fixed to this line of packthread, I get so entangled in the hay that they place a large lob-worm by the head cannot extricate themselves, and are end, and draw him on to his middle; thus drawn to shore. affix another needle to the end of a long stick, and guide your bait with it into any of the known haunts of the fish; give him time to gorge the bait, and then by a sharp twitch fix the needle across his throat or the hook into his body; tire him well, and your triumph is certain. The lamprey is a most killing bait for eels, put on a night line or trimmer, in pieces about an inch and a half long. BOBBING is a rough species of angling. To effect it, provide yourself with a considerable number of goodsized worms, and string them from head to tail by a needle on fine strong twine, to the amount of a pound or upwards in weight. Wind them round a card into a dozen or fifteen links. Then secure the two ends of each link by threads. Tie a strong cord to the bundle of stringworms, about a foot from which put on a bored plummet, and angle with a line from two to three feet long, attached to a stout tapering pole. The two counties most celebrated for eels and pike, are Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. Of two rivers in the former county is related the old proverb: Ankham eel and Witham pike, In all England is none like. In the county of Cambridge, the Isle of Ely is supposed to have been denominated after this fish. Naturalists were divided in their opinions with respect to the manner in which this fish is propagated. Walton imagined them to have been bred of corruption, but they are now known to be viviparous, and very productive. Eels are taken in the great Irish lakes by very simple means. Mr. Curwen mentions a mode of catching adopted by the peasantry on the banks of Lough Erne, in Fermanagh. It consists of a rope stretched across a narrow part of the lake from which hay ropes are suspended, the eels In regard to the migration of eels, the subject has been most ably handled by Sir H. Davy, in the 191st page of the first edition of Salmonia; and what he mentions of the eels in the Irish rivers stands good in regard to those of our own streams and broads, observes the editor of the Norwich Mercury, as on the approach of winter multitudes go down to the salt water, which is congenial to the nature of this fish, and apparently improves its flavour. The eels taken from Breedon water are thought superior to those from the interior. In one respect the migration of our eels appears to differ from that described by Sir H. Davy. He limits the size of the eels which return in the spring to fresh waters to a foot; the size of those which are taken in the months of April and May with us on their return is much greater. It is an acknowledged fact amongst our fishermen that there are two varieties of eel, the sharp nose and the flat nose, as they are provincially denominated. A small and acute head and snout, and silvery belly, mark the sharp nose, which is seldom taken by a hook, but by the dart, or a net called an eel set, staked across the current; and in its habits appears more migratory than the flatnose; a great majority of the eels taken in the eel sets, being of this kind, which is far the best for the table. The eel evidently forms the connecting link in the chain of nature between serpents and fishes, possessing not only much of the serpent form, but also many of its habits. The eel is frequently known to quit the water and wander in the evening or night over meadows in search of snails or other prey, or to other ponds for change of habitation. Eels have a smooth head and tubular nostrils. Their gill-membrane has ten rays. The body is nearly cylindrical, smooth, and slippery. The tail, back, and anal fins are united. The spiracle is behind the head, or pectoral fins. There are about nine species, most of which are found only in the seas. One of these frequents our fresh water, and three others occasionally visit our shores. The usual haunts of eels are in mud, among weeds, under roots or stumps of trees, or in holes in the banks or bottoms of rivers. They are partial to still water, particularly where it is muddy at the bottom. Here they often grow to an enormous size, weighing fifteen or sixteen pounds. One that was caught near Peterborough, in the year 1667, measured a yard and three quarters in length. When kept in ponds they have been known to destroy young ducks. Sir John Hawkins, from a canal near his house in Twickenham, missed many of the young ducks; and, on draining, in order to clean it, great numbers of large eels were found in the mud. In the stomachs of many of them were found, undigested, the heads and parts of the bodies of the victims. Eels seldom come out of their hiding-places but in the night; in winter they bury themselves deep in the mud, and, like the serpent tribe, remain in a torpid state. They are so impatient of cold, as eagerly to take shelter in a wisp of straw flung into a pond in severe weather; and this has sometimes been practised as a mode of catching them. They are best in season from May to July, but may be caught with a line till September. When the water is thick with rains, they may be fished for during the whole day; but the largest and best are caught by night lines. Baits, wasp-grubs, or dew-worms, snails, minnows, gudgeons, or indeed any thing except paste. EEL-BACKED HORSES. Those that have black lists along their backs. EEL-SPEAR. This instrument is made for the most part with three forks or teeth, jagged on the sides; but some have four, which last are the best; this they strike into the mud at the bottom of the river, and if it chance to light where they lie, there is no fear of taking them. But to take the largest