gently, while the calls of the latter suddenly become sweet and mellow. Speaking generally, the monsoon seems to exercise a sobering, a softening influence on the voices of the birds. The pied myna forms the one exception; he does not come into his full voice until the rains have set in. The monsoon transfigures the earth. The brown, dry, hard countryside, with its dust-covered trees, becomes for the time being a shallow lake in which are studded emerald islets innumerable. Stimulated by the rain many trees put forth fresh crops of leaves. At the first break in the downpour the cultivators rush forth with their ploughs and oxen to prepare the soil for the autumn crops with all the speed they may. There is much to interest the ornithologist in June. Of the birds whose nests have been previously described the following are likely to have eggs or young: white-eyes, ioras, tailor-birds, king-crows, robins, sparrows, tree-pies, seven sisters, cuckoo-shrikes, Indian wren-warblers (second brood), sunbirds (second brood), swifts, fantail flycatchers (second brood), orioles, paradise flycatchers, grey horn-bills, and the various mynas, bulbuls, butcher-birds, doves, pigeons and lapwings. The following species have young which either are in the nest or have only recently left it: roller, hoopoe, brown rock-chat, magpie-robin, coppersmith, green barbet, nightjar, white-eyed buzzard, pipit, wire-tailed swallow, white-breasted kingfisher, grey partridge, kite, golden-backed woodpecker (second brood), and the several species of bee-eater and lark. With June the breeding season for the blue rock and green pigeons ends. In the _sal_ forests the young jungle-fowl have now mostly hatched out and are following the old hens, or feeding independently. Some of the minivets are beginning to busy themselves with a second brood. The breeding operations of a few species begin in June. Chief of these is that arch-villain _Corvus splendens_--the Indian house-crow. Crows have no fine feathers, hence the cocks do not "display" before the hens. To sing they know not how. Their courtship, therefore, provides a feast for neither the eye nor the ear of man. The lack of ornaments and voice perhaps explains the fact that among crows there is no noisy love-making. Crows make a virtue of necessity. Any attempt at courtship after the style of the costermonger is resented by the whole corvine community. The only amorous display permitted in public is head-tickling. The cock and the hen perch side by side, one ruffles the feathers of the neck, the other inserts its bill between the ruffled feathers of its companion and gently tickles its neck, to the accompaniment of soft gurgles.