Rank Food 49 



any one as food ; yet in olden days it sometimes figured at 

 table. Gray ("Birds of the West of Scotland), quoting from 

 an older work, mentions that the Islanders of Skye were 

 wont to make broth of young Cormorants, and that " the 

 broth is usually drunk by nurses to increase their milk." 

 From his own experience he records : " An old friend of 

 mine told me lately that he had cooked one and eaten part 

 of it about forty years ago, and that the terribly fishy flavour 

 was in his mouth still." An old shore-shooter, in thanking 

 me for a young Cormorant which I had shot and presented 

 to him, some years ago, assured me that, u stuffed wi' taties 

 an' onions, a white-breasted gormor 1 was as guid as a whaup, 2 

 an' better nor a sea-gull." Like the last-mentioned bird, it 

 wanted burying in the garden for a day or two before being 

 cooked, and skinning all such fowl in place of plucking 

 them is recommended as tending to reduce their oiliness. 

 Profiting by this advice, I once joined an old friend an 

 Episcopalian minister in Scotland in trying a pie made of 

 Herring Gulls, and, contrary to our expectations, we were 

 both agreed that it was not at all bad. 



While upon this topic I should like to add that, maugre 

 the opinions so often held to the contrary, many of our 

 common sea and shore fowl, as well as other birds that 

 seldom appear at table, are really very good to eat. 

 Sparrows, with their almost omnivorous diet, are excellent, 

 and far superior to most finches and other small birds ; and, 

 could a taste for " sparrow pie," or some such delicacy, be 

 once again made fashionable, it might go some way towards 

 keeping in check " a plague " which is seriously felt in so 

 many corn-growing districts. The Thrush tribe are all 

 good, but they are generally surpassed by the Dipper, or 

 Water Ouzel, which lives almost exclusively upon insects. 

 Water-Hens are usually excellently flavoured, though a rank 

 individual now and then crops up : the same may be said of 

 Curlews, and their allies. Coots are generally unpalatable 

 to anyone whose stomach does not soar beyond prejudice. 

 Most of the shore-feeding Sandpipers are at least equal to 

 plovers from a gastronomic point of view ; and, generally 

 1 Cormorant 2 Curlew. 



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