But, generally speaking (except during the spring-shooting), there is hardly a vestige of anything like covert for the gunner: sometimes by lucky chance, a dry watercourse may be available, or a solitary clump of palmettos—even a few dead thistles may prove invaluable. These two circumstances explain the numerous disappointments that attend bustard-driving on the corn-plains.
Time being allowed to place the guns, two or three men start to ride round the bustards at considerable distance, gradually approaching them from a direction which will incline their flight towards the hidden guns. Through long practice these men become very expert; more than once we have seen a pack of the most stiff-necked undrivable bustards turned in mid-flight by a judicious gallop—executed at the very nick of time—and directed right towards the guns; and we have also known birds so delicately treated that instead of rising before the slowly-advancing horsemen, they have quietly walked away and startled the sportsman by striding over a ridge within a few yards of his prostrate form.
In speaking of hills, ridges, &c., the words are used in a relative sense. Broken ground is the exception in any district much affected by bustard; and therefore the most must be made of the slight undulations which these rolling plains afford. When a party of five or six guns are well placed, it is unusual for the pack to get away without offering a shot to one or more of the sportsmen. Strange to say, they not infrequently escape. We know not what the cause may be—whether the apparently slow flight—really very fast—or the huge bulk of the birds deceives, or otherwise—yet some of the best shots at ordinary driven game are often perplexed at their bad records against the avetardas. Long shots, it is true, are the rule: longer far than one dreams of taking at home—and such ranges require extreme forward allowance: yet many birds at close quarters are let off.
A memorable sight is a huge barbon, or male bustard, when he suddenly finds himself within range of a pair of choke-bore barrels—so near that one can see his eye! How he ploughs through the air with redoubled efforts of those enormous wings, and hopes by putting on the pace to escape from danger.
It is when only one man and his driver are after bustard that the cream of this sport is enjoyed. The work then resembles deer-stalking, for the sportsman must necessarily creep up very close to his game in order to have any fair chance of a shot. Unless he has wormed his way to within 150 yards before the birds are raised, the odds are long against success. Gratifying indeed is the triumph when, after many efforts, and as many disappointments, one at length outmatches them, and secures a heavy bag by a single right-and-left.
By way of illustration, we give, in the next chapter, descriptions of bustard-shooting, (1) driving with a party in the ordinary way, and (2) Stalking and driving to a single gun.
Such, roughly described, are the two chief recognized systems of shooting the Great Bustard: i.e., driving, which can be practised at any period of autumn, winter, or early spring, but which is most effective in March, when the growing crops afford sufficient "blind"; and shooting from the cart, which is only available during, or just after, harvest.
There remains, however, another method by which this game may be brought to bag—one which we may claim to have ourselves invented and brought to some degree of perfection—namely:
Bustard-shooting single-handed.