Galen mentions that the flesh of pheasants resembles that of domestic hens, but is more nutritious and savoury. Simeon Seth says that it is wholesome, easily digested, and forms good blood. Averrhoes prefers it to all other fowls. The tetrao, which is mentioned by Pliny and Athenæus, is generally supposed to be the bustard; but Bellonius and Ludovicus Nonnius take it for the _fasiano negro_ of the Italians, or the wood pheasant. Galen and our author have omitted to take notice of quails. Simeon Seth says that their flesh is heating, coarse, indigestible, and unwholesome. Rhases, however, says of the quail, that in lightness it is second only to the starling; that it is not very excrementitious, nor accounted very heating. Averrhoes says that it is of a moderate temperament, but somewhat heating; that it is delicate, forms good chyme, and is excellent food for persons in good health, and for convalescents. Lucretius and Galen mention that the quail can live upon hellebore. Q. Hortensius is “damned to everlasting fame,” for having first presented the peacock at his table. (Varro, de Agricult. iii; Macrobius, Satur. iii, 13; Pliny, H. N. x, 20; Ælianus, H. A. v, 25; Tertulianus, de Pallio.) It came afterwards to be thought an exquisite delicacy, although Horace had declared of it that, were it not for its price, it would not be thought superior to the common domestic fowl. (Sat. ii, 2.) Simeon Seth, like Galen and our author, says that its flesh is indigestible and excrementitious. Apicius directs us to dress it like the thrush. The poet Juvenal asserts that sudden deaths are occasioned by the indigestion arising from eating peacocks, (Sat. i.) It appears, from Varro and Pliny, that the Romans reared them in great numbers for the table. The ostrich is often mentioned by the ancient authors as an article of food, although, as Galen says, it be excrementitious and indigestible; and hence, most probably, it is proscribed in Scripture. Agatharcides makes mention of a savage race of people, who were called Ostrich-eaters, (Ap. Photium.) The “afra avis,” mentioned by Horace, is said by his commentator, Acron, to have been the ostrich. Porphyrion, however, rather supposes it to be the gallina numidica, or _guinea-hen_. It was the same as the meleagris, which Schneider (ad Ælian. N. A. iv, 42), and Schweighäuser (ad Athen. xiv, 20), agree in referring to the pintada, or _guinea-hen_. Apicius directs us to dress it with pepper, lovage, thyme or savory, honey, mustard, vinegar, pickle, and oil. Rhases says that its flesh is very coarse. The otis was the _otis tarda_, or bustard. Xenophon, who gives a graphic description of the mode of hunting it in Persia, says that its flesh is most delicious. Galen and Simeon Seth say that its flesh is intermediate between the goose and the crane. Apicius gives very complicated receipts for dressing it. It is the tetrax of Nemesianus.