owing fan.

The air is heavily scented with the inconspicuous inflorescences of
the mangos (_Mangifera indica_). The pipals (_Ficus religiosa_) are
shedding their leaves; the _sheshams_ (_Dalbergia sissoo_) are
assuming their emerald spring foliage.

The garden, the jungle and the forest are beautified by the gorgeous
reds of the flowers of the silk-cotton tree (_Bombax malabarica_), the
Indian coral tree (_Erythrina indica_) and the flame-of-the-forest
(_Butea frondosa_). The sub-Himalayan forests become yellow-tinted
owing to the fading of the leaves of the _sal_ (_Shorea robusta_),
many of which are shed in March. The _sal_, however, is never entirely
leafless; the young foliage appears as the old drops off; while this
change is taking place the minute pale yellow flowers open out.

The familiar yellow wasps, which have been hibernating during the cold
weather, emerge from their hiding-places and begin to construct their
umbrella-shaped nests or combs, which look as if they were made of
rice-paper.

March is a month of great activity for the birds. Those that
constituted the avian chorus of February continue to sing, and to
their voices are now added those of many other minstrels. Chief of
these is the pied singer of Ind--the magpie-robin or _dhayal_--whose
song is as beautiful as that of the English robin at his best. From
the housetops the brown rock-chat begins to pour forth his exceedingly
sweet lay. The Indian robin is in full song. The little golden ioras,
hidden away amid dense foliage, utter their many joyful sounds. The
brain-fever bird grows more vociferous day by day. The crow-pheasants,
which have been comparatively silent during the colder months of the
year, now begin to utter their low sonorous _whoot_, _whoot_, _whoot_,
which is heard chiefly at dawn.

Everywhere the birds are joyful and noisy; nowhere more so than at the
silk-cotton and the coral trees. These, although botanically very
different, display many features in common. They begin to lose their
leaves soon after the monsoon is over, and are leafless by the end of
the winter. In the early spring, while the tree is still devoid of
foliage, huge scarlet, crimson or yellow flowers emerge from every
branch. Each flower is plentifully supplied with honey; it is a
flowing bowl of which all are invited to partake, and hundreds of
thousands of birds accept the invitation with right good-will. The
scene at each of these trees, when in full flowe