The real pheasant is never sold in American markets.

The bird known as such at the South is called a partridge at the North, and is, properly speaking, the ruffled grouse.

The Northern quail is the English and Southern partridge.

The wild fowls brought by the hundred dozen from the Far West to Eastern cities, and generally styled prairie-fowls, are a species of grouse. The mode of cooking all these is substantially the same.

Roast

Clean, truss, and stuff as you do chickens; roast at a hot fire, and baste with butter and water until brown; sprinkle with salt, dredge lightly at the last with flour to froth the birds, and serve hot. Thicken the gravy with browned flour, boil up, and serve in a boat. Wash the inside of all game - prairie-fowls in particular - with soda and water, rinsing out carefully afterward with fair water.

Broiled

Clean, wash, and split down the back. Lay in cold water half an hour. Wipe carefully, season with salt and pepper, and broil on a gridiron over a bright fire. When done, lay in a hot dish, butter on both sides well, and serve at once.

Broiled quails are delicious and nourishing fare for invalids.

Grouse roasted with Bacon+

Clean, truss, and stuff as usual. Cover the entire bird with thin slices of corned ham or pork, binding all with buttered pack-thread. Roast three-quarters of an hour, basting with butter and water three times, then with the dripping. When quite done, dish with the ham laid about the body of the bird. Skim the gravy, thicken with browned flour, season with pepper and the juice of a lemon. Boil up once.

Quails roasted with Ham+

Proceed as with the grouse, but cover the ham or pork with a sheet of white paper, having secured the slices of meat with pack-thread. Stitch the papers on, and keep them well basted with butter and water, that they may not burn. Roast three-quarters of an hour, if the fire is good. Remove the papers and meat before sending to table, and brown quickly. This is the nicest way of cooking quails.

Salmi Of Game

Cut cold roast partridges, grouse, or quails into joints, and lay aside while you prepare the gravy. This is made of the bones, dressing, skin, and general odds and ends, after you have selected the neatest pieces of the birds.

Put these - the scraps - into a saucepan, with one small onion, minced, and a bunch of sweet herbs; pour in a pint of water, and whatever gravy you may have, and stew, closely covered for nearly an hour. A few bits of pork should be added if you have no gravy. Skim and strain, return to the fire, and add a little brown Sherry and lemon-juice, with a pinch of nutmeg; thicken with brown flour, if the stuffing has not thickened it sufficiently, boil up, and pour over the reserved meat, which should be put into another saucepan. Warm until all is smoking-hot, but do not let it boil. Arrange the pieces of bird in a symmetrical heap upon a dish, and pour the gravy over them.