COOKERY OF THE PARTRIDGE 263 
and then a joint stew for two hours, if the birds are 
young, and three if they are old, while M. Duret, giving 
them a preliminary fry, ordains an hour and a half of 
concoction together. But this is the way of cookery- 
books, and without it a whole library would be 
reduced to a very small bookshelf. The principle of 
the whole is obvious enough. You have some pro. 
bably rather tough, and not improbably rather taste- 
less, birds, and you give them tenderness and taste by 
adding them to, or cooking them with, bacon and 
cabbage,—‘ poiled with the pacon and as coot as 
marrow,’ as the Welsh farmer observes in ‘ Crotchet 
Castle.’ You season with the usual vegetables and 
sauces, and you add, partly as a decoration and partly 
as a finish, some sort of sausage—cervelas, chipolata, 
or was Sie wiinschen. Every one who has ever eaten 
a well-cooked perdrix aux choux knows that the 
result is admirable; but I do not think that it is 
mere prejudice or John-Bullishness to suspect that 
the Zerdrix has the least say in the matter. 
The partridge, however, is undoubtedly a most 
excellent vehicle for the reception and exhibition of 
ingeniously concocted savours ; and he has sufficient 
character of his own, unless in extreme cases, not to 
be overcome by them altogether. If I were disposed 
to take an unmanly advantage of Madame Lebour- 
