BAY, _a._ A colour.
Of the bays, there are many varieties, and they include the very best of
our horses of every description. The bright yellow bay, although very
beautiful, and especially if his mane and tail are black, is the least
valuable, because the lightness of his colour seems to give him some
tenderness of constitution. The proper bay, with no white about him, and
black from the knees and the hocks to the feet, is the most desirable of
all colours; he has generally a good constitution, naturally good feet,
and, if his conformation is not faulty, will turn out a valuable horse
for almost every purpose.—_The Horse._
BAY, _s._ An opening in the land; the state of anything surrounded
by enemies; a tree.
BAY, _v._ To bark, as a dog, at the moon; to shut in.
BAY SALT, _s._ Salt made of sea water, which receives its
consistence from the heat of the sun, and is so called from its
brown colour.
BAYARD, _s._ A bay horse.
BEACH, _s._ The shore; the strand.
BEADLE, _s._ In _forestry_, is an officer that warns all the courts
of the forest, executes process, makes all proclamations, &c.
&c.
BEAGLE, _s._ A small hound, with which hares are hunted.
[Illustration]
This is the smallest of the dogs of the chase which go under the general
denomination of hound; meaning that kind which have the innate property
of finding their game and pursuing it by what sportsmen call scent,
which seems to be an impregnation of the atmosphere with certain
effluvia issuing from the pores of the skin, and acting upon the
olfactory membrane of the dog’s nose.
Although the beagle is far inferior in point of speed to the harrier,
yet his sense of smelling a hare is equally exquisite, and he pursues
her with indefatigable vigilance, energy, and perseverance. Every
winding and all the mazes are traced by him with a degree of exactness
which must be seen to be properly understood and justly estimated, while
the soft and melodious tones of his voice afford ecstatic pleasure to
the lovers of the chase, and is thus finely described by Somerville:—
“Hark! from yon covert, where those towering oaks
Above the humble copse aspiring rise,
What glorious triumphs burst in every gale
Upon our ravish’d ears! The hunters shout,
The clanging horns swell their sweet winding notes,
The pack wide opening load the trembling air
With various melody; from tree to tree
The propagated cry redoubling bounds,
And winged zephyrs waft the floating joy
Through all the regions near.
The puzzling pack unravel, wile by wile,
Maze within maze.”
Much emulation prevailed in former times among sportsmen in the breeding
of beagles, and it was then the greatest merit to rear dogs of the
smallest growth. Amongst amateurs of hunting, beagles were so carefully
selected in point of size, that they seldom exceeded ten or eleven
inches in height; and they were so well matched with respect to speed,
that during the chase a good pack might be covered with a sheet. This is
with all kinds of hounds a sure mark of excellence.
Although beagles are slow in speed, they are uncommonly eager; for, if
the scent lies well, a hare has little chance of escape from them. Their
slowness, however, is the principal reason of their being almost totally
discontinued in packs, and that they are now seldom to be met with
beyond a few couples, used in some of the southern counties of England
to ensure finding more certainly in greyhound coursing.
Hunting with the beagle was admirably adapted for ladies and gentlemen
up in years; and, besides, afforded much amusement to rustics, and other
pedestrian hunters; for there were few male persons of any activity who
could not keep up with them.
The late Colonel Hardy once had a pack of beagles amounting to ten or
twelve couples, and so diminutive in size, that they were always carried
to and from the sporting field in a large pair of panniers slung across
a horse. This curious pack was lost to the colonel in a rather singular
manner. It was kept in a barn which was one night broken open, when all
the hounds and the panniers were stolen; and, notwithstanding the most
diligent search, no trace of either could ever be discovered.—_Brown._
BEAK, _s._ The bill or horny mouth of a bird.
BEAN, _s._ The common garden bean; the horse bean.
Beans contain but five hundred and seventy parts of nutritive matter,
yet they add materially to the vigour of the horse. There are many
horses that will not stand hard work without beans being mingled with
their food, and these not horses whose tendency to purge it may be
necessary to restrain by the astringency of the bean. There is no
traveller who is not aware of the difference in the spirit and
continuance of his horse if he allows or denies him beans on his
journey. They afford not merely a temporary stimulus, but they may be
daily used without losing their power, or producing exhaustion. Two
pounds of beans may, with advantage, be mixed with the chaff of the
agricultural horse, during the winter. In summer, the quantity may be
lessened, or the beans altogether discontinued. Beans are generally
given whole. This is very absurd; for the young horse, whose teeth are
strong, seldom requires them; while the old horse, to whom they are in a
manner necessary, is scarcely able to masticate them, swallows many of
them whole which he is unable to break, and drops much corn from his
mouth in the ineffectual attempt to break them. Beans should not be
merely split, but crushed; they will even then give sufficient
employment to the grinders of the animal. Some postmasters use chaff
with beans instead of oats. With hardly-worked horses they may possibly
be allowed; but in general cases, the beans, without oats, would be too
binding and stimulating, and would produce costiveness, and probably
megrims or staggers.—_The Horse._