Never claim to have wounded a bustard merely because it passed so near and offered so easy a shot that you can't believe you missed it. You did miss it or it would be lying dead behind.
All the same keep one eye on any bird you have fired at so long as it remains in view. Bustards shot through the lungs will sometimes fly half a mile and then drop dead.
Wear clothes suited, more or less, to environment--_greenish_, we suggest, for choice--but remember that immobility is tenfold more important than colour. A pure white object that is quiescent is overlooked, where a clod of turf that _moves_ attracts instant attention.
In spring, when bustards gorge on green food, gralloch your victims at once, otherwise the half-digested mass in the crop quickly decomposes and destroys the meat.
Here is an example of an error in judgment that practically amounted to a blunder. Before our well-concealed line stood a grand pack, between thirty and forty bustard beautifully "horseshoed," and quite unconscious thereof. Momentarily we expected their entry--right in our faces! At that critical moment there appeared, wide on the right flank and actually behind us, three huge old _barbones_ directing a course that would bring them along close in rear of our line. No. 4 gun, on extreme right, properly allowed this trio to pass; not so No. 3. But the culprit, on rising to fire, had the chagrin to realise (too late) his error. The whole superb army-corps in front were at that very moment sweeping forward direct on the centre of our line! In an instant they took it in, swerved majestically to the left, and escaped scot-free. That No. 3 had secured a right-and-left at the adventitious trio in no sort of way exculpated his mistake.
The following illustrates in outline a day's bustard-shooting and incidentally shows how strongly haunted these birds are, each pack to its own particular locality.
On reaching our point (a seventeen-kilometres' drive), the scouts sent out the day before reported three bands numbering roughly forty, forty, and sixteen--in all nearly a hundred birds. The nearest lot was to the west. These we found easily, and B. F. B. got a brace, right-and-left, without incident.
Riding back eastwards, the second pack had moved, but we shortly descried the third, in two divisions, a mile away. It being noon, the bustards were mostly lying down or standing drowsily, and we halted for lunch before commencing the operation.