126 THE DOMESTIC FOWL. 



pure food, are mostly putrid and even poisonous, and if 

 they have fed filthily, excrementitious. They should 

 also abstain from lupines, (which are bitter,) for the 

 same reason, and also because they produce small swell- 

 ings under the eyes, as Crescen'tiensis observed ; and 

 Palladius tells us, that unless these swellings are gently 

 opened with the needle and the core extracted, they 

 blind the fowls."* It is certain that a peculiar flavor is 

 perceptible in the eggs of those hens that have fed much 

 about dung heaps, or on grasshoppers. 



A well-fatted fowl is undoubtedly a more economical 

 dish than a lean one. But Pliny tells us, with an ex- 

 pression of disapprobation, that the people of Delos were 

 the first inventors of the luxury. He mentions the 

 sumptuary laws, that in old Roman times were passed 

 to restrain such indulgencies, and how they were evaded. 

 This seems, in him, to be very like affectation ; for liv- 

 ing, as he did, in the best society of a most voluptuous 

 and self-indulgent age, he must often, in the character 

 of an accessory after the fact, have been guilty of the 

 misdemeanor of fatting fowls. 



Willoughby is a much more sensible fellow: "No 

 better flesh in the world," says he, "than that of a 

 year-old pullet well fed, or a fat capon ; nothing inferior 

 to, not to say better than, that of a pheasant or partridge. 

 Some there are that think, and we also incline to their 

 opinion, that the flesh of those hens is most sweet and 

 delicate which are fed at the barn door, running about 

 and exercising themselves in getting their food, by 

 scraping with their feet. And that the flesh of those is 

 less pleasant and wholesome, that are shut up in coops 

 and crammed. Some are so curious that they think 

 those limbs most wholesome which are most exercised, 

 and, therefore, in wild fowl, they prefer the wings, in 

 tame, the legs." 



The old Dutch mode of fatting, as described by Aldro- 

 vandi, is by no means a bad one : 



" Cardan is the authority, that if you mingle fat lizard, 

 (shred fat?) saltpetre, and cummin, with wheat flour, 

 and feed hens on this food, they will get so fat, and the 



* Aldrorandi. 



