THE COOKERY OF THE PHEASANT 239 



kept his flocks till the fall of the acorn, and the gain 

 was as great in the weight as in the flavour. 



Necessarily, that elementary fact as to dieting did 

 not escape the notice of the intelligent Brillat-Savarin. 

 Discussing game in general, he says, ' It also derives 

 great part of its value from the nature of the soil on 

 which it is nourished : the flavour of a red partridge from 

 P^rigord is very different from that of a red partridge 

 from the Sologne ' — and both, as we may remark 

 in passing, are distinctly inferior to their grey kinsfolk ; 

 ' and whereas the hare killed on the plains in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Paris only appears a very indifferent plat, 

 the leveret born on the sun-burned coteaux of Valramey 

 or the Upper Dauphiny is perhaps the most perfumed 

 of all quadrupeds.' Hay ward tells us, in his 'Art of 

 Dining,' which is a veritable mine of gastronomic re- 

 search, though the writer's theories were greatly superior 

 to his practice, that the Duke of Rutland of that day 

 never would hear of a Leicestershire partridge being 

 dressed for his table, since ' partridges are worth no- 

 thing in a grass district.' The same may be said much 

 more emphatically of pheasants. Bred between the 

 maggots and the buckwheat, the birds may run to bulk, 

 but they lose in flavour. At one time the staff of the 

 Austrian Legation in London happened to be made up 

 of viveurs from Vienna, who were connoisseurs in the 



