NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



'* struts," and '^purres," were in 1512 rated at the 

 value of 6d. a dozen. In 1833 poulterers priced them 

 at the rate of 3^. apiece. Dunlin, however, besides 

 being excessively tiny morsels when stripped of their 

 plumage, are not particularly good eating, and at the 

 present time are seldom tasted except by the poorer 

 class of shore shooters and fisher-folk. Curlew, valued 

 at \2d. in 15 12, and at 2s. in 1833, are but poor things 

 as table birds ; at their best, however, during summer 

 time, when living inland and feeding on the moors, 

 they are just passable ; when their diet is a seashore 

 one their flesh is rank and unpleasant. Stints were 

 certainly eaten by our forefathers, and in a Yorkshire 

 estate book of 1760 are priced at i|^., only a \d. less 

 than snipe, which are set down in the same book at 2d. 

 apiece. 



The stone - curlew, or Norfolk plover — otherwise 

 known as the thick-knee plover — is a bird of remark- 

 able excellence from the culinary point of view. It is, 

 however, a scarce bird in this country, and is sheltered, 

 very properly, by the Wild Birds Protection Acts 

 during a great part of its sojourn with us. I have 

 tasted many a time in South Africa the " dikkop " 

 (literally thick-head, a Boer name), which is a very 

 near relative of our British stone-curlew. In appear- 

 ance there is, in fact, very little difference between 

 these two plovers. Both have the curiously rounded 

 heads, large, protruding eyes — in the one case yellow, 

 in the other (the South African) yellowish green — pale 

 tawny brown mottled plumage, light underneath, long 

 legs, and curiously swollen knee-joints. Both have 

 the same squatting, crouching habits, the bird pre- 

 ferring rather to lie flattened completely on the soil, 

 with the object — which, by the way, it often achieves — 

 of escaping the gunner's eye, rather than mount the 



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