The Great Bustard 251 
(if any) as may exist on the naked decline—say skeleton thistles, 
a tuft of wild asparagus, or on rare occasion some natural bank 
or tiny rain-scoop. 
Having now succeeded in placing his guns unseen and within 
a fatal radius, the leader may congratulate himself that his main 
object has been achieved. On the nearness of the line to the 
game, and on his correct diagnosis of the bustards’ flight depends 
the issue. 
[It may be added that bustard are occasionally found in situa- 
tions that offer no reasonable hope of a successful drive. It 
may then (should no others be known within the radius of action) 
become advisable gently to ““move” the inexpugnable troop ; 
remembering that once these birds realise that they are being 
“driven,” the likelihood of subsequently putting them over the 
guns has enormously decreased. There accrues an incidental 
advantage in this operation, for after “moving” them to more 
favouring ground, it will not be necessary to line-up the guns 
quite so near as is usually essential to success. For bustards 
possess so strong an attachment to their querencias, or individual 
haunts, that they may be relied upon, on being disturbed a 
second time, to wing a course more or less in the direction of 
their original position. We give a specific instance of this 
later. 
Each pack of bustard has its own querencia, and will be 
found at certain hours to frequent certain places. This local 
knowledge, if obtainable, saves infinite time and vast distances 
traversed in search of game whose approximate positions, after 
all, may thus be ascertained beforehand. | 
Now we have placed our guns in line and within that short 
distance of the unsuspecting game that all but assures a certain 
shot. We cannot, let us confess, recall many moments in life of 
more tense excitement than those spent thus, lying prone on the 
gentle slope listening with every sense on stretch for the cries of 
the galloping beaters as in wild career they urge the huge birds 
towards a fatal course. Before us rises the curving ridge, its 
summit sharply defined against an azure sky—azure but empty. 
Now the light air wafts to our ear the tumultuous pulsations of 
giant wings, and five seconds later that erst empty ether is 
crowded with two score huge forms. What a scene—and what 
