Chapter VI: Part 6

The passenger pigeon (_Columba migratoria_) of America, is a very large and well flavoured variety, being 16 inches long, and 24 inches in the spread of its wings; its hue chiefly slate-colour. They migrate at certain seasons in millions, and feed on acorns and fresh mast. They travel in the morning and evening, and repose about mid-day in the forests. Their passage, whether in spring or autumn, lasts from 15 to 20 days, after which they are met with in the centre of the United States. The Indians often watch the roosting places of these birds, and knocking them on the head in the night, bring them away by thousands. They preserve the oil or fat, which they use instead of butter. There was formerly scarcely any little Indian village in the interior, where a hundred gallons of this oil might not at any time be purchased.

These pigeons spread over the whole of North America, abounding round Hudson’s Bay, where they remain till December. They arrive in the fur countries in the latter end of May, and depart in October. They are met with as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, but do not extend their range westward of the Rocky Mountains. Stray passenger pigeons have been taken both in Norway and in Russia; and this bird has found a place in the British fauna, from a solitary bird having been shot in Westhall, Fifeshire, on the 31st December, 1825. Like other pigeons, this genus makes a slender platform nest of sticks and straws, but, unlike other pigeons, prolific as it is, it lays but one egg. The female builds the nest, the male bird fetches the materials. The time of incubation is 16 days, and the male relieves the female in sitting during that period. The immense number of these birds baffles all computation. Those eminent ornithologists, Wilson and Audubon, describe flocks seen by them to contain respectively from thousands of millions to upwards of a billion in each, the daily food required to sustain which would be at least 60,000 bushels; and the New York _Evening Post_ informs us that, on one day, seven tons of these pigeons were brought into the New York market by the Erie railroad.

In their breeding places, herds of hogs are fed on the young pigeons or ‘squabs,’ which are also melted down by the settlers, as a substitute for butter or lard. The felling a single tree often produces 200 squabs, nearly as large as the old ones, and almost one mass of fat. When the flocks of full grown pigeons enter a district, clap-nets and guns are in great requisition. Pennant, in his _Arctic Zoology_, says, Sir William Johnstone told him, that at one shot, he brought down with a blunderbuss above a hundred and twenty pigeons. Wagon loads of them are poured into the towns, and sold as cheap as a half-penny up to two-pence the dozen. The flesh tastes like the common wild blue pigeon, but is, if anything, better flavoured. Why (it has been asked) could not this large pigeon, whose migratory habits are principally caused by search for food, be introduced into this country as a tame variety, or by crossing with our native breeds enlarge the size; or, in the same way as fresh mutton was sent from Australia, be sent in casks potted in their own fat, to supply us with cheap pigeon pies? And the same with a cross with the large Texan rabbit, or the wild American turkey, the latter being far superior in size and appearance to its degenerate descendant, the tame turkey, sometimes as much as four feet in length, and five feet from wing to wing? The canvas-back ducks of America are there boasted of exceedingly as a delicacy, yet, although a great variety of useless water-fowl has been introduced merely as an ornament to the ponds and streams of our gentry, no attempt has been made to bring this kind to our farm-yards and tables; and even if it was found impossible to tame the pure breed, a cross with our own might be effected. In the capercailzie, or _cock of the wood_, a bird of the grouse species, but nearly as large as a turkey, once indigenous to Scotland, but now only found in the north of Europe, and in the _bustard_, the largest European land-bird, the cock weighing from 25 to 27 lbs., we have examples of two fowls well worth the trial of domesticating by the amateur or intelligent agriculturist, a trial which, if successful, would probably repay quite as well as competition about the colour of a feather, or the shortness of a tail, and in time would be the means of affording a constant, certain, and moderately-priced supply, which is never the case while animals remain in a wild or half-wild state.

Although the forests of New Zealand are not thickly inhabited by the feathered tribes, there are many birds to be met with. Among others are the following, which are excellent eating.--The wild pigeon, which is very large and common; the parrot or ka-ka; and the _tui_ or mocking bird, which is about the size of the English black-bird, and of the same colour, but with two bunches of white feathers under the neck--his notes are few, but very melodious, resembling the tinkling of small bells, which harmonize together as they are delivered. The bronze-winged pigeon of Australia is most delicate eating. It abounds in summer, when the acacia seeds are ripe.

GRALLATORES.

From the order of grallatores, waders or stilt-birds, we find many which yield choice dainties, whether it be the ostrich or emu for their eggs, the bustard and bittern, the flamingo for its tongue, the plover, dotterel, curlew, snipe, woodcock, rail, &c., for the table.

An ostrich egg is considered as equal in its contents to 24 of the domestic hen. When taken fresh from the nest, they are very palatable, and are wholesome, though somewhat heavy food. The best mode of cooking them is that practised by the Hottentots, who place one end of the egg in the hot ashes, and making a small orifice at the other, keep stirring the contents with a stick till they are sufficiently roasted; and thus, with a seasoning of salt and pepper, you have a very nice omelet. The nest sometimes contains as many as 24 eggs, and the difficulty the sportsman has is how to carry away his spoil. The usual plan is to denude himself of his upper or lower garments, and, tying up the orifices of leg-holes or arm-holes, to make an impromptu sack, in which he can bear away his prize. If he leaves them, he will be sure to find on his return that the ostrich has broken the eggs, because they have been disturbed.

