We have not, however, met with these birds on the dead-level plains, so attractive to the Abutarda, and their preference is undoubtedly for more undulated lands. We have observed them as far up as corn grows on the foothills of the sierra.
In the month of April the Little Bustards are all paired, differing in this respect from the free-loving (?) Otis tarda. The males have now acquired the banded throats, and indulge in love-antics, much after the fashion of the blackcock. Far away on the prairie one's eye catches something white, which disappears and again appears. On focussing the field-glass upon the distant object it is seen to be a male Sison, which, with drooping wings and expanded tail, slowly revolves on his axis. Now he rises to full height, displaying all the white on his plumage; anon his breast seems depressed to earth, and all the while a strange bubbling note is uttered, monosyllabic, but repeated in rapid spondees.[66]
In vain one scans the surrounding ground to catch a glimpse of the female; she remains crouched among the scant growth of palmetto, or rough herbage, invisible: yet, we may presume, admiring the "play" of her lord.
Not yet have the sentiments of love overmastered those of self-preservation: hence an attempt to gain closer quarters will be unsuccessful, the male bird rising on clattering wing at three gunshots, his partner following soon after. He has not yet, moreover, attained the fullest beauty of his nuptial plumage. By the middle of May his banded throat, with its double gorget of black and white, has become distended like a jargonelle pear, the rich glossy-black plumes at the back long and hackle-like. At this period—end of May—the males may be secured by careful approach under the stalking-horse. And now the females, already beginning to lay, become, of course, tame enough.
The four olive-green eggs are deposited among the herbage at the end of May—four is the number we have seen in the few nests discovered—and a second clutch is, according to Mr. Saunders (who, we have found by experience, makes no statement unless he has good grounds for it), frequently laid in the latter part of July. The males, all through the tedious business of incubation, remain hard by, ever constant to their sitting partners, and not "packing" or deserting them, as is the wont of their less faithful cousins, Otis tarda. Not till the young are on the wing are the Sisones seen again in packs. This marked difference of habit between congeneric species so closely allied as the two Bustards is very curious.
Possessed of keen powers of eye and ear, combined with the strongest ideas of self-preservation all round, the Little Bustard is never—in a sporting season—surprised in covert. His favourite haunts are in rough country, where he has every opportunity of remaining concealed himself, while yet able to survey all that passes for a wide radius around. Rarely does one descry a band of these birds on the ground. The loud rattle of wings as a pack springs 200 yards away is usually the first intimation of their presence. If, by some lucky chance, they are seen on the ground, even then the tactics employed to secure the larger bustard, namely, by ambushing the guns in a half-circle on their front, and driving the birds towards them, seldom, very seldom, come off. The Sisones almost invariably take flight, from some unexplained cause—their extreme shyness and acute senses of sight and hearing are the only explanation—before the guns and drivers have reached their respective points. Or, even if the pack is enclosed within the deadly circle, they will still sometimes manage to escape by springing up high in air, and passing out at impossible altitudes.
During the fiery heats of summer these birds may be shot by the artifice of the bullock-cart—already described in the chapter on Great Bustard—or be exhausted by repeated flights; but neither of these plans possess the merits of really attractive sport, while the second involves hard work under a heat that few men can stand.
There are, however, times when the Little Bustard may be secured upon easier lines. Upon occasion, in autumn, they become so enamoured of certain spots, beguiled by the plentiful supply of grain scattered around the eras, or levelled threshing-grounds out in the open field, that, like greedy blackcocks on a Northumbrian stubble, they "take a haunt" (toman la querencia), and allow themselves, evening after evening, to be surprised and shot. This, however, is not a regular habit as with the blackcocks, but rather an exceptional case.
Standing, partially concealed by my horse, near one of these eras, on one occasion a band of Little Bustards passed so near and in such close order that three brace fell to the two barrels. On another memorable autumn afternoon I bagged, under similar conditions, eight of these bustards, besides four of the larger kind, the former all shot as they flew in at dusk towards an open threshing-ground.