Reed Bird Cuisine from the 1880s

Reed-bird Dumplings

Prepare very carefully one dozen or more reed-birds, wash them through several waters, and season with salt. black pepper, and dredge with flour; then make a light crust, as for apple dumplings, roil out a piece of moderate thickness about the size of a saucer, in which place two birds, and between them a small piece of butter and six large oysters; tie each dumpling in a cloth, drop them in boiling water, and let them cook for one hour; then take them from the cloths and send to table hot.

To Dress Reed Birds

Pick, open and wash carefully one dozen reed-birds, after which place them between the folds of a clean towel, and, with a rolling gin, mash the bones quite flat; then season with pepper and salt; put one or two tablespoons of butter into a small skillet, let the birds simmer slowly, basting them constantly, and holding the skillet so that they may brown. This is the richest way to serve the birds, or they may be prepared exactly as oysters for frying, or broiled on an oyster gridiron. In broiling place them over a clear fire, broiling the inside first, and when a light brown turn the gridiron. Serve on buttered toast, and baste them with butter, pepper and salt.

October 2, 1880. Washington D.C. Evening Star 56(8578): 7. From the Philadelphia Ledger.

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Broiled Reed Birds

This way of cooking the reed bird, though it be simple, certainly ought to please the most fastidious palate: Pluck, draw and split the birds down the back, and place them on a folding wire broiler over a clear fire, turning them from side to side. When done send to the table immediately on a hot dish, pouring over them just before serving a little plain melted butter in which has been mixed a teaspoonful of Johnston's fluid beef.

September 27, 1884. Washington D.C. Evening Star 64(9805): 6. From the Caterer.

Reed Birds on Toast

Very Good for the Palate, but Bad for the Purse

"Reed birds on toast" is the first sign that one now observes on entering a first-class restaurant, and naturally the observer shoots his eyes along the eating bar, and there lay the jolly fat little rascals, brown and seasoned, curled upon a section of seal-brown toast, the whole not more than a single mouthful for a healthy feeder. Reed birds

Are in Their Prime

of fatness and juiciness now, and it makes a fellow's mouth water to think about them, but his mouth will have to water on unless he has a healthy pocketbook, for these delicious morsels rate high. Served to order they now demand $1.20 per dozen. A dozen is just about an ordinary meal. Add to that a bottle of claret, seventy-five cents, and we find the total cost of such luxuries to be $1.95. Rather

Steep for the Average Eater.

"They come high, but we must have 'em," said a Treasury clerk who sat munching the bones of a dozen reedbirds in an uptown cafe to-day, and he munched and smiled and put on as many airs as though he owned a railroad. In the meantime, the market is being well supplied. Just now, the neighboring marshes are alive with reedbirds and blackbirds, and

The Professional Gunner is On the Field

blazing away hourly creating sad havoc. Amateur gunners are blowing down their gun-barrels preparing to enter the warfare and the coroner and local newspaper reporter on the alert for casualties. Just what the innocent victims of these sanguinary invaders think of all this is better described in the following lines that floated in from the marshes to-day.

The Reed Bird's Song.

On a swaying reed in the marsh so green

Sits a reed bird and a reed bird lean,

Chatting and Chirping so merry and gay,

And watching the hills and the clouds far away,

"Tis here," they chirrup, "we'll make our home,"

"Till the murderous gunner and dogs all come

"To scatter shot and drive us out,

"With banging and barking and deafening shout.

"No harm to them could a reed bird bring."

These two little reed birds went on to sing,

"Till 'bang' went a gun from a tuft hard by,

And the two little chaps lay down to die.

No doubt they would rather have lived to see

The season out, to fly off in glee,

But fate and a gunner's steady aim,

Removed then from future praise or fame;

And so it will happen, through all this weather,

Has passed in his chips, and become a ghost,

Of his former self served up on toast.

September 2, 1882. Washington Evening Critic 15(4220): 1.

Autumnal Sports - Artist's Experience Reed Bird Shooting

Wading in the Marshes

Four Hours' Wretched Experience and Four Birds as the Result

Reed bird and rail shooting is at its height now, and the Eastern Branch, from back of the jail to Bladensburg, presents an animated appearance. The old veteran of the war might derive genuine pleasure from a trip through these marshes in a skiff since the incessant bang! bang!! would recall some of his army experience without its necessary accompanying danger. True, he might find it necessary to stop and pick a load of bird shot out of his system occasionally, but this would, of course, only add zest to that which otherwise prove tame sport.

The Critic artist thought he'd like to try reed bird shooting. It must prove a diversion to one used to shooting the Elephantus Africanus and other large game. Therefore he laid in a plentiful supply of loaded cartridges (No. 6 shot) and depositing five cents with the driver of a Columbia line car soon found himself at Miller's at the eastern end of Bennings bridge.