The eggs of the emu of South America are large, and, although the food which they afford is coarse, it is not unpalatable.

The emu, or New Holland cassowary, is becoming rarer as settlements advance. The same remark applies also to the kangaroo and other animals against whom a war of extermination seems to have been declared.

The emu is easily domesticated when taken young, and becomes very familiar with, and attached to, the dogs, which generally leads to the death of a tame one. A full-grown one, when erect, stands seven feet high. The natives creep on them and spear them. The eggs are of a tea green colour, with a watered appearance on the surface. There is a singularity in the growth of the feathers--two of them spring from one quill. The bird is principally valued for its oil. The skin of a full-grown bird produces six or seven quarts of oil, clear, and of a beautiful bright yellow colour. The method of extracting or ‘trying’ out the oil is to pluck the feathers, cut the skin into pieces, and boil it; but the aborigines prefer the flesh with the skin upon it, regarding it as the Esquimaux do the flesh of whales and seals, as a highly luscious treat. The flesh is eaten by Europeans, and preferred by some to the kangaroo; the rump part is considered as delicate as fowl; the legs coarser, like beef, but still tender.

Bustards are plentiful in many parts of the Cape Colony, and the smaller sorts, called _koerhans_, are approachable in a bush country; but the larger kinds, called _paws_, are a great prize, as they are found on plains, and are generally shot with ball. In Australia, the bustard is called, colonially, the wild turkey. It is a fine large bird, frequently weighing 12 to 15 lbs., and extending full six feet, from tip to tip of the wings. There it is declared excellent for eating, but its flesh is much too gamey for ordinary palates.

Don Pernetty, in his _Historical Journal of the Voyage to the Falkland Islands_, under the command of M. de Bouganville, says, they found the bustard ‘exquisite either boiled, roasted, or fricasseed. It appeared from the account we kept that we ate 1,500. It is, indeed, hardly to be conceived that the ship’s company of our two frigates, consisting of a hundred and fifty men, all in perfect health and with good stomachs, should have found a quantity of these birds sufficient for their subsistence during a stay of more than two months, within a tract of country not exceeding three leagues.’

But they also tried other descriptions of feathered game. The wild ducks were found, in general, to have the taste of mussels. Of a kind of grey goose, weighing about 19 or 20 lbs., it is reported: ‘Its flesh was oily, had a disagreeable smell and a fenny taste; but it was eaten by the ships’ companies when no bustards were given them.’

The clucking hen of Jamaica (_Ardea scolopacea_), on the authority of Browne and Robinson, is looked upon as the best wild fowl in the country, although the latter writer tells us it feeds upon snakes, toads, and lizards, as well as wood snails and gully crabs. The flavour is, however, represented to be remarkably fine--a compound of ham, partridge, and pigeon. The flesh is of a peculiarly close and compact texture, and very tender.

The mangrove hen (_Rallus Virginianus_), indigenous to the watery marshes of Jamaica, greatly resembles the dappled grey variety of the common fowl. At the pullet age, the young birds are run down, when feeding on the mud, with great facility. At this time, I have found them to be delicious eating. Persons, on whose taste reliance may be placed, say that, though a plover be undoubtedly a fine bird for the table, and the sanderling a great delicacy, the young mangrove hen exceeds both, as it combines all their peculiarity of flavour with the fleshiness of the quail. This is no small commendation. But much depends upon your _cuisinier_; if he is a good _artiste_--a man of undoubted talents, it matters little what the materials be.

The _Rallus crex_ is another esteemed dainty of no ordinary kind, and a most delicious bird.

In the reign of Henry the Eighth, the bittern was held in great esteem at the tables of the great. Its flesh has much the flavour of hare, and is far from being unpleasant.

Snipe of all kinds, from the ‘teeterer,’ that hovers about the edge of the surf, to the jack snipe (_Scolopax gallinula_), half-brother to the woodcock, are in high esteem for the table. The ‘green’ sportsman finds these birds the most perplexing of all feathered game when on the wing. Their catter-cornered, worm-fence line of flight renders them very difficult to hit, until long practice has rendered the marksman’s eye familiar with their erratic movements. Some sportsmen take them at an angle; others after they have made their tack; and others, again, seem to blaze away at them without any particular aim, and yet always bring down their bird. The yellow-legged snipe is in America considered the best species for the table. They should be larded and roasted in bunches of three, and served in gravy made from their own unctuous drippings. There are few side-dishes more popular with epicures than snipe on toast. Some cooks stuff them with a composition of bread crumbs and egg, highly seasoned; but, in my opinion, they are far better without this kind of ‘trimmings.’

While the trail of the woodcock is a choice morsel with the English epicure, the inhabitants of the North of Europe, to whose forests the woodcocks retire in the summer, never eat the birds, esteeming their flesh unwholesome, from the circumstance of their having no crops. But they are particularly fond of the eggs, which the boors offer for sale in large quantities in the principal markets, and this contributes, possibly, to make the birds so scarce.

The semi-palmated snipe, better known by its common sobriquet of ‘pill-will-willet,’ the loud shrill note which it emits, is at certain periods of the year esteemed an excellent bird in America. It ought to be served up in the mode that snipes usually are, and for these delicious viands it is esteemed a tolerable substitute when in good order.

