Will and I recently had a pair of posts on the Ortolan, a small apparently delicious French bird eaten whole off the grill. Reading through Waverly Root's The Food of France, which I'll talk about in more length this weekend, I find this additional information on the delicacy:

"South of Bordeaux, the Landes provide a number of typical dishes of their own . . . The region is known for its ortolans, a small bird of the yellowhammer family which is considered the most delicately flavoured of all birds in France, and has provided a household word for the utmost refinement in eating, ortolans sauce blanche, generally used jocularly. Thus a Frenchman reaching the table and finding it set with a particularly economical repast may observe sarcastically: "Eh Bien! Ortolans sauce blanche encore une fois?" (Roughly, "Ortolan again?")
One of the reasons why the ortolan is so prized is that it is not simply shot and served, as are most most wild birds. It is caught during the autumn migrations in traps called matoles, which possess some screening ability that enables them to catch ortolans rather than other birds of the same caliber, and is then caged and fattened on millet . . . Ortolans a la landaise are cooked by an open fire, either spitted or, preferably, each in a little heavy paper box set close to the flame, in which the birds sizzle in their own fat. No other liquid is tolerated, but the guest may be invited to apply salt and pepper to his own taste as the cooking progresses before his eyes. When the bird is done, pick it up in your fingers and eat it without ceremony, as hot as you dare. They are so small you can put away half a dozen of them with ease".