(n.) The fourth part of a bushel; a dry measure of eight quarts; as, a peck of wheat.
(n.) A great deal; a large or excessive quantity.
(v.) To strike with the beak; to thrust the beak into; as, a bird pecks a tree.
(v.) Hence: To strike, pick, thrust against, or dig into, with a pointed instrument; especially, to strike, pick, etc., with repeated quick movements.
(v.) To seize and pick up with the beak, or as with the beak; to bite; to eat; -- often with up.
(v.) To make, by striking with the beak or a pointed instrument; as, to peck a hole in a tree.
(v. i.) To make strokes with the beak, or with a pointed instrument.
(v. i.) To pick up food with the beak; hence, to eat.
(n.) A quick, sharp stroke, as with the beak of a bird or a pointed instrument.
Example Sentences:
(1) The first was a passive avoidance task in which the chicks were allowed to peck at a green training stimulus (a small light-emitting diode, LED) coated in the bitter liquid, methylanthranilate, giving rise to a strong disgust response and consequent avoidance of the green stimulus.
(2) The rate of key pecking in a component was negatively related to the proportion of reinforcers from the alternative (variable-time) source.
(3) No pigeon attacked the target; one pecked the shockplug on its back.
(4) This 'object' function is the summation of the food uptake by one second of pecking and one second of filter feeding.
(5) So strong is this image of Peck that his few honourable attempts at comedy, and his less successful portrayals of the baddie, are often forgotten.
(6) Hens socially dominant in three bird pens had higher liver fat accumulation than hens lower on the peck order but liver fat accumulation for the dominant hens still averaged less than hens housed either two or one per cage.
(7) He tweeted on Wednesday: “I did not pull out of presenting the Rory Peck Awards - they dropped me.” The awards were set up in 1995 in memory of freelance cameraman Rory Peck, who was killed in Moscow in 1993.
(8) Pigeons were trained to peck a key on a multi FR30-FI3' schedule.
(9) Five pigeons pecked for food reinforcers on a concurrent variable-interval one-minute, variable-interval four-minute schedule.
(10) Day-old chicks peck when offered a bright bead; if the bead is coated with the bitter-tasting methylanthranilate (M) they avoid it thereafter.
(11) "You also said we haven't ended up with local radio at the bottom of the pecking order.
(12) The drug initially produced a marked decrease in aggressive behavior but had little or no effect on key pecking.
(13) The results showed that pigeons alternate when frequency-dependent selection is applied to single pecks because alternation is an easy-to-learn stable pattern that satisfies the frequency-dependent condition.
(14) At 6ft 3in tall, the lanky Peck was a pillar of moral rectitude standing up for decency and tolerance.
(15) The effects of three amphetamine analogs were assessed in pigeons key pecking under a multiple 3-min fixed-interval (FI), 30 response fixed-ratio (FR) schedule of food presentation.
(16) Subsequently, over three phases, additions were made during the random-interval 1-minute component as follows: pecks during the component occasionally were punished by timeout presentation (Phase 1), timeouts were presented independently of responding during the component (Phase 2), pecks during the component occasionally were punished by electric-shock presentation (Phase 3).
(17) Trade ministers, much lower down the pecking order, are more sanguine.
(18) Genetic stock by age and beak treatment by age interactions were present for hen-housed production and egg mass, and the interactions appeared to result primarily from increased mortality from cannibalistic pecking with increased age.
(19) In the swinging 1960s, Peck's sober style seemed a little out of place, though he appeared in a couple of flashy Hitchcockian thrillers, Mirage (1965) and Arabesque (1966), and adapted to the new Hollywood as best he could, looking rather bothered as the father of a demon in The Omen (1976).
(20) Pigeons' pecks were conditioned with food reinforcement.
Woodpecker
Definition:
(n.) Any one of numerous species of scansorial birds belonging to Picus and many allied genera of the family Picidae.
Example Sentences:
(1) A blackbird is broadcasting its mellifluous song, a squirrel runs up a nearby tree and surprisingly, given that we are in central London, we can both hear a woodpecker knocking.
(2) The only sound is the astonishing cackle of a green woodpecker.
(3) You will see woodpeckers and treecreepers, and all the flora you would expect.
(4) Cystacanths later recovered from the woodroaches developed into mature worms when pipetted into esophaguses of red-bellied woodpeckers, Centurus carolinius: red-headed woodpeckers, Melanerpes erythrocephalus; yellow-shafted flickers, Colaptes auratus; and a hairy woodpecker, Dendrocopos villosus.
(5) Furthermore, all these impacts could occur simultaneously, posing a particularly devastating threat to already vulnerable species and systems.” They note the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker as an example; it lives in longleaf pine forests, which will likely be among the forest casualties in this new urban wasteland.
(6) Ceca are absent in woodpeckers, hummingbirds, swifts, kingfishers, pigeons, mousebirds, cuckoos, and parrots.
(7) From Tring station there's a four- or a six-mile circular route through an area with lots of wildlife including red kites, goldcrests, lesser spotted woodpeckers and wild fallow deer.
(8) One woodpecker finch, Cactospiza pallida, was found to be infected with I. exigua, and a warbler finch, Certhidea olivacea was infected with I. fragmenta.
(9) Luddenden Brook runs through it, there are shaded walks criss crossing throughout, rare plants, woodpeckers and deer - and you can camp very cheaply at the council-run Jerusalem Farm on the edge of the woods.
(10) Phosalone had little effect on brain ChE activity of birds from treated groves; only slight to moderate (21 to 38%) ChE inhibition was detected in blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) and red-bellied woodpeckers (Melanerpes carolinus).
(11) As a contrast, it depleted 60-80% of both NE and E from the innervated glands as compared to 17-43% reduction from the denervated glands in nonpasserine (woodpecker, parakeet, and koel) birds.
(12) Cystacanths fed starlings, Sturnus vaulgaris, and red-winged blackbirds, Agelaius phoeniceus, did not produce infections although cystacanths from the same pool were infective to control woodpeckers.
(13) Infection was achieved in all woodpeckers fed cystacanths at least 47 days old and the mean prepatent period was 35 days.
(14) We determined the prevalence of six genera of bacteria from a sample of 387 cloacal swabs from 364 passerines and woodpeckers.
(15) This brought on an unprecedented wave of extinctions or near misses; the Carolina parakeet and the Rocky Mountain locust were driven to extinction and the Pronghorn antelope, the bison, black-footed ferret, Eskimo curlew, ivory-billed woodpecker, heath hen and others were brought to the brink.
(16) A preliminary anatomical study of the woodpecker's head suggests that it may be fruitful to explore impact protective systems which are radically different from those in common use.
(17) Which is exactly what we did on her last day, watching woodpeckers in the copse in front of her cottage, and remembering our adventures together; up to an hour before she died, we were planning a new one, and she was excited that it might include a recce to the Arctic Circle to view the aurora borealis .
(18) Filled with long-tailed tits or goldfinches or cackling green woodpeckers, many are as thick as houses, a coalition of holly, rowan, hazel, dogwood and bramble, with oaks permitted to grow into grand trees.
(19) My mother made a new cover for our battered sofa from his Woodpecker fabric and my sisters wore smock-like dresses made from his textiles.
(20) The woodpecker is an experiment in Nature, a model for the investigation of mechanisms of basic importance for head injury and its prevention.