166 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



over a bunch of snipe that Rose had just picked as clean as apples 

 and that were all nicely drawn, and had their bills stuck in then- 

 breasts as though trying to plume their lost feathers. 



" No, sir," replied the Doctor emphatically ; " any body can 

 cook snipe, / am going to attend to the side dishes — les entremets, 

 vol-au-vents, and the pdtes." 



" Nonsense ! there are no side dishes, sir, and plenty of sub- 

 stantial food that can be roasted," interposed Jackson. 



" Yes, yes, Doctor, give us an entremet 



" Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd, 

 With jellies soother than the creamy curd. " 



" Wait a while," said the Doctor ; " I will show you a dish that 

 will make you forget poetry." 



As he selected a couple of flat stones, and commenced pound- 

 ing up some biscuit that were so hard they had been declined by 

 all the party since the commencement of the hunt. 



" You, Sam, bring me a fork," said Jackson, as he approached 

 the fire with a square of the loin of bear's meat nicely cut for 

 roasting. The fork was produced, which was a stout branch of 

 green wood, and carefully pushed into the sand at such an inclina- 

 tion that the meat would be between the fire and the wood ; the 

 roasting piece was carefully impaled thereon, and in a little while 

 was hissing away before the heat as musically as if in a Dutch 

 oven. 



A red snapper of ten pounds weight that one of the boys had 

 caught in the bay was drawn and wrapped up in green leaves, leav- 

 ing the scales on, and carefully deposited in a hole in the ground 

 under the fire, and the hot ashes were drawn over it. Mike had, 

 in the meanwhile, plucked a pair of young mallard ducks, fastening 

 their wings to their bodies with little sassafras skewers so they 

 should not get burned, and tying them by their legs to long 

 strings, hung them near the fire on high sticks. They looked like 

 bales of cotton, or like horses when they are suspended by tackles 

 to be hoisted on shipboard. The strings being then tightly twisted 

 gave a rotary motion to the birds that presented every side equally 

 to the fire, and prevented them from burning. A few fragrant 



