Part 42

Some of the greys approach to a nutmeg, or even bay colour. Many of these are handsome, and most of them are hardy.

GRAYLING, _s._ The umber, a fish.

Grayling are never found in streams that run from glaciers—at least near their source; and they are killed by cold or heat. I once put some grayling from the Teme, in September, with some trout, into a confined water, rising from a spring in the yard at Dawnton; the grayling all died, but the trout lived. And in the hot summer of 1825, great numbers of large grayling died in the Avon, below Ringwood, without doubt killed by the heat in July.

The grayling lies deeper and is not so shy a fish as the trout; and, provided your link is fine, is not apt to be scared by the cast of flies on the water. The fineness of the link, and of the gut to which your flies are attached, is a most essential point, and the clearer the stream the finer should be the tackle. I have known good fishermen foiled by using a gut of ordinary thickness, though their flies were of the right size and colour. Very slender transparent gut of the colour of the water, is one of the most important causes of success in grayling fishing.

He is to be fished for at all times, for he is rarely so much out of season as to be a bad fish; and when there are flies on the water, he will generally take them: but as the trout may be considered as a spring and summer fish, so the grayling may be considered as a winter and autumnal fish.

Grayling do not refuse large flies; and in the Avon and Test May flies, and even moths, are greedily taken in the summer by large grayling. Flies, likewise, that do not inhabit the water, but are blown from the land, are good baits for grayling. There is no method more killing for large grayling, than applying a grasshopper to the point of a leaded hook, the lead and shank of which are covered with green and yellow silk, to imitate the body of the animal. This mode of fishing is called sinking and drawing. I have seen it practised in this river with as much success as maggot fishing, and the fish taken were all of the largest size; the method being most successful in deep holes, where the bottom was not visible, which are the natural haunts of such fish. In the winter, grayling rise for an hour or two in bright and tolerably warm weather, and at this time the smallest imitations of black or pale gnats that can be made, on the smallest sized hook, succeed best in taking them. In March, the dark-bodied willow fly may be regarded as the earliest fly; the imitation of which is made by a dark claret dubbing and a dun hackle, or four small starlings’ wing feathers. The blue dun comes on in the middle of the day in this month, and is imitated by dun hackles for wings and legs, and an olive dubbing for body. In mild weather, in morning and evening in this month, and through April, the green tail, or grannon, comes on in great quantities, and is well imitated by a hen pheasant’s wing feather, a grey or red hackle for legs, and a dark peacock’s harle, or dark hare’s ear fur, for the body. The same kind of fly, of a larger size, with paler wings, kills well in the evening, through May or June. The imitation of a water insect called the spider-fly, with a lead-coloured body and woodcock’s wings, is said to be a killing bait on this and other rivers, in the end of April and beginning of May, but I never happened to see it on the water. The darker alder fly, in May and June, is taken greedily by the fish; it is imitated by a dark shaded pheasant’s wing, black hackle for legs, and a peacock’s harle, ribbed with red silk, for the body. At this season, and in July, imitations of the black and red palmer worms, which I believe are taken for black or brown, or red beetles or cockchafers, kill well; and in dark weather there are usually very light duns on the water. In August, imitations of the house fly and blue bottle, and the red and black ant fly, are taken, and are particularly killing after floods in autumn, when great quantities of the fly are destroyed and washed down the river. In this month, in cloudy days, pale blue duns often appear, and they are still more common in September. Throughout the summer and autumn, in fine calm evenings, a large dun fly, with a pale yellow body, is greedily taken by grayling after sunset, and the imitation of it is very killing. In the end of October, and through November, there is no fly fishing but in the middle of the day, when imitations of the smaller duns may be used with great success; and I have often seen the fish sport most, and fly fishing pursued with great success in bright sunshine, from twelve till half past two o’clock, after severe frosts in the morning; and I once caught under these circumstances a very fine dish of fish on the 7th of November. It was in the year 1816; the summer and autumn had been peculiarly cold and wet, and, probably in consequence of this, the flies were in smaller quantity at their usual season, and there were a greater proportion later in the year.

