50 Wild Life in Wales 



speaking, many of the common Diving Ducks are quite as 

 good as Wigeon. Exceptions occur amongst all of them, 

 as they do amongst Water-Hens, but on that account the 

 whole family ought not to be tabooed : generally they are 

 better skinned than plucked, as in their skins often lies the 

 objectionable oily flavour. The nature of its food is not 

 always a safe criterion to go upon in judging of the probable 

 kitchenable qualities of a bird, for I have tasted Eider Ducks, 

 that had been reared upon the same food, and together with 

 farm-yard ducks, but found them quite as ill-flavoured as 

 wild Eiders shot at sea. The grey Wild-Geese, which feed 

 almost exclusively inland, on stubble fields, young grasses, 

 clovers, etc., are far inferior to the Brent Geese, whose food is 

 entirely obtained in salt, or brackish water, and largely consists 

 of Zostera marina, and Laver, whence the common name of 

 " Ware Goose." Then everyone knows the esteem in 

 which the Land-Rail is held, the bird of which Drayton 

 speaks as "The Rayle, that seldom comes but upon rich 

 men's spits " ; yet I have tried a very fat Corncrake, shot in 

 October, and found it of but indifferent flavour. Some 

 foods seem always to leave a nasty taint behind them e.g. 

 Wood-Pigeons when their crops are full of turnip tops, or 

 the milk of turnip-fed cows. Squirrels, by the way, are not 

 half bad eating, nor should they be, as they are generally 

 very clean-feeding animals ; and Dormice, though it has 

 never been the writer's lot to sample them, were held to be 

 a delicacy by the Romans. 



The local name of the Cormorant is Morfran, or Mulfran, 

 which it is interesting to compare with the Breton name 

 Moruran, meaning also a " sea crow " ; the common English 

 name being derived from the Latin Coruus marinus. Gormer, 

 a common designation of the bird in some parts of the 

 country, and already made use of in this chapter, is probably 

 only a provincialism of Cormorant, though by some con- 

 sidered to come from Gore-mew, or " flesh sea-gull," like 

 Gor-crow and Corby, applied to the Carrion Crow. 



The Shag (Morfran gopog) is nowhere very numerous in 

 North Wales, but though it occurs on the coast, it is by 

 habit so much more exclusively a sea bird than the big 



