"Any person who shall unlawfully set fire to, burn, or destroy, or assist in so doing, any goss, furze, or fern, upon any FOREST or CHASE within England, he shall, on the oath of one witness before a JUSTICE of the peace, forfeit a sum not exceeding 5l. nor less than 40s. one moiety to the informer, the other to the poor of the parish. The same to be levied by distress; in want of which, the offender to be committed to the house of correction, or county gaol, for a time not longer than three months, nor less than one." In addition to which act, there are other MANORIAL rights and local customs, respecting FERN upon wastes and commons, restraining those who have right of common (or other privileges) from cutting fern before HOLYROOD DAY in every year.
FERRET
—is a useful little animal, well known to WARRENERS and RAT-CATCHERS, by whom they are principally bred, as necessary to their own occupations. The ferret is of great spirit, strength, and courage, for its size; is an inveterate enemy to rabbits, rats, and poultry; in the pursuit of which, it will encounter any difficulty or danger, when once put upon the scent. The body is longer in proportion to its height, than almost any other animal, the weazel and stoat excepted. The colour frequently varies, even in the young of the same dam and the same litter; some being black, with white under the belly; some are of a faint straw-colour yellow, and others of a light sandy red. The head is, in its formation, not unlike the mouse; the eyes are small, fiery, having the appearance of red-hot iron, and can consequently distinguish objects in the dark. It has a natural and instinctive propensity to burrowing, and where-ever the head can enter, the rest of the body can easily follow. Whenever the FERRET has secured the prey he is in pursuit of, he extracts the blood with extreme pleasure by suction, but is totally indifferent to the flesh; with the exception of the head of either RABBIT or RAT, the skull of which he directly destroys with his teeth, the better to enjoy an instantaneous and luxurious feast upon the brains.
The FERRET usually produces five or six young at each litter, after a gestation of forty days: the offspring continue blind for thirty days, and copulate in six weeks after they can see. They are not ravenous, (except in pursuit of their prey, after having been long fasted;) are easily supported upon bread, milk, and similar trifles, enabled by nature to exist a long time without food, which is in some degree compensated for by their great enjoyment of sleep. When used in WARRENS, they are hunted with muzzles, that they may alarm the RABBITS, and drive them from their burrows to the nets, without having the power to injure them; for if they were enabled to seize them under ground, they could never be prevailed upon to leave the earths.
FETLOCK
.—The part so called is the next joint below the knee, and is formed by the union of the shank-bone, at its bottom, with the upper part of the small bone passing from this junction to the coronary bone at its top. The TENDONS (commonly called the back sinews) have their lower seat of insertion at this joint, which is constantly liable to, and frequently susceptible of, the most serious LAMENESS. As injuries of this joint are sometimes incurable, particularly when occasioned by a twist or ligamentary distortion, one precaution may be prudently retained in memory; that more horses are lamed by short, sudden, and unnatural turns in the narrow stalls of an ill-constructed STABLE, (particularly in the Metropolis,) than by any straitforward means whatever. Tendinous lameness has a much greater chance of early relief, and permanent cure, than an injury sustained at the junction of the bones; for the relaxed tendons being restored to their original elasticity by CORROBORATIVE STIMULANTS, BLISTERING, or FIRING, frequently continue sound during the existence of the horse: on the contrary, a LIGAMENTARY LAMENESS, however it may be relieved, or apparently restored, is always more subject to a relapse or repetition.
FEVER
,—HORSES are subject to, and frequently attacked with, originating in various causes, and acting upon different constitutions in a different way. Judicious discrimination should be made between what is (ab origne) a FEVER within itself, and symptomatic fever, dependent upon, and arising from, another cause. Extreme pain may produce FEVER, as in large formations of matter, where tumours approach gradually to suppuration. Fever may become attendant upon inflammatory cholic, or upon a severe fit of the strangury, or spasmodic affection of the kidnies. In all INFLAMMATIONS of the LUNGS, the fever exceeds description; but these fevers are called SYMPTOMATIC, as being a concomitant, or distinguishing trait, of the DISEASE upon which it is founded, rather than a disease within itself.
The predominant symptoms of FEVER are, an agitated lassitude and debility of the whole frame, with evident disquietude in every position; quick and strong pulsation; mouth parched and dry, with a burning heat to the fingers, when placed under the tongue; breath of a fleshy offensive smell; the eyes red, inflamed and prominent, as if propelled by internal inflammation; heaving more or less in the flanks, according to the mildness or severity of the case. Frequent attempts are made to STALE; the urine is very red in colour, and comes away in small quantities: the dung is generally hard, voided in single or double globules, to each of which adheres a viscid slime, indicative of much internal foulness amidst the interstices of the intestinal canal. Loss of appetite, difficulty of respiration, a refusal of food, and impatient thirst for water, are amongst the most invariable diagnostics of fever; and as these symptoms are more or less violent, may be estimated the severity and DANGER of DISEASE.