may last for half an hour or longer; the scene is shifted from time to time as the participants become too excited to sit still. The king-crows so engaged appear to be selecting their mates; nevertheless nest-construction does not begin before the end of April.

Some human beings may fail to notice the courtship of the king-crow, but none can be so deaf and blind as to miss the love-making of the gorgeous roller or blue jay. Has not everyone marvelled at the hoarse cries and rasping screams which emanate from these birds as they fling themselves into the air and ascend and descend as though they were being tossed about by unseen hands?

Their wonderful aerial performances go on continually in the hours of daylight throughout the months of March and April; at this season the birds, beautiful although they be, are a veritable nuisance, and most people gratefully welcome the comparative quiet that supervenes after the eggs have been laid. The madness of the March hare is mild compared with that of the March roller. It is difficult to realise that the harsh and angry-sounding cries of these birds denote, not rage, but joy.

The great exodus of the winter visitors from the plains of India begins in March. It continues until mid-May, by which time the last of the migratory birds will have reached its distant breeding ground.

This exodus is usually preceded by the gathering into flocks of the rose-coloured starlings and the corn-buntings. Large noisy congregations of these birds are a striking feature of February in Bombay, of March in the United Provinces, and of April in the Punjab.

Rose-coloured starlings spend most of their lives in the plains of India, going to Asia Minor for a few months each summer for nesting purposes. In the autumn they spread themselves over the greater part of Hindustan, most abundantly in the Deccan.

In the third or fourth week of February the rosy starlings of Bombay begin to form flocks. These make merry among the flowers of the coral tree, which appear first in South India, and last in the Punjab. The noisy flocks journey northwards in a leisurely manner, timing their arrival at each place simultaneously with the flowering of the coral trees. They feed on the nectar provided by these flowers and those of the silk-cotton tree. They also take toll of the ripening corn and of the mulberries which are now in season. Thus the rosy starlings reach Allahabad about the second week in March, and Lahore some fifteen days later.

The head, neck, breast, wings and tail of the rosy starling are glossy black, and the remainder of the plumage is pale salmon in the hen and the young cock, and faint rose-colour in the adult cock.

Rosy starlings feed chiefly in the morning and the late afternoon. During the hottest part of the day they perch in trees and hold a concert, if such a term may be applied to a torrent of sibilant twitter.

Buntings, like rosy starlings, are social birds, and are very destructive to grain crops.

As these last are harvested the feeding area of the buntings becomes restricted, so that eventually every patch of standing crop is alive with buntings. The spring cereals ripen in the south earlier than in northern India, so that the cheerful buntings are able to perform their migratory journey by easy stages and find abundant food all along the route.

There are two species of corn-bunting—the red-headed (Emberiza luteola) and the black-headed (E. melanocephala). In both the lower plumage is bright yellow.

Among the earliest of the birds to forsake the plains of Hindustan are the grey-lag goose and the pintail duck. These leave Bengal in February, but tarry longer in the cooler parts of the country. Of the other migratory species many individuals depart in March, but the greater number remain on into April, when they are caught up in the great migratory wave that surges over the country. The destination of the majority of these migrants is Tibet or Siberia, but a few are satisfied with the cool slopes of the Himalayas as a summer resort in which to busy themselves with the sweet cares of nesting. Examples of these more local migrants are the grey-headed and the verditer flycatchers, the Indian bush-chat and, to some extent, the paradise flycatcher and the Indian oriole. The case of the oriole is interesting. All the Indian orioles (Oriolus kundoo) disappear from the Punjab and the United Provinces in winter. In the former province no other oriole replaces O. kundoo, but in the United Provinces the black-headed oriole (O. melanocephalus) comes to take the place of the other from October to March. When this last returns to the United Provinces in March the greater number of melanocephalus individuals go east, a few only remaining in the sub-Himalayan tracts of the province.

The Indian oriole is not the only species which finds the climate of the United Provinces too severe for it in winter; the koel and the paradise flycatcher likewise desert us in the coldest months. From the less temperate Punjab several species migrate in October which manage to maintain themselves in the United Provinces throughout the year: these are the purple sunbird, the little green and the blue-tailed bee-eaters, and the yellow-throated sparrow. The return of these and the other migrant species to the Punjab in March is as marked a phenomenon as is the arrival of the swallow and the cuckoo in England in spring.

The behaviour of the king-crows shows the marked effect a comparatively small difference of temperature may exert on the habits of some birds. In the United Provinces the king-crows appear to be as numerous in winter as in summer: in the Punjab they are very plentiful in summer, but rare in the cold weather; while not a single king-crow winters in the N.-W. Frontier Province.

Of the birds of which the nests were described in January and February the Pallas's fishing eagles have sent their nestlings into the world to fend for themselves.

In the case of the following birds the breeding season is fast drawing to its close:—the dusky horned-owl, the white-backed vulture, Bonelli's eagle, the tawny eagle, the brown fish-owl, the rock horned-owl, the raven, the amadavat and the white-throated munia.

The nesting season is at its height for all the other birds of which the nests have been described, namely, most species of dove, the jungle crow, the red-headed merlin, the purple sunbird, the nuthatch, the fantail flycatcher, the finch-lark, the pied woodpecker, the coppersmith, the alexandrine and the rose-ringed paroquet, the white-eyed buzzard, the collared scops and the mottled wood-owl, the kite, the black vulture and the pied kingfisher.

The sand-martins breed from October to May, consequently their nests, containing eggs or young, are frequently taken in March. Mention was made in January and February of the Indian cliff-swallow (Hirundo fluvicola). This species is not found in the eastern districts of the United Provinces, but it is the common swallow of the western districts. The head is dull chestnut. The back and shoulders are glistening steel-blue. The remainder of the upper plumage is brown. The lower parts are white with brown streaks, which are most apparent on the throat and upper breast. These swallows normally nest at two seasons of the year—from February till April and in July or August.

They breed in colonies. The mud nests are spherical or oval with an entrance tube from two to six inches long. The nests are invariably attached to a cliff or building, and, although isolated ones are built sometimes, they usually occur in clusters, as many as two hundred have been counted in one cluster. In such a case a section cut parallel to the surface to which the nests are attached looks like that of a huge honeycomb composed of cells four inches in diameter—cells of a kind that one could expect to be built by bees that