CHAPTER XL 



COACH-HORNS AND WHIPS. 



Variety of horns— How to blow — " Way for the coach " — The rule 

 of the road — Coach-horn calls — A heavy lash and a long stick 

 — Whip and coach-horn makers. 



The first horn that was constructed was undoubtedly 

 from the horn of an animal, as the name denotes, horn 

 being a general term for all hard and pointed ap- 

 pendages on the heads of animals and even insects ; 

 but the modern coach-horn so entirely differs from the 

 horns of animals — so contrived as to form a musical or 

 unmusical instrument as the case may be — that it is 

 with the greatest difficulty we remember the original 

 signification of the word. 



The hunting-horn (the cor de chasse of the French, 

 the waldJiorn of the Germans), a brass or copper tube 

 gradually expanding into a bell-shaped mouth and 

 bent into a semicircle, was for a long time the chief 

 form in existence. 



By lengthening or shortening a long tube-like horn, 

 unprovided with notes, the key can be transposed. 



An old guard, who writes upon the subject of 

 coach-horns, calls attention to the fact of the difference 



