On these plains there are Bustard of one sex or the other (not always both) at all seasons. The males leave the pasturage for the corn in February and March, followed later by the females as the laying season approaches. Both sexes are then seen in mixed bands as above described—two or three up to a dozen males in each band composed of five or six times that number of females, but never in single pairs or a single male consorting with a female retinue.
Here also we have enjoyed watching, at sunrise, the imposing performances of the males—often five or six bands in view at once,[65] but, as before, without detecting any specific action—nothing beyond "show."
The eggs are laid in the last week of April (we found two females, already sitting each on two eggs, on the 26th), and about mid-May the males disappear. To Africa they have gone, the local shooters aver; but this, we know, is not the case, and are far from sure that the missing males are not simply hidden amidst the vast stretches of corn, then near four feet high, pending their moult.
Bustards moult very severely, casting all quill-feathers (as wild geese do) almost simultaneously. Hence, at the end of May, they become for a time incapable of flight, and naturally, under such conditions, seek the utmost seclusion, perhaps deceiving people into the illusion that they had gone, when they are really simply in hiding, which the rank summer vegetation renders easy enough. After eggs are laid, the males certainly desert their mates entirely, forming themselves into bachelor coteries, and leaving to the female the entire burden of the nursery.
Bustards take two years or more to acquire maturity: the year-old males are hardly larger than adult females, possess neither ruff nor whiskers, and do not breed. They probably continue growing for three or four years, or even more. An old barbon, when winged and brought to bay, will turn and attack its aggressor, hissing savagely and uttering a low guttural bark, "Wuff! wuff!" Except on such occasions we have not heard any vocal sound from a Bustard; nor do they, when winged, ever attempt to escape by running.
Though the general habit of the Bustard is graminivorous—his food consisting of the green corn, both blades and shoots, of grain and green herbage of all kinds, yet in summer, when the corn is cut, he develops for a time a keenly carnivorous character, catching and swallowing whole the rats and mice which, at that season, swarm on the stubbled plain, as well as the young of ground-breeding birds, buntings, larks, &c. Nor is a reptile wholly despised—a small snake or green lizard is readily included in his menu, and at all seasons they are very fond of insects, especially grasshoppers and locusts.
CHAPTER XXXI.
THE LITTLE BUSTARD.
(Otis tetrax.)
While the Great Bustard takes chief place amongst the game-birds of Europe, both as regards size and sporting qualities, his smaller relative, the Little Bustard—in Spanish, Sison—must certainly head the list of the wily and unapproachable.
Against the Great Bustard, watchful as he is, fair measures can successfully be brought to bear, but no skill that we know of—none, that is, of legitimate sporting kind—will avail against the Sison. We may at once classify him as the most difficult of all game-birds to bring to bag. That he is frequently shot is no disproof of this assertion. The birds being abundant, it would be strange indeed if none fell "haphazard" to chance shots when the sportsman is in pursuit of other game.
The habits of the Little Bustard are, in general, much the same as those of the larger species. They frequent, in the main, the same ground; the young are reared amidst the security of the ripening corn; in autumn they form into packs or bands, and spend their days upon the open plain.