296 HISTORY OF 



suckers, such as the snipe and the woodcock, it is 

 more than probable, grope the bottom of marshy 

 places only for such insects as are deposited there 

 by their kind, and live in a vermicular state in 

 pools and plashes, till they take wing and be- 

 come flying insects. 



All this class, therefore, that are fed upon 

 insects, their food being easily digestible, are 

 good to be eaten ; while those who live entirely 

 upon fish abounding in oil, acquire in their flesh 

 the rancidity of their diet, and are in general 

 unfit for our tables. To savages, indeed, and 

 sailors on a long voyage, every thing that has 

 life seems good to be eaten, and we often find 

 them recommending those animals as dainties, 

 which they themselves would spurn at after a 

 course of good living. Nothing is more common 

 in their journals than such accounts as these 

 " This day we shot a fox pretty good eating ; 

 this day we shot a heron pretty good eating ; 

 and this day we killed a turtle -which they 

 rank with the heron and the fox as pretty good 

 eating." Their accounts, therefore, of the flesh 

 of these birds are not to be depended upon ; and 

 when they cry up the heron or the stork of other 

 countries as luxurious food, we must always 

 attend to the state of their appetites who give the 

 character. 



In treating of this class of birds, it will be best 

 to observe the simplest method possible ; neither 

 to load the memory with numerous distinctions, 

 nor yet confuse the imagination by a total want 

 of arrangement. I will therefore describe some 



