THE PARTRIDGE.
The Greeks and Romans were acquainted with partridges, and eat them.[XX_21] The red, at first very rare in Italy, were, however, advantageously replaced by the white, which true amateurs procured at a great expense from the Alps.[XX_22]
The Athenians were fond of seeing them fight, and raised them for this cruel sport.[XX_23] Alexander Severus also sought in these sanguinary struggles relief from the cares of royalty.[XX_24]
Aristippus, a more humane, perhaps a more luxurious, philosopher, gave as much as fourteen shillings for a fine fat partridge,[XX_25] which, passing from the aviary to the kitchen, escaped the fatal vicissitudes of a desperate combat.
In Greece, people who knew how to enjoy life thought much of the leg of this warlike bird.[XX_26] It was fashionable not to touch any other part. At Rome, when politeness was not of so much consequence, they sometimes ventured on the breast. We, barbarians, eat the entire partridge.