Dampier, nearly two centuries ago, speaking of the flamingo, says: ‘Their flesh is lean and black, but not ill-tasted. They have large tongues, and near the root of them a piece of fat, which is accounted a great dainty.’

The flamingo was much esteemed by the Romans at their sumptuous entertainments. Their flesh is thought tolerably good food, and the tongue was looked upon by the ancients as among the most delicate of all eatables. Pliny, Martial, and many other writers, speak of it in the highest terms of commendation. Many who have tried it, consider the flesh extremely rich, much like that of the wild duck, but with a strong fishy taste. The tongue is certainly delicate, but scarcely worthy the high encomiums bestowed on it by the ancients.

During the surveying expedition of Captain Owen, on the east coast of Africa, the sailors used to shoot hundreds of these beautiful birds for the purpose of making a dish of the tongues alone. The remainder of the bird--in imitation of the Roman epicures--being thrown away.

NATATORES.

The Natatores, or swimming birds, supply us with very choice food. Even many of the coarse sea fowl are not rejected by voyagers.

The Chinese shoot sea-gulls in large numbers, which add to their stock of food. A man is constantly engaged in the bay of San Francisco, California, shooting sea-gulls, which he sells to the Chinese at the rate of 25 cents each. The _San Francisco Evening News_ says,--‘This bird is a slow and steady mover, of large size, and flies at a convenient distance over the head of the sportsman. The man in the skiff was armed with a double-barrelled shot gun, both barrels of which he would load, and taking a dead gull would throw it high in the air and allow it to fall at some distance from the boat. This would naturally attract a flock of gulls, and as they made their slow circuit around the spot, the gunner raised his piece and generally succeeded in bringing down a bird for both barrels. He would then re-load as fast as possible, and if a gull was in range, another shot was fired and another trophy won.’

The flesh of sea-fowl is generally too rancid to find much favour with fastidious palates. Sailors indeed eat the livers and hearts of the penguins, which are exceedingly palatable, but the black flesh of the body is rank and oily, and has rather a perfumed taste. Some voyagers, however, tell us, that eaten in ragouts, they are good as that made from a hare.

The young puffins, having gorged themselves with sprats and crustacea, when pickled with spices, are by some considered dainties, and they are, occasionally, potted in the North. But when it has attained its ugly full developed bill, like a short, thick plough coulter, this bird does not look very prepossessing. Besides making use of them for food, some of the islanders use them for fire-wood. They split them open, dry them, and then burn them feathers and all.

There is a species of puffin, the _Puffinus urinatrix_ or _P. brevicaudis_, popularly termed the mutton-bird by Tasmanian colonists, which is met with on some of the New Zealand islands. It forms the principal food for the native inhabitants of Foveaux Straits, and by them is called the _titi_. It is a sea bird of black colour,[15] in its usual condition smaller than the common duck. Like all sea birds it has thin, slender legs, with webbed feet: the wings are long, with many joints, I forget how many: the bill is a little hooked at the point. They are generally in large flocks, covering the ocean as far as the eye can reach; sometimes flying all in the same direction, at other times crossing through each other like swarming bees. They breed on the small uninhabited islands scattered round the coasts of Stewart’s Island. These islands have a loose, dry, peatish soil, on a stony bottom. Their being exposed to the stormy winds, loaded with the salt spray of the sea, prevents the growth of a forest, except patches of stunted bushes intermixed with a sort of soft, light green fern. The loose soil is perforated with numberless birdholes, like a piece of worm-eaten wood, running from two to four feet underground in a horizontal direction, at the farthest end of which is the nest. Each female lays only one egg, which is nearly as big as a goose egg, on which they sit--it is believed male and female alternately--many weeks. The young bird is full grown in the month of April, which corresponds to October in Europe. At that time, almost all the inhabitants of Foveaux Straits, old and young--the infirm only excepted--repair to the Titi Islands, and take the young birds out of their nests, which amount to many thousands, and a great many still escape. They put a stick in the hole to feel where the bird is, which generally betrays itself by biting the stick. If the hole is so long that the bird cannot be reached by the hand, a hole is dug over it, the bird taken out and killed by breaking its head, and the broken hole covered with rubbish and earth, so that it may be used again the next year. Afterwards the birds are plucked, and, to clean the skin from the hairy down, it is moistened and held over the fire, when it is easily wiped quite clean. Then the neck, wings, and legs are cut off, the breast is opened, the entrails are taken out, and the body is laid flat, either to be salted or to be boiled in its own fat, and preserved in air-tight kelp bags. Though it cannot be said that the young birds suffer, they being killed so quickly, yet it might seem cruel to rob the parents of their young ones on so large a scale, and one would fancy a great deal of fluttering and screaming of the old ones, bewailing the bereavement of their offspring. But that is not the case. None of the old birds make their appearance in the day-time. They are all out at sea, and come only to their nests in the evening when it gets dark, and are off again at day-break. But yet it would seem the parents would be distressed at finding their nests robbed. Not so. It would seem as if Providence had ordered it so that man should go and take the young birds for his food without hurting the feelings of the parents. When the young birds are full grown, then they are neglected by their parents, in order to starve them to get thin, else they would never be able to fly for the heaviness of their fat. It seems that at the time when they are taken by men, they are already forsaken by the old birds; and those that are not taken are compelled by hunger, when they have been starved thin and light, to leave their holes and go to sea. The old birds are tough and lean, but the young ones, which are nearly twice as big, contain, when the legs, wings, neck, and entrails are taken off, three-fourths of pure white fat, and one-fourth of red meat and tender bones. The flavour is rather fishy, but, if once used to it, not bad at all, only rather too fat. They eat best when salted and smoked a little, and then boiled a short time, and afterwards eaten cold. If properly salted, they might make an article of trade, like herrings in Europe. The fat when clean is quite white, and looks just like goose fat, but the taste is rather oily; however, it may be used for a good many other purposes than for food. It burns very well on small shallow tin lamps, which get warmed by the light and melt the fat. The feathers are very soft, and would make excellent beds if they could be cured of the oily smell, which it is likely they can.

