The Great Bustard 2.43 
whereabouts of the game. He, too; has seen us, and is even now 
considering whether there be sufficient cause for setting his 
convoy in motion. If we disappear below the level of his range, 
he will settle the point negatively, setting us down as merely 
some of those agricultural nuisances which so often cause him 
alarm but which his experience has shown to be generally harmless 
—for attempts on his life are few and far between. 
Another charming spectacle it is in the summer-time to watch 
a pack of bustard about sunset, all busy with their evening feed 
among the grasshoppers on a thistle-clad plain. They are working 
against time, for it will soon be too dark to catch such lively 
THE GREAT BUSTARD 
prey. With quick darting step they run to and fro, picking up 
one grasshopper after another with unerring aim, and so intent on 
pursuit that the best chance of the day is then offered to a gunner, 
when greed for a moment supplants caution and vigilance is 
relaxed. But even now a man on foot stands no chance of coming 
anywhere near them. His approach is observed from afar, all 
heads are up above the thistles, every eye intent on the intruder ; 
a moment or two of doubt, two quick steps and a spring, and 
the broad wings of every bird in the pack flap in slowly rising 
motion. The tardiness and apparent difficulty in rising from 
the ground which bustards exhibit is well expressed in their 
Spanish name Avetarda’ and recognised in the scientific cognomen 
1 Avetarda is old Spanish, the modern spelling being Abutarda. 
