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 . 
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 
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