The following remarks on the articles of food found in the arctic regions are by one of the officers of the _Assistance_:--

‘To the feathered tribe we are chiefly indebted, and foremost in the list for flavour and delicacy of fibre stand the ptarmigan (_Lagopus mutus_) and the willow grouse (_Tetrao saliceti_). The flesh is dark-coloured, and has somewhat the flavour of the hare. These may be used in pie, stewed, boiled, or roast, at pleasure, and are easily shot. Next in gustatory joys, the small birds rank, a kind of snipe, and a curlew sandpiper; both are, however, rarely met with, and do not repay the trouble of procuring them.

‘The brent goose (_Anser torquatus_) is excellent eating, and its flesh is free from fishy taste. Then follow the little auk or rotge (_Alca alle_), the dovekey, or black guillemot (_Uria grylle_), the loon, or thick-billed guillemot (_Uria Brunnichii_). The first two are better baked with a crust, and the last makes, with spices and wine, a soup but little inferior to that of English hare. All these are found together in flocks, but the easiest method of obtaining them is either to shoot them at the cliffs where they breed, or as they fly to and fro from their feeding ground.

‘The ducks now come upon the table, and are placed in the following order by most Polar epicures. The long-tailed duck (_Fuliluga glacialis_), the king duck (_Anas spectabilis_), and the eider duck (_A. mollissima_). They require to be skinned before roasting or boiling, and are then eatable, but are always more or less fishy.

‘The divers are by some thought superior for the table to the ducks, but the difference is very slight. The red-throated diver was most frequently seen, but few were shot; and of the great northern divers (_Colymbus glacialis_) none were brought to table, two only having been seen. Some of the gulls were eaten, and pronounced equal to the other sea birds; they were the kittiwake, the tern, and the herring or silver gull.

‘The denizens of the sea have fallen little under our notice, and they may be dismissed with the remark, that curried narwhal’s skin can be tolerated, but not recommended. Some fresh-water fish were caught, and proved to be very good; they are said to be a kind of trout.’

The eggs of sea-fowl, although much eaten on the coasts, are seldom brought to market for consumption in our large English towns, and yet they form a considerable article of traffic in several parts of the world, and are procured in immense quantities about the lands near the North and South Poles.

The precipitous cliffs of England are occasionally searched for the eggs of the razor-billed auk, which are esteemed a delicacy, for salads especially.

A correspondent at San Francisco informs me that an important trade is carried on in that city in the eggs of sea birds. He states, that the Farallones de los Frayles, a group of rocky islets, lying a little more than twenty miles west of the entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, are the resort of innumerable sea-fowl, known by the fishermen as ‘murres.’ These islands are almost inaccessible, and, with a single exception, are uninhabited. They, therefore, very naturally afford a resort for great multitudes of birds. Some time since a company was organized in San Francisco for the purpose of bringing the eggs of the murres to market. An imperfect idea of the numbers of these birds may be formed from the fact, that this company sold in that city the last season (a period of less than two months, July and parts of June and August) _more than five hundred thousand eggs_! All these were gathered on a single one of these islands; and, in the opinion of the eggers, not more than one egg in six of those deposited on that island was gathered. My correspondent informs me that he was told by those familiar with the islands that all the eggs brought in were laid by birds of a single kind. Yet they exhibit astonishing variations in size, in form, and in colouring. There is no reason to suppose that he was misinformed in regard to these eggs being deposited by a single species. The men could have had no motive for deception, and similar facts are observable on the Labrador coast and in the islands north of Scotland. Besides, the writer ascertained from other sources, that all the eggs brought to the market were obtained from a limited portion of the island, known as the Great Farallone--called the Rookery, where a single species swarm in myriads, and where no other kind of bird is found. Naturalists, who have received specimens of these birds, pronounce them to be the thick-billed or Brunnich’s guillemot, or murre, of Labrador and Northern Europe. The eggs are three and a half inches in length, and are esteemed a great delicacy.

There is a small island off the Cape of Good Hope, named Dassen Island, about six miles from the mainland, which is one and a half mile long by one broad, from which 24,000 eggs of penguins and gulls are collected every fortnight, and sold at Cape Town for a half-penny each.

