12 TIMEHRI. 
cipal guava season comes in the middle of the great 
downfall of rain of May to July, but the mammee is 
rarely gathered in quantity until August and September. 
There is another aspeét of the seasons’ question for — 
the elucidation of which unfortunately we have hardly any 
material. Spring-time is the season when birds pair and 
build their nests. A friend writes us from the Upper 
Massaruni that the height of the nesting season appears 
to be in March and April, but whether this is sufficiently 
general to be laid down as a rule is doubtful. Again, it 
is not impossible that there may be two seasons in a 
year although it is hard to say whether the same birds 
breed twice. It has been reported to us that nests and 
eggs of the ground dove have been found both in March 
and September. The migration of birds in British Guiana 
seems to depend on the ripening of fruits, parrots coming 
nearer the coast as the wild fruits ripen and retiring 
to the mountains, where perhaps the seasons may be 
later, when food becomes scarce. Plovers appear to 
alight on our coast about September when migrating, 
but in the absence of careful observations nothing definite 
in regard to their movements can be formulated at 
present. 
In temperate climates the end of summer, and autumn, 
are noted for swarms of flies. gnats and midges, and here 
we have mosquitoes at the corresponding season. About 
May and June and again in Oé€tober and November 
these little pests are most troublesome. It is a general 
opinion that mosquitoes are most plentiful inrainy weather, 
but this does not appear to be altogether the case. Very 
heavy rains apparently interfere with their swarming or 
keep them from wandering far. In O@ober there is 
