WANTED— A NEW MEAT 165 
condition as for a time to make the venison worthless. 
But this applies only to the bucks ; stags might be kept 
like bullocks., and doe-venison might still be remunera- 
tive. As early as 1740, an enterprising Jersey squire, 
of the name of Chevallier, who had succeeded to an 
estate in Suffolk — whose descendants still constantly 
sit in Parliament — had formed a small park for 
fattening deer and sending them up to London. His 
accounts of the cost and profits of the enterprise are 
still preserved, and he abandoned the scheme, not 
from difficulties encountered in fattening or selling 
the deer, but because of the uncertainty of carriage to 
London. Venison, even when reared under the present 
unscientific method, or rather want of method, varies 
greatly in quality, that from certain parks being much 
superior to that grown on less suitable pasture ; and 
it is not too much to hope that, if bred and fattened 
solely for the table, venison would be in demand as 
something more than an occasional luxury. 
But swan, peacock, and venison are, after all, only 
revivals of the old bill-of-fare which was available in 
the households of Old England. To find a new 
meat, we must take stock of the world’s resources of 
animal food, and inquire, after due survey, if there 
does not still exist some neglected quadruped which 
will furnish wfiat we seek. Roughly speaking, our 
main supply of animal food is drawn either from the 
rodents, the ruminants, or the pachyderms, — repre- 
sented by the rabbit, the ox or sheep, and the pig. To 
vary the supply at our disposal, we shall probably not 
