192 GAME-BIRDS OP INDIA 



me one day that he had seen the eggs of the Tilloor in the desert 

 at a place near where my man had seen the birds." 



Major A. E. Burton informs me that in the Zhob Valley and 

 the Loralai district they are found from September to March. 



This Bustard, like the others of the order, is more or less gre- 

 garious, but seems never to collect in very large flocks. Hume states 

 that he has put up as many as twenty birds in a flock, but most of 

 my correspondents speak of seeing small flocks of three to five or 

 six, and I have received no information of flocks as large as that seen 

 by Hume. Major Burton, in his letter above referred to, says, that 

 the birds were fairly plentiful in the Zhob Valley, but that he never 

 put up more than eight birds in a flock. On the other hand birds 

 are found very often either in pairs or alone. 



Hume was very successful in shooting this Bustard, and he records, 

 in ' Game-Birds,' that in 1867 he killed no less than eighty-three 

 birds, forty-seven cocks and thirty-six hens, in one week in November. 

 He writes in his usual interesting manner on the easiest way to 

 obtain this bird. 



" The Houhara greatly prefers running to flying, and when the 

 weather is not too hot, will make its way through the labyrinth of 

 little bushes which constitutes its home at a really surprising pace. 

 So long' as the cover is low, its neck and body are held as low as 

 possible, liut as soon as it gets where it thinks it cannot be seen, it 

 pulls up, and raising its head as high as possible, takes a good look at 

 its pursuers. Not unfrequently it then concludes to squat, and 

 though you may have been, unobserved, watching it carefully whilst 

 it was only watching others of the party coming from an opposite 

 direction, it becomes absolutely invisible the moment it settles down 

 at the foot of a bush or stone. Once it has thus settled, especially 

 if it is hot and about noon, you may walk past it within ten yards 

 without flushing it, it you walk carelessly and keep looking in another 

 direction. 



" But it is weary work trudging on foot under an Indian sun after 

 birds that run as these can and will, and in the districts where they are 

 plentiful, people always either hawk them or shoot them from camels. 



" Off a camel a large bag is easily made, and as, whilst after these 

 Bustards, you get from time to time shots at antelope or ravine-deer, 

 quail, partridges, and on rare occasions, a Great Bustard also, it is 

 not bad fun, though rather monotonous, like the scenery that 

 surrounds one. 



" Taking the camel at a long, easy six-miles-an-hour trot, across 



