546 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



detrimental to health as one solely limited to fish : constipation, headache, con- 

 gestions would ensue. Besides, of all flesh aliments, game -is what soonest fatigues 

 the stomach. Formerly pheasants were much employed for invalids, but then 

 such ought to be young and tender; eaten too soon, the flesh is hard and leathery ; 

 eaten too late, it is indigestible. When doctors recommend pheasant to conva- 

 lescents, it ought to be served roasted and a little ripe ; however, stomachs even 

 those sans peur et sans reproche, as well as those less robust, ought to even remain 

 on guard against a meat when in a state of decomposition. Partridge is the best 

 of all game, either for the healthy or the indisposed, in point of alimentation ; its 

 flesh is easily digested, and it demands not to be "hung" to become agreeable ; 

 the red is preferable to the grey partridge ; for the sick nothing can be superior 

 to an old partridge converted into broth ; although boiled and served with cab- 

 bage being the favorite form in which partridge is served, on the continent at 

 least, yet it should be roasted for convalescents. In ancient times quails were 

 said to produce epilepsy; at least Pliny, who ever had a weakness for the 

 marvelous, and introduced a good deal of romance into natural history, pro- 

 hibited the eating of that bird, because it fed on venomous plants, and, hence, 

 was subject to epilepsy. The flesh of the quail about harvest time is very delicate 

 and savory ; its fat being difficult of digestion, causes it to be less in favor for 

 invalids than the partridge. Woodcock is ranked by sportsmen above partridges, 

 when young and fat, its flesh is very savory and of delicious taste, but as it re- 

 quires to be hung, to develop its qualities, it is thus excluded from regimens for 

 the sick. Brillat-Savarin has asserted, a woodcock should be ever roasted under 

 the eyes of a sportsman, and above all, the sportsman who brought it down. Or- 

 dinarily it is so richly cooked as to recall the old adage: "we live, not by what 

 we eat but by what we digest." Snipe is preferred by not a few to woodcock, as 

 being more delicate ; after the first frosts, it is an exquisite table bird ; its flesh is 

 digested readily, and not requiring keeping, like all water-fowl, it suits well the 

 sick ; if abused, snipe would prove an exciting food. Wild duck possesses a pe- 

 culiarly fine taste, and is very superior to its domestic namesake, which is abso- 

 lutely unsuited for the gastralgic and the dyspeptic ; yet with all its advantages, 

 wild duck should be avoided by convalescents. The Romans held peculiar views 

 about ducks, partaking only of the head and breast, the remainder being, accord- 

 ing to Martial, destined for the cook's perquisites. The best form in which to eat 

 wild duck, is that of the pctte d' Amiens. 



Boulogne-sur-Mer it seems, was a shade too hasty in perpetuating, in the 

 form of a statue, the claims of Frederic Sauvage, as the inventor of the screw- 

 propeller. Professor Govi, of Naples, has irrefutably shown, the honor reverts to 

 Leonard di Vinci, who in the fifteenth century applied the screw to propel light 

 paper machines in the air ; it was a hobby with the great painter to discover the 

 means to fly, and he wrote some remarkable articles on bird-flying; he even con- 

 templated an apparatus destined to enable man to mount into space. Drawings 