Grayling, if you take your station by the side of a river, will rise nearer to you than trout, for they lie deeper, and therefore are not so much scared by an object on the bank; but they are more delicate in the choice of their flies than trout, and will much oftener rise and refuse the fly. Trout, from lying nearer the surface, are generally taken before grayling where the water is slightly coloured, or after a flood; and in rain trout usually rise better than grayling, though it sometimes happens, when great quantities of flies come out in rain, grayling, as well as trout, are taken with more certainty than at any other time. The artificial fly, in such cases, looks like a wet fly, and allures even the grayling, which generally is more difficult to deceive than trout in the same river.—_Sir Humphry Davy._

GREASE, _s._ The soft part of the fat; a swelling and gourdiness of the legs, which generally happens to a horse after his journey.

Swelled legs, although distinct from _grease_, are apt to degenerate into it. This disease, therefore, comes next under our consideration. It is an inflammation of the skin of the heel, sometimes of the fore, but oftener of the hind foot. It is not a contagious disease, although when it once appears in a stable it frequently goes through it, for it is usually to be traced to bad stable management. The skin of the heel of the horse somewhat differs from that of any other part. There is a great deal of motion in the fetlock, and to prevent the skin from excoriation or chapping, it is necessary that it should be kept soft and pliable; therefore, in the healthy state of the part, the skin of the heel has a peculiar greasy feel. Under inflammation, the secretion of this greasy matter is stopped—the heels become red, dry, and scurfy; and being almost constantly in motion, cracks soon succeed: these sometimes extend, and the whole surface of the heel becomes a mass of soreness, ulceration, and fungus.

The first appearance of grease is usually a dry and scurfy state of the skin of the heel, with redness, heat and itchiness. The heel should be well washed with soap and water; as much of the scurf should be detached as is easily removable: white ointment composed of one drachm of sugar of lead, rubbed down with an ounce of lard, will usually supple and cool, and heal the part.

When cracks appear, the mode of treatment will depend on their extent and depth. If they are but slight, a lotion composed of a solution of two drachms of blue vitriol, or four of alum, in a pint of water, will often speedily dry them up and close them. But if the cracks are deep, with an ichorous discharge, and the lameness considerable, it will be necessary to poultice the heel. A poultice of linseed meal will be the most effectual, unless the discharge is thin and offensive, when an ounce of finely powdered charcoal should be mixed with the linseed meal, or a poultice may be made with carrots boiled soft, and mashed. The efficacy of a carrot poultice is seldom sufficiently appreciated in cases like these.

When the inflammation and pain have evidently subsided, and the cracks discharge good matter, they may be dressed with an ointment composed of one part of resin, and three of lard, melted together, and one part of calamine powder added, when these begin to get cool. The healing will be quickened if the cracks are occasionally washed with either the vitriol or alum solution. A mild diuretic may here be given every third day, but a mild dose of physic will form the best medicine that can be administered.

After the chaps or cracks have healed, the legs will sometimes continue gorged and swelled. A flannel bandage evenly applied over the whole of the swelled part will be very serviceable; or, should the season admit of it, a run at grass, particularly spring grass, should be allowed. A blister is inadmissible, from the danger of bringing back the inflammation of the skin, and discharge from it; but the actual cautery, taking especial care not to penetrate the skin, must occasionally be resorted to.

There will be great danger in suddenly stopping this discharge. Inflammation of a more important part has rapidly succeeded to the injudicious attempt. The local application should be directed to the abatement of the inflammation. The poultices just referred to should be diligently used night and day, and especially the carrot poultice; and, when the heat and tenderness and stiffness of motion have diminished, astringent lotions may be applied; either the alum lotion, or a strong decoction of oak bark, changed, or used alternately, but not mixed. The cracks should likewise be dressed with the ointment above mentioned; and the moment the horse can bear it, a flannel bandage should be put on, reaching from the coronet, to three or four inches above the swelling.

