_Cookery on the Moors._—No one merits or relishes a good dinner better than a grouse-shooter. It delights me to see my companion eat like a traveller; and, to please me, he should possess sufficient _acumen_ to enable him to appreciate the fare. I despise the man who is cursed with a Spartan palate, and who hardly knows the difference between beef and mutton; and yet, in equal ratio, the _gourmand_ is my abomination. There is a limit in culinary lore beyond which, as I opine, the sportsman should never travel. Like a soldier, he will sometimes find it serviceable to be able to direct the broiling of a steak, and the combination of a stew. To fabricate a curry, or even regulate a hash, may be tolerated; and in wild countries, like Ballycroy or the Scottish highlands, this knowledge will frequently be “worth a Jew’s eye;” but every thing beyond this in kitchen accomplishments, is detestable. With one who composed omelets, and talked scholarly of the _materiel_ of a plum-pudding—and I once had the misfortune to fall into a shooting party afflicted with such a personage—I would consort no more upon the heath, than I would shoot with a cook, or draw a cover with a confectioner. And yet, with these antipathies, I recommend the neophyte to make himself in every thing as independent as he can. A few practical lessons are worth a world of precept: one week’s cooking in the moors will render him for life an adept; and if gun and angle fail him not, he will be able to command a dinner, without owing to the devil the compliment of a bad cook.—_Wild Sports._ COOLNESS, _s._ Gentle cold, a soft degree of cold; freedom from passion. COOMB, _s._ A measure of corn containing four bushels. COOP, _s._ A cage, a pen for animals, as poultry or sheep. COOT (_Fulica_, LINN.), _s._ A small black water-fowl. [Illustration] Its characteristics are, bill strong, thick, sloping to a point; the base of the upper mandible rising far up into the forehead; both mandibles of equal length; nostrils inclining to oval, narrow, short; body compressed; wings and tail short; toes long, furnished with broad scalloped membranes between each joint, on each side; the inner toe has two, the middle three, and the outer four scallops; and the hinder toe, one plain membrane adhering to its whole length.