I3O THE MYNAS. 



out bare, gaunt, and thorny. Then, after an interval, 

 they hang out a signboard of scarlet, or crimson, 

 flowers at the end of every naked branch, to invite 

 the weary wayfarer to stop and have a drink. For 

 each separate blossom is a flowing bowl, and the 

 liquor in it is as delicious to a bibulous bird as 

 11 sherris sack" was to Falstaff. Every tree becomes 

 a public-house and a scene of revelry and riot. The 

 Crows are there, of course, and the King Crows and 

 the Mynas, and even the temperate Bulbul and the 

 demure Coppersmith, and many another, and here 

 and there a Palm Squirrel, taking his drink with 

 the rest, like a foreigner. But the rowdiest element 

 in all the motley rout is the jolly company of Rosy 

 Starlings. They drink and swagger and babble 

 and brawl, from before sunrise till the heat of noon- 

 day sends them off to sleep. But the days of riot 

 are soon over. By March the birds are getting 

 their new costume for the fashionable season in their 

 Syrian home. And a beautiful costume it is. The 

 head, with its long, silky crest, and the breast and 

 wings and tail are glossy black, but the back and all 

 the underparts, from the breast downwards, are of 

 a pure rosy-cream colour. 