Walking exercise should be resorted to as soon as the horse is able to bear it, and this by degrees may be increased to a gentle trot.—_The Horse._

GREASY, _a._ Oily, fat, unctuous; smeared with grease.

GREAVES, _s._ The offal of chandlers; the animal matter which remains after the tallow has been extracted. Greaves mixed with oatmeal make excellent feeding for dogs.

GREBE, s. A water-fowl.

The bills of this genus are compressed on the sides, and though not large, are firm and strong, straight and sharp pointed: nostrils linear; a bare space between the bill and the eyes; tongue slightly cloven at the end; body depressed; feathers thickly set, compact, very smooth, and glossy; wings short, scapulars long; no tail; legs placed far behind, much compressed, or flattened on the sides, and serrated behind with a double row of notches; toes furnished on each side with membranes; the inner toes broader than the outer; the nails broad and flat.

This genus is ranked by Ray and Linnæus with the diver and guillemot; but as the grebes differ materially from those birds, Brisson, Pennant, and Latham, have separated them. The grebes are almost continually upon the water, where they are remarkable for their agility: at sea they seem to sport with the waves, through which they seem to dart with the greatest ease, and, in swimming, slide along, as it were without any apparent effort upon the surface, with wonderful velocity; they also dive to a great depth in pursuit of their prey. They frequent fresh-water lakes and inlets of rivers as well as the ocean, to which they are obliged to resort in severe seasons, when the former are bound up by the ice. No cold or damp can penetrate their thick, close plumage, which looks as it were glazed on the surface, and by which they are enabled, while they have open water, to brave the rigours of the coldest winter. They can take wing from the water, or drop from an eminence, and fly with great swiftness to a considerable distance; but when they happen to alight on the land, are helpless, for they cannot either rise from the flat surface of the ground, or make much progress in walking upon it. On shore they sit with the body erect, commonly upon the whole length of their legs, and, in attempting to regain the water, they awkwardly waddle forward in the same position; and, if by any interruption they happen to fall on their belly, they sprawl with their feet, and flap their short wings as if they were wounded, and may easily be taken by the hand, for they can make no other defence than by striking violently with their sharp-pointed beak. They live upon fish, and it is said, also upon fresh water and sea-weeds. They are generally very fat and heavy in proportion to their size.

The females generally build their nests in the holes of the rocky precipices which overhang the sea-shores; and those which breed on lakes, make theirs of withered reeds and rushes, &c., and fix it among the growing stalks of a tuft, or bush, of such like herbage, close by the water’s edge. They lay from two to four eggs at one hatching.

The skins of these birds are dressed with the feathers on, and made into warm beautiful tippets and muffs; the under part only is used for this purpose, and a skin of one of the species sells as high as fourteen shillings.

_Great Crested Grebe._—(_Greater crested Douker_, _Car Goose_, _Ash-coloured Loon_, or _Gaunt_, _Colymbus cristatus_, LINN.; _Le Grêbe huppé_, BUFF.)—This bird is the largest of the grebes, weighing about two pounds and a half, and measuring twenty-one inches in length, and thirty in breadth. The bill is about two inches and a quarter long, dark at the tip, and red at the base; the bare stripe, or core, between the bill and eyes, is in the breeding season red, afterwards change to dusky; irides fine pale crimson. The head, in adult males, is furnished with a great quantity of feathers, which form a kind of ruff, surrounding the upper part of the neck; those on each side of the head, behind, are longer than the rest, and stand out like ears: this ruff is of a bright ferruginous colour, edged on the under side with black. The upper parts of the plumage are of a sooty or mouse-coloured brown; the under parts of a glossy or silvery white; the inner ridge of the wing is white; the secondaries of the same colour, forming an oblique bar across the wing when closed: the outsides of the legs are dusky, the inside and toes of a pale green.

