We have stated, earlier in this chapter, that among the various component factors in a bustard-drive the actual shot is of minor importance. That is so; yet truly remarkable is the frequency with which good shots constantly miss the easiest of chances at these great birds. Precisely similar failures occur with wild-geese, with swans--indeed with all big birds whose wing-action is deliberate and slow. Tardy strokes deceive the eye, and the great bulk of the bustard accentuates the deception--it seems impossible to miss them, a fatal error. As the Spanish drivers put it: "Se les llenaron el ojo de carne," literally, "the bustards had filled your eye with meat"--the hapless marksmen saw everything bustard! Yet geese with their 40 strokes fly past ducks at 120, and the bustard's apparently leisured movement carries him in full career as fast as whirring grouse with 200 revolutions to the minute. To kill bustard treat them on the same basis as the smaller game that appears faster but is not. Bustards being soft-plumaged are not hard to kill. As compared with such ironclads as wild-geese, they are singularly easily killed, and with AAA shot may be dropped stone-dead at 80 and even at 100 yards. A pair of guns may thus profitably be brought into action. Bustards seldom run, but they walk very fast, especially when alarmed. Between the inception of a drive and the moment of flushing we have known them to cover half a mile, and many drives fail owing to game having completely altered its original position. Instances have occurred of bustards walking over the dividing ridge, to the amazement of the prostrate sportsmen on the hither slope. Strange to say, when winged they do not make off, but remain where they have fallen, and an old male will usually show fight. Of course if left alone and out of sight a winged bustard will travel far. In weight cock-bustard vary from, say, 20 to 22 lbs. in autumn, up to 28 to 30 lbs. in April. The biggest old males in spring reach 33 and 34 lbs., and one we presented to the National Collection at South Kensington scaled 37 lbs. The breast-bone of these big birds is usually quite bare, a horny callosity, owing to friction with the ground while squatting, and the heads and necks of old males usually exhibit gaps in their gorgeous spring-plumage--indicative of severe encounters among themselves. Hen-bustard seldom exceed 15 lbs. at any season. Bustard are usually found in troops varying from half-a-dozen birds to as many as 50 or 60, and in September we have seen 200 together.