The late Lieut. Ruxton, R.N., speaking of the Island of Ichaboe, on the Western Coast of Africa, says, ‘Notwithstanding that the island had been occupied for nearly two years, during which time thousands upon thousands of penguins had been wantonly destroyed, on the cessation of work these birds again flocked to their old haunts, where they had again commenced laying their eggs. The rocks round the island are literally covered with penguins, cormorants, and albatrosses. The former, wedged together in a dense phalanx, have no more dread of man than ducks in a poultry-yard, although they have met with such persecution on the island; and any number might be taken by the hand without any difficulty. The sailors eat the livers and hearts, which are exceedingly palatable, but the flesh of the body is rank and oily.’[16]

Captain Morrell, also writing of Ichaboe (_Nautical Magazine_, vol. 13, p. 374), tells us, ‘Eggs may be obtained here in great quantities. In the months of October and November this island is literally covered with jackass-penguins and gannets, which convene here for the purpose of laying and incubation. The nests of the gannets are formed like those of the albatross, but are not so much elevated; while the jackass-penguins lay their eggs in holes in the ground from twelve to thirty inches in depth, which they guard with the strictest vigilance. They frequently lay three or four eggs, but the gannet seldom lays more than two.’

A correspondent, writing from Tristan d’Acunha, in September, gives an account of his adventures in taking penguins’ eggs. ‘This is now the time for penguins’ eggs. They get great numbers of them. There are two rookeries, as they call them; one on the east, and one on the west, of us. To the one on the west, they go over land, beyond Elephant Bay. I went there last year, when I saw the great sea elephant and the penguins for the first time. But this year I have been disappointed, the weather has been so unsettled. But yesterday was a fine day, and they were going in the boat to the other, to which they can go only by water; so I went with them. It was a good day, and we landed easily, though it is a very bad beach. Fancy the scene--a long, very narrow strip of land, at the foot of a great rock, covered with the thick tussac grass, far higher than my head; the whole place swarming with these penguins--pretty to look at, but the most ungainly creatures in their movements that I ever saw? They stand almost upright. The breast is glossy white, the rest is gray. A couple of tufts of those pretty yellow feathers, of which I sent home a few, adorn each side of the head and give them a very lively appearance. They have no wings, but instead, a couple of flippers, as they call them, like arms, which they use about as gracefully as Punch does his. And then the way in which they hop along! Talk of the motion of a frog! it is elegance itself compared with them. Altogether, they are the most interesting, curious things in Tristan. They are about as big, and twice as noisy, as a duck. Fancy going into the midst of thick grass higher than your head, with thousands of them round you, all croaking out in a harsh, loud, quick note, ‘Cover up! cover up!’ and then kicking them right and left, quickly, taking care they do not get hold of you,--seizing their great eggs, till you have got some hundreds of them in your bosom. The men wear a large shirt, tied round their waist, so as to form a large loose bag in front, and so pop them in as fast as they can pick them up. The men will gather two or three hundred in this way, and the boys from one to two; and from the other rookery carry them the whole way home--no little load. The eggs vary much in size, from a large hen’s egg to a goose’s. They mostly lay two at once. Their nests are sometimes close together, so you can soon pick up a lot. They stand in pairs, each couple at their nest to defend it, and some will not give up till they have been kicked away two or three times. They can give a good sharp bite, if they get hold of you. The men found me a spot where the eggs were very thick, and very little tussac, and though I was a new hand at the work, and therefore obliged to look sharp to escape a bite, I managed to collect more than a hundred of them in a short time. Fancy what work, to stand amid hundreds of the birds, all screaming round you, so as almost to deafen you, tumbling them here and there, and picking up their eggs as fast as you can gather them! It is really amusing sport. I must remind you the kicking them over with our soft moccasins (shoes) does not hurt them in the least, and the next day they will have just as many eggs.

‘Six of the men went round in the boat. We were there about four hours, and gathered about four thousand--pretty near a boat’s load; and could have got more if we had chosen. It was a pleasant day, and we had a good row back.’

An interesting account which recently appeared in a Jamaica paper, respecting egg gathering, is also worth quoting.

The annual egg gathering visit, which the boatmen of Port Royal make to the Pedro Keys, we may set down as a remnant of Indian life. In the work entitled _The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, compiled from his papers by his son Don Ferdinand_, we are informed, that on the 13th of November, 1492, the discovery squadron weighing from the Rio de Mares, Cuba, stood to the eastward, to search for the island called Bohio by the Indians, and coming to an anchor among some high raised islets on the coast, found them to be places visited by the Indians at certain seasons of the year, for supplies of fish and birds. ‘The islands,’ Columbus says, ‘were not inhabited, but there were seen the remains of many fires which had been made by the fishermen; for it afterwards appeared that the people were in use to go over in great numbers in their canoes to these islands, and to a great number of other uninhabited islets in these seas, to live upon fish, which they catch in great abundance, and upon birds and crabs, and other things which they find on the land. The Indians follow this employment of fishing and bird-catching according to the seasons, sometimes in one island sometimes in another, as a person changes his diet, when weary of living on one kind of food.’[17]

‘From the lighthouse on the Port Royal palisades to Portland in Vere, a line encloses a system of coast islands, reefs, banks, and shoals colonized by numerous birds and fishes. Each kind has its own locality. Pelican Key and Pigeon Island never interchange inhabitants, and the bank that gives the king-fish furnishes neither the snapper nor the grouper. Southward from Portland, at a distance of some few leagues, the great Pedro bank is reached, stretching near 100 miles. There are islets at each extremity, but the group that attracts the egg gatherers every year, are the Keys, distinguished as the Pedros, at its eastern end. We shall loiter a little to describe a living world there that must have been a great attraction to the aboriginal Indians, in those periodical junketings that came under the notice of Columbus.

