HURDLE RACING  , running races over short distances, at intervals in which a number of hurdles, or fence-like obstacles, must be jumped . This has always been a favourite branch of track athletics, the usual distances being 12o yds., 220 yds. and 440 yds . The 120 yds. hurdle race is run over ten hurdles 3 ft . 6 in. high and to yds. apart, with a space of 15 yds. from the start to the first hurdle and a like distance from the last hurdle to the finish . In Great Britain the hurdles are fixed and the race is run on grass; in America the hurdles, although of the same height, are not fixed, and the races are run on the cinder track . The " low hurdle race " of 220 yds. is run over ten hurdles 2 ft . 6. in. high and 20 yds. apart, with like distances between the start and the first hurdle and between the last hurdle and the finish . The record time for the 120 yds. race on grass is 15-t secs., and on cinders 1s secs., both of which were performed by A . C . Kraenzlein, who also holds the record for the 220 yds. low hurdle race, 231 secs . For 440 yds. over hurdles the record time is 57A secs., by T . M .

Donovan, and by J . B . Densham at Kennington Oval in 1907 . HURDY-GURDY (Fr. vielle d manivelle, symphonic or chyfonie a roue; Ger . Bauernleier, Deutscheleier, Bettlerleier, Radleier; Ital. lira tedesca, lira rustica, lira pagana), now loosely used as a synonym for any grinding organ, but strictly a medieval drone instrument with strings set in vibration by the friction of a wheel, being a development of the organistrum (q.v.) reduced in size so that it could be conveniently played by one person instead of two . It consisted of a box or soundchest, sometimes , rectangular, but more generally having the outline of the guitar; inside it had a wheel, covered with leather and rosined, and worked by means of a crank at the tail end of the instrument . On the fingerboard were placed movable frets or keys, which, on being depressed, stopped the strings, at points corresponding to the diatonic intervals of the scale . At first there were 4 strings, later 6 . In the organistrum three strings, acted on simultaneously by the keys, produced the rude harmony known as organum . When this passed out of favour, superseded by the first beginnings of polyphony over a pedal bass, the organistrum gave place to the hurdy-gurdy . Instead of acting on all the strings, the keys now affected the first string only, or " chanterelle," though in some cases certain keys, made longer, also reached the third string or " trompette "; the result was that. a diatonic melody could be played on the chanterelles . The other open strings always sounded simultaneously as long as the wheel was turned, like drones on the bag-pipe .

The hurdy-gurdy originated in

France at the time when the Paris School or Old French School was laying the foundations d counterpoint and polyphony . During the 13th and 14th centuries it was known by the name of Symphonia or Chyfonie, and in Germany Lira or Leyer . Its popularity remained undiminished in France until late in the 18th century . Although the hurdy-gurdy never obtained recognition among serious musicians in Germany, the idea embodied in the mechanism stimulated (1786-1842) to Halle . In 1865 he was accused by some theologians of the Hengstenberg school of heretical doctrines . From this charge, however, he successfully cleared himself, the entire theological faculty, including Julius Muller (1801-1878) and August Tholuck (1799-1877), bearing testimony to his sufficient orthodoxy . He died at Halle on the 24th of April 1866 . His earliest works in the department of Semitic philology (Exercitationes Aethiopicae, 1825, and De emendanda ratione lexicographiae Semiticae, 1827) were followed by the first part (1841), mainly historical and critical, of an Ausfuhrliche Hebraische Grammatik, which he did not live to complete, and by a treatise on the early history of Hebrew grammar among the Jews (De rei grammaticae apud Judaeos initiis antiquissimisque scriptoribus, Halle, 1846) . His principal, contribution to Biblical literature, the exegetical and critical Ubersetzung and Auslegung der Psalmen, began to appear in 1855, and was completed in 1861 (2nd..ed. by E . Riehm, 1867-1871, 3rd ed . 1888) . Other writings are Uber Begriff and Methode der sogenannten biblischen Einleitung (Marburg, 1844) ; De primitiva et vera festorum apud Hebraeos ratione (Halle, 1851–1864) ; Die Quellen der Genesis von neuem untersucht (Berlin, 1853) ; Die heutige theosophische ()der mythologische Theologie and Schrifterklarung (1861) .

See E . Riehm,

Hermann Hupfeld (Halle, 1867) ; W . Kay, Crisis Hupeldiana (1865); and the article by A . Kamphausen in Band viii. of Herzog-Hauck's Realencyklopadie (1900) .