THE COOKERY OF THE PHEASANT 229 



where the writer breathes out the impassioned wish 

 that the incomparable beccafico might have the bulk 

 of the pheajSant, with which it has so much in 

 common. However, the Epicurean of the cuJsine 

 and the basse-cour consoles himself there and else- 

 where with the well-worn reflection, that this sub- 

 lunary world is not a Paradise, and that there must 

 be some suspicion of regrets in the most admirably 

 arranged banquet. 



But a propos to the condition of approaching to 

 perfection, we are reminded that we have been wrong 

 in talking of the ideal pheasant in the masculine. 

 Even cooks of world-wide fame, such as the illustrious 

 Gouife, have been betrayed, apparently by meretricious 

 admiration for gay plumage, into recommending the 

 selection of cocks for the plats. We fancy it is a 

 survival of the barbaric tradition of sending birds in 

 their feathers to the tables, when guests were rather 

 voracious than discriminating. It would be as much 

 in keeping with the fitness of things if the modern 

 sportsman, after a successful battue, came down to do 

 the agreeable to beauty at the dinner-table in muddy 

 shooting boots and blood-bespattered gaiters. Be that 

 as it may, there can be no doubt whatever that whe- 

 ther as a maid in her first season or a juvenile matron, 

 the hen is infinitely superior to the cock. We must all 



