In cold and temperate climates the species of this most interesting and important family are comparatively diminutive in size.

One would have thought that such powerful birds as swansone stroke of whose wings is supposed to be capable of breaking a man's legwould not have stood any nonsense from an unusually diminutive mallard.

In this splendid spaciousness the familiar forms seem incredibly diminutive.

Empiricist minds, putting the parts before the whole, appear to rationalists, who start from the whole, and consequently enjoy magniloquent privileges, to use epithets offensively diminutive.

Altogether, it impressed upon the mind a strong idea of a formidable monster, in spite of its relatively diminutive head; for its fearful tusks, and thick-set projecting whiskers, gave its visage a most truculent expression; and with its grotesquely fashioned ponderous carcass, provided with fin feet of strange formation, seemed to mark it as a personification of one of the fabulous conceptions of mythology.

Mouth, cheekbones, and jaw were of vast proportions, while the forehead, eyes, and nose were as remarkably diminutive.

Stopping for a moment to look down upon the glorious Hudson stretching its shimmering length like a bimetallic serpent to the north and south, he suddenly became conscious of a pair of very sharp eyes resting upon him, which a closer inspection showed belonged to a laborer of seemingly diminutive stature, who was engaged in carrying earth in a wheelbarrow from one dirt-pile to another.

There is a woman that calls herself the guardian (not angel) of the place, and demands a small gratuity in exchange for any amount of unnecessary talking; judging by her appearance, we decided she was not a hermit nor a particularly small eater either, though her stature was decidedly diminutive.