IS'i GAME-BIRDS OF INDIA 



" No further opportunities to miss or hit occurred, and at dusk I 

 made my way home a disappointed man. 



" My next day's work was as unsuccessful as that akeady repor- 

 ted ; practically all day I was within sight of Bustard, but it seemed 

 impossible to work within shot. Once early in the morning I had 

 stalked a solitary bird with success and had only a few more yards to 

 cover when he took it into his head to change quarters and join a 

 scattered flock nearly the opposite side of the plain. A stalk of this 

 flock followed and I was again just congratulating myself on success 

 when I blundered on a hen Bustard that was squatted in some ber- 

 bushes not twenty yards from me. Of course, off she went, followed 

 by the rest of the flock, which I did not again see that day. Two 

 other stalks proved failures. In the first I could not get within 300 

 yards of my birds, and in the second I could only get just within that 

 distance, and a shot, though it raked the feathers off the back of 

 what seemed the largest cock, did no real harm. 



" The following year I was again in the same place in February 

 and managed to bag five fine cocks in one day, though I must 

 confess that one bird was a fluke. I had had the usual painful 

 crawl alter a flock and eventually got to within sixty yards of the 

 nearest bird, which I shot through the body, and then, to my delight, 

 saw another bird, not by any means in a direct line with it, and 

 some four or five paces distant, fall struggling to the ground. When 

 I went up to them the first bird was dead, but the second was — as I 

 afterwards found — only shot through the shoulder of the wing, quite 

 incapacitated from flying, but as I feared, fully able to escape by 

 running. Eunning away, however, was one of the last things it 

 appeared to think of, and when I came close up to it, it assumed a 

 most truculent air and actually advanced, beating its unwounded wing 

 noisily up and down, uttering its deep cry at quick intervals. There 

 was no stick within miles of me, so faute de viieiix I was obliged to 

 put another shot into it. 



■' On the same day I had another most unusual bit of luck, getting 

 again two birds out of one flock. I had had my first shot and 

 dropped my bird at about 100 yards' distance when the others, 

 instead of at once taking to flight, actually paused long enough for 

 me to get a second successful shot. My filth bird was got in the 

 middle of the day as we were returning to our starting point, for we 

 came suddenly on it over the crest of a hill, and as its back was 

 towards us I was enabled to drop down and crawl up the hill and 

 then kill it with an easy shot at less than forty yards." 



It is probable that this Bustard is not as common now as it used 

 to be some fifty years ago when Jerdon wrote his ' Birds of India,' 

 for I doubt if it would be possible for any sportsman to emulate the 



