A Dictionary of Sports; Or, Companion to the Field, the Forest, and the Riverside. Containing Explanations of Every Term Applicable to Racing, Shooting, Hunting, Fishing, Hawking, Archery, Etc. with Essays Upon All National Amusements (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1835 Excerpt: ...that has been lamed by a cutting or eruption of the tendon of the ham or hough. HAND. The measure of a fist clenched, by which we compute the height of a horse: the French call it vaume. HAND-HIGH. A term used in horsemanship, and peculiar to the English nation, who measure the height of a horse by hands, beginning with the heel, and measuring upwards to the highest hair upon the withers. A hand is four inches. HANDICAP. See Racing, Rules concerning. HANDLING (with Cock-fighters). A term signifying the measuring the girth of them, which is done by griping one's hand and finger about the cock's body. HARBOUR (Hunting term). A hart is said to harbour when he goes to rest; and to unharbour a deer, is to dislodge him. HARE. To enter into a minute description of an animal so well Foxes and dogs of all kinds pursue the hare by instinct; wild cats and weasels are continually lying in ambush, practising all their arts to seize it; birds of prey are still more dangerous enemies, as against them no swiftness can avail; and man, far more powerful than all, makes perpetual war against the hare, it constituting one of the numerous deli-' cacies of his table. Thus persecuted, the race would long since have become extinct, did it not find a resource in its amazing fecundity: so various are its foes, that it is rarely allowed to reach even that short term to which it is limited by nature. In general, the hare wants neither instinct sufficient for his own preservation, nor sagacity for escaping from his foes: he forms a scat, which he rarely leaves in the day, but in the night takes a circuit in search of food, choosing the most tender blades of grass, and quenching his thirst with the dew. This timid creature, also, lives upon fruit, grain, herbs, leaves, roots, preferring...