[It may be added that bustard are occasionally found in situations that offer no reasonable hope of a successful drive. It may then (should no others be known within the radius of action) become advisable gently to "move" the inexpugnable troop; remembering that once these birds realise that they are being "driven," the likelihood of subsequently putting them over the guns has enormously decreased. There accrues an incidental advantage in this operation, for after "moving" them to more favouring ground, it will not be necessary to line-up the guns quite so near as is usually essential to success. For bustards possess so strong an attachment to their _querencias_, or individual haunts, that they may be relied upon, on being disturbed a second time, to wing a course more or less in the direction of their original position. We give a specific instance of this later. Each pack of bustard has its own _querencia_, and will be found at certain hours to frequent certain places. This local knowledge, if obtainable, saves infinite time and vast distances traversed in search of game whose approximate positions, after all, may thus be ascertained beforehand.] * * * * * Now we have placed our guns in line and within that short distance of the unsuspecting game that all but assures a certain shot. We cannot, let us confess, recall many moments in life of more tense excitement than those spent thus, lying prone on the gentle slope listening with every sense on stretch for the cries of the galloping beaters as in wild career they urge the huge birds towards a fatal course. Before us rises the curving ridge, its summit sharply defined against an azure sky--azure but empty. Now the light air wafts to our ear the tumultuous pulsations of giant wings, and five seconds later that erst empty ether is crowded with two score huge forms. What a scene--and what commotion as, realising the danger, each great bird with strong and laboured wing-stroke swerves aside. One enormous _barbon_ directly overhead receives first attention; a second, full broadside, presents no more difficulty, and ere the double thuds behind have attested the result, we realise that a third, shying off from our neighbour, is also "our meat." This has proved one of our luckier drives, for the _bandada_, splitting up on the centre, offered chances to both flanks of the blockading line--chances which are not always fully exploited. [Illustration: SWERVE ASIDE TO RIGHT AND LEFT]