he black-necked storks
(_Xenorhynchus asiaticus_) begins, if the monsoon has been a normal
one and the rains have continued until after the middle of September.
This bird begins to nest shortly after the monsoon rains have ceased.
Hard-set eggs have been taken in the beginning of September and as
late as 27th December. Most eggs are laid during the month of October.
The nest is a large saucer-shaped platform of twigs and sticks. Hume
once found one "fully six feet long and three broad." The nest is
usually lined with grass or some soft material and is built high up in
a tree. The normal number of eggs is four, these are of a dirty white
hue.

NOVEMBER

It is the very carnival of nature,
The loveliest season that the year can show!

* * * * *

The gently sighing breezes, as they blow,
Have more than vernal softness....
BERNARD BARTON.

The climate of Northern India is one of extremes. Six months ago
European residents were seeking in vain suitable epithets of
disapprobation to apply to the weather; to-day they are trying to
discover appropriate words to describe the charm of November. It is
indeed strange that no poet has yet sung the praises of the perfect
climate of the present month.

The cold weather of Northern India is not like any of the English
seasons. Expressed in terms of the British climate it is a dry summer,
warmest at the beginning and the end, in which the birds have
forgotten to nest.

The delights of the Indian winter are enhanced for the Englishman by
the knowledge that, while he lives beneath a cloudless sky and enjoys
genial sunshine, his fellow-men in England dwell under leaden clouds
and endure days of fog, and mist, and rain, and sleet, and snow. In
England the fields are bare and the trees devoid of leaves; in India
the countryside wears a summer aspect.

The sowings of the spring cereals are complete by the fifteenth of
November; those of the tobacco, poppy and potato continue throughout
the month. By the beginning of December most of the fields are covered
by an emerald carpet.

The picking of the cotton begins in the latter part of October, with
the result that November is a month of hard toil for the ponies that
have to carry the heavy loads of cotton from the fields into the
larger towns. By the middle of the month all the _san_ has been cut
and the water-nuts have been gathered in. Then the pressing