320 THE RED GROUSE. 



case with salmon, grouse is the more wholesome and 

 finely flavoured, the more recent it is ; though fashion 

 has led to the using and even praising of it, and all 

 sorts of game and venison, in being in the finest con- 

 dition when in a state of incipient putridity. In all 

 cases that taste is, of course, a vitiated one, and most 

 likely has arisen from the circumstance of food of that 

 kind not being attainable, in a recent state, in large 

 cities. In a matter so very capricious as taste, we by 

 no means give an opinion ; but we have eaten grouse, 

 with the coarse and plain cookery that it got in the 

 open air on a mountain side, within less than an 

 hour of the time that it had been on the wing, and 

 having done so, we never had any wish to taste it 

 when in the state which is called " high." Chacun d 

 son gout, however ; and if people will prefer rotten 

 food, nobody has a right to quarrel with them. 



If grouse is to be kept for any length of time, or 

 carried to any distance, it should be drawn as soon as 

 killed ; as it very soon begins to putrefy internally, and 

 draws round it a number of flies, which deposit their 

 eggs, and, in brief space, have it full of maggots. 

 One would not, at first, suspect this in a bird which 

 feeds on substances that resist putrefaction so long as 

 the heath-buds and heath-berries, upon which the grouse 

 lives ; but yet it should seem that this hard food is the 

 cause of the rapid putridity. The gastric juice of the 

 bird must be more powerful than that of animals which 

 live upon food, which is softer and naturally more assi- 

 milated to the animal structure ; and a very short time 

 elapses before the juice begins to act upon the coats of 

 the stomach ; and, though this action prevents any 



