THE BITTERN. “269 
A very different fate, in sooth, from being riddled 
with a charge of double Bs from a rusty flint-lock Queen 
Anne’s musket, poised by the horny paws of John 
Verity, and then ignobly cast to fester in the sun, 
among the up-piled eel-skins, fish-heads, king-crabs, and 
the like, with which, in lieu of garden-patch or well- 
trained rose-bush, the south-side Long Islander orna- 
nents his front-door yard, rejoicing in the effluvia of the 
decomposed piscine exweiw, which he regards as 
~ considerable hullsome,” beyond Sabzean odors, Syrian 
nard, or frankincense from Araby the blest! 
Being eaten zs being eaten after all; whether it be by 
a New Zealand war-chief, a New York alderman, a 
peerless lady, or a muck-worm; and I suppose it feels 
much the same, after one is once well dead; but, if I 
had my choice, I would most prefer to be eaten by the 
damoiselle of high degree, and most dislike to be bat- 
tened on by the alderman, as bei:'g more ravenous and 
less appreciative than either Zealander or muck-worm. 
The Bittern, however, be it said in sober earnest, 
although like many other delicious dishes prized by the 
wiser ancients, but now fallen into disuse, if not into 
disrepute—to wit, the heronschaw, the peacock, the 
curlew, and the swan—all first-rate dainties to the wise 
—is a viand not easily to be beaten, especially if he be 
sagely cooked in a well-baked, rich-crusted pastry, with 
a tender and fat rump-steak in the bottom of the dish, a 
beet’s kidney scored to make gravy, a handful of cloves, 
