Over the vast expanse of those silent solitudes, the corn-growing steppes of Spain--all but abandoned by human denizens--this grandest and most majestic of European game-birds forms the chief ornament. When the sprouting grain grows green in spring, stretching from horizon to horizon, you may form his acquaintance to best advantage. And among the things of sport are few more attractive scenes than a band of great bustards at rest. Bring your field-glass to bear on the gathering which you see yonder, basking in the sunshine in full enjoyment of their mid-day siesta. There are five-and-twenty of them, and immense they look against the green background of corn that covers the landscape--well may a stranger mistake the birds for deer or goats. Many sit turkey-fashion, with heads half sunk among back-feathers; others stand in drowsy yet ever-suspicious attitudes, their broad backs resplendent with those mottled hues of true game-colour, their lavender necks and well-poised heads contrasting with the snowy whiteness of the lower plumage.[42] The bustard are dotted in groups over an acre or two of gently sloping ground, the highest part of which is occupied by a single big _Barbudo_--a bearded veteran, the sentinel of the pack. From that elevated position he estimates what degree of danger each living thing that moves on the open region around may threaten to his company and to himself. Mounted men cause him less concern than those on foot. A horseman slowly directing a circuitous course may even approach to within a couple of hundred yards ere he takes alarm. It was the head and neck of this sentry that first appeared to our distant view and disclosed the whereabouts of the game. He, too, has seen us, and is even now considering whether there be sufficient cause for setting his convoy in motion. If we disappear below the level of his range, he will settle the point negatively, setting us down as merely some of those agricultural nuisances which so often cause him alarm but which his experience has shown to be generally harmless--for attempts on his life are few and far between.
Another charming spectacle it is in the summer-time to watch a pack of bustard about sunset, all busy with their evening feed among the grasshoppers on a thistle-clad plain. They are working against time, for it will soon be too dark to catch such lively prey. With quick darting step they run to and fro, picking up one grasshopper after another with unerring aim, and so intent on pursuit that the best chance of the day is then offered to a gunner, when greed for a moment supplants caution and vigilance is relaxed. But even now a man on foot stands no chance of coming anywhere near them. His approach is observed from afar, all heads are up above the thistles, every eye intent on the intruder; a moment or two of doubt, two quick steps and a spring, and the broad wings of every bird in the pack flap in slowly rising motion. The tardiness and apparent difficulty in rising from the ground which bustards exhibit is well expressed in their Spanish name _Avetarda_[43] and recognised in the scientific cognomen of _Otis tarda_. Once on the wing the whole band is off with wide swinging flight to the highest ground in the neighbourhood.