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
This is a fish affording great sport to the angler, indeed more pleasure
than profit, for the flesh is insipid, and full of bones. The baits for
dace are the red worm, brandling, gilt-tail, cow-dung, and earth-bob,
and indeed any worm bred on trees or bushes, that is not too big for his
mouth, and almost every kind of fly and caterpillar. Flesh flies upon
the surface with the hook put into the back, between the wings, the line
from the middle downwards of single hairs, and a trifle longer than the
rod, which ought to be eighteen feet at least, and as light as possible;
the flies can be kept in a phial; fix three very small hooks upon single
hair links, not above four inches along the line, and in a summer’s
evening, at the smoothest part of the end of a mill-stream, from seven
or eight, so long as light continues, the dace will yield diversion. In
the same manner, they will rise in the morning at the ant-fly, if used
at the foot of a current or mill-stream, or on a scour before the sun
comes on the water.
After rains, when the river is nearly level with its banks, use a
caterpillar-fly, or a small red palmer and yellow-gentle (the yellower
the better), run the hook through its skin, and draw it up to the tail
of the fly, then whip on the surface, the dace will rise freely.
Another way to take this fish, from the middle of April until the
beginning of October, is by artificial fly-fishing, with a long
line.—_Daniel._
DALMATIAN, (_Canis Dalmatianus_), _s._ The coach-dog.
[Illustration]
This dog has been erroneously called the Danish dog by some authors, and
Buffon, and some other naturalists, imagine him to be the harrier of
Bengal; but his native country is Dalmatia, a mountainous district of
European Turkey. He has been domesticated in Italy for upwards of two
centuries, and is the common harrier of that country.
The Dalmatian is also used as a pointer, to which his natural propensity
more inclines him than to be a dog of the chase; he is said to be easily
broken, and to be very staunch. He is handsome in shape, something
betwixt the British foxhound and English pointer; his head is more acute
than that of the latter, and his ears fully longer: his general colour
is white, and his whole body and legs are covered with small irregular
sized black or reddish brown spots. He is much smaller than the large
Danish dog. A singular opinion prevailed at one time in this country,
that this beautiful dog was rendered more handsome by having his ears
cropped: this barbarous fancy is now quickly dying away.
I have never heard of the Dalmatian being trained to the sports of the
field in Great Britain. His only use seems to be an elegant attendant
upon a carriage, for which the symmetry of his form and beauty of his
skin peculiarly fit him. A most erroneous notion has prevailed among
some breeders, that neither this nor the great Danish dog has the sense
of smell. They have been indiscriminately called the coach-dog.—_Brown._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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