Time was when the only specimen of foreign game which appeared on English tables was the French partridge, which has long been naturalised among us, and of which a poet writes -

'As I was standing by a wood one day, A little partridge came my way.

His slender legs were dainty red, And in a foreign way he said,

"Ne tirez pas, ne tirez pas ! Je suis Francais. Mon Dieu! ne tirez pas !"

'Another hand (not mine) then fired; he fell, And, quivering, lay upon the ground. But, ere the fluttering life had sped, With little sob he bravely said,

"N'y pensez plus, n'y pens'z plus.

Allons ! Voyons !

Je meurs Francais.

Adieu!"'

Now, however, the freezing system has allowed game, as well as beef and mutton, to be sent from over the seas, and thus we get the prairie hen from America, and are surprised that we do not also get various other birds, even from greater distances. We are told that we receive many tons of rabbits from Australia and New Zealand, both tinned and frozen, and we certainly get shiploads of ptarmigan, capercailzie, blackcock, and white hares' from Norway and the north of Scotland, which, coming as they do during the close season for our native game, and when poultry also is scarce and dear, are exceedingly acceptable to English housekeepers. Why do we not also get the bush-turkey and other game-birds from Australia, New Zealand, and the Cape? It also seems a pity the Australians do not send us kangaroo meat; but then there is a prejudice to be overcome, for English people don't like any outlandish meats, and even the French, although they do enjoy frogs' legs and snails, and were accustomed during the siege of Paris to all sorts of strange viands, from rats to elephants, do not prefer these delicacies in times of peace and plenty. We believe kangaroo tails may be purchased here, but the majority of people will doubtless continue to give preference to the bovine caudal appendage in making soup.*

Use is second nature, and it takes a long time to get used to strange dishes. The late Frank Buckland tried the flavour of everything he could try in the Zoo, from the snake to the hippopotamus, but he didn't get many to enjoy his savoury meats. However, game, whether bird or beast, is much more readily accepted than other strange meats, and we fancy if South Africa and Australia would send us game during their early autumn (not at pairing time) in a frozen state, it would be a most acceptable addition to the somewhat scanty menu of our backward spring, and, perhaps, delay for a time the threatened total extermination of our birds and hares, now apparently sold in season and out of season indiscriminately.

There is nothing which tickles the palate of the epicure more than a savoury dish of game of any kind, from the lordly stag to the humble lark, the long strings of which charming little songster hanging in the poulterers' shops often cause a pang of regret to the lover of birds, although, as a matter of fact it is no more cruel to kill and eat a lark than a woodcock, only in the former case the slaughter seems so wholesale, that the fear of total extermination arises; but when we look back to the days of the Roman emperors, and read that the table of Elagabalus was regularly supplied with ragouts of the livers and brains of small birds, the heads of parrots and pheasants, and the tongues of peacocks and nightingales, and that AEsop, the tragic actor, entertained his guests with a dish of birds, each of which had been taught either to sing or to speak, we wonder that any singing birds should remain to be killed and eaten, especially when we remember that from the days of the Roman emperors to this present, an indiscriminate slaughter of all birds has been going on in Italy.

* The Australian aborigines insist that all animals must be cooked in their skins, and their method of cooking the kangaroo is to cut it open, take out the entrails and replace them by four hot stones ; the animal is then roasted on hot ashes.

Even now the traveller is regaled with all sorts of birds daintily dressed and served under the name of ortolans or becaficos, but the poulterers' shops reveal a mass of strange birds of every kind from the owl to the kingfisher and the wren, all awaiting the same fate at the hands of the Italian cook, who does not disdain even the blood of his victims, which is sold in the form of little cakes, whilst the livers, mixed with poultry trimmings, help in the manufacture of the most savoury and delicious of pies; whereas our extravagant cooks throw everything away excepting, perhaps, the liver and gizzard of domestic poultry, although they will sometimes condescend to use the necks and pinions for making gravy.

Our domestic poultry now consists of fowls, ducks, geese, turkeys, and guinea-fowls, but formerly at all feasts the place of honour was assigned to the peacock, which, dressed in its full plumage, was carried to the dining-hall by the chief lady of the company, to the sound of music, the rest of the ladies following in due order, and was set down by the bearer before the master of the house or his most honoured guest The 'Book of Days' says, 'to prepare Argus for the table was a task entailing no little trouble. The skin was first carefully stripped off, with the plumage adhering; the bird was then roasted; when done and partially cooled, it was sewed up again in its feathers, its beak gilt, and so sent to table. Sometimes the whole body was covered with leaf-gold, and a piece of cotton saturated with spirits placed in its beak and lighted before the carver commenced operations. This "food for lovers and meat for lords" was stuffed with spices and sweet herbs, basted with yolk of eggs, and served with plenty of gravy; on great occasions as many as three fat wethers being braised to make enough for a single peacock.' The same book tells us that the bird when served up after a tournament, was usually placed in a pie, the head appearing at one end and the tail unfolded in all its glory at the other, and in this form was placed before the victorious knight. Over this peacock-pie the knights-errant swore, as Justice Shallow has it, 'by cock and pie,' to do all manner of chivalrous deeds.