GAME PIES
Squirrel pie
Clean and joint the squirrels, cutting the backs into three pieces, each. Put six slices of fat salt pork into a saucepan, fry three minutes, then put in the squirrels and fry to a light brown in this fat, adding, as the meat begins to yellow, a chopped onion, some chopped parsley and a cupful of mushrooms; sprinkle over them two tablespoonfuls of flour; add a pint of stock and simmer slowly until the meat is tender, seasoning, at the last, with salt and pepper. Boil one minute; pour over the squirrels, and let them cool before putting into bakedish; pour in a gravy formed by stewing, add a few more mushrooms and a couple of hard-boiled eggs cut in slices; cover with a good crust and bake one hour.
Rabbit pie
Clean, wash and joint, cutting each back into three pieces. Leave in salt and water for half an hour; wipe, and rub well with lemon juice, salt and pepper; where the meat is thick, make several cuts with a knife that the seasoning may penetrate. Lay them in a saucepan, add cold water to cover, then put in a bay-leaf, eight peppercorns, a bit of mace and two sliced onions. Cook slowly till the meat is tender. Have ready a buttered bakedish and when the meat is cool lay within this, alternately with sliced boiled eggs, a few minced olives and a dozen tiny young onions which have been parboiled. Thicken with browned flour the liquor in which the rabbit was stewed, and add more salt if needed. Strain it over the meat, using enough to make it quite moist. Cover the dish with a rich pastry or baking-powder crust, make a wide cut in the center, and bake, covered, half an hour, then brown.
Squirrel or rabbit pot-pie
Proceed as with the preceding recipes, until you are ready to pack in the dish. Add, then, three potatoes parboiled and sliced, and tiny dumplings, like marbles, made of a good biscuit dough; cut round and boil ten minutes in the gravy before this goes into the pie.
Pie of small birds
I wish I could preface the recipe with the information that English sparrows are available for this purpose. If not suppressed they are likely to lessen the supply of edible small birds and of warblers of all kinds to a degree inconceivable by those who have not watched their achievements in this line.
Blackbirds, ricebirds and snipe may be used in families or as neighbors in the manufacture of our dish.