AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 345 



No. 6, and with that weight of metal never failed to 

 seciu'e, and generally to kill " stone-dead," any 

 Bnstard that passed within reasonable distance, 

 whilst many a Wild Goose when shot at at the same 

 ranges has merely shaken himself, cackled, and gone 

 on unhurt. It seems still harder to believe that I 

 have seen one or two famous pigeon-shots, besides 

 many other fair performers with the fowling-piece, 

 entirely miss Great Bustards at easy distances. The 

 late Captain of my yacht, for instance, who, though 

 very uncertain as a shooter, could often knock down 

 a Wild Duck and sometimes a Snipe, and certainly 

 had more fair chances at Bustards in Spain than any 

 other of our variously composed parties, only fairly 

 killed one ; but he was by no means the only one of 

 us who was, I presume, fairly puzzled by these birds 

 coming straight at or over him. 



In the expeditions just described we considered 

 three or four Bustards as a fair bag — not by any 

 means on account of their scarcity, but because the 

 flocks seldom settled again within three or four miles 

 of their first rise, and not very often gave a chance to 

 more than one or two of our party in any one drive ; 

 below Seville, however, they behaved very differently, 

 as they are of course much less liable to disturbance 

 in the great marshes and pastures than when amongst 

 the corn-growing downs. The greater part of our 

 Bustard-hunting below Seville was carried out from 

 my yacht, at anchor in the river, and there, with a 

 steam-launch and two or three mounted drivers, we 

 saved a great deal of time and occasionally met with 

 very fair success, besides picking up a few Ducks of 

 various species, an occasional Grey-lag Goose, a 

 Crane, Sand^Grouse, Snipes, Avocets, Godwits, 

 Greenshanks, and other Waders. These great plains, 



