260 COOKERY OF DUCKS AND GEESE 



party of friends were out after tigers or big game. It 

 was a blending of choice scraps from all the game they 

 bagged, with eggs and mushrooms, olives and truffles, 

 working up, in the words of the tramps' landlord, in 

 'The Old Curiosity Shop,' into one delicious gravy. 

 But my friend said what gave it its most delicious 

 flavour were the breasts of the wild duck and the 

 bosoms of the snipe. 



Preservation on inland lakes and marshes, with 

 the legislation for a close time, are again increasing 

 the number of edible or succulent ducks. There 

 is all the difference in the world when they have 

 been feeding up for a few weeks on those inland 

 waters. I have never found them more delicious than 

 at a romantic country seat on the Aberdeenshire 

 Don, where there was a hereditary breed of semi- 

 domesticated ducks on the pond in the home farm- 

 yard. They attracted others, who joined them in 

 their daily meals of scattered oats, and they seldom 

 strayed far. After a big shoot and the shoots were 

 very big there there were always several brace of 

 those wild aliens in the bag, and no game was more 

 appreciated at the dinners. Thence it follows that 

 the decline of the decoy has been a grief to the 

 gourmet. Nothing is more attractive to the migratory 

 squadrons than such strictly preserved waters as those 



