world of gourmands is never tired, under
any form of presentation that it may please
the chef to serve him. Tlie hideous, scaly,
demoniacal-looking iguana is better in the
trial than in outside promise; cooked skilfully,
it is like chicken in flesh and like turtle in
flavour; but, if one of its paws should
happen to stick up in the dish, it is so
frightfully suggestive of a pigmy alligator
that many a stout European, afraid of
nothing else under the sun, would be afraid
of that. It is excellent eating, being
omnigustatory; it is like chicken, like rabbit,
when stewed or curried; like turtle, if dressed
as turtle should be; like hare, when turned
into soup, and a good dish of imitation
minced veal might be made of it, with lemon-
cream, and streaky bacon superadded. It is
of the range of white meats; and its small,
soft-shelled, delicate eggs are equal to itself
in purity and daintiness of flavour. Indeed
the eggs of most reptiles are wonderfully
appetising; but none more so than those which
bring forth the harmless, hideous, and
delicious iguana; unless it be the eggs of the
contemned land tortoise.

Caymans and crocodiles, lizards and frogs,
are all eaten and enjoyed by certain people.
The typical crocodile is like veal; but some
species have a strong flavour of musk, which
is nauseating enough; and some are like
juicy young pork, while others resemble
lobster. Others again have a powerful fishy
taste, very disagreeable. On the whole, therefore,
crocodile is uncertain eating, and not to
be ventured on with undue rashness. Alligator
is supposed to be invigorating and restorative;
and at Manilla is sold at high prices; the
Chinese clutching at the dried skin, which
they use in their awful messes of gelatinous
soup. Alligator is likened to sucking pig, but
the alligator's eggs have a musky flavour.

The Australians devour even the most
venomous snakes; and, those who have tried
say the flavour is like collared eel, though
the general likeness is to veal. In olden
times viper broth was, to a benighted world,
what turtle soup is to us; and viper jelly
is still considered a restorative in Italy. The
hunters of the Mississippi have, at this day,
a dish called musical jack, of which they are
mightily fond, though it is only a stew of
rattlesnakes.

The French are notoriously fond of frogs,
and frogs command a high price in the
markets of New York; where they sell the
large bull-frog, weighing sometimes half-a-
pound, as well as the tender little green
frog (rana esculenta), whose hind legs taste so
like delicate chicken, when served up with
white sauce in the restaurants of Paris and
the hotels of Vienna. Of course, frogs do not
escape in China, which devours everything
with blood or fibre in it; and the horrid
negroes of Surinam eat the still more horrid
and most loathsome Surinam toad.

Snakes and frogs seem to go somehow,
with monkeys and parrots; they are all of
the same eerie class together, though the
naturalist would scoff at such a notion, and
no physical geographer would countenance it.
To us they suggest a sequitur. African
epicures are never more charmed than when
they can dine off a highly seasoned, tender
young monkey, baked, gipsy fashion, in the
earth. The Rio Janeiro monkeys are sold in
the Leadenhall-markets of the place, together
with parrots and the paca, a not very edible
looking rodent. The great red monkey, and
the black spider monkey, the howling monkey
and the couxio or jacketed monkey, are all
eaten by the various people among whom they
are found. Monkey tastes like rabbit, and is
reported nutritious and pleasant.

Bats and fox-monkeys—the flying lemur—
are also eaten; but are neither of very
respectable holding in the gastronomic
aristocracy; they have a rank odour and are
unpleasant, but are eaten, nevertheless, by the
natives of the islands of the Indian Archipelago,
Malabar, &c. One species of bat is
good eating; it is called by the naturalists
the eatable bat, and is said to be white,
tender, and delicate; it is much favoured by
the inhabitants of Timor; for all that it is a
hideous beast, like a weasel, with a ten-
inch body, covered with close and shining
black hair, and four-feet wings, when
stretched to their full extent.

If the rank fox-monkey may be eaten, why
not the fox? So he is. In Italy reckoned
a crowning delicacy; and, in the Arctic regions
where fresh meat is scarce, when judiciously
interred in a pie, he is considered equal to
any rabbit, under the same conditions, ever
bred on the Sussex downs. But, strange
to say, the Esquimaux dogs, which will eat
anything else, will not touch fox. The skunk,
the prairie wolf, and the sloth are eaten.
Cats and dogs find purchasers and consumers
in China, where they are hung up in the
butchers' shops, together with badgers—
tasting like wild boar—and other oddities
of food.

In the South Seas, too, dog is a favourite
dish, and a puppy stew is a royal feast in
Zanzibar; but it is only justice to say, that
where dog is eaten he is specially fattened
for the table, and fed only on milk and
such like cleanly diet. The Australian native
dog or dingo, is eaten by the blacks, but by
no one else; and a South African will give
a large cow for a well-sized mastiff. The
tiger is thought by the Malays to impart
his own strength and courage to his
consumer.

The American panther and the wild cat
of Louisiana are said to be excellent eating;
so is the puma, which is so like veal in
flavour that you would not know the difference
blindfold. The lion, too, is almost
identical with veal in colour, taste, and
texture. Bears' paws were long a German
delicacy; and bears' flesh is held equal or