All 40 Uses of
specimen
in
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
- With its untold depths, couldn't the sea keep alive such huge specimens of life from another age, this sea that never changes while the land masses undergo almost continuous alteration?†
Chpt 1specimens = examples regarded as typical of their class
- This man was certainly the most wonderful physical specimen I had ever encountered.†
Chpt 1 *specimen = an example regarded as typical of its class
- Maybe these people have gone without fresh meat for a long while, and in that case three healthy, well-built specimens like the professor, his manservant, and me—†
Chpt 1specimens = examples regarded as typical of their class
- The zoophyte branch offered some very unusual specimens from its two groups, the polyps and the echinoderms.†
Chpt 1
- An excitable conchologist would surely have fainted dead away before other, more numerous glass cases in which were classified specimens from the mollusk branch.†
Chpt 1
- Among these exhibits I'll mention, just for the record: an elegant royal hammer shell from the Indian Ocean, whose evenly spaced white spots stood out sharply against a base of red and brown; an imperial spiny oyster, brightly colored, bristling with thorns, a specimen rare to European museums, whose value I estimated at ₣20,000; a common hammer shell from the seas near Queensland, very hard to come by; exotic cockles from Senegal, fragile white bivalve shells that a single breath could pop like a soap bubble; several varieties of watering-pot shell from Java, a sort of limestone tube fringed with leaf†
Chpt 1specimen = an example regarded as typical of its class
- Aside and in special compartments, strings of supremely beautiful pearls were spread out, the electric light flecking them with little fiery sparks: pink pearls pulled from saltwater fan shells in the Red Sea; green pearls from the rainbow abalone; yellow, blue, and black pearls, the unusual handiwork of various mollusks from every ocean and of certain mussels from rivers up north; in short, several specimens of incalculable worth that had been oozed by the rarest of shellfish.†
Chpt 1specimens = examples regarded as typical of their class
- Captain Nemo must have spent millions in acquiring these different specimens, and I was wondering what financial resources he tapped to satisfy his collector's fancies, when these words interrupted me: "You're examining my shells, professor?†
Chpt 1
- I recognized the lower slopes of some magnificent rocks carpeted by the finest zoophyte specimens, and right off, I was struck by an effect unique to this medium.†
Chpt 1
- Obviously, in the presence of these zoophyte and mollusk specimens, the fine lad was classifying his head off.†
Chpt 1
- There I saw again, but not yet pressed and dried like the Nautilus's specimens, some peacock's tails spread open like fans to stir up a cooling breeze, scarlet rosetangle, sea tangle stretching out their young and edible shoots, twisting strings of kelp from the genus Nereocystis that bloomed to a height of fifteen meters, bouquets of mermaid's cups whose stems grew wider at the top, and a number of other open-sea plants, all without flowers.†
Chpt 1
- It was an albatross of the finest species, a wonderful specimen of these open-sea fowl.†
Chpt 1specimen = an example regarded as typical of its class
- That day they gathered up some unusual specimens from these fish-filled waterways: anglerfish whose comical movements qualify them for the epithet "clowns," black Commerson anglers equipped with their antennas, undulating triggerfish encircled by little red bands, bloated puffers whose venom is extremely insidious, some olive-hued lampreys, snipefish covered with silver scales, cutlass fis†
Chpt 1specimens = examples regarded as typical of their class
- Among other specimens from these waterways, our nets brought up some peacock-tailed flabellarian coral, polyps flattened into stylish shapes and unique to this part of the ocean.†
Chpt 1
- I had to rest content with the various specimens of fish brought up by our nets.†
Chpt 1
- Meanwhile, ignoring all these fine specimens of Papuan flora, the Canadian passed up the decorative in favor of the functional.†
Chpt 1
- "Master is right," Conseil replied, "and I propose that we set aside three places in our longboat: one for fruit, another for vegetables, and a third for venison, of which I still haven't glimpsed the tiniest specimen."†
Chpt 1specimen = an example regarded as typical of its class
- How I wished I could take this superb bird of paradise back to Paris, to make a gift of it to the zoo at the Botanical Gardens, which doesn't own a single live specimen.†
Chpt 1
- Sheer chance had placed me in the presence of the most valuable specimens of this zoophyte.†
Chpt 1specimens = examples regarded as typical of their class
