THE GREAT AND UTTLE BUSTARDS 3 



as of old. Plain country may look perfectly flat, 

 but even the vast table-lands on the crests of the hills 

 are not as they appear, though the rifts in them are 

 not visible until you come on them as you travel over 

 the short green turf, which is sheep-fed and rabbit- 

 nibbled until it looks almost like green pile velvet. 



The traditions of the Bustard have not passed 

 away. A lonely public-house on the Downs is still 

 standing which has a Bustard painted on its sign- 

 board. There I have heard the old men mention 

 what their fathers have heard and told them. Some 

 had actually, so they said, seen small flocks of the 

 Bustard when they were young. From what they 

 let drop in the course of the conversation I should 

 certainly say that the fathers of those old men had not 

 only seen such things, but had themselves assisted 

 in their capture. Running them down in moulting 

 time was incidentally mentioned. Now this is quite 

 practical ; there is no exaggeration here, for the 

 Bustard drops nearly all its flight-feathers at one 

 time, and then so far as flying goes the great bird is 

 helpless, having only its swift legs and feet to rely 

 on, and its self-protective instincts. The feathers 

 dropped by the birds as they wandered over their 

 wide, bare, grassy feeding-grounds would tell the 

 tale to those keen-eyed rangers of the plain ; just 

 as plainly as do our domestic geese when they drop 

 their feathers in the moulting time on the commons 

 they graze over. 



First-class greyhounds and lurchers have ever 

 been in favour in this country ; what more easy, 



