Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 10.djvu/271

* HORSE-CHESTNUT. 233 HORSEMANSHIP. ing. The seeds are unpleasantly bitter, and con- tain so much of the saponaceous substance pe- culiar to this natural order that when reduced to powder they may be used for washing. They contain, however, a large quantity of starch, which may be extracted and freed from bitterness by means of an alkaline solution or repeated washing. This starch is prepared on a large scale and at a cheap rate in France. Horse- chestnuts have long been eni])loyed in various countries as food for oxen, sheep, swine, and horses, all of which are fond of them, and grow fat upon them. In the other species of .^?:sculus which are na- tives of North America the foliage is ver}' simi- lar to that of the common horse-chestnut. Both the leaves and fruit of the American buckeye {.Hsculiis glabra) are poisonous. This tree ranges from Penn.sylvania to Alabama, and west to Kansas and Texas. North America possesses a number of other species w-ith very similar fo- liage, smaller flowers, and smooth fruit. In Cali- fornia the seeds of .Esculus California are used as food by some Indian tribes, as are those of jSscuUis turhinata in Japan. The seeds of ^Esmliis pariiftora, the edible buckeye, are eaten, either boiled or ro.isted. This species is a shrub with long and beautiful racemes of fragrant white flowers, which have long projecting sta- mens. It is a native of the Southern States. ^J^s<:iilus Indica is a lofty tree which grows at elevations of 8000 to lo'.OOO feet in the Him- alayas, and produces seeds very similar to these of the horse-chestnut, which, although bitter, are eaten in time of scarcity. HORSE-CREVALLE, kre-val-la'. See Ca- VALi,-y. HORSE FAIR, The. A well-knoivn painting by Rosa Bonheur, exhibited at the Salon of 1853. After passing through several hands it formed part of the Stewart collection, and was finally purchased by Cornelius Vanderbilt, and pre- sented by him to the Jletropolitan iluseum. New York, where it now hangs. There are several replicas by the artist in England, and an en- graving of the painting by Landseer. The canvas shows a number of horses in motion, some with riders, some led. and some free. HORSE-FISH, or Horsehead. See Moon- fish. HORSE-FLY. See Gadfly. HORSE-FOOT SNIPE. See Turnstone. HORSE-GENTIAN. A North American medicinal plant. See Feverwort. HORSE GRENADIERS. See Mounted Ix- F.^XTRV. HORSE GUARDS. The military headquar- ters of the Urifish Armv. and the office^ of the Field-Marshal Commander-in-chief, War Office, Pall Mall, London, S. W. It is a term used to distinguish the purely military' part oi the army organization from that of the civil authority, the Secretary of State for War. The oldest cavalry regiments of the British Amiv .nre .tIso known as the Horse Guards, the term' including the Oxford Blues, first raised by the Earl of Oxford in IfifiO, and now stvled the Royal Horse Guards, or The Blues; and' the First and Second Regiments of Life Guards (q.v.), organized in 16HI-62. HORSE LATITUDES. See Calm Latitudes. HORSELESS CARRIAGE. See Automo bile. HORSE-MACKEREL. A name given to sev- eral species of fishes of the family Carangidae, and especially, in Great Britain, to the scad {Trachurus trachurus), and in the United States to the crevalle (Caranx hippos). The carangids are all trim, vigorous fishes, and are peculiar in that the teeth, when present, are villiform or conical. Usually the scales are very small, or they may be altogether wanting. In many instances the lateral line is entirely or par- tially armed with shield-like, overlapping plates. (See Fig. 2. on the Plate of Hor.se->I.ckerel, ac- companying this article.) The horse-mackerels are distributed over all seas except the polar, and their remains go back to Cretaceous time, while they are profusely represented in marine strata of Eocene date. They sometimes gather in enor- mous shoals, and are captured in va.st quantities in seines. They are carnivorous, and swift and fierce in pursuit of lesser fishes. Their fle.sh is excellent food. The typical genera are slender, compressed, mackerel-like fishes, but the family includes many others of different form, such as the amber-fishes (Seriola), the pilot-fishes (Nau- crates), the mooniishes (Vomer and Selene), and the pompanos. These are described indi vidually under their names elsewhere. Consult Goode's American Fishes (New York, 1888) ; Gunther, Introduction to the Study of Fishes (London, 1880). HORSEMANSHIP. The art of managing horses. It is to the Greeks that we must look for our first knovvledge of the history of horseman- ship, for when primitive man first ventured upon the back of a captured horse is, at' the best, a matter of conjecture. The 'bit' could not have been known before the age of bronze, but un- doubtedly the first horsemen employed a halter or thong of rawhide passed through the aniflial's mouth in order to direct and control it. Accord- ing to the evidence of the Egyptian monuments, bit. bridle, harness, and chariot were employed; and we know from other sources that the bridles of the early hor.semen of Egypt and Asia were considerably decorated with tassels, crests, and embroidery, in a manner both rich and elaborate ; but anything approaching the modern saddle was unknown to either Egyptian, Assyrian, or Per- sian. Instead, a decorated and fringed cloth fastened to the animal by a girth was employed to afford the horseman a seat. The warlike tribes occupying the northern border of Greece are credited with the introduction of horseman- ship .imong the Greeks, among whom the art was held in very high esteem. Horse-races were a conspicuous feature of their festivals and games: a noteworthy feature in connection with which was the fact that the tact and judgment of the rider was frequently a more important factor in gaining the decision than the superiority of the horse. The Athenians were especially devoted to the art, and the rules of horsemanship, so far as the seat is concerned, did not differ in essence from the good horsemanship of to-day. That the Greeks excelled in the exercise is evident from the fact that they were in the habit of taking all sorts of 'leaps' (according to Xenophon). "across ditches, over walls, upon and from banks:" and in militarj' evolutions particularly, demonstrated