206 COMMON BIRDS OF AN INDIAN GARDEN 



afternoon, and long before it is time for them to 

 come out, low chuckling notes may often be heard 

 issuing from trees in which a colony is concealed, 

 but it is rarely that any of their louder outcries 

 are to be heard until evening. When, however, a 

 storm comes up during the afternoon, bringing with 

 it an accumulation of cloud dense enough to cause 

 considerable gloom, they are often deluded into 

 the belief that it is time for them to be stirring 

 and begin to come out and even to chatter 

 long before their regular hour. During periods of 

 excessive and continuous rain their evening concerts 

 entirely cease, either because they do not venture to 

 come out at all in such circumstances, or because 

 they are too much depressed by them to have the 

 heart to talk. During the time, too, when they 

 are most fully occupied in attending to the wants 

 of their young ones they are comparatively silent, 

 either on purpose to avoid attracting attention to 

 their nesting-places, or because they have no time 

 to waste on idle gossip. 



They are apt to resent the presence of any 

 diurnal birds who may have been tempted to linger 

 abroad after dusk has set in, and may often be 

 seen making violent assaults on king- crows, who 

 are specially apt to keep late hours on occasions 

 when attractive insect-food abounds, and who, 

 judging by the tame way in which they submit 

 to be hustled, are quite aware that they have no 



