THE COOKERY^ OF THE PHEASANT 241 



like his Grace of Rutland, he always imported his 

 pheasants wherever he might be, and from those Welsh 

 woods of his own, with their succulent, natural shrub- 

 beries. 



These Viennese gentlemen had been spoiled for 

 anything else by familiarity with the birds of Bohemia 

 and Upper Austria. There, with the free range of 

 vast forests, interspersed with farms and patches of 

 vegetable ground round the cottages, the pheasants 

 have all possible conditions in their favour. Nowhere 

 are they to be eaten in greater perfection than in the 

 older restaurants of Vienna. In England, as we have 

 said, there are long odds against the buyer and con- 

 sumer. In Austria the odds are all the other way, 

 and failure is an extreme improbability. Next to 

 the birds of Bohemia we should rank those of the 

 Ardennes ; but, indeed, all the game of south-eastern 

 Belgium is super-excellent. Happily for the fame of the 

 Parisian restaurateurs^ there are excellent pheasants to 

 be shot or snared in such forests as Chantilly or Villers 

 Cotterets, and in such vast preserves g.s those of 

 Ferrieres. But, alas, in this as in other respects, we 

 have to regret the backward civilisation of Spain. No 

 districts are naturally better suited to the pheasant 

 than many of the provinces of the Peninsula. The 

 soil is dry, yet in districts the land is well watered ; 



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