The game birds, the pheasant, partridge, grouse, &c., and the quail, guinea fowl, and jungle fowl, are bagged whenever they can be obtained by the sportsman.
The peacock enkakyll ‘was one of the famous dishes at the costly royal banquets of old, and the receipt for dressing it is thus given:—
‘Take and flay off the skin with the feathers, tail, and the neck and head thereon; then take the skin and all the feathers and lay it on the table abroad, and strew thereon ground cumin; then take the peacock and roast him, and baste him with raw yolks of eggs; and when he is roasted, take him off and let him cool awhile, then take him and sew him in his skin, and gild his comb, and so serve him forth with the last course.’
As far as my own experience goes, with all the basting and sauces, the peacock is, at best, a dry and tough eating bird.
The domestic fowls and the tame turkey require no notice here, there being nothing curious about them, however delicate eating they may be when properly fattened and brought to table; but there is a species of wild turkey found in New Granada, weighing from 12 to 16 lbs., and called the iowanen, which is described by Mr. W. Purdie of Trinidad as the most delicate article of food he ever tasted.
Dear as fowls, ducks, and eggs comparatively are, they meet, as every one knows, with a ready sale. When we find our imports of eggs, chiefly from France, amount to about 130,000,000 a year, besides our nominal ‘new laid,’ or home produce,—when we learn that the foreign poultry we receive (mixed up with not a few Ostend rabbits) is valued at 39,000l., and that Ireland supplies us with about 150,000,000 of eggs, we begin to perceive that fowls, ducks, geese, and turkeys must be a profitable investment to some persons, and the capital of about 4,000,000l. we lay out on these various products serves to gladden the heart of many a poultry breeder.
There are sent to market about nine or ten million head of poultry in a year to supply the whole population of the United Kingdom, shipping and all, which is not more than one-third of a fowl to each person annually. Now, were every one to have a fowl as part food once a month, it would require 330,000,000 more fowls or other poultry than are at present sold.
I copy the following from what I believe to be the first fixed tariff of provisions, in the City of London, about the second year of Edward I. (1272.) The people had at that time great cause to complain of the exorbitant prices demanded of them for provisions, by hucksters and dealers, and a fixed price was found necessary by the Mayor:—
| The best hen | three half-pence |
| Pullet | three half-pence |
| Capon | two pence |
| Goose | five pence |
| Wild goose | four pence |
| Pigeons, three for | one penny |
| Mallard, three for | a half-penny |
| Plover | one penny |
| Partridge | three half-pence |
| Larks, per dozen | one penny half-penny |
| Pheasant | four pence |
| Heron | six pence |
| Swan | three shillings |
| Crane | three shillings, and by |
| a subsequent Act | one shilling |
| The best peacock | one penny |
| The best coney, with skin | four pence |
| Ditto, without skin | three pence |
| The best hare, with skin | three pence half-penny |
| The best lamb, from Christmas to Lent | six pence |
| At other times of the year | four pence. |
In the time of Edward II., 1313, eggs were 20 a penny, and pigeons sold at three for a penny.