Those who enter into the true spirit of this sport, and where cocks are likely to be found, seldom set out for a complete day's adventure, without being previously provided with a MARKER excellently qualified for the purpose in which he is engaged. And an assistant of this description becomes the more necessary, as a cock will very frequently suffer himself to be found, and shot at, four or five times in the same covert; and when absolutely driven out, will sink beyond the outer fence, and gliding a short distance almost close to the ground, will drop in some adjoining ditch.
Woodcocks are seen in this country till about the first, and sometimes the second, week in March: this, however, depends entirely upon the openness or severity of the season: if the winter has been accompanied with long and sharp frosts, they suddenly disappear within a few hours, (as by a kind of magical mystery,) and none to be found, with occasionally (and that but seldom) an exception of a disconsolate individual at or near some warm or sheltered SPRING which has not frozen. They are fullest of flesh during the months of December and January to the middle of February, from which time, as the spring sun gets warmer, they decline in weight to the time of their departure.
Snipe shooting is a sport the best calculated to try the persevering fag and bottom of a SPORTSMAN of any yet recounted; if he is not possessed of all the fortitude, patience, and indefatigable exertion of a WATER SPANIEL, he had better never be induced to make the embarkation, at least with any sanguine expectation of success. To wet, dirt, and difficulty, he must be habitually inured: in body he must be invulnerable; with a constitution impregnable to the united attacks of morbidity, and a mind most perfectly at ease. Thus armed at all points for land or water, moor or mire, swamps or bogs, SNIPE SHOOTING (where they are to be found in plenty) is a most excellent diversion; and some spots, particularly in a heath country, intersected by moors, swamps, and bogs, (as a celebrated scope called Eel Moor, near Hartford Bridge, upon the western road,) the sport is so incessant, that those who visit the place in open hazy weather, may shoot so often in succession, as to have frequent occasions in the same day to wait till the barrel cools. Snipes are of two kinds, one being full double the size of the other, and is called a WHOLE SNIPE; the smaller is called a jack, and of course somewhat more difficult to kill. Both sorts are found upon the same ground, and sometimes close to each other. They are birds of passage, and vary but little with the flights of WOODCOCKS in the time of their arrival, which is generally about the first plentiful rains in Autumn. They are said to breed mostly in the low and swampiest parts of Germany and Switzerland; although it is certain numbers do not return with the greater bodies in the spring, but remain here during the summer, and breed in the marshes and fens, where their nests are often found in the month of June with four and five eggs in each. Pointers only are made use of in this sport; and it is rather remarkable, that, notwithstanding this species of bird is so diminutive in proportion to the game that a dog is constantly accustomed to, he stands equally staunch to even the jack, (the least of the two) as to either PHEASANT, HARE, or PARTRIDGE. Snipes, the moment they are upon wing, fly against the wind, encountering which, they go off in such a twisting and twirling direction, that they are then a very difficult object to aim at; but by waiting with patience till they take their intended line, the shot may be made with a much greater probability of success. They cannot be said to be in season before November, or after February; for killed at any other time of the year, they mostly appear with a branny scurf upon their bodies, as if diseased, or in a state of emaciation.
These are the different kinds of shooting only which comprize the pleasure of the gentleman sportsman, and in which the better kind of sporting dogs (POINTERS, SPANIELS, and SETTERS) are used. Shooting of wild-fowl, rabbits, &c. are principally the amusement of those who are not particular in their objects of pursuit; but equally prepared for whatever may come in their way, from a PHEASANT to a tom-tit, or from a SOLAN GOOSE to a dab-chick. The scientific and systematic rules of shooting in the field are so generally known, and universally comprehended, in respect to the length of the gun, the mode of charging, the distance for firing, and some other trifling minutia, dependent upon contingencies, that a single line must be unnecessary in elucidation; except a salutary hint to the young and inexperienced, never to let others do for them with the gun, what they can do for themselves. It should be the particular province of the person who shoots, to charge his own gun, and to be punctually precise in drawing the charge at his return: a retrospective survey of the most melancholy and shocking accidents which the last few years have produced, will demonstrate to any humane and reflecting mind, the danger of letting either GUN or PISTOL remain loaded in a dwelling-house, where, by the single inadvertency alone, any individual of the family is perpetually liable to instantaneous destruction.