‘The Port Royal boats bound for the egg harvest, bring to, at the outermost of the Portland Keys, and start at midnight from there, to gain with a favourable breeze in 14 or 15 hours the shelter of the Pedros, and to be snug at anchor long before sundown. The vessels in their voyage steer for a single rock in fathomless water, the Isla Sola of the Spanish maps. It rises about 30 or 40 feet out of the sea like a castle in ruins, over which the surf breaks fiercely; and in about five or six hours after making it, they anchor within what are properly called the Keys.

‘There are numerous outlying rocks just above and beneath the water, between the Pedro shoal and the open sea, on which the winds and the currents roll a heavy surf. The spots properly called the islands are seven in number, and vary from forty to some three or four acres in size. They are upthrown masses of broken coral and shell cemented by calcareous sand, washed upon rocky ledges above the sea. The breakers shift with the shifting winds, rolling these fragmentary deposits on before them. By the regularity of their change of action, they have done the work of accumulation pretty equally on all sides: they have raised a wall all round the islands, and left the centres hollow.

‘From time to time storms of unusual violence have carried the heaped-up coral and sand suddenly, and in thick layers, over portions of the islands where the dung of the sea birds had accumulated for years, and these irruptions have made intermediate deposits of animal matter and cemented rock. It is evident from the prevalence of this succession of deposits within the hollow centres of the islets, that the sea has washed in the fragmentary materials of the outer margins, by a more than ordinary rise of the waters, and laid them in pretty equal strata at distant intervals of time, so that the centres have risen in height as the sea walls have been built and cemented up. The animal deposits, which may be characterized as loosely cohering urate of lime, are sometimes found two feet beneath the strata of cemented coral and shells, and run about an inch or an inch and a half thick.

‘Immediately within the islands, the waters shoal, and make a bank called the Vibora by the Spaniards. It runs to the Cascabel rock, 90 odd miles westward, bristled with reefs and sunken rocks, having a depth of from 7 to 17 fathoms. Easterly winds, that is, the trade winds, veering southward and northward, for determinate portions of the year, roll constant billows over it. Westerly breezes, varying northerly and southerly, bring tremendous gales and heavy swells. The rough agency of all these movements has heaped up the sands, and the corals, and shells, cementing them into rock, and giving the island an elevation of from 15 to 20 feet.

‘The vegetation on these islands is stunted surianas, among whose tough and twisted branches the birds find nestling places. To these lonely islets resort thousands and tens of thousands of sea-fowl. As soon as visitors land, myriads of birds are upon the wing in all directions. Some flocks rise in circling flight high up into the air, and descending again in the same dense numbers as they rose, settle in more remote places; others break away hurriedly, and fly in a wide sweep far around, but return again hastily to the rocks they had quitted, reconciled to bear with the disturbance. The turmoil and hubbub of the thousands of birds thus suddenly put upon the wing, overpower for a moment the roar of the breakers, and darken the air like the sudden passing of a cloud.

‘The constant inhabitants of the rocks are several species of the booby, gannets, terns, gulls, and petrels--and the frigate pelican. The frigate-birds preserve their predilection for rapine amid the teeming plenty of the waters, and subsist by pillaging the gulls and gannets. The migratory visitors are ducks, herons, plovers, snipes, sandpipers, curlews, and ibises, with the several falcons that follow them. In the autumnal movement of these birds towards the equatorial regions, they would be found steering from north to south, but at the time when the egg gatherers visit the islets, they are seen coming from the south, just resting and departing north. The successive months of March, April, and May, are those of the egg harvest.

‘The Keys are open to all adventurers, but the egg gathering is regulated by a custom which recognises the first coming vessel as commanding for the season. The second vessel in seniority is called the Commodore, the first being styled the Admiral. They have a code of laws, to which, in a spirit of honourable compliance, all are expected to show obedience; and in case of any infraction of the obligations thus voluntarily imposed upon themselves, a jury selected from the several vessels tries complaints, and with due formality inflicts punishment for offences.

‘The south-west is the principal of the Pedro Keys. The stay of the birds that resort there to breed is prolonged by the successive loss of the eggs they lay. Each loss is a stimulus to a fresh act of pairing; a new lot of eggs being the result, possibly in number equal to the former lot, but probably less, as the latter deposits are a forced production, at the expense of the vigour of the bird, without any additional strength to the constitution by the increased nourishment of food, the process by which domesticated birds, in changing their habits, are led to lay a continuance of eggs for a long season. The egg gatherers are careful observers of the progress of incubation, and take only the eggs they know to be fresh laid. These are a part of the regulations they require to be observed, or the constant depredations committed on the birds would fatally thin their numbers.

