Note 37 — Chapter VIII

There are poulterers who would pare such a spur to diminish the appearance of age. The shorter and blunter the spur, and the smoother the leg, the younger is the bird. Dr. Kitchener, who appears not to have had much luck in stumbling upon well-fed pheasants, avers that they have not the flavour of barn-door fowls if they are cooked before they drop from the single tail feather by which, he says, they should be hung up in the larder; or, rather, he advises that two pheasants should be suspended by one feather until both fall. Birds of full, beautiful plumage gratify the eye more than the palate. It is an indication of age in all sorts of birds. The hens are the tenderest. On the body of birds, immediately under the wing, there is what keepers often call, “the condition vein.” The more fat and yellow that appears, the higher is the condition of the animal. Blow aside the feathers of a snipe; and if the flesh is nearly black the bird wants condition,—it should be white.