FLESH FOOD FURNISHED BY THE FEATHERED TRIBES. 139 



cool nights in October commence, they move still farther 

 south, till they reach the islands of Jamaica and Cuba in 

 prodigious numbers to feed on the seeds of the guinea 

 grass. Epicures compare the plump and juicy flesh of 

 this delicacy to the ortolan. 



As they go southward in the fall, the favourite 

 meadow singers, the bobolinks, take to the marshes and 

 become "reed-birds," much sought after by sportsmen and 

 pot-hunters. At Chester, Delaware, the headquarters of 

 the bird shooters of the State, there are forty pro- 

 fessional, "pushers." The shooting begins the 1st of Sep- 

 tember. The Philadelphia Times makes a brief estimate of 

 the results, of a month's shooting. " At Chester, at the 

 Lazaretto, and the two hundred club-houses that line both 

 banks of the Delaware from League Island to Marcus 

 Hook, there will be at least nine hundred shooters daily. 

 At the former two places 2,000 birds daily — taking the 

 scores of those who push themselves arid of the pro- 

 fessional shooters — will be killed. Eight hundred 

 gunners daily from the private club-houses is but a fair 

 count, and, giving them each a score of 10 birds daily, 

 the total will be 10,000 birds killed every day in the 

 month of September, an aggregate of 300,000 scored at 

 the above places alone. This is but a meagre approxi- 

 mation of the grand total, probably ranging over 

 1,000,000 when the marshes from Bombay Hook to 

 Bordentown are included in the estimate." 



Lawson aflBrms that the flesh of the Carolina crow is 

 as good meat as a pigeon, for it never feeds upon any 

 carrion. 



Young rooks, when skinned and made into pies, are 

 esteemed bj' some persons, but they are very coarse eat- 

 ing although wholesome food; rook pie can hardly com- 

 pete with a pigeon pie, although it is said to have a 

 f uhiess and lusciousness of flavour which excels any dish 

 of graminivorous birds. 



The ortolan (Emhiriza horttilana) is much esteemed by 

 epicures for the delicacy of its flesh. They are specially 

 fattened in dark ch£!,mbers till they become mere lumps 



