THE GEBAT BUSTARD. 37 



seen approaching. Hence the use of the cencerro is pre- 

 carious, at least as regards the bustards. 



Except for the two clumsy artifices above described, the 

 bustards are left practically unmolested ; their wildness 

 and the open nature of their haunts defy all the strategy 

 of native fowlers. Their eggs are deposited on the ground 

 when it is covered with the green April corn : incubation 

 and the rearing of the young takes place amid the security 

 of vast silent stretches of waving corn. The young 

 bustards grow with the wheat, and ere it is cut are able to 

 take care of themselves. It is just after harvest that the 

 game is most numerous and conspicuous. The stubbles 

 are then bare, and even the fallows which during spring 

 bear heavy swathes of weeds, have now lost all their 

 covert. The summer sun has pulverized and consumed 

 all vegetation, and, but for a few chance patches of thistles, 

 charlock or aramagos, there is nothing that can screen 

 the birds from view. 



A more legitimate method of outwitting the Great 

 Bustard is practised at this— the summer — period. After 

 harvest, when the country is being cleared of crops, or 

 when all are cut and in sheaf, the bustards become accus- 

 tomed daily to see the bullock-carts (carros) passing with 

 creaking wheel, on all sides, carrying off the sheaves from 

 the stubbles to the era, or levelled ground where the grain 

 is trodden out, Spanish-fashion, by teams of mares. The 

 loan of a carro, with its pair of bullocks and a man to 

 guide them, having been obtained from one of the corn- 

 farms, the cart is rigged up with esteras — that is, an 

 esparto matting is stretched round the poles which, fixed 

 on the sides, serve to hold the load of sheaves in position. 

 A few sacks of straw thrown upon the floor of the cart 

 serve to save one, in some small degree, from the merciless 

 jolting of this primitive conveyance on rough ground. 

 One, two, or even three guns can find room in the carro, 

 the driver lying forward, near enough to direct the bullocks 

 and urge them on by means of a goad, which he works 

 through a hole in the esteras. 



At a distance this moving battery looks a good deal like 