Over the marsh in every direction the gunners banged away, every shot intensifying the artist's desire to join the skirmish. Several skiffs passed under the bridge as he crossed it. They were picturesque objects with the gunner standing erect in the bow of the skiff, while the "shover" standing in the stern with his long pole, pushed the skiff among the reeds with such skill that scarcely a ripple was raised upon the water. Over the tops of the thicket of reeds for miles could be seen the heads of gunners and shovers. The bang! bang!! of those nearest sounded decidedly warlike, while the tiny clouds of white smoke puffing out of the reeds in the distance told of the destruction going on among the birds in that quarter. Flocks of birds would string out above the marsh after each shot, then suddenly swoop down again upon the reeds only to meet with another fusilade from a dozen double-barreled shotguns.

At Miller's the artist obtained a skiff and the services of an expert "shover" at so much per shove. Then he stood up ready for business. Scarcely had the skiff gotten under way before there was a whirr overhead.

Bang bang!!

Now whether those cartridges were too heavily loaded, or whether the skiff gave a lurch, or whether it struck a rock, or whether —, but no matter, it happened! The artist, after rising from the marshy deep, pulled the mud from his mouth, shook the water from his ears, blew the debris from his nose and managed to regain the skiff. His ardor, small clothes and ammunition were considerably dampened, but he had killed a bird that repaid him for all the discomfort attending the bath. After tying his hat to the bird so he could find it again, (for reed birds are smaller than wild swans), he ordered his shover to shove. Bang! went a gun further over in the marsh. A stinging sensation about the artist's ears followed. Whether the artist was mistaken for an ortolan or reed bird, or whether it was an accident he didn't take time to consider, for there arose a great flock of birds. Both barrels of his gun went off at once and to his surprise, instead of fifty or a hundred bird falling, one solitary bird dropped into the water ahead. Then the artist stopped long enough to pull a load of shot from his ear and cheeks. After an exciting hunt of half an hour the bird was found among the spatter-dock leaves, where it had washed, and the hunt was resumed.

An hour was consumed in pushing among the reeds. Flocks of birds passed, but out of range. Then the shover suddenly remembered that the tide was going out and he'd have to return or get left in the mud. He turned with difficulty, for the water was already low. Then another flock of birds arose, and two more loads of shot went whistling after them. A half-hour's search and the artist was rewarded with two birds. He had now been out four hours and had four reed birds. Then the artist figured up and found that it requires precisely 5.333 1/3 shots to kill a reed bird. And after he is killed there isn't enough of him to find in the skillet unless you've got several dozens of him.

But "tide and time wait for no man," and in attempting to turn the shover found he was stuck in the mud and informed the artist he'd have to wade it for shore.

If the reader never waded leg deep through a marsh, then the situation of the artist cannot be fully appreciated. There's a sensation that is nowhere else to be found when you strike out and find yourself sinking in the mud. There's a peculiar slushy sound as you go down that is startling. Then you never know when you're going to stop sinking. And when you pull one foot out the other goes deeper into the mire. Then the water runs down your boots and sends a cold chill creeping up your vertebrae. It makes your boots slippery and slimy inside as though you were stepping on a nest of wriggling snakes. To keep you balance while pulling one leg out of the mud, too, requires the strictest attention to business. Meanwhile you have been so engrossed with the difficulties of the situation that you find you've been wading further into the marsh instead of toward shore. Another long hour's work and you are upon dry land.

This was the artist's experience in the so-called "sport" of reed bird shooting, and after getting home and having a couple of old fashioned Wabash chills, he sat him up in an arm chair and with a mustard plaster on his chest, his feet in a tub of scalding water, and a glass of onion juice and sugar near at hand, and figured up the day's profit and loss. It didn't take any time to settle on the exact amount of the former, but the latter he is still engaged upon with a fair prospect of running short of figures.

September 9, 1885. Washington Critic 18 (5329): 1.

Squabbles Over Names of the Ortolan and Reed Bird

Concerning the "Ortolan"

To the Editor of The Evening Star:

It seems odd that in a city containing a national museum and many good libraries that a little water fowl by the name of "water rail" or "sora," should be so generally called "ortolan"? — a bird that it resembles about as much as a robin does a wren. All the market gunners and all the restaurant keepers fall into this mistake is is shown by the bills of fare.

