From the August 30, 1885 New York Times:

FRANK BUCKLAND‘S LARDER–This queer fancy which exercised the genius of the cooks of his latter days, began very early. Already at Winchester squirrel pie and mice cooked in butter were looked upon as real dainties, while Frank Buckland has left it on record that ‘a roast field mouse–not a house mouse–is a splendid bonne bouche for a hungry boy: it eats like a lark.’ Very likely this is so; that house mice are not to be recommended I can myself testify as the result of certain experiments which were made at Eton some five-and-thirty years ago. But roast field mouse and squirrel pie were very commonplace viands compared with what was to follow. Christchurch, for instance, was to see a very grisly meal in the shape of a dish of panther chops. The panther at the Surrey Zoological Gardens had died, and the curator, who was a friend of Buckland’s sent him notice of the melancholy fact. Says Frank, ‘I wrote up at once to tell him to send me down some chops. It had, however, been buried a couple of days, but I got them to dig it up and send me some. It was not very good.”