, a _bund_, or a piece of high ground in a
_jhil_. Eight or ten eggs are laid.

The little grebe or dabchick (_Podiceps albipennis_) is another
species that lays in July or August. This bird, which looks like a
miniature greyish-brown duck without a tail, must be familiar to
Anglo-Indians, since at least one pair are to be seen on almost every
pond or tank in Northern India. Although permanent residents in this
country, little grebes leave, in the "rains," those tanks that do not
afford plenty of cover, and betake themselves to a _jhil_ where
vegetation is luxuriant. The nest, like that of other species that
build floating cradles, is a tangle of weeds and rushes. When the
incubating bird leaves the nest she invariably covers the white eggs
with wet weeds, and, as Hume remarks, it is almost impossible to catch
the old bird on the nest or to take her so much by surprise as not to
allow her time to cover up the eggs. As a matter of fact, these birds
spend very little time upon the nest in the day-time. The sun's rays
are powerful enough not only to supply the heat necessary for
incubation but to bake the eggs. This _contretemps_, however, is
avoided by placing wet weeds on the eggs and by the general moisture
of the nest. No better idea of the heat of India during the monsoon
can be furnished than that afforded by the case of some cattle-egrets'
eggs taken by a friend of the writer's in August, 1913. He found a
clutch of four eggs; not having leisure at the time to blow them, he
placed them in a bowl on the drawing-room mantelshelf. On the evening
of the following day he heard some squeaks, but, thinking that these
sounds emanated from a musk-rat or one of the other numerous rent-free
tenants of every Indian bungalow, paid little heed to them. When,
however, the same sounds were heard some hours later and appeared to
emanate from the mantelpiece, he went to the bowl, and, lo and behold,
two young egrets had emerged! These were at once fed. They lived for
three days and appeared to be in good health, when they suddenly gave
up the ghost.

SEPTEMBER

And sweet it is by lonely meres
To sit, with heart and soul awake,
Where water-lilies lie afloat,
Each anchored like a fairy boat
Amid some fabled elfin lake:
To see the birds flit to and fro
Along the dark-green reedy edge.
MARY HOWITT.

September is a much-abused month. Many people assert that it is the
most unpleasan