BITTERN
—is a bird of similar formation to the heron, but of much smaller size, and more beautifully variegated in its plumage. They are principally found in sedgey moors, where they breed, particularly within a few miles of the sea-coast, not being very common in the centrical parts of the kingdom. If brought down by the gun with only a broken wing, they display great courage in opposing their destroyer; possessing such determined power, and quick exertion of both talons and beak, they cannot be with safety secured till deprived of life. From their scarcity, they are esteemed a rarity at the tables of the great, where one is received as a handsome present; a brace being seldom seen together, either dead or alive.
BLACK ACT
—is so called, because it was enacted in consequence of the most unprecedented depredations committed in Essex by persons in disguise, with their faces blacked and disfigured, and is literally thus.
"By this statute it is enacted, that persons, hunting armed and disguised, and killing or stealing deer, or robbing warrens, or stealing fish out of any river, &c. or any person unlawfully hunting in His Majesty's forests; or breaking down the head of any fish-pond; or killing of cattle; or cutting down trees; or setting fire to house, barn, or wood; or shooting at any person; or sending letters, either anonymous, or signed with a fictitious name, demanding money, &c. or rescuing such offenders, are guilty of felony without benefit of clergy." This is commonly called the Waltham Black Act, and was made perpetual by 31 George II. c. 42.
BLACK-LEGS
—is the expressive appellation long since given by the superior classes of the sporting world (consisting of noblemen and gentlemen of fortune) to the very honorable and very distinguished fraternity who are known to constitute "a family," and are, perhaps, without exception, the most unprincipled and abandoned set of thieves and harpies that ever disgraced civilized society. They are a body, existing by, and subsisting upon, the most villainous modes of deceptive depredation: their various modes of attacking, and preying upon, the credulity of the inexperienced and unsuspecting part of the public, are beyond conception: their number is incredible, and their stratagems exceed description. Destitute not only of character, but of every sense of honor, their minds are destined solely to the purposes of determined devastation upon the property of those unthinkingly seduced or betrayed into their company; upon whose credulity and indiscretion they are supported in a continued scene of the most luxurious and fashionable dissipation.
As members have no great power in exerting themselves with much success individually, the firm (if a phalanx of the most infamous combination can be termed so) are adequate to almost every desperate undertaking, from pricking in the belt, hustling in the hat, or slipping a card, to the casually meeting a friend upon Hounslow Heath. They are sole proprietors of the different gaming tables, public and private, as well in the metropolis, as the hazard and E O tables at all the races of eminence in the kingdom. They are invariably present at every fashionable receptacle for sport: the tennis-court, the billiard-room, the cockpit, have all to boast a majority in quest of prey; and even the commonest coffee-house is a spot where modest merit, in the form of a lounging emissary, frequently obtrudes, in the anxious hope of picking up some opulent juvenile, that he may afterwards enjoy the pleasure of introducing him in the most friendly and liberal way to another member of the fraternity, as a very proper object, or pidgeon, well worth plucking for the benefit of the family.
BLADDER
—is a part of the horse liable to disease; but seldom known to occur, unless by the indiscretion of the owner. A long retention of urine, by continuing a journey to too great an extent without stopping, may produce strangury; and that not being soon relieved, inflammation may ensue. Instances are recorded of stones, calcareous substances, and different concretions, having been found in the bladders of horses after death. Discretion is a proper and cheap preventative.