Modern cookery for private families

to the vegetables, and one half reduced before the gravy is poured in; but though a sauce of fine colour is thus produced the flavour of the wine is entirely lost. TO ROAST WOODCOCKS OR SNIPES. [In season during the winter months, but not abundant until frost sets in.]. Handle them as little and as lightly as possible, and pluck off the feathers gently; for if this be violently done the skin of the birds will be broken. _Do not draw them_, but after having wiped them with clean soft cloths, truss them with the head under the wing, and the bill laid close along the breast; pass a slight skewer through the thighs, catch the ends with a bit of twine, and tie it across to keep the legs straight. Suspend the birds with the feet downwards to a bird-spit, flour them well, and baste them with butter, which should be ready dissolved in the pan or ladle. Before the trail begins to drop, which it will do as soon as they are well heated, lay a thick round of bread, freed from the crust, toasted a delicate brown, and buttered on both sides, into the pan under them to catch it, as this is considered finer eating even than the flesh of the birds; continue the basting, letting the butter fall from them into the basting-spoon or ladle, as it cannot be collected again from the dripping-pan should it drop there, in consequence of the toast or _toasts_ being in it. There should be one of these for each woodcock, and the trail should be spread equally over it. When the birds are done, which they will be, at a brisk fire, in from twenty to twenty-five minutes, lay the toasts into a very hot dish, dress the birds upon them, pour a little gravy round the bread, and send more to table in a tureen. Woodcock, 20 to 25 minutes; snipe, 5 minutes less. TO ROAST THE PINTAIL, OR SEA PHEASANT. [All wild-fowl is in full season in mid-winter: the more severe the weather, the more abundant