IN PAIRING TIME 151 



from home before he begins to * take notice.' ' 

 He finds the Skylark " in the azure carroling or 

 on toast, equally delightful a dish too good for any 

 born (sic) sentimentalist, and fit only for a sensible 

 naturalist." "A fen-bred flapper is the juiciest and 

 sweetest of table birds. The Pintail is a capital 

 table bird." He prefers Widgeon to Teal or Mallard, 

 "unless it be a flapper stuffed with potato and celery, 

 etc." Doves are "good eating." The Water-rail is 

 "a splendid fellow in a dumpling or curried." Water- 

 hen is "sabroso." He has curried Coots. Ringed- 

 plover tastes nearly as sweet as Snipe. Golden 

 Plover reappear in October, "on toast amid the 

 chrysanthemums." A Peewit is "most desirable 

 upon the soft-lighted dinner table." The Jack-snipe 

 is "a splendid little fellow on toast." 



"And so farewell," he cries, in concluding that 

 portion of his book that treats of birds, and feeling 

 that he is about to place a great restraint upon his 

 appetite in approaching the section devoted to Bats, 

 Polecats, and the like "And so farewell, my 

 grotesque birds, dedicated to the chef-de-cuisine 

 fare you well, with your monstrous love songs, 

 strange guzzling habits, amusing skulking flights. 

 You, too, have your poetry, after twenty miuntes in 

 a hot oven on toast ; and may you yearly bring 

 forth your beautiful little fledgelings, and lead them 

 safely down to the bright water-side for aye this 

 baptismal pilgrimage being but the forerunner of the 

 great sacrificial feast that awaits them on the table of 

 all who are artists enough to know a Snipe from a 

 Hernshaw. Increase and multiply, ye grotesque 

 ones and may the ckefbe with you." 



