Part 21

At every season of the year, the former of these is good; but the latter end of summer, and all the winter, are the preferable times for both. In baiting with the cheese, put a round lump, the size of a cherry, on a large hook, so as to cover the bend, and some way up the shank; fish six inches from the bottom, or in cold raw weather the bait may lie on the ground; but if the hole has not been ground-baited, the depth is immaterial; when there is a bite, the float will very swiftly be drawn under water, strike immediately and give him play, holding a tolerable tight line, to keep the fish clear of weeds and stumps, which at sight of the angler he will endeavour to get at for shelter, and if not properly managed, he will break the tackle. In the spring of the year the chub will take a marsh, or small red-worm; in May, June, and July, flies, beetles, snails (the black ones with the belly slit to shew the white;) in August, pastes: the large chub will also take minnows, small dace, and gudgeons, angled with in the same manner as for perch; and the latter bait used likewise in trolling for pike, the hook not so heavily loaded upon the shank. They gorge immediately upon taking the bait. Their biting times are chiefly from before sunrise until nine in the morning, and from four until after sunset in the summer, (some will, by chance, take at any time of the day when mild and cloudy); and in the winter the middle of the day is best; remembering that in hot weather, they are to be fished for at or near the top, and not deeper than mid-water, and in cold, close to or upon the bottom; and that the main point in taking this fish is, the angler’s keeping himself out of sight.—_Daniel._

CHUBBED, _a._ Big-headed, like a chub.

CHUCK, _v._ To make a noise like a hen.

CHYLE, _s._ The white juice formed in the stomach by digestion of the aliment.

CICATRICE, or CICATRIX, _s._ The scar remaining after a wound; a mark, an impressure.

CICATRIZE, _v._ To apply such medicines to wounds, or ulcers, as skin them.

CIDER, _s._ The juice of apples expressed and fermented.

CILIARY, _a._ Belonging to the eyelids.

CILIATED (_Lingua Ciliata_, LINN.), _a._ In ornithology, a term used when the tongue is edged with fine bristles, as in ducks.

CINGLE, _s._ A girth for a horse.

CINNABAR, _s._ Vermilion, a mineral consisting of mercury and sulphur.

CINNAMON, _s._ The fragrant bark of a low tree in the island of Ceylon.

_To dye cinnamon colour._—Take about three pints of _right stone crottle_, (common lichen) about four or six chips of young fustic, and a good flake of walnut-bark; put them down in eight quarts of water; when your time of boiling is half done, add a pint of crottle and eight or ten fustic chips; make four very thick canvass bags, ten inches broad and fourteen or fifteen inches long—wash them when made, lest they should hurt your colour. Divide one pound of fur into four parts, and put a part into each bag; tie a leaden weight to each bag, at both ends, allowing two inches of string, to admit the bags to rise that height from the bottom, lest they should burn; place them in the pot so that they may not entangle with each other, put in your frame without the lid, and fill the pot with water. It will take from twelve to eighteen hours boiling; divide that time as to the drawing each shade; look at them every hour by lifting out a bag, and if you see a shade to your eye, draw a part and put down your bag again: in this case you should put half a pound of fur in your bags. There are many shades of cinnamon wanting in fishing. Thus you have your colour nice and clean. The reason of using the bags is the difficulty of carding the crottle out of the fur; and the reason of boiling so long, is, that the bag in some degree prevents the dye.

You may get a more flaming cinnamon by using the following dye-stuff:—A quarter of a pound of turmeric, half a table-spoonful of brasil, and a flake of walnut-bark; follow the process of the other, as to the addition of more dye-stuff, the bags, leads, &c.—_Old Receipt._

CINQUE, _s._ A five.

CIRCLE, _v._ To move round any thing; to enclose, to surround; to confine.

CIRCUMVOLATION, _s._ The act of flying round.

CIRRUS, _s._ A description of cloud.

_Cirrus_ or _Curlcloud._—When, after much fine weather, this cloud appears like a white line pencilled along on the azure sky, we may generally reckon on a change; and if the cloud increases, and others are added to it latterly, or if it change to the wane-cloud, rain will probably follow before long.

