r, baffles
description.

Scores of birds forgather there--rosy starlings, mynas, babblers,
bulbuls, king-crows, tree-pies, green parrots, sunbirds and crows.
These all drink riotously and revel so loudly that the sound may be
heard at a distance of half a mile or more. Even before the sun has
risen and begun to dispel the pleasant coolness of the night the
drinking begins. It continues throughout the hours of daylight.
Towards midday, when the west wind blows very hot, it flags somewhat,
but even when the temperature is nearer 100 degrees than 90 degrees
some avian brawlers are present. As soon as the first touch of the
afternoon coolness is felt the clamour acquires fresh vigour and does
not cease until the sun has set in a dusty haze, and the spotted
owlets have emerged and begun to cackle and call as is their wont.

These last are by no means the only birds that hold concert parties
during the hours of darkness. In open country the jungle owlet and the
dusky-horned owl call at intervals, and the Indian nightjar
(_Caprimulgus asiaticus_) imitates the sound of a stone skimming over
ice. In the forest tracts Franklin's and Horsfield's nightjars make
the welkin ring. Scarce has the sun disappeared below the horizon when
the former issues forth and utters its harsh _tweet_. Horsfield's
nightjar emerges a few minutes later, and, for some hours after dusk
and for several before dawn, it utters incessantly its loud monotonous
_chuck_, _chuck_, _chuck_, _chuck_, _chuck_, which has been aptly
compared to the sound made by striking a plank sharply with a hammer.

March is the month in which the majority of the shrikes or
butcher-birds go a-courting. There is no false modesty about
butcher-birds. They are not ashamed to introduce their unmelodious
calls into the avian chorus. But they are mild offenders in comparison
with the king-crows (_Dicrurus ater_) and the rollers (_Coracias
indica_).

The little black king-crows are at all seasons noisy and vivacious:
from the end of February until the rains have set in they are
positively uproarious. Two or three of them love to sit on a telegraph
wire, or a bare branch of a tree, and hold a concert. The first
performer draws itself up to its full height and then gives vent to
harsh cries. Before it has had time to deliver itself of all it has to
sing, an impatient neighbour joins in and tries to shout it down. The
concert may last for half an hour or longer; the scene is shifted fr