CHAP. XI. J THE TEUE OETOLAN. 397 



at the end of May, but birds traditionally caught with 

 horse hair, and bread-and-milked for a fortnight, would 

 be worthy of a true-hearted young England dinner- 

 party. Ortolans are become cheap, and may soon be 

 vulgar, unless M. Soyer can elevate them to their 

 former station. Unfortunately, during the London 

 season, they, the multitude of them, are out of season. 

 But the papers record that at the dinner given by the 

 Lord Mayor of York to Prince Albert and the assembled 

 mayors of the kingdom, on November 1, 1850, one 

 dish, to which Turtle, Ortolans, and other rich denizens 

 of land arid sea, had contributed, cost not less than 

 WOL Fashion may again make "the Hortulon " for 

 autumnal feasts what it was when Albin, writing of it 

 more than a hundred years ago, says, "These birds 

 are accounted a great rarity in banquets, and bear a 

 high price in France and other countries." 



But it will be as well for cooks, who are ambitious of 

 reproducing antique messes, to make sure that they 

 have got the right species to work upon, and are not put 

 off with Starlings, and other lean, mouse-flavoured birds, 

 instead of the genuine morsel of fat. For Buffon has 

 stated, surely in error, that " about the end of summer 

 the Wryneck grows very fat, and is then excellent meat ; 

 so that in many countries it goes by the name of Or- 

 tolan." A mock Ortolan, we suppose ; just as Theodore 

 Hook called the Brill a Workhouse Turbot. The dis- 

 arrangement of a few loose notes may cause sad con- 

 fusion in cookery, as well as in Natural History. 



The true bird is the Emberiza chlorocephala, or 

 green-headed Bunting of Montague's " Ornithological 

 Dictionary," and the Emberiza hortulana, or Ortolan, of 

 Selby, Jenyns, and Gould. It has the palatine knob 

 characteristic of the Buntings, and is but rarely found 