The tufts of cirrus, called mares’ tails, are known to be a sign of wind, which has frequently been found to blow from the quarter to which these curlclouds have previously pointed.—_Foster._

CIST, _s._ A case, a tegument, commonly the enclosure of a tumour.

CISTERN, _s._ A receptacle of water for domestic uses; a reservoir; an enclosed fountain; any watery receptacle.

CITRON, _s._ A large kind of lemon.

CITRON-WATER, _s._ Aqua vitæ, distilled with the rind of citrons.

CLARET, _s._ A species of French wine.

_To dye claret colour._—Take any quantity of stuff, put it down with some young fustic chips, bring it up to as bright a shade as it will give, and then put in some black grain; bring it up high with this, add some brasil dust, and you will have a _deep red_. Have a small quantity of boiling water and a little stale urine in another vessel, dip a small bit of wool in, and if you like the change dip more; have some archil liquor boiled and strained, add this to the rest of your liquor sparingly, as, if you darken too much at first, you ruin all: thus you may draw two shades between the different additions of the archil and liquor; and if you wish it to be still darker, take out your fur, and throw into the pot a quarter of a tea-spoonful of salt of tartar, and that will darken it sufficiently.

_To dye good dark clarets, blood, and fiery reds._—Get some bunches of the clearest red hackles, ground them well in cochineal, then add some brasil dust, and when they have boiled a few minutes draw a bunch or two; add more brasil dust, boil and draw again. If they are changed enough, then add in some archil and boil them again. Never attempt to ground in yellow for this process, as at best the hackles will appear but a dull mahogany colour when placed between you and the light. Never use young fustic in hackle-dyeing, as it spoils the feathers.—_Old Receipt._

CLASS, _s._ A rank or order of persons or animals.

CLASS, _v._ To range according to some stated method of distribution.

CLAW, _s._ The foot of a beast or bird armed with sharp nails.

Puppies are frequently born with _dew_ claws; sometimes they are double. Whether there is any bony attachment or not, it is always prudent to cut them off in a few days after birth, otherwise they become very troublesome as the dog grows up; for the claw or nail attached to the end of each, frequently turns in and wounds the flesh; or, by its hook-like shape, it catches into every thing the dog treads on.

The _horny claws_ or _nails_ of the true toes are also subject, when dogs have not sufficient exercise, to become preternaturally long, and, by turning in, to wound these toes likewise, and lame the dog. It is better to saw them off with a very fine and hard cockspur saw, and then to file them smooth; avoiding to cut them too close, or the vascular part may be entered on, and much unnecessary pain given to the animal. Some dogs require their nails to be cut every two or three months, or even oftener; otherwise they become very lame.—_Blaine._

CLEANLINESS, _s._ Freedom from dirt, being clean.

The following curious fact is mentioned in a communication on the cleanliness of animals.—(_Jour. Roy. Institution_, No. II.) “Walking one day along the shore of Holy Island, off the coast of Northumberland, I disturbed an ash-coloured sanderling (_Calidris islandica_, STEPH.), which flew heedlessly, and as if injured. On shooting the bird, I found that it was covered with vermin, more especially about the head; so much so, that the poor thing must have fallen a victim to their tormenting ravages. On further examination, I found that it had lost one of its legs, so that it was from its incapability to rid itself of these insects that their extraordinary increase was to be attributed. Poultry (the same naturalist remarks) which run about in stony or paved yards, wear away the points of their claws by friction and digging, which renders them unfit to penetrate their coating of feathers; they are, therefore, more covered with vermin, and, in consequence, more sickly than fowls from the country.”—_Ainsworth._

CLERGY, _s._ A man in holy orders, not a laic.

The propensity of the clergy to follow the secular pastimes, and especially those of hunting and hawking, is frequently reprobated by the poets and moralists of the former times. Chaucer, in his Canterbury Tales, makes the monk much better skilled in riding and hunting, than in divinity. The same poet, afterwards, in the Ploughman’s Tale, takes occasion to accuse the monks of pride, because they rode on coursers like knights, having their hawks and hounds with them. In the same tale he severely reproaches the priests for their dissolute manners, saying, that many of them thought more upon hunting with their dogs, and blowing the horn, than of the service they owed to God.

