—was a shoe formerly used with lame horses; but from the palpable absurdity of its adoption, seems now to be nearly banished from modern practice. This shoe was constructed with a ring, circular, or nearly oval, at the bottom, which being fixed upon the SOUND foot, its intentional use was to compel the horse in all injuries to stand upon the lame leg, that a contraction of the muscular parts might be prevented. Happily such ridiculous and ill-founded notions are gliding into oblivion.
PATTERN-SHOE
—is a shoe formed upon rational principles, and of a scientific construction, for transmission to any part of the world, as a PATTERN by which the ART of SHOEING may be universally improved, and reduced to one general standard of purity and perfection.
PEDIGREE
.—The pedigree (or genealogical descent) of a horse is in the present day so fabricated by hearsay, or framed by fiction, that nothing less than a well-authenticated certificate, under the hand of the BREEDER, can with propriety be received as an indisputable proof of the PURITY of his BLOOD: and this is the more evidently necessary to a SPORTSMAN, lest he should be induced (relying upon his deceptive pedigree) to enter into a racing engagement, and that too, perhaps, for a sum of much magnitude; the whole of which, with the additional training expences, might be lost for want of that very blood he has been villainously taught to believe he has got in possession. To such an enthusiastic pitch has the desire of pedigree attained, under the fashionable sporting phrenzy of the time, that a horse is absolutely considered of neither value or utility, unless his pedigree is properly attested, and he is known to "carry the catalogue of his endowments by his side." The DEALERS (as well as others) are so well aware of this partiality for blood and pedigree, that every common roadster has the report of his get ready prepared, and no purchaser need be without it. Upon the subject of authenticated pedigrees, for near a century past, Mr. Weatherby's Stud Book is, beyond a doubt, the first publication extant.
The great merit and CREDIT of a PEDIGREE, consists in its continued and undivided chain of proofs on the distinct sides of both SIRE and DAM, up to such links as are eminently connected with the known authority, where no contamination could have taken place. A pedigree of one single descent is amply sufficient, where the reference terminates on each side, in a SIRE and DAM, whose pedigrees and performances are previously known. Instance: Jupiter was got by Eclipse, dam by Tartar; he is own brother to Mercury, Venus, and Volunteer; sire of Cardock, Halkin, Thunderbolt, Confederacy, Terror, Contest, &c.
PHEASANT
.—The pheasant is not only the most beautiful bird in plumage of any bred in this kingdom, but the first in estimation; not more for the sport it affords in the field, than its delicious attraction for the table. They are about one fourth less in size than common poultry, lay nearly the same number of eggs, and bring up their young in the same manner. They principally frequent the WOODS and hedge-rows, are seldom found in the fields, and then but very rarely far from covert: when upon WING, they are so exceedingly slow in flight, that he must be an exceeding bad marksman who does not HIT his BIRD. The pheasant is included in every successive Act for the preservation of the game; and although they are less liable than HARES and PARTRIDGES to the destructive depredations of the POACHERS, they suffer considerably by FOXES, MARTERNS, POLE-CATS, and other vermin.
Persons of every description, qualified and unqualified, stand exactly in the same state with respect to PHEASANTS as with PARTRIDGES, so lately described under that head, but with this difference in the legal season for taking or killing: it is enacted by two distinct legislative Acts of the present reign, That any person who shall, under any pretence whatever, take, kill, destroy, carry, fell, buy, or have in his possession, any PHEASANT, between the first day of February and the first day of October, (unless such pheasant shall have been taken in the proper season, and kept in a mew or breeding-place,) shall forfeit FIVE POUNDS for every PHEASANT so taken, to be paid to the informer, with full costs of suit.