262 Unexplored Spain 
when passing on a drive, utter panting sounds, and (as already 
mentioned) a winged barbon will turn to attack with a sort of 
gruff bark—wuff, wuft—as his captor approaches. 
So retentive is their memory that each year as May comes 
round our tame bustards keep constantly on the look-out for the 
first cart-load of green cut grass brought into the stable-yard for 
the horses. They even follow it right into the loose-box where 
it is stored, in order to feast on the grasshoppers it conceals, 
climbing all over the mountain of grass, but never scratching as 
hens or pheasants would do. 
Tue Lirrte Bustarp (Oris TeTRaAxX—SPaNIsH, Sis) 
The little bustard may fairly claim the proud distinction 
that it alone of all the game-birds on earth can utterly scorn and 
set at naught every artifice of the fowler—modern methods and 
up-to-date appliances all included. Here in Spain, though the 
bird itself is abundant enough (and its flesh delicate and delicious), 
it so entirely defies every set system of pursuit that no one 
nowadays attempts its capture. Practically none are killed save 
merely by some chance or accidental encounter. 
True, during the fiery noontides of July and August even the 
little bustard enjoys a siesta and may then be shot. It will, in 
fact, “lie close” before pointers and cackle like a cock-grouse as 
it rises from those desolate dehesas which form its home—vast 
stretches of rolling veld where asphodel, palmetto, and giant 
thistles grow rampant as far as eye can reach. But that scarce 
comes within our category of sport, since a solar heat that can 
(even temporarily) tame a sisdn is quite likely to finish off a 
Briton for good and all. And with the advent of autumn and a 
relatively endurable temperature, in a moment the sisén becomes 
impossibly wild. Any idea of direct approach is simply out of 
the question, but beyond that, this astute fowl has elaborated a 
scheme—indeed a series of schemes—that nullifies even that one 
remaining resource of baffled humanity, “driving.” You may 
surround his company, “ horse-shoe’ them with hidden guns—do 
what you will, not a single szsén will come in to the firing-line. 
You cannot diagnose beforehand his probable line of flight, for 
he has none, nor can you influence its subsequent direction. For 
the little bustard shuts off all negotiation at its initiation by 
