Page:The English housekeeper, 6th.djvu/107

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Some of these are nice eating, particularly the Wheat-ear, which, from its superior flavour, has been called the English ortolan. A roast of small birds is so much the fashion in France, that you seldom travel many days together without finding it one of the principal dishes of the supper table. In the autumn, and, indeed, through the winter, you will constantly see a partridge, or a woodcock, served up in the midst of a numerous company of blackbirds, thrushes, larks, and a variety of such small birds; a truly "dainty dish to set before a king." This custom is remarkable because there is a comparative scarcity of small birds in France, whilst we in England are overstocked with them. The sparrow-pudding is known in many country places, but is not often seen. Indeed, in this land of beef and mutton, it would be hard if these little creatures could not be left to sing and build their nests in peace. With the French there is such an avidity for all sorts of small birds, that a string of them is one of the most ordinary articles in the larder. Nothing that flies in France above the order of humming-birds in its size, is too insignificant to come within the scope of the sportsman's ambition, and the purveyor's nets and springes. I am not sure whether our exquisite neighbours ever proceed so far as to devour sweet Philomel herself; but they certainly do what would be deemed still more shocking in England, making no exception in favour of that little bird, to injure which is here a sort of crime; they kill the robins and cook them by dozens at a time. The Forest of Ardennes abounds in them, and in the season the traveller may fare sumptuously upon these pretty little creatures, without being aware of what he is eating. Lovers of delicacies might find it worth their while to travel in the countries where the vine and the fig-tree abound. There the small birds feed and fatten on the grapes, even in the winter, for, long after the conclusion of the vintage, refuse grapes may always be found hanging. This food, so superior to our blackberries, hips and haws, may well cause the flavour of the birds to be in the highest perfection: for the fruit is so nutritious that the labouring people almost entirely live upon it through one whole season of the year. In Sicily the grapes will keep for months