264 COOKERy OF DUCKS AND GEESE 



home, for they are protected for the sake of the eggs, 

 which are esteemed a great delicacy. 



Among diving ducks the pochard has higher pre- 

 tensions than, as I think, he deserves. He is akin to 

 the renowned American canvas-back, though some- 

 what smaller, and connoisseurs have said that he has 

 something of the flavour. Credat Judccus. He is a 

 sea-frequenting bird, diving among the alg?e and the 

 shellfish, and there is a long way from such slimy sea- 

 weed as dulse and tangle to the luscious wild celery 

 of Florida or Virginia. The scoter, always clinging to 

 the beach, is rank, and his companion the merganser 

 almost uneatable. Yet with the worst and most fishy 

 of the diving fowl something may be done, by cutting 

 away the oily backbone immediately after death. 

 Even sea-gulls under such summary treatment taste 

 rather like tainted beef, and so the frugal and ingenious 

 Normans can make a savoury stew of the marrots. 

 The birds are cut up, partly scalded : then the pieces 

 are stewed with butter, gravy, spices, and savoury 

 herbs in a saucepan, and simmered gently over a 

 slow fire. The result would defy the diagnosis of an 

 expert, but the Norman housewives, born cooks, have 

 the supreme virtue of patience. Of all the divers, the 

 scaup is perhaps the most impracticable, so it is of 

 the less consequence that he is the most wary and 



