people; and where the _caviare_, "with that pale green hue which denotes
the absence of salt," is not to be overlooked. In melancholy contrast to
the native genius of the Sclavs is the absolute dearth of taste and sense
in gastronomic Germany. If a map of the world could be made--and why
not?--in which lands of utter darkness in culinary matters should be
coloured black (like heathen countries in the missionary atlas, and
coalfields in the map of physical geography), the German Empire would be
one vast blot on Central Europe. Science might track Teutonic blood by
the absence of respectable cookery; and in England too obvious tokens
would be found of that incapacity of the art of dining which we brought
from the marshes of Holstein. In America, nature herself has put the
colonists on many schemes for the improvement of dinner, and terrapin
soup is gratefully associated with memoirs of Virginia--in the minds of
those who like terrapin soup. The canvas-backed duck has been praised as
highly as the "swopping, swopping mallard" of a comfortable college in
Oxford. As to the wild turkey, the poet has not yet risen in America who
can do justice to the charms of that admirable bird. Mr. Whitman, who
has much to say about "bob-a-links" and "whip-poor-wills," and some other
fowl which sing "when lilacs bloom in the garden yard," has neglected, we
fear, the wild turkey, simply because the Muse has not given this bird
melody, and made it, like the robin-redbreast, which goes so well with
bread-crumbs, "an amiable songster." American genius neglects the
turkey, and positively takes more interest in the migrations of the
transatlantic sparrow. If the nobler fowl can cross the water as safely
as the beef and mutton of everyday life, he will receive the honour he
deserves in this country. Some students with the deathless thirst of
scientific men for acclimatization, speak well of the Bohemian pheasant,
which, unlike some other denizens of Bohemia, is fat. But there are
probably less familiar birds in America that rival the duck and the wild
turkey, and excel the Bohemian pheasant. The existence of maize,