CORNEOUS, _a._ Horny, of a substance resembling horn.
CORNET, _s._ Cornet of a horse, is the lowest part of his pastern
that runs round the coffin.
CORPULENT, _a._ Fleshy, bulky.
CORROBORANT, _a._ Having the power to give strength.
CORRODE, _v._ To eat away by degrees.
CORROSION, _s._ The power of eating or wearing away by degrees.
COSTIVE, _a._ Bound in the body; close, unpermeable.
COSTIVENESS, _s._ The state of the body in which excretion is
obstructed.
COT, _s._ A small house, a hut, a bed.
COTTON, _s._ The down of the cotton tree; a plant; cloth or stuff
made of cotton.
COUCH, _v._ To lie down in a place of repose; to lie down on the
knees, as a beast, to rest; to lie down in ambush.
COUCHANT, _a._ Lying down, squatting.
COVE, _s._ A small creek or bay; a shelter, a cover.
COVER, _v._ To overspread any thing with something else; to hide by
artificial appearances; to brood on; to copulate with a female.
COVER, _s._ Any thing that is laid over another; a concealment, a
screen; shelter; a wood, a thicket or place planted with furze
or brushwood; a breeding place for foxes. To _draw_ a cover—to
search it for foxes, by sending the hounds through.
Judicious huntsmen will observe where foxes like best to lie; this must,
of course, vary in different countries, and a knowledge of the country
will best direct them in this respect. Where there are large tracts of
cover, such observation will save time in finding; generally speaking,
foxes prefer covers that lie high, are dry and thick at the bottom, that
are out of the wind, and are on the sunny side of hills. The cover where
a fox is found, when it has remained still any time, will probably
produce a second. In nutting time, furze-brakes and two or three years’
coppices are the only quiet places for a fox to kennel in; when
pheasant-shooting begins, older covers are more likely. The season when
foxes are most wild and strong, is near Christmas; a huntsman must, at
that season, lose no time in drawing, and be as silent as possible;
three or four years’ coppices, with heath or furze at the bottom, are
then most likely. The male foxes, about Christmas, travel miles after
the females, and, when hunted, generally run directly for the country
from whence they came; the compiler has at that season, in the course of
three weeks, killed two brace of dog-foxes from one cover, where the
least distance was twelve, and in one of the four chases was extended to
double the number of miles, from the place of unkennelling, to the spot
where the fox was killed.
When a string of small covers have plenty of foxes in them, some caution
is necessary to prevent their being all disturbed in one day. Foxes are
said to go down wind to their kennel, but, however that may be, the
huntsman should begin drawing at the farthest cover down the wind, and
proceed from cover to cover up the wind, till he finds; these advantages
will attend it; he will draw the covers more speedily, there will be
less difficulty in getting hounds away, and as the fox most likely will
run to the covers already drawn, there is the less probability of
changing, and the covers which are up the wind, beyond where the fox is
found, remain perfectly undisturbed.
Never hunt the small, until the large covers have been well rattled; for
it would be bad policy to drive from the former to the latter to
increase the number. If foxes are meant to be thinned and dispersed,
hounds must throw off at the same cover, as long as a fox can be found.
Hounds that come away with the first fox that breaks, do not disturb the
cover, and may expect to find there again the next day; but where foxes
are scarce, the same cover should never be drawn two days following.
Furze covers cannot be drawn too close, and if a fox is there found, he
should never be hallooed until quite clear of them; from such places,
hounds are sure to go off well with him; and it would be the height of
cruelty to head him back into the hounds’ mouths.
* * * * *
Much depends on the first finding a fox, who, if well found, may be said
to be half killed. The huntsman should draw quietly, and up the wind;
this is material; the fox, by drawing up the wind, does not hear the
approach of the hounds, who by this means are also within hearing;
besides, should the fox turn down the wind, as most probably he will, it
lets the hounds all in. If covers are small, and from which a fox cannot
break unseen, noise can then do no hurt, but late in the season foxes
are wild, particularly in covers that are often hunted; and should there
be any noise, they will slink their kennels and get too much advantage;
the whipper-in, where this is suspected to happen, should get the
opposite side of the cover, before the hounds are thrown into it.
