CHLAMYDOTIS ONDDLATA MACQUEENII 193 



one of those vast wildernesses they affect, you will not be long before, 

 raised high up as you are on camel-back, you catch sight of one or 

 more Houbara feeding amongst the bushes. To them camels have no 

 evil import : everybody uses them ; none but the veriest pauper 

 walks, everyone rides, and rides camels. The peasant going out to 

 plough his field rides on one camel and puts his plough on the other, 

 which, with its nose-string fastened to the tail of the one he rides, 

 trots along complacently behind. When, therefore, the Houbara see 

 you come along on a camel, they only move a little aside, so as to be 

 out of your line of march, and you at once begin to describe a large 

 spiral round them, so that, while appearing always to be passing 

 away from them, you are really always closing in on them. Some- 

 times, if the time be early or late, or if the day be cold or cloudy, 

 long before you are within shot, they start off running, and if you 

 press them further, ultimately take wing, flying heavily, and soon 

 re-alighting and running on, never, so far as I have seen, taking the 

 long flights that the Great Bustard does, and never fluttering and 

 sky-larking in the air as do the little ones. Generally, however, if the 

 time be between ten and four, and the day bright and warm, as your 

 spiral diminishes the birds disappear suddenly. They have squatted. 

 Still you go on round and round, closing in in each lap, and straining 

 your eyes, usually in vain, to discover their whereabouts; suddenly, 

 perhaps from under the very feet of the camel, up flutters one of the 

 birds, and after a few strides, rises, to fall dead a few yards further 

 on, as they are easy to hit and easy to kill. Of course, I suppose a 

 trained camel to be used, otherwise, what with flies, keeping up a 

 perpetual twitching of every part of the beast's head, neck and body, 

 and its natural suspicions that you and your gun are up to no good, 

 you will find it by no means difficult to miss even a Houbara, 

 especially if you do not remember always so to slew your camel 

 round as to have the bird well on your left side. 



" At the first shot, all the Houbara that are at all close usually 

 rise, but after shooting a brace right and left, and having them 

 picked up and slung, I have known a third blunder up from within a 

 few yards. 



" Often, especially when you are out alone and, after breaking 

 up a large flock (which it is always best to do), are working a single 

 bird, you close in and in until you reach the very bush by which 

 you last saw it, and yet can find no trace of it. You pull up, as 

 this generally starts the bird, but sometimes even then nothing is 

 to be seen. The way they will squat at times on an absolutely bare 

 patch of sand is astonishing ; their plumage harmonises perfectly 

 with the soil, and you will have a bird rise suddenly, apparently 

 out of the earth, within a few yards of you, from a spot where there 

 is not a blade of cover, and on which your eyes have perhaps been 

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