SHOULDER-LAMENESS
,—in a horse, is a defect in the scapularian muscles, or at the ligamentary junction of the fore thigh-bone with the concave point of the shoulder blade, upon which many, and some opposite opinions have been obstinately maintained: and there are not wanting at the present moment, those who affect to believe, and presume to affirm, "there is no such thing as a shoulder lameness in any horse." The absurdity of this ridiculous and contemptible assertion, can only be equalled by the unparalleled ignorance and illiteracy of those who make it: strangers to the anatomical structure of parts, they are inadequate to the comprehension of their uses, and the purposes to which they become intentionally appropriate. In direct confutation of such futile opinion, it is most indisputably ascertained, that injuries are frequently sustained in the shoulders, from which incurable lameness often ensues. Such accidents and misfortunes happen to horses in different ways: some by unforeseen circumstances, which no human prudence can prevent; others (equal, if not superior in number) by carelessness, inhumanity, inattention, or neglect. Lameness in the shoulder may be occasioned by the horse's being too suddenly stopped and turned upon uneven ground; sliding, stumbling, or flipping down, in a distorted position of either fore leg; turning too rapidly in a narrow stall, or too quick, sudden and short into a stable. That all which may be the better understood, by those who are anxious for information, and open to conviction, it is necessary, for the accommodation of every comprehension, to observe, that the blade or shoulder-bone not being fixed to the body by articulation, but by apposition adhering to the ribs, and firmly fastened thereto by corresponding muscles above and below, the animal, in undergoing any of the casualties before recited, sustains the injury described; in which the tendons or coats of those muscles are strained and relaxed; and as the extension has been more or less violent, so will the case be more or less dangerous and perplexing.
Cases constantly occur, where, by a slip, a cavity in the road or pavement, a rolling-stone, or any other cause, the leg of a horse is unavoidably thrown into a distorted and unnatural position, from whence ills ensue; the ligamentary junction, and muscular support, may be singly or conjunctively injured, in proportion to the magnitude of the cause by which the accident was sustained. In most occurrences of this description, some difficulty arises in the endeavour to discover the precise seat of injury, which is not, by the most judicious and observant investigator, always to be decisively ascertained: amidst such doubts, strict examination should be made to discriminate with certainty between a LAMENESS in the SHOULDER, and a defect in the foot; and this investigation is the more indispensibly necessary to be made, because, in strict verification of the ancient adage, "Doctors differ," instances are numerous, where one practitioner vehemently affirms the lameness to be in one part, and his veterinarian opponent as violently pronounces it to be in another. There is, however, one kind of clue, if properly attended to, which will generally lead to a ready distinction between a lameness in the foot and an injury in the shoulder; by getting twenty yards before the horse, so as to face him, and having him brought forward with increased action, fixing the eye at the foot, and bringing it gradually up to the chest, the imbecile effort at the point of the SHOULDER attended with pain, and the consequent bow or drop of the head, (as if going to fall,) will evidently demonstrate whether the seat of injury is there. On the contrary, in most lamenesses of the FOOT, the subject makes an attempt rather to hop, or to touch the earth lightly with the joint affected, than to give it equal support with the rest upon the ground: a horse lame in the foot, displays it most, the more he is ridden or driven; but a horse who has received an injury in the shoulder, demonstrates it less and less, the more he gets into a perspiration.
SIDE-SADDLE
.—The saddle upon which women ride is so called. The injuries horses sustain by the use of these saddles, when not properly attended to, exceed conception. It is well known by those who are much in public, and make their occasional observations as they ride, that most of the women about the Metropolis (who, it may be presumed, are taught in the schools) ride exceedingly ill, and to a spectator, most mortifyingly ungraceful; or, in words more expressive and explanatory, they bear near their whole weight upon the swivel-clog stirrup of the SADDLE, and little or none upon the back of the horse. The evident effect of this is, that the saddle, which should preserve a due and consistent equilibrium, compulsively preponderates with the weight of the injudicious RIDER, and has a constant bearing friction upon the WITHER on the off side, from whence originates inflammation, bruise, tumor, formation of matter, and not infrequently FISTULA, as a finishing consolation to the concern. When a comparison is made between the equestrian ability of the FINE LADIES in the environs of London, and the bounce-about self-taught damsels of the country, the former sink extremely in comparative estimation. The best and most certain means of insuring safety with a saddle of this description, is to have a hollow on the inside the pad which comes in contact with the off side the wither, so formed, as to admit of no bearing on that side at all. This is readily accomplished, by ordering a vacuum of the size of an inverted tea-cup, with elastic quilting to surround the edge, which taking a regular, equal and circular bearing, so completely protects the wither, that it is impossible an injury can be sustained.