The bishops and abbots of the middle ages hunted with great state, having a large train of retainers and servants; and some of them are recorded for their skill in this fashionable pursuit. Walter, bishop of Rochester, who lived in the thirteenth century, was an excellent hunter, and so fond of the sport, that at the age of fourscore he made hunting his sole employment, to the total neglect of the duties of his office. In the succeeding century an abbot of Leicester surpassed all the sportsmen of the time in the art of hare-hunting; and even when these dignitaries were travelling from place to place, upon affairs of business, they usually had both hounds and hawks in their train. Fitzstephen assures us, that Thomas à Becket, being sent as ambassador from Henry II. to the court of France, assumed the state of a secular potentate; and took with him dogs and hawks of various sorts, such as were used by kings and princes.

At the time of the Reformation, the see of Norwich, only, was in the possession of no less than thirteen parks, well stocked with deer and other animals for the chase. At the end of a book of Homilies in MS., in the Cotton Library, written about the reign of Henry VI., is a poem containing instructions to priests in general, and requiring them, among other things, not to engage in “hawkynge, huntynge, and dawnsynge.”—_Strutt._

CLEW, _s._ Thread wound upon a button; a guide.

CLICK, _v._ To make a sharp, successive noise.

CLIFF, or CLIFT, _s._ A steep rock, a rock.

CLIP, _v._ To cut with shears; to curtail, to cut short.

CLIPPING, _s._ The part cut or clipped off; an operation performed on rough or long-coated horses. Of its benefits and disadvantages very contrary opinions have been given.

I should certainly prefer seeing a horse of mine with a fine short coat without the aid of clipping; but if that were not to be accomplished, I would certainly have him clipped.

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“A very dangerous effect of debility, or being out of condition,” says Mr. Smith, p. 18, “is, that the subject has a long rough coat, which retains the perspiration excited by exercise; and even in cold weather, when the exercise is not such as to excite sweat, the insensible perspiration which is constantly issuing from the extremities of the cutaneous vessels is condensed among the hair, and appears on the surface like dew; whereby cold is produced on the surface of the body, occasioning too great a determination of blood to the lungs, and other important viscus, which is always in proportion to the diminution of the cutaneous perspiration.”

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“I must own myself a very decided advocate for the clipping of hunters, having observed such horses to have had a most decided advantage, during the last season, with the Cheshire, Sir Richard Puleston’s and Sir Thomas Stanley’s fox-hounds, as well as with the Chester harriers, now under the very superior management of Captain Puleston. Experience and observation are, in this matter, worth a bushel of _à priori_ reasoning; but scientific argument and rational explanation are not wanting to aid and enforce the practice of clipping. In the first place and to begin with the most trifling reason—the horse is a pound lighter; and the coat affording little resistance to the brush, your groom is not half so soon fatigued in dressing, and lays double strength upon the surface. This causes a greater determination to the extreme vessels, and the insensible perspiration is proportionably increased. We invariably find a connexion between the action of the skin and that of the intestines; and this is sufficiently evident in a well-groomed horse; the lacteals of the bowels seem to have a corresponding action communicated to them—they absorb and select the pabulum of the blood with increased vigour—the secreting vessels of the stomach furnish the gastric solvent more abundantly—the liver more readily acts, and separates those vitiated parts which have fulfilled their duties in the circulation, and require to be thrown out of the system, but in their transit, in the form of bile, perform other important uses, in stimulating the intestines to that regular peristaltic motion which secures a change of particles to the vessels which absorb the nourishment for the blood. But the abdominal viscera do not alone benefit by the more intimate friction which is admitted to the skin of a clipped horse. The lungs are wonderfully assisted the more the insensible perspiration is increased: the less work for them to accomplish, the less will be the determination to the internal vessels; and consequently the less risk of congestion in the minute bronchial ramifications of the lungs.”

