Camping and woodcraft - Scoutmastercg.com

.LIVING OFF THE COUNTRY 419the whippoonvill is excellent. Turtles' eggs arebetter than those of the domestic fowl (soft-shellturtles deposit their eggs on sandbars about thethird week in June)It is the testimony of gourmets who survived thesiege of Paris that cats, rats, and mice are the mostmisprized of all animals, from a culinary point ofview. "Stewed puss," says one of them, "is byfar more delicious than stewed rabbit. . . Thosewho have not tasted couscoussou of cat have nevertasted anything."Anyway, who are we, to set up standards as tothe fitness or unfitness of things to eat? Weshudder with horror at the idea of eating dog orcat, but of such a downright filthy animal as the pigwe eat ears, nose, feet, tail, and intestines. Howabout our moldy and putrid cheeses, our boiled cabbageand sauerkraut, raw Hamburgers and "high"game? The hardihood of him w^ho first swalloweda raw oyster! And if snails are good, w^hy notlocusts, dragon flies, and the like? I tell you fromexperience that when you get to picking the skippersout of your pork, and begrudge them the holes theyhave made in it, you will agree that any kind offresh, wild meat that is not carrion is clean andwholesome. Caspar Whitney, after describing hismenu of frozen raw meat in the Barren Grounds,says: "I have no doubt some of my readers will bedisgusted by this recital ; and as I sit here at my deskwriting, with, but to reach out and press a buttonfor dinner, luncheon—w^hat I w^ill—I can hardlyrealize that only a few months ago I choked anIndian until he gave up a piece of muskox intestinehe had stolen from me. One must starve to knoww^hat one w411 eat."I trust that none of my readers may be cast downby reading these somewhat lugubrious pages. Afterail, it is not so bad to learn new dishes; but thinkof the predicament of that poor weight—he was amissionary to the Eskimo, I believe—who. being cast