it.