eels of all, night-hooks are to be baited with small roaches, and the hooks must lie in the mouth of the fish. EEL TRAPS. Boxes or barrels having an aperture in the top to which a tube of coarse woollen is attached, hanging down in the interior. When sunk to the bottom of the river, the eels enter easily, but find it impossible to return. EIDER-DUCK. (Anas Mollissima, Linn.) A valuable species that frequents rocky shores and solitary islands in high northern latitudes. They abound in Greenland and Iceland, and on the north-west coast of Ireland; and are chiefly esteemed for their down, which possesses a warmth, lightness, and elasticity superior to every other material for beds. The male is black, head and back white, with a black crown. The female is wholly reddish drab, spotted with black, with two white bands across the wings. They measure two feet three inches in length, extent of wings three feet, weight from six to seven pounds. Their nests are despoiled of eggs and down by hunters let down from the top of the cliffs, by a mode attended with considerable danger. See MALLARD, DUCK, WILDDUCK, &c. expensive to them than necessary to the sovereign, has been discontinued. ELVERS. A sort of grigs, or small eels, which at a certain time EQUERRY OF THE CROWN STABLE of the year swim on the top of the has that appellation as being emwater, about Bristol and Glouces-ployed in managing and breaking the ter, and are skimmed up in small saddle horses, and preparing them nets. By a peculiar manner of for the king's riding. There are two dressing they are baked in little of these: the first has an annual cakes, fried, and served up to table. salary of 2561., and the second 2001. EMBROCATION (in Farriery). One is, or always should be, in conAn external remedy, which consists stant waiting at the court, and when in an irrigation of the part affected, his majesty is going to ride, hold the with some proper liquid, by means stirrup, while the master of the horse, of a cloth or sponge dipped in the or one of the equerries in his absame. They are of two kinds, sence, assists him in mounting; when strengthening and stimulating, the his majesty rides out, both usually first may be composed of tar, spirits attend him. of turpentine, and opodeldoc. The latter of tar, oil of turpentine, and spirits of wine. ENLARGE A HORSE, means to make him embrace or stretch more ground than he covered. ENTER A HAWK. A term applied to a hawk when she first begins to kill. ESTRAY, or STRAY. Any tame beast, as horses, oxen, sheep, and swine, or swans, found within a lordship and not owned by any man; in which case being cried, according to law, in the church and two market towns adjoining, if it be not claimed by the owner within a year and a day, it becomes the lord's of the soil where found. If the owner claims it within the year and a day, he must pay the charges of finding, keeping, and proclaiming; and he also may seize it without telling the marks or proving his pro ENTRANCE OF HORSES.Previously to a race-meeting, public notice is generally given of the time and place, by the clerk of the course, where the horses are to enter for the plates, &c. ENTRANCE OF HOUNDS.perty, which may be done at the To stoop them to a scent. Mr. Beckford says, "Dogs like that scent best which they are first blooded to:" it is certainly most reasonable to use them to that it is intended they should hunt. ENTREE (Entrer, Fr.). A term applied to stallions, who are called "entree horses." An trial if contested. If the beast stray within the year to another lordship, the first lord cannot retake it. estray must be fed and kept, uninjured and without labour, till it is reclaimed, or the limited time expire. EXERCISE. The horse was evidently designed for exercise, and for EQUERRY, or EQUERY. An the use of man. His vast muscular officer of the king's stables, under power, and the impenetrable dethe master of the horse. Of these fence attached to his feet, were certhere are five, who, when his ma-tainly not given for his own use jesty goes abroad, ride in the lead-only. If kept in a stable without exing coach, are in waiting, one at a time monthly, and have a table with the gentlemen ushers during the time, and a salary of 300l. a year each. They used to ride on horseback by the coach side, when the king travelled; but that, being more ercise, his muscular power declines, his digestive organs become diseased, and so do the organs of respiration. The hoofs grow, and there is no wear; for the little that may be worn off, merely by the pressure of his own weight when standing still, is prevented by the shoes. The toe being thus elongated, the back sinews are often strained; the foot becomes hot and inflamed, its horny covering contracts; the frogs become rotten, and incapable of performing the office for which they were designed; in short, the whole body becomes diseased. Exercise then, it is evident, is essential to his health, and even his existence; and every part of his structure and economy appear to demonstrate that he was intended for the service of man. His powers, however, are limited, and so should his exertions be: but it is a fact, which must be regretted by all considerate persons, that the immoderate work in which he is often employed, so far from being salutary, or proportionate to his strength, as undoubtedly it was designed by his Creator that it should be, is injurious, and even destructive in a considerable degree. And what greatly aggravates the mischief is, the early and premature age at which he is so commonly employed. EXPECTORANTS, in Pharmacy, (ex and pectore). Medicines that promote expectoration, such are stimulating gums, resins, squills, &c. EXPECTORATION. The act of evacuating or bringing up phlegm or