The Great Bustard 



263 



springing vertically in air, soaring far above gunshot, and there 

 indulging in fantastic aerial evolutions more in the style of 

 wigeon or other wildfowl than of a true game-bird as he is. 

 Thus from that celestial altitude he spies out the country and all 

 terrestrial dangers, finally disappearing afar amidst the wastes of 

 atmospheric space. Frequently we have noticed the high-flying 

 band, after, say, twenty minutes of such display of wing-power, 

 descend directly to their original position at a safe interval after 

 the drivers had passed forward thereof! Thus do they scorn our 

 efforts and add insult to injury. 



In practice no sisones whatever are killed in set drives, and 



LITTLE BUSTARD 



Summer plumage. 



for twenty years we have abandoned the attempt as impossible. 

 They nevertheless — alike with every other fowl of the air — must, 

 by occasional mischance, fly into danger, and at such times, 

 owing to their habit of flying in massed formation, a heavy toll 

 may be levied at a single shot by a gunner who is alert to exploit 

 the happy event. We have ourselves, in this casual way, dropped 

 from five to eight sisones with the double charge. 



Though frequenting the same open terrain as their big cousins, 

 the sisones distinctly prefer the rough stretches of palmetto, 

 thistles, and other rank herbage to corn-land proper — in short, they 

 prefer to sit where they can never be seen on the ground. Con- 

 spicuous as their white plumage and resonant wing-rattle makes 

 them in air, we can hardly recall a dozen instances of having 

 detected a pack of little bustard at rest — and then merely in 



