FOWLS. 107 



bright kitchen, administer to each a small pill of 

 ground pepper, bread, and port wine — some give a 

 peppercorn in its entirety alone — and let it warm its 

 feet in a spoonful of good whisky (they are so 

 tenderly exotic). Next wrap them in some wool in 

 a basket, and shortly they will be all right. This 

 was taught me by a clever lady, who, during a kind 

 of duty exile with her husband, who had charge of 

 the dispensary attached to Lord Breadalbane's 

 quarries in one of the Western Isles, had bent her 

 gifted mind to the collection and combination, for 

 culinary and household purposes, of the native re- 

 sources of the island, after a most Crusoe-like 

 fashion, which was intensely delightful to my school- 

 boy feelings ; flesh, fish, herbs, all treasures of the 

 deep, the very flowers on the hill, all came to hand 

 convenient for the manufacture of pickles, wine, 

 preserves, or dyeing material, until, to one's hobble- 

 de-hoy vision and appetite, her sanctum appeared an 

 absolute Fortnum and Mason's depot. 



For ducks, I suppose, the white Aylesbury and the 

 brown Rouen are the most profitable to keep. The 

 black East Indian (whose polished plumage, heaving 

 as they bask asleep in the sunlight, glistens with a 

 wet-like, sheeny look, that seems the very idea of 

 the Pindaric vypbv v&tov) I believe some find as pay- 

 ing as ornamental. Our own weakness (to which I 

 recommend not the reader to lean) is for the native 

 wild-duck. A nest or two of eggs are easily procured 

 from the nearest fen and hatched under hens. When 

 the young ones appear, mind and keep them under 

 over with their foster-mother for some days. When 



