THE BIRDS OF THE LUCKNOW CIVIL DIVISION. 495 



with moisture — a condition eminently favorable to insect and 

 vegetable life ; aud, when once the crops are up, the pervading 

 hue is everywhere a pleasant green. The ruins are occasionally 

 ushered in by violent thunderstorms causing considerable 

 atmospheric disturbance, the phenomena occurring at intervals 

 throughout the season. When, as is often the case, sultry, 

 sunny days intervene between showers, cholera usually puts 

 in an appearance, and fevers of all kinds prevail. Yet with 

 all its ills, its steamy heat and insect plagues, the season is far 

 preferable to the hot, and its advent is welcomed by Europeans 

 and Natives alike. 



The cold season follows the rains and extends to the 15th 

 March. From the 15 th November to the 15 th February the 

 climate is delightfully cool, and at nights even cold, sufficiently 

 so to admit of pit-ice operations being carried on. Hoar-frost 

 is not uucommon in January, and frequently does considerable 

 damage to the crops, whole dhall fields being often destroyed 

 in a single night. To the sporting community it is, of course, 

 the " season of the year." The jhils are then covered with 

 wild fowl, the marshes teem with snipe, while the woods and 

 meadows swarm with thousands of migratory birds, many of 

 them strikingly beautiful compared with the resident species. 



The general aspect of the Division is uninteresting, and— 



" To those who have rov'd o'er the mountains afar," 



extremely " tame and domestic." There is not a hill to relieve 

 the monotonous level of the landscape, nor a forest to diversify 

 the eternal sameness of cultivated fields and mangoe groves, 

 alternating with villages, jhils, usar wastes and dhak jungle. 

 The absence of forest is, I think, noteworthy in a region where 

 the soil is deep and fertile, and is, of course, due to the density 

 of the population. 



Nevertheless the country, practically level throughout, is well 

 if not beautifully wooded. Solitary pipal (Ficus religiosa) and 

 other Fid characterize the more open tracts, while large areas 

 of dhak (Butea frondosa) jungle, strikingly beautiful when in 

 bloom — intermixed iu some places with thick thorny shrubs- 

 afford excellent shelter for game, and are usually well inhabited 

 by hares, partridges, &c, when the crops are off the ground. 

 Jhils and marshes abound in certain localities, but nowhere is 

 the country characterized by any prominent physical features, 

 while it is to its mangoe topes alone that it owes its well- 

 wooded appearance. These groves, usually planted to com- 

 memorate an event or to perpetuate a name, are especially 

 numerous, aud bleuding in the distance might well be mistaken 

 for gigautic forests. They are usually — almost invariably — 

 free from brushwood and grass, and consequently harbour no 



