True, during the fiery noontides of July and August even the little bustard enjoys a siesta and may then be shot. It will, in fact, "lie close" before pointers and cackle like a cock-grouse as it rises from those desolate _dehesas_ which form its home--vast stretches of rolling veld where asphodel, palmetto, and giant thistles grow rampant as far as eye can reach. But that scarce comes within our category of sport, since a solar heat that can (even temporarily) tame a _sisón_ is quite likely to finish off a Briton for good and all. And with the advent of autumn and a relatively endurable temperature, in a moment the _sisón_ becomes impossibly wild. Any idea of direct approach is simply out of the question, but beyond that, this astute fowl has elaborated a scheme--indeed a series of schemes--that nullifies even that one remaining resource of baffled humanity, "driving." You may surround his company, "horse-shoe" them with hidden guns--do what you will, not a single _sisón_ will come in to the firing-line. You cannot diagnose beforehand his probable line of flight, for he has none, nor can you influence its subsequent direction. For the little bustard shuts off all negotiation at its initiation by springing vertically in air, soaring far above gunshot, and there indulging in fantastic aerial evolutions more in the style of wigeon or other wildfowl than of a true game-bird as he is. Thus from that celestial altitude he spies out the country and all terrestrial dangers, finally disappearing afar amidst the wastes of atmospheric space. Frequently we have noticed the high-flying band, after, say, twenty minutes of such display of wing-power, descend directly to their original position at a safe interval after the drivers had passed forward thereof! Thus do they scorn our efforts and add insult to injury. [Illustration: LITTLE BUSTARD Summer plumage.] In practice no _sisónes_ whatever are killed in set drives, and for twenty years we have abandoned the attempt as impossible. They nevertheless--alike with every other fowl of the air--must, by occasional mischance, fly into danger, and at such times, owing to their habit of flying in massed formation, a heavy toll may be levied at a single shot by a gunner who is alert to exploit the happy event. We have ourselves, in this casual way, dropped from five to eight _sisónes_ with the double charge. Though frequenting the same open terrain as their big cousins, the _sisónes_ distinctly prefer the rough stretches of palmetto, thistles, and other rank herbage to corn-land proper--in short, they prefer to sit where they can never be seen on the ground. Conspicuous as their white plumage and resonant wing-rattle makes them in air, we can hardly recall a dozen instances of having detected a pack of little bustard at rest--and then merely in quite accidental and exceptional circumstances. And even then (as indicated) the knowledge of their precise position has seldom availed to their undoing.