‘Without going into the discussion of naturalists, who see in the different colours of eggs a certain relation to circumstances favourable to concealment, it may be observed that the blotched egg, laid by the _Hydrochelidon fuliginosa_, properly distinguished as the _egg-bird_, is found among sticks and dried leaves of the suriana, whilst the white eggs of the boobies and petrels are deposited in hollows of the coral rocks, amid sand and chalky dung. There is one curious coincidence between the eggs of the noddy, _Sterna stolida_, and the peculiarities of the nest, that must not, however, be unremarked. The elaborate pile of sticks slightly hollowed, in which they deposit their eggs, is always embellished with broken sea shells, speckled and spotted like the eggs. Audubon records the same occurrence in the nests of the noddy terns he inspected in the Florida Keys. The obvious suggestion for this curious prevalence of instinct is deceptiveness, arising from similarity between the egg shell and the sea shell. The nests are pillaged by what is called the laughing gull (the _Larus atricilla_, not the _ridibundus_); the numerous empty shells lying among the rocks being always set down to the predatory visits of the laughing gull.

‘South-west Key, and the other sandy islets around it, are beside, annually resorted to by the fishermen in the turtling season for a different harvest of eggs. The turtles (_Chelone midas_) visit these shoals to deposit their eggs in the dry sand, and leave them to the fostering influence of the sun. They repeat their layings thrice, at the interval of two or three weeks, laying a hundred at a time. Some experience is necessary to trace the place of deposit, for the eggs are always laid in the night; but few of them escape the detection of the turtler.’

Geese are reared in large numbers in Alsace, the livers of which are used in making the famous Strasburg pies. In Denmark, geese and ducks are salted down for winter use.

In Greenland, the snow goose affords great subsistence to the natives, and the feathers are an article of commerce. Each family will kill thousands in a season; these, after being plucked and gutted, are flung in heaps into holes dug for that purpose, and are covered only with earth. The mould presses, and forms over them an arch; and whenever the family have occasion to open one of these magazines, they find their provisions perfectly sweet and good.

In Captain Sir John Ross’s _Arctic Voyage to Regent Inlet_, it is recorded, that when they discovered that the wild geese had begun to lay on the margin of the lakes, their eggs formed a dainty and wholesome repast. ‘The eggs on being weighed were found on an average to be 4½ ounces--of a dingy white, faintly speckled. The discovery of a goose’s nest, where the process of incubation had not begun, was regarded by them in the light of a treasure. To the natives, however, it appeared to be a matter of very trifling import whether the egg were freshly laid, or whether it were within a few days of being hatched. Half-a-dozen eggs beaten up with the young ones, in all stages of their growth, from the first development of the form to the complete formation of the fœtus, proved to the natives what a dish of callipash and callipee is to the gourmandizing alderman; nor were they very particular as to the embryos being wholly divested of the shells, for the latter appeared to be nearly of the same use as beans to the food of a horse, to force him to masticate the oats more thoroughly.’

The cygnet, or young of the swan, was formerly much esteemed; at Norwich they were fattened for the corporation. The flesh of the old birds is hard and ill tasted.

The pintail (_Anas acuta_) is a very choice bird--the very ‘ring tail’ of the duck tribe. They are undoubtedly a _recherché morceau_, for, being essentially grain feeders, they have no fishy flavour.

Widgeon and teal are in great favour when in good condition.

REPTILIA.

We find various reptiles, _Chelonian_, _Saurian_, and _Ophidian_, still forming articles of food in many quarters of the world, and some so repulsive in their appearance, that it seems difficult to conceive how they could first have been tasted.

In the class REPTILIA, we have in the first order _Chelonia_ or _tortoises_, comprising the following which are used as food:--1, several of the terrestrial tortoises, genus _Testudo_; 2, some of the marsh tortoises or Emydes, the chelodina, matamata, &c.; 3, the cryptopus or river tortoise; and 4, the marine tortoises or turtles.

In the second order SAURIA or lizards, we find--1, crocodiles and alligators contributing to the sustenance of man; 2, several of the iguarians.

In the third order, OPHIDIA or serpents, the rattlesnake, boas and pythons, and several other snakes.

In the fourth order, AMPHIBIA, some of the edible and tree frogs.

We know not, observes a recent writer, why the flesh of the vegetable-feeding tortoises should not be adopted, as well as that of the green turtle, among the various articles which are in request for the table. There is much in habit and association of ideas; and though persons who would not refuse turtle might turn from tortoise with disgust, they may rest assured that in Sicily and Italy these land tortoises are sold in the markets, principally for being made into soup, which dish is more esteemed than the flesh prepared in any other way.

The flesh of a tortoise, called the matamata by the aborigines of Cayenne (_Chelys matamata_, Dumeril, _C. fimbriata_, Spix), is said to be highly esteemed in various parts of Guiana.

There is a great variety of land tortoises in Trinidad and some of the other West Indian Islands, which in general are as delicious as the best green turtle.

The eggs of the close tortoise (_Testudo clausa_) of North America, are reckoned a delicacy, and are about the size of pigeons’ eggs.

The gopher tortoise (_Testudo Carolina_, of Leconte) occasionally makes considerable depredations in the potato fields of the farmer, and in gardens and other cultivated grounds, but its flesh is excellent, and hence it is sought after for the table.

The flesh of the Carolina terrapin or box tortoise (_Cistudo Carolina_) is occasionally eaten, but it is held in low estimation; the eggs, however, which are about as large as those of a pigeon, are accounted excellent, and are much sought after.

