In many ways the autumn season in Northern India resembles the English spring. The Indian October may be likened to April in England. Both are months of hope, heralds of the most pleasant period of the year. In both the countryside is fresh and green. In both millions of avian visitors arrive. Like the English April, October in Northern India is welcome chiefly for that to which it leads. But it has merits of its own. Is not each of its days cooler than the preceding one? Does it not produce the joyous morn on which human beings awake to find that the hot weather is a thing of the past? Throughout October the sun's rays are hot, but, for an hour or two after dawn, especially in the latter half of the month, the climate leaves little to be desired. An outing in the early morning is a thing of joy, if it be taken while yet the air retains the freshness imparted to it by the night, and before the grass has yielded up the sparkling jewels acquired during the hours of darkness. It is good to ride forth on an October morn with the object of renewing acquaintance with nimble wagtails, sprightly redstarts, stately demoiselle cranes and other newly-returned migrants. In addition to meeting many winter visitors, the rider may, if he be fortunate, come upon a colony of sand-martins that has begun nesting operations. The husbandman enjoys very little leisure at this season of the year. From dawn till sunset he ploughs, or sows, or reaps, or threshes, or winnows. The early-sown rice yields the first-fruits of the _kharif_ harvest. By the end of the month it has disappeared before the sickle and many of the fields occupied by it have been sown with gram. The hemp (_san_) is the next crop to mature. In some parts of Northern India its vivid yellow flowers are the most conspicuous feature of the autumn landscape. They are as brilliantly coloured as broom. The _san_ plant is not allowed to display its gilded blooms for long, it is cut down in the prime of life and cast into a village pond, there to soak. The harvesting of the various millets, the picking of the cotton, and the sowing of the wheat, barley, gram and poppy begin before the close of the month. The sugar-cane, the _arhar_ and the late-sown rice are not yet ready for the sickle. Those crops will be cut in November and December.