This species is common in the fens and lakes in various parts of England, where they breed and rear their young. The female conceals her nest among the flags and reeds which grow in the water, upon which it is said to float, and that she hatches her eggs amidst the moisture which oozes through it. It is made of various kinds of dried fibres, stalks, and leaves of water plants, and (Pennant says) the roots of bugbane, stalks of water-lily, pond-weed, and water-violet; and he asserts, that when it happens to be blown from among the reeds, it floats about upon the surface of the open water.

These birds are met with in almost every lake in the northern parts of Europe, as far as Iceland, and southward to the Mediterranean; they are also found in various parts of America.

_Tippet Grebe, Greater Dabchick, or Greater Loon._—(_Colymbus urinator_, LINN. _Le Grêbe_, BUFF.)—This bird differs from the last only in being somewhat less, in having its neck, in most specimens, striped downward on the sides with narrow lines of dusky and white, and in having no crest.

Modern ornithologists begin to suspect, that the tippet grebe is the female of the great crested grebe, or a young bird of that species, Latham says, “It is with some reluctance, that we pen our doubts concerning the identity of this, as a species, at least as being distinct from the great crested grebe, in contradiction to what former authors have recorded on the subject. It is certain that the last-named bird varies exceedingly at different periods of life; and we are likewise as certain, that the birds which have been pointed out to us as the Geneva grebes, have been no other than young ones of the great crested, not having yet attained the crest; and whoever will compare Brisson’s three figures of the birds in question, will find (the crest excepted) that they all exactly coincide, allowing for their different periods of ages.”

_Eared Grebe._—This bird measures about twelve inches in length, and twenty two from tip to tip of the wings. The bill is black, inclining to red towards the base, rather slender, nearly an inch long, and slightly bent upwards at the point, lore and irides red; the head is thickly set and enlarged with feathers of a sooty black colour, except two large loose and spreading orange-coloured tufts, which take their rise behind each eye, flow backwards, and nearly meet at their tips, the neck and upper parts of the plumage are black, the under parts of a glossy white; the sides a rusty chestnut colour; legs greenish black. The male and female are nearly alike, only the latter is not furnished or puffed up about the head with such a quantity of feathers.

This species is not numerous in the British isles. Pennant says they inhabit and breed in the fens near Spalding in Lincolnshire, and that the female makes a nest not unlike that of the crested grebe, and lays four or five small white eggs. The eared grebe is found in the northern regions of Europe, as far as Iceland, and also met with in southern climates. The circumnavigator Bougainville says, it is called the “Diver with spectacles,” in the Falkland Islands.

_Dusky Grebe_, _Black and White Dabchick_, (_Colymbus nigricans_, LINN. _La petite Grêbe_ BUFF.)—This species measures about an inch less in length, and two in breadth, than the last. The bill is more than an inch long, and of a pale blue colour, with reddish edges; lore and orbits red; irides bright yellow: the upper part of the head, hinder part of the neck, scapulars, and rump, are of a dark sooty or a mouse-coloured brown; the feathers on the back are nearly of the same colour, but glossy, and with greyish edges; the ridge of the wings and secondary quills are white, the rest of the wing dusky. There is a pale spot before each eye; the cheeks and throat are white; the fore part of the neck is light brown; and the breast and belly are white and glossy like satin; the thighs and vent are covered with dirty white downy feathers; the legs are white behind, dusky on the outer side, and pale blue on the inner sides and shins; the toes and webbed membranes are also blue on the upper sides, and dark underneath.

