MACQUEEN'S BUSTARD. 593 



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, every one 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 

 coming 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. Sometimes, 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 aod skylarking in the air as do the little ones. Generally, 

 however, if the time be between 10 and 4, 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 ; sud- 

 denly, 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 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 

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

 apparently out of the earth, within five yards of you, from a spot where 

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

 fixed for some seconds. This is especially the case about midday, when 

 the sun is nearly vertical, and no shadow is thrown by the squatting bird. 

 Sometimes they try another plan : they get behind a single bush, and as 

 you circle round they do the same, always keeping the bush between 

 themselves and the sportsman. Here, unless the sun is quite vertical, their 

 shadow projected on the ground, apart from that of the bush, is sure, at 

 certain positions in the circle, to betray them, and a shot through the bush 

 brings them to bag." 



VOL. II. 2 Q 



