he 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.

As in September so in October the birds are less vociferous than they
were in the spring and the hot weather. During the earlier part of the
month the notes of the koel and the brain-fever bird are heard on rare
occasions; before October has given place to November, these noisy
birds cease to trouble. The pied starlings have become comparatively
subdued, their joyful melody is no longer a notable feature of the
avian chorus. In the first half of the month the green barbets utter
their familiar cries at frequent intervals; as the weather grows
colder they call less often, but at no season of the year do they
cease altogether to raise their voices. The _tonk_, _tonk_, _tonk_ of
the coppersmith is rarely heard in October; during the greater part of
the cold weather this barbet is a silent creature, reminding us of its
presence now and then by calling out _wow_ softly, as if half ashamed
at the sound of its voice. The oriole now utters its winter note
_tew_, and that sound is heard only occasionally.

It is unnecessary to state that the perennials--the crows, kites,
doves, bee-eaters, tree-pies, tailor-birds, cuckoo-shrikes, green
parrots, jungle and spotted owlets--are noisy throughout the month.

The king-crows no longer utter the soft notes which they seem to keep
for the rainy season; but, before settling down to the sober delights
of the winter, some individuals become almost as lively and vociferous
as they were in the nesting season. Likewise some pairs of "blue jays"
behave, in September and October, as though they were about to
recommence courtship; they perform strange evolutions in the air and
emit harsh cries, but these lead to nothing; after a few days of noisy
behaviour the birds resume their more normal habits.

The hoopoes have been silent for some time, but in October a few of
them take up their refrain--_uk-uk-uk-uk_, and utter it with almost as
much vigour as they did in March.

It would thus seem that the change of season, the approach of winter,
has a stimulating influence on king-crows, rollers and hoopoes,
causing the energy latent within them sudden