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one feels specially grateful to any who, as they do, 

 sing truly and strongly throughout the greater part 

 of the year. As with English robins, their songs 

 begin to be heard early in autumn ; and from that 

 time onward they go on increasing in strength and 

 frequency until, after a short time of comparative 

 quiescence while the nests are being built, they come 

 to their fullest perfection during the period when 

 incubation is going on. The song, as soon as heard, 

 is gladly welcomed as confirming the promises of the 

 returning migrants, not, "that winter is over and 

 gone," but that it will soon make its much-longed-for 

 arrival. At the opposite side of the year, too, the 

 cool, clear little songs are very refreshing and cheer- 

 ing in the mornings and evenings of cruelly hot days, 

 when they serve to suggest that, after all, life is quite 

 tolerable, even under the trying conditions of the 

 time. 



With all their familiarity, they have not quite the 

 assurance that so often leads the brown-backed robins 

 of Upper India to invade the interior of houses* 

 One of the latter birds, Thamnobia cambaiensis, 

 served greatly to enliven the tedium of a long 

 solitary day spent in the dak-bungalow at Jullundur 

 by the frequent visits that he paid to my dressing- 

 room. The attraction in it was the mirror, in which 

 he admired himself with ceaseless satisfaction ; afford- 

 ing a striking example of the ease and readiness 

 with which birds generally recognise their reflected 