The Star of to-day, under the caption of "Gunning in the Marshes," after naming over a number of men who ought to be sportsmen enough to know the names of the game they kill, says: "The majority brought home less than a dozen ortolan, and a few reed birds." Now, as the ortolan and the reed are one and the name bird, the information is rather uncertain for sportsmen and those who haven't always lived in a City where "gudgeons" are called smelt." The small yellow and brown bird known in different sections of the country under the names of ortolan, reed-bird or rice-bird, is a bunting the male of which changes its color in the spring to black and yellow, and then called Bob-o-link (Bob Lincoln.) It feeds as often on the uplands as on the marshes. Many country people sow an acre in millet or buckwheat, and they draw to it by hundreds. A pick up of thirty or forty at a shot is often made over this attraction. Now the "water rail" or "sora" is a solitary bird, and never found away from a river or stream. It, resembles somewhat the snipe, except it has a short bill and is web-footed. Its flight is slow and short. Whence they come and where they go after the first heavy frost is a mystery that future ornithologists will have to rise and explain. Audubon, Wilson and others having failed to do so satisfactorily. I wrote a card last year to one of our locals relative to this popular error, and I hope you will again remind the gunning fraternity that water quails or sora are not ortolans, and reed-birds rice-birds, ortolans and bob-o-links, according to all authorities, are birds of a feather.

"G. T. A."

September 8, 1883. Washington D.C. Evening Star 62(9479): 2.

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Concerning the Carolina Rail.

To the Editor of The Evening Star:

A communication from "G.T.A." In last Saturday's Star, evidently from a gentleman interested in the uniformity of the nomenclature of our birds, is so full of positive error, and tainted with superstition, that a correction of some of his statements will not be out of order. The so-called "Ortolan" is the Carolina Rail (Parzana Carolina), known also by the names of Common Rail and Sora, the latter being the general term applied throughout Maryland and Virginia. It is the most abundant and familiar of our marsh birds during the migrations, and the most ruthlessly hunted by the sportsman. Habitually skulking and hiding rather than seeking safety in open flight is a characteristic of the bird that has prevented its observation even in localities where it occurs in considerable numbers. Its habitat includes the whole of temperate North America, but it is far more abundant in the Atlantic than in the Pacific states. The bird is not web-footed, but is provided with very long toes, which enable it to tread the mazes of the marshes without sinking in the soft mud or vegetation. It travels through the tall reeds with surprising swiftness at low tide and at high tide, when the marshes are submerged, clings to the reeds. Notwithstanding the absence or webbed feet it swims with ease, and never hesitates to navigate in that manner from one clump of reeds to another when occasion requires rattier than take wing. The wings are short and rounded, and the flight appears so feeble that many sportsmen persist in doubting its ability to perform extensive migrations, nevertheless such is the fact, as they often board vessels at sea between the southern states and the West India Islands, where many of them pass the winter. Although not truly gregarious, it is far from "a solitary bird," as is evidenced by their sudden and plentiful arrival and departure. In the migrations favorable winds are taken advantage of. They breed in must of the northern states and British America, laying four or five eggs of a dark drab color, with brownish spots, in a nest rudely constructed of coarse grasses. The young are covered with a blackish down, and, like the quail, are active as soon as out or the shell. "G.T.A." says, "From whence they come or where they go after the first heavy frost is a mystery that future ornithologists will have to rise and explain." This is a remnant of the absurd superstitions that prevailed in the minds of the colored people before the war, and even now many can be found on the banks of the Potomac or Patuxent rivers firm in the belief that the rails hibernate in the mud of the marshes or turn into frogs. Wilson records an old man who claimed to have captured a specimen in which the transformation was but half accomplished, and it lived three days — but Wilson didn't believe the story. The real fact of the case is that the Rail performs its migrations only at night, which is the case with most migrants, and consequently its arrival and departure are seldom observed. Moreover the nature of its feeding grounds and haunts precludes the possibility of its being detected as readily as land birds. Hence many theories have been invented to account for their seemingly inexplicable advent. The same writer has also somewhat mixed up the common names of the Reed Bird, (Dolichonyx Orizyvorous) in the northern states this bird is the familiar Bobolink, in the middle states the Reed Bird, in the southern states the Rice Bird, and in the West India Islands the Butter Bird.

W. F. R.

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Are the Reed Bird and Ortolan the Same Bird?

To the Editor of The Evening Star:

Washington, D. C., Sept. 8, 1883.

Will your correspondent, "G.T.A," give some of his authorities, to sustain his assertion that the "Reed bird" and "Ortolan" are the same bird? In Coues' "Birds of the Northwest, p. 178," is found the following heading: "Dolichonyx oryzivorus, Bobolink; Reed bird; Rice bird." And on page 538 is found "Porzana Carolina, Carolina rail; Sora; 'Ortolan,'". On the last mentioned page the name of Prof. Baird is cited as the authority for the technical name, given as belonging to" the "Ortolan," and this name, Dr. Coues adds, is adopted by "all late U S. writers." It looks very much as if "G.T.A." were the only authority who considers the Reed bird and Ortolan to be identical; but the nearest way to a solution of the question is to ask Prof. Ridgway or Dr. Coues to give the answer.

