RULES FOR SELECTING GAME. 441 



leeches, worms, and bugs often to be found in their stomachs. 

 Away with such mock refinement, such silly affectation! 



In cold weather. Partridges will keep better than any other 

 kind of game, provided they are hung separate, and shielded 

 from the rain and sun ; those that are to be kept for any time 

 should be as free from shot wounds as possible. It is not neces- 

 sary to draw them or pick them ; if picked, there will be much 

 more evaporation from the bodies of the Birds, and they will 

 consequently be far drier; a pinch of charcoal, put into their 

 mouths, will assist much in keeping them sweet. 



If frozen hard, game will keep for an indefinite period, but 

 should be eaten as soon as convenient after being thawed ; the 

 best plan to thaw it for cooking is to hang it for a short time 

 in the kitchen ; no kind of meat should be put to cook before 

 it is thoroughly thawed, otherwise it will take double the time 

 to cook, and at best will be tough, stringy, and tasteless. 



The preservative effect of frost on dead animal matter is very 

 remarkable, and is taken advantage of by the inhabitants of the 

 far Northern countries on a very extensive scale, as may be 

 learned from the following extract from Accum's Culinary 

 Chemistry : " There is annually held at St. Petersburgh and 

 Moscow what is called the frozen, or winter market, for the sale 

 of provisions solidified by frost. In a vast open square the 

 bodies of many thousand animals are seen on all sides, piled in 

 pyramidal and quadrangular masses ; fish, fowl, butter, eggs, 

 hogs, sheep, deer, oxen, all rendered solid by frost. The dif- 

 ferent species of fish are strikingly beautiful ; they possess th^ 

 lustre and brilliancy of color which characterize the different 

 species in a living state. Most of the larger kinds of quadru- 

 peds are skinned and classed according to their species; groups 

 of many hundreds are piled upon their hind-legs, one against 

 another, as if each were making an effort to climb over the back 

 of his neighbor. The motionless, yet apparent animation of 

 their seemingly struggling attitudes (as if they had died a sud- 

 den death) gives a horrid life to this singular scene of death. 

 The solidity of the frozen creatures is such that the natives chop 

 and saw them up, for the accommodation of the purchasers, like 

 wood." 



