Some there are who would seriously object to boiled mutton as opposed to roast, and who assuredly would cry out in horror at a duck or game-bird boiled. Yet boiled mutton with capers is orthodox--like corned beef and cabbage, or the _Rindfleisch_ with horseradish sauce, which blends so well with the Münchner where one meets it in the middle of the day in Germany. A broiled teal, wood-duck, or butterball, by all means; but a roast canvasback, redhead, or mallard in preference always. "Marrowbones are always popular" [the author continues]. "So is a well-made devil or a broil. When a picture of the Dutch school, representing a tradesman in a passion with his wife for bringing up an underdone leg of mutton, was shown to the late Lord Hertford, his lordship's first remark was, 'What a fool that fellow is not to see that he may have a capital broil!' A genuine _hure de sanglier_, or wild boar's head, would elevate the plainest dinner into dignity. The comparative merits of pies and puddings present a problem which it is no easy matter to decide. On the whole, we give the preference to puddings, as affording more scope to the inventive genius of the cook. A plum-pudding, for instance, our national dish, is hardly ever boiled enough. A green apricot tart is commonly considered the best tart that is made: but a green apricot pudding is a much better thing. A cherry dumpling is better than a cherry tart. A beefsteak pudding, again, is better than the corresponding pie; but oysters and mushrooms are essential to its success. A mutton-chop pudding with oysters, but without mushrooms, is excellent." Never having tried the last-mentioned "remove," the writer is willing to trust to its excellence, and to the general good taste of Hayward. But one has his doubts sometimes, the proof of the pudding being in the eating; and possibly a mutton-chop and oyster compound may be spoiling two things intrinsically good in themselves, and the dish deserve to be placed in the same category with a boiled pheasant or a wild fowl. Moreover, what may taste or appear excellent in one place does not always appear the same in another, this holding true with many things besides dishes, which may be affected by the climate, the surroundings, or one's mood at the time. The topic of fish is particularly well treated by Hayward. On the subject of game, he has this to say concerning a native marsh-bird of the sandpiper tribe, highly prized for its eggs and flesh, which has become even yet more rare with the draining of the English meres and fens: