The Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository, Volume 2 (of 2): Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the FieldTaplin, William
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The Sporting Dictionary and Rural Repository, Volume 2 (of 2): Of General Information upon Every Subject Appertaining to the Sports of the Field
Taplin, William
Hunting -- Dictionaries; Sports -- Dictionaries
SWAN.—The swan, as the most majestic and distinguished of all water
fowl, is honoured with royal protection: those who disturb their nests,
destroy their eggs, or injure, wound, or cripple the swans, are liable
to imprisonment for twelve months, and a fine at the pleasure of the
King. The corporate body of the City of London, as CONSERVATORS of the
RIVER THAMES, have an annual aquatic excursion to Staines, (which is the
western extremity of their boundaries,) in the most pleasant and most
plentiful season of the year, with colours flying, music playing, and
all the appropriate parapharnalia of the first and most opulent city in
the universe. All the swans upon the Thames, within their district, are
under the protection of the Conservators; and this display of civic
grandeur is perpetuated from one generation to another, by the
appellation of "Swan-hopping day."
T.
TAIL.—Upon the uniform shape and setting on of a horse's tail, his
_good_ or _ill_ appearance greatly depends. When the spine is continued
in a curvilinear direction beyond the rump, and the basis of the tail is
formed _too low_ in the quarters, the horse is termed "goose-rumped;"
and no _nicking_, or _setting_, will ever give him the figure of a
handsome horse _behind_. It has been a long-standing maxim, that "a good
horse can't be of a bad colour;" and there may probably be some who
think a good horse can't have a _bad tail_; but a little experience, in
buying and selling, will convince them, that the difference between the
two will be little less than _ten_ or _fifteen_ pounds in a horse of no
more than fifty pounds value. Great losses are sometimes sustained for
want of a little circumspection at the moment of making a purchase; and
this may sometimes proceed from the horse's having some peculiar points
of attraction, in the fascinating survey of which the defects are
totally absorbed; hence arises the pecuniary deficiency when the subject
becomes again to be sold, particularly if to a more prudent and less
hasty purchaser. The old sportsman, when going to _buy_, looks at the
horse as if it was really his _own_, and he was going to _sell_; in
doing which, he estimates his _saleable_ value with an eye of greater
accuracy, makes a tolerably fair calculation what he ought with
consistency to _bid_, that he may sustain no great loss, should he have
future occasion to sell.
TARTAR—was an excellent racer, and the most celebrated stallion of his
time. He was bred by MR. LEEDES, foaled in 1743; was got by _Partner_,
out of _Meliora_, who was got by _Fox_, out of _Milkmaid_. _Tartar_ was
sire of the famous _King Herod_, _Beaufremont_, _Miner_, and Colonel
O'Kelly's mare the dam of _Maria_, _Antiochus_, _Venus_, _Jupiter_,
_Mercury_, _Volunteer_, &c. &c.
_Tartar_, called Wildman's _Tartar_, was a horse of some note likewise;
he was bred by Sir J. Moore, foaled in 1758, and got by the above, out
of _Miss Meredith_, who was got by _Cade_ out of the little Hartley Mare.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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