98 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
vegetables, and meat in it ; or this is therefore much liked as a 
first course at dinner on a Saint’s day, after a rigorous fast. For 
Bortch soup “ Bake four beets; peel, slice, and put into good 
stock ; boil for half an hour. Rub down three raw beets with 
about one tablespoonful of vinegar, and a little water ; pass all 
through a sieve ; when ready to serve add one glass of Madeira 
wine, with cayenne, and salt to taste.” 
BILBERRY, 
(See WHOoRTLEBERRY). 
BIRDS, SMALL. 
Sucu of our small fowl as the Blackbird, Lark, Robin, Snipe, 
Sparrow, Thrush, and Woodcock, whilst good for the table, 
exercise severally certain medicinal effects which are available 
for curative uses. The Blackbird (Merula nigretta) is said to 
increase melancholy if its flesh be eaten at all freely. Against 
depression of the spirits it was prescribed for occasional use by 
the Salernitan school of physicians. Cardinal Fesch at Lyons 
had blackbirds sent from Corsica, and used to Say that to eat 
them was like swallowing Paradise : also, that the smell alone 
of his blackbirds was enough to revivify half the defunct in his 
diocese. As a great devourer of snails, this bird possesses 
properties beneficial for consumptive persons. The Lark is so 
adored by English folk for its sweet song, trilled forth as it 
soars high in the blue heavens, that to talk of eating this 
melodious bird seems at first a sacrilege. But in the south 
of Europe larks are such a nuisance at certain times that 
they have to be killed in numbers, so as to reduce the damage 
which they inflict on agriculture. Some persons have alleged 
that it is not the skylark which is served for eating—particularly 
in France—when on spits, or stuffed with joie gras, since the word 
alouette (a skylark) never appears on a French menu. So far as 
Paris is concerned, these little birds, which are offered by thousands 
in the markets, being almost always displayed for sale on wooden 
skewers, and already plucked, are commonly called mauwviettes 
by both vendors, and buyers. But in the French language the 
lark remains an alouette until it is plucked, trussed, and ready 
to be spitted, when it becomes a mauriette. Moreover, in La 
_ Cursiniere Bourgeoise, or general French Cookery Book, recipes 
