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
POINT.—A horse standing in his stall, or elsewhere, with one fore-leg at
some distance before the other, is always concluded, by the most
experienced, to have sustained some irreparable injury either in the
SHOULDER, or the ligamentary junction of the COFFIN and CORONARY bones,
concealed in the box (or cavity) of the hoof. This is in a considerable
degree to be relied on; but there are many instances in which a horse
accustoms himself to awkward positions, and they become habitual: some
stand with either the _near_ or the _off_ fore-leg eternally before the
other, and are as perfectly sound as any horses in the kingdom. To say,
therefore, from a horse's manner of standing, that he is lame, would be
as absurd as to say any man could not be either a good dancer, or
fencer, because he stood, when disengaged from both, in a careless,
lounging, ungraceful attitude.
POINT—is the position of a POINTER, when standing seemingly fixed and
immoveable at the game before him; at the moment of observing which,
particularly with young or unsteady dogs, the natural ejaculatory
caution of "TO HO!" "HAVE A CARE!" transpires; not more as an injunction
of _steadiness_ to the dog standing, but as a communicative mode of
enjoining the attention of every dog in the field to the first who has
obtained the point.
POINTER.—The pointer is that species of dog well known to contribute
more to the contemplative pleasures and pursuits of a sportsman, than
any other in the canine catalogue. This peculiar breed, on account of
their universality and general utility, have been so incredibly crossed,
re-crossed, bred _in_, and bred _out_, to gratify the various opinions,
(as prompted by fancy, caprice, or speculation,) that they are now to be
found of all sizes, and all qualifications; from the slow, short-headed,
heavy-shouldered remains of the original Spanish pointer, (who will tire
in half a day's work,) to the cross of _in_ and _in_ with a FOX HOUND,
of which none are ever known to tire; many of them having speed enough
to catch a leveret three parts grown, when they jump up before them.
Pointers, forty or fifty years since, were hardly ever seen but entirely
white, or variegated with liver-coloured spots; except the then DUKE of
KINGSTON'S black and white, which were considered superior to every
breed in the kingdom, and sold for most extravagant sums after his
death. They are now, from the constantly increasing attachment to field
sports, to be seen of every description, from pure white, and a
flea-bitten blue or grey, to a universal liver-colour, and a perfect
black. In a choice of pointers for general use, that is for _every_
species of GAME, the extremes in _size_, as well as in _speed_, are
better avoided, and the line of mediocrity adhered to: overgrown, heavy
dogs, soon get weary in the hot and early part of the season: the
smaller sort have also their inconveniencies in hunting in very high
turnips, heath, broom-fields, &c.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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