50 



RUFFED GROUS 



ing it of large quantities of laurel buds, without experiencing any 

 bad consequences, yet from the respectability of those, some of 

 them eminent physicians, who have particularized cases in which 

 it has proved deleterious, and even fatal, I am inclined to believe 

 that in certain cases where this kind of food has been long conti- 

 nued, and the birds allowed to remain undrawn for several days, 

 until the contents of the crop and stomach have had time to diffuse 

 themselves through the flesh, as is too often the case, it may be un- 

 wholesome and even dangerous. Great numbers of these birds 

 are brought to our markets, at all times during Fall and winter, 

 some of which are brought from a distance of more than a hun- 

 dred miles, and have been probably dead a week or two, unpicked 

 and undrawn, before they are purchased for the table. Regula- 

 tions prohibiting them from being brought to market unless picked 

 and drawn, would very probably be a sufficient security from all 

 danger. At these inclement seasons, however, they are generally 

 lean and dry, and indeed at all times their flesh is far inferior to 

 that of the Quail, or of the Pinnated Grous. They are usually 

 sold in Philadelphia market at from three quarters of a dollar to 

 a dollar and a quarter a pair, and sometimes higher. 



The Pheasant, or Partridge of New England, is eighteen 

 inches long, and twenty-three inches in extent; bill a horn color, 

 paler below; eye reddish hazel, immediately above which is a 

 small spot of bare skin of a scarlet color; crested head and neck 

 variegated with black, red brown, white and pale brown; sides of 

 the neck furnished with a tuft of large black feathers, twenty-nine 

 or thirty in number, which it occasionally raises; this tuft covers 

 a large space of the neck destitute of feathers ; body above a bright 

 rust color, marked with oval spots of yellowish white, and sprink- 

 led with black ; wings plain olive brown, exteriorly edged with 

 white, spotted with olive; the tail is rounding, extends five inches 

 beyond the tips of the wings, is of a bright reddish brown, beauti- 

 fully marked with numerous waving transverse bars of black, is 



