This species is generally rather larger than the common godwit; weight
about twelve ounces; length eighteen inches; the bill is full three
inches and a half long, a trifle reflected; slender; dusky towards the
point; the base yellowish flesh-colour; irides hazel; the head, neck,
breast, back, and the top of the head, are streaked with dusky; the back
and scapulars marked with large black spots or bars; from the bill to
the eye a light coloured streak; the belly and under tail-coverts white;
the sides under the wings barred with dusky; the smaller coverts of the
wings, on the ridge, dusky; the next inclining to ferruginous; the
larger ones cinereous-brown, light at the tips; greater quill-feathers
black; shafts white; the outer webs slightly edged with white half way
down; inner webs white at the base; the secondary quills dusky from
their points half way; base white; those next the body ferruginous, like
the scapulars, barred with black; the rump and upper tail-coverts white;
the two middle feathers of the tail dusky black; the rest white half way
from the base; ends black; legs near four inches long, and black; the
thighs bare of feathers full an inch above the knee. In some, the breast
is streaked with black; others mottled rufous and white; and the upper
tail-coverts barred with rufous and brown.—_Montagu._
YAWL, _s._ A little vessel belonging to a ship for convenience of
passing to and from it; a small yacht.
YEAR, _s._ Twelve months; it is often used plurally, without a
plural termination; in the plural, old age.
YEARLING, _s._ Being a year old.
YELK, _s._ The yellow part of the egg.
YELL, _v._ To cry out with horror and agony; to cry like a beaten
dog.
YELLOW, _a._ Being of a bright glaring colour, as gold.
_To dye fine rich bright Yellows._—These are the best yellows for salmon
colours, as they are very strong. The gold colours, as before directed,
are better for some flies. You are to get two pounds of strawall, and
six ounces of turmeric: boil these in eight quarts of water; put down
one pound of fur along with your dye stuff; give it an hour’s boiling,
and you have a fine shade: boil on an hour longer and draw again: boil
for an hour and a half, and draw again. Finish your last with two hours’
boiling, and you have four as fine high yellows as can be dyed, and fast
colours.
_Mr. Peter Woulfe’s Recipe for the Yellow Dye._—Take half an ounce of
powdered indigo, and mix it in a high glass vessel, with two ounces of
strong spirit of nitre, which should be previously diluted with eight
ounces of water, for preventing the indigo being set on fire by the
spirit; because two ounces and a half of strong spirit of nitre will set
fire to half an ounce of indigo. Let the mixture stand for a week, and
then digest it in a sand heat for an hour or more, and add four ounces
more of water to it; filter the solution, which will be of a fine yellow
colour. If the indigo be digested twenty-four hours after the spirit of
nitre is poured upon it, it will froth and boil over, but after standing
about a week it has not that property. One part of the solution of
indigo in the acid of nitre, mixed with four or five parts of the water,
will dye silk cloth of the palest yellow colour, or of any shade to the
deepest, and that by letting them boil more or less in the colour. The
addition of alum is useful, as it makes the colour more lasting;
according as the solution boils away, more water must be
added—cochineal, Dutch litmus, orchil, cudbear, and many other colouring
substances, treated in this manner, will dye silk and wool a yellow
colour. The indigo which remains undissolved in making Saxon blue, and
collected by filtration, if digested with spirit of nitre, dyes silk and
wool of all shades of brown inclining to yellow.
Mr. Boyle tells us a most beautiful yellow may be procured, by taking
good quicksilver, and three or four times its weight of oil of vitriol.
Drawing off in a glass retort the saline menstruum from the metalline
liquor, till there remains a dry snow-white calx at the bottom. On
pouring a large quantity of fair water on this, the colour changes to an
excellent light yellow.
