Thus game to the sportsman embodies an æsthetic attribute unknown to the majority, the very associations of sport in themselves conferring the keenest appreciation of the true instincts of gastronomy. The range and the breech-loader are closely allied, and the field and the table become merged in ties of mutual affinity. Nor may we overlook the great worth of game in the sick-room, and as a ministering agent for the invalid and convalescent. It possesses, in addition, a virtue equalled by scarcely any other form of food, in calling forth the bouquet and flavour of wine—whether it be a white wine with the denizens of fresh and salt water that figure as game-fish, or a grand growth of Bordeaux or Burgundy that is appropriately served with the furred and feathered tenants of Sylva's court. Then if one has killed it himself, or a friend whose skill has checked its flight has been the means of contributing its graces, its quintessence becomes all the more adorable.
Combining so many advantages, it is to be deplored that the preservation of game in this country is not more carefully guarded, and that the scarcity of many species is becoming more and more apparent. The practice of spring shooting of snipe, duck, and shore-birds, when on their migrations to their northern nesting-grounds, cannot be too severely censured; while the laxity in enforcing the laws and the dissimilarity of close seasons in different counties operates still further to cause the depletion of wild life. The pot-hunter and the spaniel, the trap and the gin, are gradually exterminating the ruffed grouse; the olden flocks of plover and wild pigeon have well-nigh vanished; while snipe, woodcock, quail, and duck are now as rare in many localities where they formerly abounded as the trout which once swarmed in the streams. Deer and its congeners, it is true, have received better protection of recent years, the increasing numbers of deer at least attesting the wisdom of stringent laws stringently enforced. It will therefore be readily evident that preservation and protection become a question of paramount importance which may no longer be loosely considered, or soon the last grouse will have sounded his reveille, and the whistle of the woodcock will remain only as a memory. The remedy is easily prescribed, and may be briefly summarised—legitimate shooting and fishing, rigid enforcement of the laws with heavy penalties for the offender, a single close season for the smaller species that are found in proximity, abolishment of spring shooting, and a rigorous surveillance of the covers. By this means the table may possess one of its greatest luxuries in abundance, and sport resume its former sphere as the greatest of recuperative and edifying recreations.
In its relation to the table, the term "game" is held to include wild fowl as well as most furred and feathered spoils of the chase. Or, defined more accurately in its connection with gastronomy, it embraces everything belonging to the province of sport that is edible. Correctly speaking, no species of wild fowl, or species like the plover, rail, pigeon, etc., may be accounted game, the quality of which consists in the subtle presence of scent, instinctively recognised and followed by thoroughbred dogs,—a trait expressed by Hollar's lines,
"The Feasant Cocke the woods doth most frequent,
Where Spaniells spring and pearche him by the sent."
Yet species foreign to the blue blood of flax and feather may, nevertheless, afford sport, and prove acquisitions for the table. The little spotted sandpiper, accordingly, whose musical peet, weet, weet rings along the brooksides and moist meadow-lands, and even the squirrel if killed in cold weather, are entitled to rank as table-game, providing they be properly prepared.
It should not be supposed, however, that all individuals of a given species taste alike, flavour being the result of two important conditions. Neither should it be presumed that a game-bird, usually referred to as masculine, is preferable for the larder in that gender; the truth being that for culinary purposes the hen is generally preferable to the cock. Every sportsman will recall the difference in the taste of certain game-birds, more especially snipe and woodcock—depending upon the nature of their feeding-grounds, and upon the season. Like celery, moreover, most game requires a touch of the cold to develop its qualities. The snipe that bores in sweet, moist pastures, and the woodcock shot on high grounds during late autumn, would hardly be recognised as the same birds bagged under widely dissimilar conditions. The bobolink of our summer fields is scarcely prized until as a migrant he has fattened on the rice-fields of the South, to acquire an added bloom under the name of reed-bird or rice-bunting. Similarly, the sheep of Pré-Salé, the succulent salt-marsh mutton of the Brittany coasts, renowned for its delicious flavour, owe this quality largely to the herb absinthe which grows amid the herbage on which they browse. The mutton of sheep fed on pastures where thyme abounds also acquires a particularly fine savour. In like manner, when the ruffed grouse through stress of weather has been compelled to feed on birch-buds, or when he has dined on the berries and foliage of the wintergreen, his aroma is strikingly accentuated, becoming a veritable "steam of rich-distilled perfumes."
The wild duck is an apposite example of the effect of food upon flavour; and even a pheasant à la Sainte Alliance must pale before a celery-fed canvasback or redhead bathed in its own carmine juices. The redhead, who dives down for the roots of the Vallisneria which the lazier canvasback purloins, is identical in quality with the latter when shot on the same feeding-grounds; the only difference between the two when cooked consisting in the larger size of the canvasback. Equally, the blackbird and starling, when killed on the shocked corn-fields where the hazy sunlight broods, or in autumn woods where they are garrulously discussing the date of their approaching flight and marvelling at the exquisite gradations of the maples' changing hues, become possessed of a tenderness and succulence unknown to the glare and greenness of summer.
Another much esteemed native table-bird is the sora, crake, or Carolina rail, who should not be confounded with the British and European corn-crake or land-rail whom Michael Drayton refers to as "seldom coming but on rich man's spits," and Gilbert White represents as crying crex! crex! from the low, wet bean-fields of Christian Malford and the meadows near Paradise Gardens at Oxford. The sora throngs the marshes of the Atlantic coast in early autumn, congregating in the greatest quantities south of the Rappahannock, where he is slaughtered by wholesale with comparatively little diminution of his ranks. He is a small dark-fleshed bird of great delicacy when broiled, and by many is prized more highly than the toothsome reed-bird or the golden plover. Though resembling the corn-crake in many ways, his nearest relative abroad is the spotted crake. The great-breasted or king-rail of the fresh-water marshes is likewise much esteemed. In flavour the sora is not unlike the wild duck; or, if the comparison may be made, a cross between the qualities of a teal and a snipe—deriving his special richness from the seeds of Zizania aquatica, or tall, wild reed of the tidewater shores. The juicy little bobolink whose rippling scherzo, flung over the fallows and buttercups of June, is basely forgotten by the epicure in the fall, may be crunched in a mouthful; the sora is thrice his size, and, though seldom as fat, is richer in the quality of his ruddy flesh.
It were a parlous task to attempt to describe from memory the respective merits of the reed-bird, the famed European ortolan, and the English wheatear, fieldfare, and mistletoe-thrush. One stands helpless under such a contretemps, and must necessarily await the advent and the edict of another La Reynière. The fig-pecker of southern Europe is more easily passed upon, and readily ranks first among small table-birds.