COOKERY 265 



hardest to stalk. And by a beneficent provision ot 

 Providence the beautiful little golden-eye is worth 

 almost as little for the larder. I never see a golden- 

 eye without thinking of Scott's happy poetical fancy, 

 when he makes Mordaunt Mertoun suggest that 

 Cleveland, the pirate, may induce a Zetland golden- 

 eye to accompany him on his southern migration. 



The American canvas-back has a world-wide 

 celebrity, though it fares sadly in refrigerating cham- 

 bers, and is the shadow of itself on our European 

 tables. Indeed, in Maryland, where it is a speciality 

 of the border State, they sneer at the canvas-back 

 as served at Delmonico's or the crack dining clubs 

 of New York. Nevertheless, they are regularly ex- 

 ported in crates to Liverpool. Favourite transatlantic 

 shooting grounds are leased to clubs of sporting 

 epicures. They profess to tell the provenance of the 

 duck as experts can name at a sip the years of 

 the choice vintages of the Gironde. It is certain 

 that the southern birds are as different as possible 

 from those of Hudson's Bay and the bleak inlets of 

 Arctic Labrador. There they are said by Audubon 

 to be stringy and fishy, but the rich vegetable growth 

 on the shoals of Florida, with the beds of wild 

 celery, bring them to rare perfection. The pride 

 of Maryland in particular, nowhere are they so 



