SO COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



much wrangling for accommodation and vociferous 

 gossip over the events of the day ; practices which, 

 in popular sites, give rise to an ear-splitting and 

 well-nigh deafening din. Every one must be familiar 

 with the discordant hubbub that emanates from a 

 large roost of common starlings, but that is nothing 

 to the din that a flock of mynas can give rise to. 

 The Residency at Katmandu lies on the brow of 

 a slope overlooking a wide expanse of rice-fields 

 on the farther side of which are some dense groups 

 of trees. These used to be, and very likely still 

 are, tenanted every night of the cold weather by 

 myriads of mynas ; and, evening after evening, the 

 tumult attending their settling down for the night 

 could be distinctly heard all across the wide inter- 

 vening space. A second fit of noisy talk precedes 

 their outgoing in the morning ; and, on brightly 

 moonlit nights, it is never certain that some of 

 them may not awake to chatter or even sing. 

 At all times they seem to be light sleepers, 

 for any sudden gust of wind during the night, 

 though in many cases it leaves the crows quite 

 undisturbed, is generally enough to rouse them 

 up to shout. Like most of their near relatives 

 and many other kinds of birds, they are very 

 fond of the liquor that is to be found in the 

 lower part of the great, stiff corollas of the silk- 

 cotton-trees in the early morning, and, when a 

 number of them are competing for it, a din, 



