546 THE GREAT-BUSTARD 



Our English birds were almost undoubtedly resident, so no doubt are 

 many of the Spanish birds, though subject of course to local move- 

 ments, and the same may be said of the South Russian birds as a rule. 

 But though there seems to be no regular migration across the Straits 

 of Gibraltar, there is no doubt that flocks do appear from time to 

 time on the Maroccan side, and there is also certainly a considerable 

 local movement every year in Spain itself. The North German birds 

 cannot be called migratory, but they too wander far afield at times. 

 In the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor, large numbers occasionally 

 appear in severe winters, driven south from the Russian steppes. 

 The winter of 1910-11 was terribly severe in Eastern Europe, and 

 great droves of these birds appeared in the Dobrogea and Eastern 

 Rumelia in many localities where they had not been seen for many 

 years. In the following spring many of these birds did not return 

 to Russia, but stayed to breed in Roumania. 



During wintry weather bustards suffer greatly. If severe frosts 

 come on when their plumage is saturated with wet, they become 

 absolutely helpless, and whole flocks may be butchered in this 

 condition. The Bulgarian or Roumanian peasant is troubled by no 

 scruples when an opportunity of this kind comes in his way, and takes 

 full advantage of it. One feels inclined to speak and write strongly 

 about such practices, till we read how, less than a hundred years ago, 

 the West Suffolk landowners allowed their keepers "to construct 

 masked batteries of large duck-guns, placed so as to concentrate 

 their fire upon a spot strewed with turnips," which were fired by 

 having their triggers attached to a cord, perhaps half a mile long 

 the labourers being instructed to pull this cord whenever they saw 

 the bustards within range. 1 



When the corn is young, bustards are very conspicuous objects 

 on the green hillsides ; but by an unpractised eye might be easily 

 mistaken in the distance for goats, or, as Gilbert White noticed long 

 ago, for deer on the downs. As a rule, in Spain, one meets with 



1 Stevenson, Birds of Norfolk, ii. p. 20. 



