The Great Bustard 2.6 3 
springing vertically in air, soaring far above gunshot, and there 
indulging in fantastic aerial evolutions more in the style of 
wigeon or other wildfowl than of a true game-bird as he is. 
Thus from that celestial altitude he spies out the country and all 
terrestrial dangers, finally disappearing afar amidst the wastes of 
atmospheric space. Frequently we have noticed the high-flying 
band, after, say, twenty minutes of such display of wing-power, 
descend directly to their original position at a safe interval after 
the drivers had passed forward thereof! Thus do they scorn our 
efforts and add insult to injury. 
In practice no sisénes whatever are killed in set drives, and 
LITTLE BUSTARD 
Summer plumage. 
for twenty years we have abandoned the attempt as impossible. 
They nevertheless—alike with every other fowl of the air—must, 
by occasional mischance, fly into danger, and at such times, 
owing to their habit of flying in massed formation, a heavy toll 
may be levied at a single shot by a gunner who is alert to exploit 
the happy event. We have ourselves, in this casual way, dropped 
from five to eight sisénes with the double charge. 
Though frequenting the same open terrain as their big cousins, 
the sisénes distinctly prefer the rough stretches of palmetto, 
thistles, and other rank herbage to corn-land proper—in short, they 
prefer to sit where they can never be seen on the ground. Con- 
spicuous as their white plumage and resonant wing-rattle makes 
them in air, we can hardly recall a dozen instances of having 
detected a pack of little bustard at rest—and then merely in 