The flesh of the European box tortoise (_Cistudo Europæa_), though not very delicate, is nevertheless eaten on the Continent; it is said, however, to be greatly improved by feeding the animals for some time on grains, bran, and other vegetable aliment. The salt water terrapin (_Emys concentrica_), which is found both in North and South America, is in great request, its flesh being highly esteemed as a delicacy for the table, especially at the close of the summer, when the animals have returned to their winter dormitory. They are then fat, and considered as a luxury.

The eggs of the terrapin are not provided with a hard shell, but a skin like that purest of all parchments, parchment just before it receives the ink of law upon it.

The general method of killing these animals is a most barbarous one. They are laid upon their backs, either close to the fire, or upon the red wood-ashes, until the thick shell becomes so hot to the animal within that he desperately stretches out both legs and neck, in the vainest of endeavours to extricate himself from the walls of his burning house. The tender-hearted cook watches his opportunity, and when it is evident that, in ordinary phrase, the poor terrapin ‘cannot contain itself,’ or in other words, will no longer draw back his head into such a living furnace--the knife descends, and the head is cut away. The late Mr. Charles Hooton told me, that he had seen such heads at least half-an-hour after being cut off, attempt, on being touched, to bite with sufficient force to take the piece out of the finger. During this time the eyes will occasionally open, though generally they remain shut.

The flesh of the Indian Cryptopus, a river or fluviatile tortoise (_Cryptopus granosus_, Bibr., _Testudo scabra_, Latr.) is eaten in Pondicherry and Coromandel, where it lives in large sheets of fresh water or lagoons.

The flesh of the soft tortoise of America (_Trionyx ferox_, Cuvier), which inhabit the rivers of Carolina and Georgia, is eaten.

The curious New Holland tortoise (_Chelodina longicollis_), first described by Shaw, which, as far as the head and neck is concerned, reminds one rather of a snake than a tortoise, is abundant in some of the lakes of Western Australia, and is considered by the natives a great treat, as are also the snakes and lizards.

Chief Justice Temple, of Honduras, from whose lively and interesting letters to the Society of Arts I have already quoted, says--‘Another article which might be preserved and exported, and which would, I have little doubt, be highly prized by epicures in England, is the liver of the hiccatee. The hiccatee is the fresh water turtle or tortoise, and is, I believe, altogether unknown in Europe. It never approaches anything like the size of the large turtles. The weight of the hiccatee seldom exceeds 20 lbs. It has not got fins like a turtle, or to be more correct, the sea tortoise, but round, webbed-feet, each having five claws, like those of a duck. It is made for the land, therefore, as well as the water. It does not, however, make the former its home, and its feet are evidently intended merely to enable it, when one pool becomes dry, to travel in search of another. The hiccatee is generally caught in the dry season, when going across the country in pursuit of water. The feet when dressed are gelatinous, but the flesh is dry and fibrous. It is, however, the liver which renders this species of tortoise so highly estimable. It is a dark olive colour, and immensely large. If this were preserved in oil with truffles, it would be considered far superior to the goose’s liver of which the _pâté de foie gras_ is made.’

The following way of effectually shooting a turtle may be interesting to the sporting world generally, and aldermen in particular. ‘The soft-shell turtle is found throughout the south, and abounds in the rivers and bayous of Louisiana, where they are esteemed a delicacy. They are so shy as to elude the various inventions which are adopted to capture them; the rifle has, therefore, been resorted to; and, though easily killed by a fair marksman, when he finds them sunning themselves on the floating or projecting trunk of some old tree, he still often fails to secure his prize, since they drop into the bayous, are swept down into the current, and scarcely, if ever, secured. To remedy this, a gentleman of Louisiana adopted the following method successfully. He cut a piece of wood, one inch long, and rounded it so as to fit easily in his rifle; around the middle, crosswise, he cut a small groove, so as to secure to it a twine some six or seven inches long; at the other end of this string he attached the ball, by passing the string through a bore in the ball, and then knotting the end of the string. The ball is first inserted in the rifle; the string and wood follow, and all are rammed down. The turtle is now shot, and as the ball passes through the turtle, it enters the tree or log some one or two inches; the piece of wood, being too light to enter the shell of the turtle, is left suspended. So that, at a single shot, the game is killed, strung, and hung up.’ Of course, this is from an American paper.

The flesh of the land tortoise is largely used for food, both fresh and when salted, in the Gallipagos Archipelago and other islands of the Pacific; and a beautifully clear oil is prepared from their fat. They are eaten in Australia by the aborigines; and in Russia, on the shores of the Mediterranean, and some parts of Germany, are fattened for the table, and are esteemed a great delicacy. Wallace, in his journeys up the Amazon, says he found the land tortoise for dinner as good as turtle.

Captain Dampier, when he visited the Gallipagos, in 1684, records ‘That there is no place in the world so much stored with guanoes and land tortoises as these isles. The first are fat and of an extraordinary size, and exceeding tame; and the land tortoises so numerous, that some hundred men may subsist on them for a considerable time, being very fat, and as pleasant food as a pullet, and of such bigness that one of them weighs 150 or 200 lbs.; and are from two feet to two feet six inches over the belly; whereas, in any other places, I never met with any above 30 lbs. weight, though I have heard them say that at St. Lawrence or Madagascar there are also very large ones.’

Wafer, another old voyager, when at these islands, salted the flesh of the land tortoise for use on shipboard, and fried the fat and converted it into lard or oil, of which they secured 60 large jars.