184 BUSTARD COOT. 



BUSTARDS. 



From the open plains, which they frequent, you have 

 fewer opportunities of approaching bustards than most 

 other wild birds. They will, however, sometimes suffer 

 carts and carriages to pass very near them, from which 

 they have been frequently shot ; and they are also killed 

 in places where they have been used to see shepherds, 

 by means of the shooter carrying a hurdle to conceal 

 his gun. 



There are two kinds of Bustard ; the GREAT, or Common (otis 

 tarde I'outarde); and the LITTLE BUSTARD (otis tetrax la petite 

 outarde). 



COOTS, 



When found in rivers, are scarcely thought worth 

 firing at ; yet they are in great requisition when they 

 arrive for the winter on the coast, from the immense 

 numbers that may be killed at a shot, as they roost on 

 the mud-banks. They are generally sold for eighteen- 

 pence a couple, previously to which they are what is 

 called cleaned*. The recipe for this is, after picking 

 them, to take off all the black down, by means of pow- 

 dered white rosin and boiling water, and then to let 

 them soak all night in cold spring water ; by which 

 they are made to look as delicate as a chicken, and to 

 eat tolerably well ; but, without this process, the skin, 

 in roasting, produces a sort of oil, with a fishy taste and 

 smell ; and, if taken off, the bird becomes dry, and good 



* A coot shot in the morning, just after roosting, is worth three 

 killed in the day when full of grass, because he will then be whiter 

 and milder in flavour. A Poole man is very particular about this, as 

 the sale of his coots much depends on it. 