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Were I to give a good price for a promising young horse for the purpose of making him a hunter, and keeping him for my own use, and a man were to come into my stable and tell me he would give me one-third of his value if I would have him clipped, I would refuse his offer. I look upon clipping as nothing but a bad substitute for good grooming, and an operation attended with several disadvantages. In the first place, when once performed it must always be repeated; and in the second, it is a constant eye-sore to a person who is fond of seeing his horses looking well, as it effectually destroys that bloom on the skin which is not only so beautiful, but also so confirmatory of the sound health of the animal; and lastly, by depriving him of the protection which a short thick coat, lying close to the body, affords him against the scratching of thorns and briars, it very frequently causes a horse to refuse rough places in a fence which he would not have refused before. It is a remedy to be sure, or at least a palliative; but I had rather a horse of mine should endure the disease it is intended to relieve, until I could bring a better medicine to his aid; and were I to become possessed of a hunter which required clipping, I would put up with his long coat and evening sweats, until, by strengthening his general system, I got rid of the latter, to which the former is by no means a certain contributor. It is quite possible—and I have an instance at this moment in my own stable—for a horse to have a long coat (and some horses at certain periods will not wear a short coat), but still to look very blooming to the eye, _and dry immediately after a sweat_, as is the case with the horse I speak of. I am not weak enough to suppose that clipping will not continue to be practised because one individual disapproves of it; but I may be allowed to say, I will never after this year practise it again. The horse I had clipped last winter must now, I fear, be clipped again, for I abhor the sight of him in his present state—his coat somewhat resembling a poodle dog; but his evening sweats are got rid of by the method I pursued with him in the summer. Clipping may be all very well for those who cannot, or will not, get their horses into condition by other means; and to such only do I recommend it.—_Nimrod_—_Smith_—_Equestris._

CLOSE, _s._ A small field enclosed; the period when it is illegal to shoot or fish; the time of shutting up; a grapple in wrestling.

CLOTHE, _v._ To invest with garments, to cover with dress.

CLOVE, _s._ A valuable spice brought from Ternate; the fruit or seed of a very large tree; some of the parts into which garlick separates.

CLOVEN-FOOTED, or CLOVEN-HOOFED, _a._ Having the foot divided into two parts.

CLOVER, _s._ A species of trefoil.

CLOUT, _s._ Anciently the mark of white cloth at which archers shot; an iron plate to an axletree.

CLOY, _v._ To satiate, to sate, to surfeit.

CLUB, _s._ A heavy stick; the name of one of the suits of cards; the shot or dividend of a reckoning; an assembly of good fellows.

CLUSTER, _s._ A bunch, a number of things of the same kind growing or joined together; a number of animals gathered together.

CLUTCH, _s._ The gripe, grasp, seizure; the paws, the talons.

CLYSTER, _s._ An injection into the anus.

Clysters of broth, gravy, or gruel, will afford a very considerable quantity of nourishment: a small proportion of opium, as twenty drops of laudanum, may be given in each, to assist in retaining it within the bowels. _Astringent_ clysters, as starch, rice-water, alumine whey, infusion of red roses, or of oak-bark, are useful in violent loosenesses. _Purging_ clysters may be made of veal or mutton broth, with a portion of salt or moist sugar added: the effect may be still further quickened by adding castor oil or Epsom salts.

Clysters are very easily administered to dogs, and no apparatus is so convenient for the purpose as the patent syringe of Reid: a good domestic apparatus is found in the common pipe and bladder also. The liquid used should be warm, but not hot; the quantity from three ounces, to six or eight, according to the size of the dog, &c.: the pipe should be greased previously to its introduction, and the tail held down a minute or two after its removal.

