XV. THE FOWLS OF THE FARM 



"No longer now the winged habitants, 

 That in the woods their sweet lives sing away, 

 Flee from the form of man; but gather round, 

 And prune their sunny feathers on the hands 

 Which little children stretch in friendly sport 

 Towards these dreadless partners of their play." 



— Shelley (Daemon of the World). 



In that day, not so long gone in America, when all men 

 were huntsmen, and when game was all-important animal 

 food, wild fowls were abundant everywhere. The feathered 

 game was the most toothsome and wholesome of animal 

 foods. The waterfowl, fattened on wild rice and on wild 

 celery, and the turkeys and pigeons, fattened on mast, acquired 

 a flavor that is a tradition among our epicures. Eggs, also, 

 and feathers were their further contribution to human needs. 



These wild fowl, altho mainly different species from those 

 we have domesticated, represent the same bird groups that 

 are used by mankind the world over: land fowl, and water- 

 fowl, and pigeons. There were also a good many lesser 

 edible birds of no great importance, such as the snipe of the 

 shores, the woodcock of the swamps, and the rails of the 

 marshes. Comparatively few birds were big enough to be 

 worthy of consideration as food for man. Of large land fowl 

 the most noteworthy were wild turkeys and grouse and quail. 

 Of large waterfowl there were swans and geese and ducks. 

 Of tree-dwelling fowl there were wild pigeons. 



To learn how abundant these were we need go back only a 

 little to the records of the pioneers. Father Raffeix, the 

 Jesuit missionary who was one of the first white men to dwell 

 beside "Cayuga's waters," wrote thus of the abundance of 

 game in the Cayuga basin: "Every year in the vicinity of 

 Cayuga more than a thousand deers are killed. Four 



"3 



