ADVERSITY. 
115 
easier to catch than fish. Can it be doubted that the 
extermination of sea snakes would have a most beneficial 
effect on the whole nature of the sea eagle, that she 
would become a far bolder and more enterprising bird ? 
And would not a scarcity of bulbuls and doves be a 
most wholesome thing for the black eagle, compelling 
her to give up the disreputable habit of feeding on 
nestlings and eggs and exert herself to catch some 
nobler prey ? 
I have been led into this train of reflections by the 
season. These are the days of plenty for all the peace- 
able inhabitants of the land. The frogs are shamelessly 
jolly, insects of every kind have abandoned themselves 
to gluttony without thought of the morrow, the sambhur 
and cheetul on the hills are in danger of dying by surfeit, 
the very cattle of the village are filling up the long 
grooves between their ribs and those great hollows in 
their flanks. And the little birds find food so plentiful 
that many of them choose this time to bring up their 
young. A pretty pair of tailor birds have successfully 
brought up a family of four in a most ingenious little 
nest made of three leaves in a croton bush in my garden. 
At what other time of the year could they have kept 