- Then, as specimens of other genera, blowfish resembling a dark brown egg, furrowed with white bands, and lacking tails; globefish, genuine porcupines of the sea, armed with stings and able to inflate themselves until they look like a pin cushion bristling with needles; seahorses common to every ocean; flying dragonfish with long snouts and highly distended pectora†
Chpt 2
- The second subgenus gave us some Didactylus specimens three to four decimeters long, streaked with yellow, their heads having a phantasmagoric appearance.†
Chpt 2
- As for the first subgenus, it furnished several specimens of that bizarre fish aptly nicknamed "toadfish," whose big head is sometimes gouged with deep cavities, sometimes swollen with protuberances; bristling with stings and strewn with nodules, it sports hideously irregular horns; its body and tail are adorned with callosities; its stings can inflict dangerous injuries; it's repulsive and horrible.†
Chpt 2
- Our dragnets brought up many specimens of polyps and echinoderms plus some unusual shells from the branch Mollusca.†
Chpt 2
- Among other specimens in these two branches, I noted some windowpane oysters with thin valves of unequal size, a type of ostracod unique to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, then orange-hued lucina with circular shells, awl-shaped auger shells, some of those Persian murex snails that supply the Nautilus with such wonderful dye, spiky periwinkles fifteen centimeter†
Chpt 2
- How many new specimens of underwater flora and fauna I marveled at beneath the light of our electric beacon!†
Chpt 2
- A few months later off the coast of Syria, I recaptured a few specimens of my fish, adorned with their telltale rings.†
Chpt 2
- "No," I told Conseil, "that's no mermaid, it's an unusual creature of which only a few specimens are left in the Red Sea.†
Chpt 2
- Unfortunately I couldn't fish up this wonderful specimen, and surely no other Mediterranean zoophytes would have been offered to my gaze, if, on the evening of the 16th, the Nautilus hadn't slowed down in an odd fashion.†
Chpt 2specimen = an example regarded as typical of its class
- But while observing these different specimens of marine fauna, I didn't stop examining the long plains of Atlantis.†
Chpt 2specimens = examples regarded as typical of their class
- Chief among them were specimens of that dreadful cartilaginous genus that's divided into three subgenera numbering at least thirty-two species: striped sharks five meters long, the head squat and wider than the body, the caudal fin curved, the back with seven big, black, parallel lines running lengthwise; then perlon sharks, ash gray, pierced with seven gill openings, furnished with a single dorsal fin placed almost exactly in the middle of the body.†
Chpt 2
- From these seas I'll also mention some unusual specimens of croakers, fish from the order Acanthopterygia, family Scienidea.†
Chpt 2
- While grazing these rocky slopes lost under the waters, I still spotted some seashells, tube worms, lively annelid worms from the genus Spirorbis, and certain starfish specimens.†
Chpt 2
- These specimens will soon have to deal with mighty opponents.†
Chpt 2
- But tell me, haven't you finished classifying these superb specimens of marine fauna?†
Chpt 2
- Through the lounge windows I could see long creepers and gigantic fucus plants, bulb-bearing seaweed of which the open sea at the pole had revealed a few specimens; with their smooth, viscous filaments, they measured as much as 300 meters long; genuine cables more than an inch thick and very tough, they're often used as mooring lines for ships.†
Chpt 2
- I wanted to preserve a few specimens of these delicate zoophytes, but they were merely clouds, shadows, illusions, melting and evaporating outside their native element.†
Chpt 2
- How many other marvelous new specimens I still could have observed if, little by little, the Nautilus hadn't settled to the lower strata!†
Chpt 2
- Our fishermen frequently see specimens over 1.8 meters long.†
Chpt 2
- Sheer chance had placed us in the presence of this squid, and I didn't want to lose this opportunity to meticulously study such a cephalopod specimen.†
Chpt 2specimen = an example regarded as typical of its class
- rainbow-hued parrotfish that can rival the loveliest tropical birds in coloring, banded blennies with triangular heads, bluish flounder without scales, toadfish covered with a crosswise yellow band in the shape of a Τ, swarms of little freckled gobies stippled with brown spots, lungfish with silver heads and yellow tails, various specimens of salmon, mullet with slim figures and a softly glowing radiance that Lacépède dedicated to the memory of his wife, and finally the American cavalla, a handsome fish decorated by every honorary order, bedizened with their every ribbon, frequenting the shores of this great nation where ribbons and orders are held in such low esteem.†
Chpt 2specimens = examples regarded as typical of their class
Definition:
an example thought to represent its type; or a bit of tissue, blood, or urine that is taken for diagnostic purposes