WILD GEESE, CRANES, AND SWANS. 221 



cold. Perhaps snipe and woodcock may be excep- 

 tions. You can hardly hang pinnated grouse too long 

 when they keep sweet. I have eaten them a month 

 after they were killed in the winter, and none 

 could be finer. Quail are all the better for 

 being hung. So are Canada geese and other wild 

 geese, together with mallard ducks and wild tur- 

 keys. Of course young grouse shot in August 

 or the warm days of September cannot be hung, 

 and they are very good eating when cooked fresh, 

 but not better than winter grouse hung a long 

 time, stuffed, roasted, and eaten with bread-sauce, 

 made gravy, and hot, mealy potatoes. 



A few pelicans are shot along the upper part 

 'of the Mississippi River. Occasionally a small 

 flight of swans come over Central Illinois, and 

 sometimes they alight in the Winnebago Swamp 

 or the Sangamon bottoms ; but these occurrences 

 are rare. My brother once killed three late in 

 the fall on the Sangamon bottom. They were 

 going south, and alighted at a pond where he 

 was lying for geese at roosting-time. At a place 

 in the Winnebago Swamp called Swan Lake they 

 sometimes alight on their passage. I have never 

 killed one. Going down the Mississippi last win- 

 ter, I saw, from the steamboat, many swans in 



