The Boston cooking-school cook book

partridge, wild duck, plover, deer, etc. The flesh of chicken, fowl, and turkey has much shorter fibre than that of ruminating animals, and is not intermingled with fat,—the fat always being found in layers directly under the skin, and surrounding the intestines. Chicken, fowl, and turkey are nutritious, and chicken is specially easy of digestion. The white meat found on breast and wing is more readily digested than the dark meat. The legs, on account of constant motion, are of a coarser fibre and darker color. Since incubators have been so much used for hatching chickens, small birds suitable for broiling may be always found in market. Chickens which appear in market during January weighing about one and one-half pounds are called _spring chickens_. Fowl is found in market throughout the year, but is at its best from March until June. Philadelphia, until recently, furnished our market with Philadelphia chickens and _capons_, but now Massachusetts furnishes equally good ones, which are found in market from December to June. They are very large, plump, and superior eating. At an early age they are deprived of the organs of reproduction, penned, and specially fatted for killing. They are recognized by the presence of head, tail, and wing feathers. Turkeys are found in market throughout the year, but are best during the winter months. Tame ducks and geese are very indigestible on account of the large quantity of fat they contain. Goose meat is thoroughly infiltrated with fat, containing sometimes forty to forty-five per cent. Pigeons, being old birds, need long, slow cooking to make them tender. Squabs (young pigeons) make a delicious tidbit for the convalescent, and are often the first meat allowed a patient by the physician. The flesh of game, with the exception of wild duck and wild geese, is tender, contains less fat than poultry, is of fine though strong flavor, and easy of digestion. Game meat is usually of dark color, partridge and quail being exceptions, and is usually cooked rare. Venison, the flesh of deer, is short-fibred, dark-colored, highly savored, tender, and easy of digestion; being highly