NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



thousands in aviaries and fattened them with a paste 

 composed of flour and bruised figs, as well, occasion- 

 ally, as other food. They were kept in darkness, 

 excepting at feeding times, exactly as quail are still 

 fattened upon the Continent, and when properly "ripe" 

 were sold to epicures at the rate of three denarii, or 

 about two shillings of our money, apiece. The fieldfare 

 is a common bird enough in our winter fields, and to 

 those who still have the sense and knowledge to com- 

 prehend his worth is, even without fattening, a real 

 delicacy. 



The water-rail is by no means bad eating, and the 

 moorhen, properly cooked, is well worth sending to 

 table ; the moorhen, in fact, is by no means a despisable 

 quantity from the culinary point of view. I have heard 

 of a certain yeoman, who understood good living as 

 well as most people, who declared that he preferred one 

 of these birds to a partridge any day. 



The coot, so common a wildfowl in many inland 

 waters, is not, nowadays, a bird often utilised for the 

 food of English folk, except among poorer country 

 people who have not the opportunity of attaining better 

 fare. Yet at one time it was, beyond doubt, largely 

 eaten even among the middle classes. Colonel Montagu, 

 the ornithologist, who wrote at the beginning of the 

 last century, says of this bird: "Vast flocks are seen 

 in Southampton river, and other salt-water inlets, in 

 winter. At this season of the year it is commonly sold 

 in our markets, frequently ready picked. They look 

 exceedingly white, but the flavour is rather fishy." 

 I have tasted coot, and I can endorse this statement. 

 Some of the fishy savour can be mitigated by skinning 

 the bird and by long immersion in cold water, which 

 should be repeatedly changed. It is also stated that to 

 get the best results in the way of cooking the bird 



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