THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 29 



one can alter one's position and rise to shoot, it has passed out of 

 shot!" 



Messrs. Chapman and Buck's description agrees well with that, 

 of Col. Verner — " Two quick steps and a spring and the broad 

 wings of every bird in the pack flap in slowly rising motion." 

 Later on in the book (p. 252) they add " Tardy strokes deceive the 

 eye, and the great bulk of the Bustard accentuates the deception 

 — it seems impossible to miss them, a fatal error." 



"Yet geese with their 40 strokes fly past, ducks at 120, and the 

 bustard's apparently leisured movement carries him in full career as 

 fast as whirring grouse with 200 revolutions to the minute. To 

 kill bustard treat them on the same basis as the smaller same 

 that appears faster but is not." 



In former times the Bustard was considered a great delicacy for 

 the table, as, indeed, were many other birds which it would take a 

 very hungry man to tackle now-a-days. As also with many other 

 birds, recent diet has much to do with their flavour, and whilst 

 often its flesh may be found quite palatable, at other times it may 

 be almost uneatable. Gates says : — " The Great Bustard has a 

 peculiar and very disagreeable smell when alive, and its flesh is not 

 now held in much esteem. Dr. E. T. Aitchinson informs us that 

 when he was on the Afghan Delimitation Commission, a flock of 

 these BiTstards was met with, and Lieut. E-awlins succeeded in 

 shooting one, but the stench of the bird was so great he almost 

 thought of leaving it ; it was so dark that he scarcely knew what it 

 was that he had got, and the scent was almost enough to put off* 

 anyone from even a new acquisition. Notwithstanding this 

 however, we are told that the flesh was eaten next day and found 

 excellent." 



Finn, in his " Indian Waders " also comments on this curious 

 smell of the Bustard, and suggests that, it may be this which 

 accounts for the strange antipathy which is alleged to exist be- 

 tween horses and Bustards. He quotes Pallas as saying in his 

 " Zoographia Russo-Asiatica " that horses will trample on sitting 

 hens should they get the chance, and he adds that Bustards have 

 got into trouble in England by attacking horses. 



It is said that Bustards have been captured by being run down 