other matter out of the trachea and lungs, by coughing or other effort. EXPEDITATE. To expeditate, signifies to cut out the balls of dogs' feet, to hinder them from pursuing the king's game. But Mr. Manwood says, it implies the cutting off the four claws of the right side; and that the owner of every dog in the forest unexpeditated is to forfeit 3s. 4d. EYRE. The court of justices itinerants; and justices in eyre are those only which Bracton calls justiciarios itinerantes. The eyre also of the forest is nothing but the justice seat otherwise called; which is or should by ancient custom be held every three years by the justices of the forest, journeying up and down for that purpose. Cowel. Justices in Eyre were appointed A. D. 1176. Having become sinecures they were abolished by 57 Geo. III. cap. 61, on the termination of the existing interests; and the salaries of the abolished offices carried to the consolidated fund. EYRY, or AERY. The place where birds of prey build their nests and hatch. FALCONER. The French kings had a grand falconer, an office dismembered from that of grand veneur, as early as the year 1250. A falconer should be well acquainted with the quality and mettle of his hawks, that he may know which of them to fly early, and which late. Every night, after flying, he should give them casting one while plumage, sometimes pellets of cotton, and at another time physic, as he finds necessary. He ought also, every evening, to make the place clean under the perch, that by her casting he may know whether she wants scouring upwards or downwards. He must F water his hawk every evening, except on such days as she has bathed ; after which, at night, she should be put into a warm room, having a candle burning by her, where she is to sit unhooded, if she be not ramage, that she may prick and prune herself. He should always carry proper medicines into the field, as hawks frequently meet with accidents there. He must take with him all his hawking implements; and should be skilful in making lures, hoods of all sorts, jesses, bewets, and other furniture. He ought to have his coping irons, to cope his hawk's beak when overgrown, and G Archbishop Becket had hounds and hawks of every kind with him when sent on an embassy by Henry II. to the court of France. to cut her pounces and talons as | ambassador; and the celebrated there shall be occasion: nor should his cauterizing irons be wanting. The office of Grand Falconer of England is hereditary in the Dukes of St. Albans, as that of Master of the Game is in the Dukes of Grafton. Hawks, however, are no longer kept for royal diversion. FALCONRY. In the catalogue of British sports, we find Falconry, or the art of training and flying of hawks for the purpose of catching other birds (the favourite diversion of our ancestors), usually placed at the head of rural amusements; a superiority to which it is probably entitled, from being a pastime generally followed by the nobility of former times, not only in this kingdom, but also upon the continent; a fact not unmixed with regret, when it is added that hawking is now so fallen into disuse that the art of falconry is in danger of being entirely lost. On looking into ancient authorities we find that persons of the highest rank rarely appeared without their dogs and their hawks. The latter they carried with them when they journeyed from one country to another, and sometimes even when they went to battle; nor would they part with them to procure their own liberty when taken prisoners: for as these birds were considered to be ensigns of nobility, no action was regarded as more dishonourable to a man of rank than to give up his hawk. In the Bayeux tapestry, Earl Harold is represented in the act of approaching the Duke of Normandy | with his hawk upon his hand; and the ancient English illuminators have uniformly distinguished the portrait of King Stephen by giving him a hawk in the like position, which it has been conjectured was with intent to signify that he was nobly, though not royally, born; and the same reasoning applies to Earl Harold. Occasionally we find that these birds formed part of the train of an Peacham, in his Complete Gentleman, says-but on what authority is not known-that hawking was first invented and practised by Frederick Barbarossa when he besieged Rome. The first Latin author that speaks of falconry was Julius Firmicus, who lived about the middle of the fourth century: and this art seems to have been fashionable on the continent some time previously to its being introduced into this country. In the eighth century, Winifred, otherwise Boniface, archbishop of Mons, who was a native of England, presented to Ethelbert, king of Kent, one hawk and two falcons: and a Mercian king requested the same prelate to send to him "two falcons that had been trained to kill cranes." In the succeeding ages this sport was very highly esteemed by the Anglo-Saxon nobility, and the training and flying of hawks became an essential part of the education of young men of rank. Alfred the Great has been commended for his early proficiency in this amusement; and he is even said to have written a treatise upon hawking. So general was this pastime in the Saxon times, that the monks of Abingdon thought it necessary to procure a charter from King Kenulph to restrain the practice, in order to prevent their lands from being trampled on. Edward the Confessor passed the whole of his leisure hours in the sports of hawking and hunting. According to Froissart, Edward III., when he invaded France, had with him thirty falconers on horseback, who had charge of his hawks; and " every day, he either hunted or went to the river for the purpose of hawking, as his fancy inclined him." The frequent mention of hawking |