* * * * *
When foxes are numerous, there is no occasion for an early hour, and
when they are weak, by hunting late, they give better chases; when
foxes are strong, hounds ought then to have the advantage which
hunting early affords them. When hounds go out late, they should
immediately proceed where it is likely to find, which, for the most
part, is that cover where hounds have been least in; if a fox is not
soon found, a long and tiresome day is generally the consequence; when
the cover is thick, particularly if it be furzy, it should be drawn
slowly; a fox at a late hour will keep his kennel until hounds come
close upon him.—_Beckford._—_Daniel._
COVERT, _s._ A shelter, a defence. Coverts of the Tail,
(_Uropygium_, LINN.), in Ornithology, are feathers which cover
the tail on the upper side, at the base.
COVEY, _s._ A hatch, an old bird with her young ones; a number of
birds together.
COUGH, _s._ A convulsion of the lungs.
COUGH, _v._ To have the lungs convulsed; to make a noise in
endeavouring to evacuate the peccant matter from the lungs.
_Chronic Cough._—It may appear strange to a person unacquainted with the
animal economy, that what is taken into the stomach should affect the
mucous membrane of the lungs, and that of the larynx, which is the seat
of chronic cough. It is in the following manner: when the stomach is
distended by hay, and especially if that hay is bad, it is gradually
weakened, and rendered incapable of performing its office properly;
hence the chyle is crude, and unfit for the purpose it was intended for,
that is, forming pure blood. By this imprudent method of feeding them,
the blood is rendered impure, and of course all the secretions become so
likewise. Thus it is that the bland mucous fluid, formed upon the
internal membrane of the wind-pipe and its branches, for the purpose of
defending and lubricating it, becomes saline and acrimonious, and a
source of constant irritation: hence arises the cough. It is commonly
observed, that horses with chronic cough have immoderate appetites both
for hay and water; and though people have suspected some connexion
between this circumstance and the cough, they have not perceived the
entire dependence of the cough upon it, which they might easily have
done by a very simple experiment. Let a horse affected with chronic
cough be fed moderately upon green food only, and it will generally be
found that the chronic cough will gradually go off. But let the horse
return to his former method of feeding, and the disease will quickly
reappear.
There is no occasion to say much on the treatment and prevention of this
disorder, when arising from improper feeding. It may be useful, however,
to observe, that when the appetite has been depraved, and the digestive
power weakened by long continued improper feeding, they cannot be
suddenly restored: and it will often require a steady perseverance in a
careful system of feeding, and the use of diuretic medicine, in such a
way, however, as to keep up only a moderate degree of increased action
in the kidneys, without injuring those organs, or affecting the stomach:
and this may be accomplished by giving half an ounce of nitre in a
little corn twice or three times a day, or the powder described
afterwards. If a horse is inclined to eat his litter, he should be
muzzled during the night, and in the day time it should be taken from
him.
Chronic cough is sometimes a consequence of a violent attack of catarrh
or strangles, especially when there has been considerable soreness and
inflammation of the throat, extending, in some degree, perhaps, to the
larynx. Roaring often originates in the same cause. I have known an
obstinate chronic cough cured by drenches composed of oxymel, or a syrup
made with treacle and vinegar; also by a decoction of garlic with
linseed oil. Barbadoes tar and oil, with balsam of sulphur, have also
been employed as remedies for cough. It is not improbable that these
drenches, by stimulating the throat, may improve the secretion of the
mucous membrane of the larynx, or render it less irritable.
Blistering the throat externally may also be of use. In the human
subject, gargles, made of infusion of Cayenne pepper, have been employed
in hoarseness, and a syrup made from a decoction of horse-radish; with a
view, probably, of improving the mucous secretion of the larynx. Opium
will frequently put a stop to chronic cough for a day or two; but its
effect, I believe, is never permanent. This seems to prove, however,
that the cough depends, in some measure, on a morbid sensibility of the
larynx.