If we are out shooting in Canada we may easily add to our mess the
ruffled grouse (_Tetrao umbellus_), although these, like many other
birds, are partridges with the settlers--this variety being termed the
birch partridge. Another species, the spruce partridge of the colonists
(_T. Canadensis_), is less palatable, for, unfortunately, it has a
habit of feeding upon laurel leaves. But here is something to make
amends--a fine Esquimaux curlew, as large as an English partridge, and
a mud-sucker, _id est_ snipe.
Let me note a Canadian receipt for cooking a partridge, which may be
useful to sportsmen and travellers:--
‘Expedition is the maxim of all sylvan cookery, and as plucking the
feathers of a partridge would be too great a tax on the time and
patience of the voyageur, the method most in vogue is to run your
hunting knife round his throat and ancles and down his breast, when,
taking a leg in each hand, and pressing your thumb into his back, you
pop him out of his skin, as you would a pea from its pod. Then make a
spread-eagle of him on a forked twig, the other extremity of which is
thrust into the ground, and after wrapping a rasher of bacon around his
neck and under his wings, as ladies wear a scarf, you incline him to
the fire, turning the spit in the ground, and you will have a result
such as Soyer might be proud of. When your other avocations will not
afford time even for the skinning process, an alternative mode is
to make a paste of ashes and water, and roll up your bird therein,
with the feathers, and all the appurtenances thereof, and thrust the
performance in the fire. In due time, on breaking the cemented shell
(which is like a sugared almond), the feathers, skin, &c., adhere to
it, and then you have the pure kernel of poultry within.’
The red-legged partridge is common in the Greek islands, on the
continent of Asia, and in the southern countries of Europe. In some of
the Cyclades, where the inhabitants are too poor to expend money on
powder, they chase the birds on foot, till they are so wearied, as to
be easily taken with the hand.
Of all the European birds, the quail (_Coturnix vulgaris_) is the most
remarkable, on account of the vast numbers which congregate on the
shores of the Mediterranean in the spring, coming from Asia Minor and
Northern Africa, to avoid the excessive heat. For a few weeks in the
month of April, when they first begin to arrive in Sicily, everybody is
a sportsman. Arriving always in the night, although not a quail could
be seen the evening before, the report of guns the next morning, in
all directions, attests their number and the havoc that has begun upon
them. Such prodigious numbers have appeared on the western coasts of
the kingdom of Naples, that a hundred thousand have been taken in a
day, within the space of four or five miles.
The flesh of the turtle dove is considered much superior to that of the
wild pigeon.
The passenger pigeon (_Columba migratoria_) of America, is a very large
and well flavoured variety, being 16 inches long, and 24 inches in
the spread of its wings; its hue chiefly slate-colour. They migrate
at certain seasons in millions, and feed on acorns and fresh mast.
They travel in the morning and evening, and repose about mid-day in
the forests. Their passage, whether in spring or autumn, lasts from 15
to 20 days, after which they are met with in the centre of the United
States. The Indians often watch the roosting places of these birds, and
knocking them on the head in the night, bring them away by thousands.
They preserve the oil or fat, which they use instead of butter. There
was formerly scarcely any little Indian village in the interior, where
a hundred gallons of this oil might not at any time be purchased.
These pigeons spread over the whole of North America, abounding round
Hudson’s Bay, where they remain till December. They arrive in the fur
countries in the latter end of May, and depart in October. They are met
with as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, but do not extend their range
westward of the Rocky Mountains. Stray passenger pigeons have been
taken both in Norway and in Russia; and this bird has found a place in
the British fauna, from a solitary bird having been shot in Westhall,
Fifeshire, on the 31st December, 1825. Like other pigeons, this genus
makes a slender platform nest of sticks and straws, but, unlike other
pigeons, prolific as it is, it lays but one egg. The female builds the
nest, the male bird fetches the materials. The time of incubation is 16
days, and the male relieves the female in sitting during that period.
The immense number of these birds baffles all computation. Those
eminent ornithologists, Wilson and Audubon, describe flocks seen by
them to contain respectively from thousands of millions to upwards of a
billion in each, the daily food required to sustain which would be at
least 60,000 bushels; and the New York _Evening Post_ informs us that,
on one day, seven tons of these pigeons were brought into the New York
market by the Erie railroad.
In their breeding places, herds of hogs are fed on the young pigeons or
‘squabs,’ which are also melted down by the settlers, as a substitute
for butter or lard. The felling a single tree often produces 200
squabs, nearly as large as the old ones, and almost one mass of fat.
When the flocks of full grown pigeons enter a district, clap-nets and
guns are in great requisition. Pennant, in his _Arctic Zoology_, says,
Sir William Johnstone told him, that at one shot, he brought down with
a blunderbuss above a hundred and twenty pigeons. Wagon loads of them
are poured into the towns, and sold as cheap as a half-penny up to
two-pence the dozen. The flesh tastes like the common wild blue pigeon,
but is, if anything, better flavoured. Why (it has been asked) could
not this large pigeon, whose migratory habits are principally caused
by search for food, be introduced into this country as a tame variety,
or by crossing with our native breeds enlarge the size; or, in the
same way as fresh mutton was sent from Australia, be sent in casks
potted in their own fat, to supply us with cheap pigeon pies? And the
same with a cross with the large Texan rabbit, or the wild American
turkey, the latter being far superior in size and appearance to its
degenerate descendant, the tame turkey, sometimes as much as four feet
in length, and five feet from wing to wing? The canvas-back ducks of
America are there boasted of exceedingly as a delicacy, yet, although
a great variety of useless water-fowl has been introduced merely as
an ornament to the ponds and streams of our gentry, no attempt has
been made to bring this kind to our farm-yards and tables; and even
if it was found impossible to tame the pure breed, a cross with our
own might be effected. In the capercailzie, or _cock of the wood_,
a bird of the grouse species, but nearly as large as a turkey, once
indigenous to Scotland, but now only found in the north of Europe, and
in the _bustard_, the largest European land-bird, the cock weighing
from 25 to 27 lbs., we have examples of two fowls well worth the
trial of domesticating by the amateur or intelligent agriculturist,
a trial which, if successful, would probably repay quite as well as
competition about the colour of a feather, or the shortness of a tail,
and in time would be the means of affording a constant, certain, and
moderately-priced supply, which is never the case while animals remain
in a wild or half-wild state.
Although the forests of New Zealand are not thickly inhabited by the
feathered tribes, there are many birds to be met with. Among others
are the following, which are excellent eating.--The wild pigeon,
which is very large and common; the parrot or ka-ka; and the _tui_ or
mocking bird, which is about the size of the English black-bird, and
of the same colour, but with two bunches of white feathers under the
neck--his notes are few, but very melodious, resembling the tinkling
of small bells, which harmonize together as they are delivered. The
bronze-winged pigeon of Australia is most delicate eating. It abounds
in summer, when the acacia seeds are ripe.