_Red-necked Grebe_ (_Colymbus subscristatus_, _Le Jougris_, BUFF.)—This bird measures, from the bill to the rump, seventeen inches; to the end of the toes twenty-one; and weighs eighteen ounces and three quarters. The bill is about two inches long, dusky or horn-coloured on the ridge and tip, and on the sides of it, towards the corners of the mouth, of a reddish yellow; the underside of the lower mandible is also of the latter colour: lore dusky; irides dark hazel; the cheeks and throat are of a dirty or greyish white; the upper part of the head is black, with a greyish cast, and the feathers are lengthened on each side, on a line with the eyes backward, so as to look like a pair of rounded ears—these it can raise or depress at pleasure: the fore part and sides of the neck are of a dingy brown, mixed with feathers of a bright rusty red; the upper parts of the plumage are of a darkish mouse-coloured brown, lightest on the wing-coverts, deepest on the scapulars and rump, and edged with grey on the shoulders; the under parts are of a glossy white, like satin, mottled with indistinct brownish spots: primary quills brownish tawny, with dark-coloured tips; secondaries white: outer sides of the legs dusky, inner sides sallow green; webs of the outer toes flesh colour, middle ones redder, and the inner ones orange.

Pennant supposes the red-necked grebe to be only a variety of the great crested grebe; but Latham, who has been furnished with several specimens, is of opinion that it is a distinct species. He describes the adult males in full feather, as having their necks of an uniform reddish chestnut; and the younger birds, when they have not obtained their full plumage, to be only partially spotted on their necks with that colour.

_Little Grebe, Dab-chick, Small Doucher, Dipper, or Didapper_ (_Colymbus minutus_, LINN.; _Le Castagneaux_, BUFF.)—This is the least of the grebe tribe, weighing only between six and seven ounces, and measuring, to the rump, ten inches, to the end of the toes thirteen, and about sixteen from tip to tip of the wings. The bill is scarcely an inch long, of a dusky reddish colour; irides hazel; the head is thickly clothed with a downy kind of soft feathers, which it can puff up to a great size, or lay down flat at pleasure; the cheeks are mostly of a bay colour, fading towards the chin and throat into a yellowish white. The neck, breast, and all the upper parts of the plumage, are of a brown or chestnut colour, tinged with red, lightest on the rump: the belly is white, clouded with ash-colour, mixed with red: thighs and vent grey: greater quills dark brown; the lesser white on their inner webs: legs dirty olive green.

The little grebe is a true aquatic, for it seldom quits the water, nor ventures beyond the sedgy margins of the lake where it has taken up its abode. It is a most excellent diver, and can remain a long while under water, in pursuit of its prey, or to shun danger. It is found in almost every lake, and sometimes upon rivers, but seldom goes out to sea. Its food is of the same kind, and its habits much the same as those of the other grebes.

This species of the grebe is an inhabitant of both Europe and America.

_Black-chin grebe._—This bird is described as being larger than the last. Chin black; forepart of the neck ferruginous; hinder part mixed with dusky; belly cinereous and silver intermixed. Inhabits Tiree, one of the Hebrides.—_Latham._

GREEDY, _a._ Ravenous, voracious, hungry; eager.

GREEN, _a._ Having a colour formed by compounding blue and yellow; flourishing, fresh; new, fresh, as a green wound; unripe, immature, young.

GREEN, _s._ One of the seven original colours; a grassy plain.

_To dye green._—Boil your stuff to a very rich yellow, in turmeric, lift it, and add near a teaspoonful of best madder; boil it for five minutes, and draw what you want for the first shade; add a teaspoonful and a half of madder, and boil for the same length of time, and for as many shades as you want; follow the same plan to four or five shades; wash them well in water, then in urine, as in the other recipes. Wring them and green them, one by one, in the greening-vat; beginning with the lightest, which will green in a very few minutes. You will destroy the greens if they take too much of the blue: you must attend them closely till you finish. These are the richest of all greens, and fast colours. The lightest of them, or the next, are used for the green rail and September-green fox. If you want your greens finer, put less madder, and do not boil so long; you must here be guided by your eye.—_Old Recipe._

GREEN, _v._ To make green.

GREENFINCH, _s._ A small bird.

GREENSHANKED GODWIT, or GREENLEGGED HORSEMAN, (_Scolopax glottis_, LINN.; _La Barge variée_, BUFF.), _s._