The market men and hotel cooks of eastern Maine make a sharp distinction between the flesh of the deer that is raised in Maine and that which is captured by the hunters in the Southern States, calling the home product venison and all other kinds deer meat, or if the animals are very small and without fat, they modify the term and scornfully call it deer veal.
The newest Bangor plan of cooking venison is to cut moderately thick slices from the round of a buck and grill the flesh over a white-hot fire of anthracite, letting the greedy flames lick and bathe the curling meat and crisp its edges until it is hot clear through and cooked on the outside, though still somewhat rare in the interior.
The person who is said to have introduced this manner of cooking from Canada is Edward Stetson, president of the First National Bank of Bangor, who spends much time every year in his camp back from North Twin Dam on the west branch of Penobscot River. So particular is Mr. Stetson concerning how the venison of his shooting must be prepared for his guests in camp that before the beginning of open season every year he sends up the necessary anthracite by rail, his servants carrying it in baskets from the station far back into the wilderness, where it is used solely for broiling venison.
The men of unclassified employment who pass from May to October in raising hay, oats and potatoes to sell to the near-by lumber camps and who swing axes in the deep woods from October to May declare that the best venison is from the carcass of a buck shot in November and frozen and hung up under cover until midwinter.
Three cunning little gray-and-white ostriches were ushered into the world at the Florida Ostrich Farm and Zoo recently, a remarkably good result from a setting of fifteen eggs. Everybody, from Manager Fraser down to the most subordinate attaché of the resort, was gloriously happy over the event.
The life, habits, and characteristics of the ostriches are really interesting. Starting with the mating of the grown birds, which are allowed to select their mates, the male bird prepares the nest, a hollow in the sand, generally in a secluded spot in his pen, about one and a half feet deep and twelve feet in circumference. The hen lays about twelve to eighteen eggs, one every other day. The eggs are from fifteen to eighteen inches in circumference, and, weigh about three to four and a half pounds each, the shell being from one-sixteenth to one-eighth of an inch thick, sufficiently strong to withstand a decided blow. After laying her nest of eggs the birds begin setting, the hen in the daytime and the male ostrich covering the eggs at nighttime. They remain on the nests constantly from forty-two to forty-five days, never leaving it, except for food twice a day. Even then the male bird covers the nest frequently while his mate seeks her food.