The Field Book: or, Sports and pastimes of the United Kingdom: compiled from the best authorities, ancient and modernMaxwell, W. H. (William Hamilton)
History
The Field Book: or, Sports and pastimes of the United Kingdom: compiled from the best authorities, ancient and modern
Maxwell, W. H. (William Hamilton)
Amusements -- Great Britain; Sports -- Dictionaries; Sports -- Great Britain
The temperature of the blood in the horse is about 100°; in the ox, 102;
and in the sheep, 103: but various circumstances tend to increase or
decrease it. Arterial blood is usually one or two degrees warmer than
venous: Mr. Vines, I believe, rates the difference much higher. Some
diseases reduce the heat of the blood, and ardent inflammations are also
capable of augmenting it. The quantity that an animal contains, in
proportion to his bulk, has been endeavoured to be ascertained: but the
results have been various. Very fat animals are found usually to have
proportionally less than lean ones; and in those in a state of close
confinement, the quantity is found to be smaller than in the wild; but
it is evident, that as the calculation must be in a degree imaginary,
from that which will remain in the vessels, so the real quantity is not
easy to estimate. A medium sized horse has lost forty-four pounds
without apparent injury, and most of them will lose one-fifteenth of
their total weight before life becomes extinct: it may, therefore, be
presumed that it forms one-tenth of the whole: Mr. Percivall thinks
one-eighth.
BLOOD-HOUND (_Canis Sanguinarius_), _s._ A hound that follows by the
scent.
[Illustration]
In the darker ages the blood-hound had the fabulous reputation of
pursuing naturally with unerring precision, and of taking murderers,
robbers, and other depredators, if he were laid on the footsteps of
those intended to be pursued, within a certain given time. We, however,
cannot give our assent to the character thus ascribed to him, although
experience has taught us, that all sorts of hounds may be broken in to
follow any kind of scent, when resolutely taught that they are to run on
no other.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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