_Lighter Yellows._—Take three or four sprigs of eld, and two chips of
young fustic, about the size of half a crown; boil them in six quarts of
water for two hours; put down all your stuff together. You may then put
in half a thimbleful of the best madder, and the same of turmeric; let
them boil smartly for five minutes, and then draw a part for the first
shade. It must be divided into four parts; let it boil ten minutes; lift
out and draw; follow on by adding a whole thimbleful of each for the
second, and one and a half thimbleful for the third, and two of each for
the last. This is the only bright yellow I could get to stand, and is
the best for foxes. You may dye hog’s fur in this if it be very white.
_Another Recipe._—Take two large handfuls of laurel leaves, nice and
green, the same with ivy tops, and half a pound of weld. Put your weld
in the bottom, and some of laurel branches to cover the weld, and lay
your mohair nice and thin over the laurel; then cover with the ivy, and
put the remainder of the laurel on the top; put on your wooden frame and
your lid, and fill the pot with water, and boil it as long as you
please, and you will get fine rich soft yellows. Do not boil too long at
first, or omit to draw soon, as you will lose your nice golden colours,
and others, for the drake’s. This will not dye hog’s fur, but is a fast
colour.—_Ancient Recipes._
YELLOWHAMMER, _s._ A bird.
The weight of this species is about seven drachms; length six inches;
bill dusky bluish; irides hazel; the crown of the head, throat, and
belly, are of a beautiful bright yellow; the back part and sides of the
head tinged with green; the breast, in some, is marked with
reddish-brown; quill-feathers dusky, the primores edged on their
exterior webs with greenish-yellow, the secondaries with rusty-brown,
those next the body, the greater coverts, and back, dusky, deeply
margined with the same, the latter dashed with green; the rump and upper
tail-coverts tawny-red; the tail a little forked, dusky, edged with
greenish-yellow; the two outer feathers marked with white on the
exterior webs; legs yellow-brown.
The female has much less yellow about the head, and the colours in
general less vivid. The yellow hammer is subject to some variety in
plumage. We have a specimen in which the whole head and neck is of a
light yellow; some of the quill-feathers and scapulars white; and the
under parts and rump pale yellow. The young birds have no yellow about
them when first they leave the nest.
This is one of the most common indigenous birds of this country; if it
were more rare, its beauty would be less disregarded. Its song, however,
is as little attractive as that of the common bunting, possessing only a
repetition of the same note five or six times successively, terminating
in one more lengthened and shrill. In winter they assemble in flocks,
with other granivorous birds, and pick up the scattered grain dispersed
by the bountiful flail, and not by the master of the hoarded sheaves,
who knows too well the value of his auriferous store. It does not breed
till late in the spring. The nest is generally placed near the ground,
in some low bush or hedge. It is composed of straw and various dried
stalks, and lined with fine dried grass, finished with long
hair.—_Montagu._
YELLOWS, _s._ A disease in horses.
This disorder takes its name from the yellowness of the eyes and mouth;
the urine is high-coloured; dung small and slimy: pulse quick and
sometimes very _weak_. The horse appears exceedingly weak and languid;
sometimes in such a degree that he reels when led out of the stable; he
eats but little, yet is generally rather thirsty. This disease generally
requires in the first place copious bleeding, being evidently of an
inflammatory nature; this is denoted by the membranes of the eye
appearing red instead of yellow, and by the pulse being rather _strong_
as well as quick, and sometimes by the breathing being a little
quickened. I have seen, however, the membranes of the eye exceedingly
red, while the pulse was so feeble as to forbid bleeding; most commonly,
however, it is otherwise; and, as a general practice, it is safer to
bleed freely at first. Sometimes it is necessary to repeat the bleeding;
this is generally the case when we are prevented, by the apparent
debility of the animal, from bleeding copiously at first. When the heart
and the brain are oppressed with blood there is always great stupor and
debility, and generally a pulse that may lead the inexperienced to avoid
bleeding; but, upon taking off a gallon of blood, the pulse, in such
circumstances, will often feel stronger; and, if the blood be examined
after it has become cool, it will be found rather firm, and with a thick
coat of buff or size on its surface. Immediately after the bleeding
throw up a clyster, and give the following ball, and six hours after the
ball the following drench, and another clyster:—