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In flatulent colic it is essentially useful, and it is from this circumstance being too little known, or not attended to, that flatulent colic sometimes terminates in inflammation, and death. (_See_ CARMINATIVES.) In suppression or retention of urine, or in difficulty of staling, a clyster is the best remedy that can be employed. In short there is scarcely a disease to which horses are liable, in which clysters may not be advantageously employed, either as a principal remedy, or as an auxiliary to others. The clyster syringes commonly employed are worse than useless, because they sometimes prevent a clyster being given when it is absolutely necessary, especially in flatulent colic. The clyster-pipe and bladder is the only effectual apparatus I have seen. The pipe should be one inch in bore, and fifteen inches in length. The quantity of liquid employed should be five or six quarts, and consist only of warm water, with half a pound of salt dissolved in it. There is sometimes difficulty found in introducing the pipe, generally from hard excrement in the straight gut; sometimes, however, from the bladder being distended with urine. In such cases patience and care are necessary to exhibit the clyster effectually, and it may almost always be accomplished without raking or drawing out the hard excrement with the hand; there is no objection, however, to this operation, and when a clyster-pipe is not at hand, it must be employed as a substitute for a clyster. (_See_ RAKING.) The simple emollient clyster should be thin gruel, or warm water only. The anodyne or opiate clyster should be composed of three or four ounces of tincture of opium in two quarts of gruel, or warm water. Gibson gave half an ounce of solid opium dissolved in water, as a clyster to a horse in locked jaw, with success. Nourishing clysters are composed of arrow-root, or wheat-flour gruel with sugar, or broth thickened with flour. Tincture of opium is an useful addition to such clysters, especially in locked jaw.—_Blaine._—_White._

COAL, _s._ The common fossil fuel; the cinder of burnt wood, charcoal.

COAL-BLACK, _a._ Black in the highest degree.

COAT, _s._ The upper garment; the covering of any animal; any tegument.

COAT, _v._ To cover; to change the hair.

COAT-CARD, _s._ A card having a coat on it; as the king, queen, or knave; now corrupted into _Court-card_.

COB, _s._ A sort of sea-fowl; a low but powerful horse; a hack.

Perfection is seldom found in any living being; but certain it is, that of all animals in which perfection, or as near to it as their nature will admit, is required, it is in a horse to carry a man or a woman on the road: and were I requested by a friend to purchase a good hack for him, I should consider him to have given me a commission ten times more difficult than if he had requested me to purchase half a dozen hunters. The qualifications of a good hack are so numerous as to be almost disheartening to look for them: he must have good fore legs as well as good hinder ones: he must have perfect feet, a good mouth, not given to start, safe on his legs, gentle in his temper, and quiet to ride on all occasions. A fidgetty hack, however good in his nature, is very unpleasant, and in hot weather insupportable. He is fit for nothing but to ride to covert at the rate of twenty miles in the hour.—_Nimrod._

COBBLE, _v._ To mend any thing coarsely; to do or make any thing clumsily.

COBBLE, _s._ A punt used for wild-fowl shooting, fishing, &c.

COCHINEAL, _s._ An insect, from which a red colour is extracted.

COCK, _s._ The male to the hen; the male of any small bird; the weather-cock that shows the direction of the wind; a spout to let out water or any other liquor at will; the notch of an arrow; the part of a lock of a gun that strikes with the flint; cock-boat, a small boat; a small heap of hay; the form of a hat.

_Cock-fighting_ is a sport of great antiquity. It is supposed to have first originated with the Greeks; and that at one period it became so prevalent amongst them, that families of extensive property were reduced thereby to the lowest ebb of fortune.

As the Romans were so fond of imitating the Greeks, in their bad as well as good customs, it came to them as a mere gambling sport. According to Herodian, the first cause of contention between the two brothers, Bassianus and Geta, sons of the Emperor Septimus Severus, happened in their youth, about cock-fighting, which they had probably seen in Greece, whither they had often accompanied their father.

It is not known when this custom was first introduced into England, but undoubtedly by the Romans. The bird was here before the landing of Julius Cæsar; but no notice of cock-fighting occurs earlier than the time of William Fitz Stephen, who wrote the life of the Archbishop Becket in the reign of Henry II., and describes it as a sport of school-boys on Shrove Tuesday. From this time it continued in a fluctuating state; sometimes in vogue, at others, disapproved; and prohibited, 39 Edward III.; also in the reign of Henry VIII., and in 1569. It has been termed a royal diversion; and the cock-pit at Whitehall was erected by a crowned head for the more magnificent celebration of it. There were other pits in Drury Lane and Jewin Street. It was prohibited by Oliver Cromwell, March 31, 1654.