a cup of wine unto the palate." Brawn is
unwholesome; with sucking-pig claret or sack
should be taken. Venison is, in the doctor's
opinion, of hard digestion, and an ill juice.
"It was verily a good invention for amending
the noisomeness of venison to drink claret
wine plentifully with it." In all respects he
prefers mutton, although some, by reason of
the scarcity of venison, may otherwise deem.
"A little fat cony is, for goodness and
wholesomeness of meat, better than a great buck,
for although venison be of some greatly
estimated and desired, yet, notwithstanding
rarity and carity of it, rabbits are of a far
more excellent nourishment, and for goodness
of meat little inferior to the capon." Hares
are dry, hard, and "breed melancholy more
than any other flesh; wherefore it is not for
goodness of the flesh that hares are so often
hunted, but for recreating and exercising of
the body: for it maketh a very dry, thick,
and melancholic blood." After an assault on
goat's flesh, and upon the corrupt stomachs of
those foreigners who eat frogs and snails, the
doctor comes to the capon, best of fowls, and
to the welcome hens, chickens, pullets, cockrels,
caponets. Turkeys, if they had tenderer
legs and milder fat, would be scarcely inferior
to capon. Peacocks yield a hard, dry meat.
They are best eaten in winter after they have
hung in a cold place for three or four days.
Pigeons inflame and stimulate. They are
good, therefore, for old men. They are best
roasted, with a stuffing of sour grapes or
unripe gooseberries, and then eaten with
butter and a little vinegar. The eating of
pigeons in time of plague is much commended,
because they are thought to make a man safe
from infection. They are best to be eaten
when they are almost ready to fly, and before
their heads be pulled off, let them blood
with a knife upon the inner side of the wings,
for by that means their vehement heat will
be somewhat abated. The older birds are
too hot, and must be eschewed. The
pheasant's flesh in flavour excels that of all fowl,
and for nourishment is of a mean between
the capon and the partridge. Next to the
pheasant, for goodness of meat, is the
partridge, so it be young. It impinguateth the
body. The young partridges, says our
thoughtful and considerate friend, whose
regard for the rustic stomach we have seen
already, " the young partridges are the best,
for they make a pure and excellent nourishment.
They are only hurtful to countrymen,
because they breed in them the asthmatic
passion, which is a short and painful fetching
of breath, by reason whereof they will not be
able to undergo their usual labours. Wherefore,
when they chance to meet with a covey
of young partridges, they were much better
to bestow them upon such for whom they are
convenient, than to adventure (notwithstanding
their strong stomachs) the eating of
them, seeing that there is in their flesh,
such an hidden and perilous antipathy unto
their bodies." If this be so, benevolence
must be at the bottom of the Game Laws.

Quails, says the Doctor, are not so wholesome
as they are accounted. Their flesh is
held to have a certain kind of force against
melancholy, by reason of a great desire that
these birds have to feed upon hellebore, which
is a purger of melancholy. But their evil
nature counteracteth this, and it is likely,
that as quails alone, of all living creatures
besides man, suffer the falling sickness, the use
of them engendereth the cramp, a trembling
of the limbs, and falling sickness. "But
there are few," the Doctor thinks, " that
would fear to incur the aforesaid hurts by
eating of them, if they might have them.
Indeed the scarcity of them upholdeth their
reputation, and the hurts that come by the
seldom eating of them are not sensible, but to
the curious indagator and observer of things."

Rails are good; old turtle-doves breed
naughty blood, but young ones have an excellent
property of comforting the brain and
quickening the wit. Fat blackbirds are good
eating, and thrushes are convenient,
especially for the phlegmatic, so are larks.
Woodcocks—called rustic partridges by some—are
inferior to partridge, snipe is inferior to woodcock.
Fieldfares are dry and not commendable;
sparrows, roasted, make a dry, choleric,
and melancholic nourishment, but being
boiled in broth they become wholesome and
the broth restorative. Linnets are both for
lightness of digestion and goodness of meat
better than sparrows. Crane is hard and
fibrous, and a lean bustard is no better, but
being fat, and kept without meat a day or
two before he is killed, he yields a nourishing
meat, if baked and well-seasoned with pepper,
cloves, and salt. Heron is hard and fishy,
but the young heronshaws are with some
accounted a very dainty dish. But, says the
physician, "I leave them and commend them
unto such as are delighted with meats of
strange and noisome taste." He condemns
also bittern, would have the stork excluded
from tables, and declares sea gull to be
offensive. Teal, he says, is the best of water-
fowl, and radge next unto teal in goodness.
He differs from those who repute plover a
dainty meat, rates lapwing below plover,
commits widgeon and curlew to them that live
near to moors, and have no better meat, bids
all men of reasonable stomach to beware of
moor-hen, and dismisses all ducks, whether
tame or wild, as "in no wise commendable;
for they chiefly feed upon the very filth and
excremental vermin of the earth. The flesh
of them is neither for smell or taste commendable;
it is fulsome and unacceptable to the
stomach, and filleth the body with obscene
and naughty humours. They are only
convenient for strong and rustic bodies." Stubble
geese are of very hard concoction and
ingrateful savour, but the young geese,
commonly called green geese, are wholesomer,
especially if fatted with wholesome grain.