BLOODFLOWER. 
part of a line. In blood that has been drawn 
some time, although this time may be very short, 
they are not to be discovered. They are the ef- 
fect of the life that pervades the blood. The 
more robust and healthy an animal is, the more 
globules are perceived. They show, as it were, 
the transition from the formless liquid to the 
original form of the first organized matter. The 
blood is of the greatest importance to the life of 
an animal, and may be considered as the source 
of life. As long as the body is living, the blood 
is in perpetual motion. When it is taken out of 
the body, a remarkable change soon follows: it 
begins to coagulate, and then undergoes, first an 
acetous, and, after a few days, a putrid fermen- 
tation. All the blood takes its origin from the 
chyle, and deposits, by degrees, the nourishing 
particles requisite to the preservation and growth 
of the body, by a multitude of vessels adapted 
thereto. This is done while it is driven from the 
heart into the remotest parts of the body, and 
from thence back. The circulation of the blood 
is, as it were, the principle and first condition of 
life. With it, except in cases of fainting, suffo- 
cation, &c., life ceases. The heart, the centre of 
the circulation of the blood, has a two-fold mo- 
tion of contraction and dilatation, which con- 
stantly alternate. With the heart two kinds of 
vessels are connected,—the arteries and the veins. 
The circulation of the blood proceeds with an 
astonishing rapidity: did it flow at an equal rate 
in a straight line, it would run, in the space of 
one minute, through 149 feet. This swiftness, 
however, exists only in the larger vessels near the 
heart; the farther the blood recedes from the 
heart, the slower its motion becomes. In a 
grown-up person, in good health, we may reckon 
the mass of blood at 24 to 30 lbs. 
BLOODFLOWER,—botanically Hemanthus. A 
genus of tender, beautiful, bulbous-rooted plants, 
of the amaryllis tribe. About twenty species 
have been introduced to Great Britain,—one from 
Sierra Leone, and all the others from the Cape of 
Good Hope. One of the species, the scarlet, was 
introduced in 1629; twelve in the course of the 
last century ; and the others, since 1800. The 
stems of most rise to the height of about a foot; 
and those of the remainder to about six or nine 
inches. Three, the white-flowered, the orbicular, 
and the pubescent, have white flowers; and the 
| others have flowers of various shades of red, from 
scarlet and crimson to pink and flesh-colour. 
All are propagated by offsets, and grow well in 
sandy loam mixed with a little peat. The leaves 
of several of the species are large, fleshy, and pe- 
culiarly shaped, and have a very remarkable and 
interesting appearance during winter. Miller 
describes two of the three species known in his 
day as difficult of propagation in Europe; and 
one of these two as exceedingly shy in coming to 
flower. 
BLOOD-HORSE. See Horsz. 
BLOODHOUND. A variety of the dog, for- 
BLOODHOUND. 455 
merly much used and highly prized, on account 
of its exquisite scent and extraordinary perse- 
verance, for tracking and seizing depredators and 
other obnoxious persons. A British bloodhouhd 
of pure blood is now comparatively rare, and, ex- 
cepting in a few instances, for the seizing of sheep 
stealers, is kept only as an object of ornament 
and curiosity. He is compact, muscular, and 
strong; his height is about 28 inches ; his pre- 
vailing colour is a reddish tan, gradually darken- 
ing from the sides to the back, and there becom- 
ing blackish; his forehead is broad; his face to- 
ward the muzzle is narrow; his nostrils are wide 
and fully developed; his ears are large and pen- 
dulous; his tail is long; his aspect is sagacious 
and calm; and his voice is deep, sonorous, and 
powerful. Previous to the union of the English 
and the Scottish crowns, great numbers of blood- 
hounds were kept by the warrior population of 
the borders, and employed in feuds against moss- 
troopers and even against princes; and, under 
the name of sleuth-hounds, they mingle in the 
romantic story of Bruce, of Wallace, and of many 
a border chieftain. The bloodhound of Cuba 
closely resembles the old British bloodhound in 
habits and instinct, but very considerably differs 
from him in shape. This animal is still employed 
by the Cubans to pursue felons and murderers; 
and possesses an appalling notoriety in history as 
a principal auxiliary of the Spaniards in their 
atrocious conquest of America, and of the West 
Indian colonists in their inhuman warfare with 
the revolted Maroons of Jamaica. <A writer in 
one of the Dublin Medical journals says: “ There 
are three dogs at present known under the name 
of bloodhound, which, though by some considered 
distinct from one another, I am disposed to re- 
gard as varieties of the same animal, the differ- 
ence in their appearance being probably owing 
to climate, if not, indeed, to some intentional or 
accidental cross. These varieties are the African, 
the Cuban or Spanish, and the British. The first, 
viz. the African, I am inclined to regard as the 
original whence the others sprang. The Cuban 
seems to have a dash of the greyhound in him; 
and the British would appear to have been 7m- 
proved by the intermixture of the old English 
Talbot, which I take to be a far more genuine as 
well as more ancient animal. The African blood- 
hound is very seldom to be seen in this country. 
He sometimes resembles a very large and raw- 
boned Spanish pointer. His ears are pendulous 
and fine -in texture, about the length of a fox- 
hound’s; coat very fine, and skin apparently thin ; 
colour generally dark liver-colour clouded with 
black, yet sometimes tan; muzzle nearly always 
black, as also the tip of his ears; head pretty 
large, and shaped like a pointer’s; eyes placed 
towards the front; tail fine, and carried rather 
horizontally than erect. The appearance and 
manners of this dog are ferocious in the extreme ; 
he stands about twenty-six inches high at the 
shoulder, often less, but seldom more. I saw one 