Hugh M. Smith.

September 12, 1883. Washington D.C. Evening Start 62(9482): 2.

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The Ortolan Question.

To the Editor of The Evening Star:

I am glad to see that "W. F. R." and Hugh M. Smith, esq., have in The Star of Wednesday further agitated the ortolan question, because I should like the attention of the sporting fraternity drawn to the subject. If Dr. Coues contends that the rail and ortolan are the same, then the District people have some authority for misapplying the word ortolan; but where does Dr. Coues get his authority? For it is not to be supposed that he ventures to make his own classification. As Mr. "S." doubts the source or my information, and asks for it, I shall presently accommodate him. Wishing to make these remarks as brief as possible, I confine myself closely to the point in question: Can the rail be called ortolan?

Strictly speaking we have no ortolan. Our smaller American brother bears about the same resemblance to it that the English quail does to our partridge, or the English hare to our rabbit. But if the name must be used — and it seems so — then for heaven's sake let it be applied to a land bird that is nearly identical, and not to a waterfowl totally unlike it.

"Audubon" does not consider the ortolan an American bird; neither does "Swainson." "Wilson," page 48., vol. 2: Eurberza, Oryzivora, Le Ortolan de la Caroline, L Agripeum on L Ortolan. "This is the Bob O Link of eastern Pennsylvania and the northern states, and Rice bird and Reed bird of Pennsylvania." Again, "Supposed by some to be equal to the famous Ortolan of Europe." Thus classing him with the rice bird, but nowhere with the rail, which he describes as "wild, solitary and shy." "Wood," page 481: Ortolan or Garden Bunting. "Jasper," page 47: The Bob O Link or Rice bird is also known as the American Ortolan. "Gosse," in his Birds of Jamaica, says: "Butter bird, Ortolan, Rice bird." Appleton's American Enc.: "Ortolan, a Bunting." American Universal Enc.: "Ortolan, a species of Bunting." Chambers' Enc.: "Ortolan, a Bunting, &c." Zell's Enc.: "Ortolan, a Bunting." Webster's Dic.: "Ortolan (Garden) a Singing bird; the Eurberza hortulana." Worcester's Dic., under a wood cut of the Rice bird, says it belongs to the family Fringilildae (Finches.)

Here are a few of my authorities (I could give more), not one of whom mentions the Ortolan among the Rails (Rallus). He is in ever}' case spoken of as a Bunting or Fringilla. I come now to the only exception to this rule. Mr. Smith and "W.F.R." in selecting Dr. Coues for their sole authority are rather unfortunate, as that ornithologist not only contradicts all of hers, but contradicts himself. In several of his works I find. Carolina Rail, Sora, "Ortolan," (quotation marks not over Ortolan in his "Key to American Birds.") In his general treatise, page 155, he says: "The name Ortolan applied by some to the Rice bird and by others to the Carolina Rail is a strange misnomer, the Ortolan being a fringilline bird of Europe."

The Rice bunting is a genus of the family Fringillidae. Audubon shows the slight subdivision when he writes: "The buntings scarcely differ from the finches in any other character than the knob on the palate." Dr. Coues should not think it strange that some people call the rice bird Ortolan, but it is passing strange for an ornithologist, who furnishes texts books for schools and taxidermists, to call a rail a finch. Mr. H.M. Smith also says: The name of Prof. Baird 1s cited as the authority for the technical name given as belonging to the ortolan, and this name, Dr. Coues adds, is adopted by all United States writers. Mr. S. should not quote from a scientific work unless he knows how to read it. In this instance he does injury to Prof. B. and all late United States writers. Dr. Coues in writing upon the rail, gives below the names of writers or works he has consulted as references to the reader, among them Prof. B. and C., &c. None of them may have mentioned the ortolan (and I have read many of them that do not), and yet Mr. Smith makes it appear as if Dr. Coues cites Prof. B. and all late United States writers,. &c., as authorities for this name.

September 14, 1883. "G. T. A."

September 19, 1883. Washington D.C. Evening Star 62(9488): 2.

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Where the Sora is Found.

To the Editor of The Evening Star:

In your issue of September 8, 1883, which has just come to hand, G. T. A. says the sora or rail is "never found away from a river or stream." I have killed them on the prairies. In Missouri, ten miles from any stream, and a mile or more from water of any kind. I know the bird, as I have shot them on the flats of the Potomac. Again, G. T. A. says, "it resembles a snipe," about as much as a crow does an eagle. I am afraid G. T. A. is not a sportsman.

B. L. O., Emporia, Missouri.

September 22, 1883. Washington D.C. Evening Star 62(9491): 2.