THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 331 



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 difiicult 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 birds, 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 per- 

 fectly 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 to cover, and on which your eyes have 

 perhaps been fixed for some seconds. This is especially the case 

 about mid-day, 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. 



" In some parts of the country the Houbara greatly affect fields of 

 mustard and other crops yielding the oil-seeds of commerce, of 

 which there is a vast variety, known by half a dozen different 

 names, in almost every province. 



" When these fields are well grown, and are, say, a little higher 

 than the bird itself stands, exceptionally good sport may at times 

 be obtained. 



" They cannot run here, the growth is too dense, and a line of 



